The Last Blockbuster
The main character at the heart of “The Last Blockbuster” is store manager and staff mom Sandi Harding, who keeps the nation’s last Blockbuster video store alive with grit, charm and a remarkable love for her customers and staff members — plus some hard work and faith.
Harding runs the Blockbuster store in Bend, Oregon, where she has worked since 2004. Back then, there were about 9,000 blue-and-yellow Blockbuster stores, with about 60,000 employees. Now there’s just her store, which is featured in the documentary “The Last Blockbuster.”
When the film starts, there are still a handful of Blockbusters open. By the end, there’s just one, and its future is tenuous. Dish Network, which owns the rights to the Blockbuster franchise, has the store on a year-to-year agreement. The knowledge that their store’s right to stay open could be yanked out at any minute adds drama to the film. And their faith to keep going even when things are bleak makes the movie inspiring. You want this store to survive.
There are no outwardly religious themes in the movie, but the signs of religion are everywhere — the sense of wonder on the faces of pilgrims who have traveled across the country to recapture a bit of magic from their past; the determination on Harding’s face as she salvages parts from an old computer to keep the store’s registers running; the sense of welcome regular customers feel as they walk in the door.
And the willingness of people to spend their lives working for something they believe in, no matter if the world has passed them by. (By Bob Smietana)
