TulaneLSU's Top 10 movies currently for rent at Blockbuster

Dear Friends,

Most Friday nights in my youth were spent at home with family and books. One the first Friday of the month, however, there was a special treat in store. We would make our way to the Blockbuster on Louisiana Ave. and Magazine. It was a linear store running from River to Lake. Most Blockbusters, I believe, had more girth and better resembled hefty rectangles. Swiss Family Robinson, National Velvet, The Yearling, Lassie Come Home, The Grapes of Wrath: these were some of the movies I remember renting.

There was a system involved. Sister, Mother, Uncle, and I each found our favorite available movie. We would gather against the western wall and each person would then give a movie a ranking from one to four. The movie each selected got at least one “1” vote. Your second favorite would get a “2” vote and so forth. The movie that received the lowest total number won. In retrospect, I am pretty sure Sister and Uncle colluded, as it seemed their movies were always chosen. I cannot recall a single movie I chose that won, except during my birthday month.

Most of you probably have stories about Blockbuster or similar movie rental stores. And I suspect most of those stories bring back very fond memories. During my recent West Coast trip, to sample the pizza at Shakey's Pizza in Renton, Washington, I also decided to make the trip to Bend, Oregon to go to the last Blockbuster on Earth. It was quite a long journey south to go to a movie rental store, but one I thought worth making.

It was not so much a pilgrimage as it was a journey to relive the past. I wanted to stand free in the aisles and see before me thousands of movie choices rather than find myself shackled to a couch and an arrow on a remote control. Peregrinator, not pilgrim, I wanted to stare in awe at this bastion of the past that somehow has carried on a fight against the swift current of technology and progress, to gaze at this relic, like the patrol that watched Private Teruo Nakamura surrender some 29 years after Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s full surrender.

After browsing the cases filled with DVDs, noting that this place was both functioning movie rental store, a nostalgia merchandise seller, and a living museum of the 80s and 90s, I can unequivocally say that going to a Blockbuster is a far superior technique in finding the movie you want compared to the endless scrolling on your streamed television lists. These lists do not have you in mind. The lists hide movies that the streaming services have to pay a premium to get and I suspect promote movies that push an agenda to the company’s liking. I will never forgive Amazon when they pulled a friend of mine’s highly respected and scholarly work because he dared to question a widely held contemporary belief that would have been abhorrent just twenty years ago. Amazon and other tech monoliths do not operate objectively and the movies you allow them to push before you are a subtle mesmerizing manipulation.


































VHS tapes from some classic 80s and 90s movies


Smoke from the 2023 Horse Creek and the Bedrock Fires dims the otherwise clear evening skies above the last remaining Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon.






Making up for the past, I purchased more than $50 in candy at Blockbuster, something I was never allowed to do as a child.


One blessed Arts Board member is getting one of these $2 postcards in the mail soon!









I almost forgot to include TulaneLSU’s Top 10 movies currently for rent at Blockbuster. Please do not mistake these of my favorite ten movies. These are simply the top ten movies I saw at Blockbuster recently.

10. Joyeux Noel



9. A Walk to Remember



8. Tender Mercies



7. Can’t Buy Me Love



6. Hoosiers



5. The Apostle



4. White Squall



3. The Goonies



2. Chariots of Fire



1. A River Runs Through It



Friends, sometimes, the old fashioned way is the superior way. Society grows more and more faineant and our effort to achieve the good life grows wearier. May you get the chance to enter a video store once more to rekindle those memories of Friday movie nights, and see for yourself that we jettisoned something superior because the alternative was facile.

Faith, Hope, and Love,
TulaneLSU