Tag: kevin smith

The Last Blockbuster

‘The Last Blockbuster’ is a 2021 documentary about you guessed it, the last Blockbuster. Interestingly enough there is one lone store surviving in Bend Oregon. This movie not only takes a look at this store but also the rise and fall of Blockbuster, the giant, in fact ruler, in the video rental world to just one lonely store. It also features a handful of celebrities who talk about their experiences with Blockbuster. Some are just cinephiles, while others, interestingly enough, got their start by working at Blockbuster. It features Kevin Smith (Clerks), Brian Posehn (Just Shoot Me!), Doug Benson (Super High Me), Paul Scheer (Fresh Off the Boat), Samm Levine (Freaks and Geeks), Jamie Kennedy (Malibu’s Most Wanted), and Ron Funches (Trolls).

Everyone can remember the nostalgia of Blockbuster, the yellow and blue of the store, the way it looked, it’s still a picture in your mind. I honestly wasn’t a big Blockbuster fan, even though I can still remember all these things, I personally thought they were expensive. There was a ma and pa video rental store in my town called Pick-a-Flick that was more reasonable, and more of a homey feel to it. That’s what I personally think about when I think of video rental stores, not Blockbuster. Blockbuster is the stake that drove into the heart of little ma and pa video stores, and essentially wiped them all off the face of this earth. With that aside, it’s a pretty interesting film and is interesting to hear the celebrities talk about their experience with Blockbuster, and as a movie lover I can appreciate that. It’s just a little long, the run time is an hour and half, but there is only so much that can be said about Blockbuster. If they cut out about 30 min. it would be very good, as it stands, it drags some. It’s also interesting that Netflix is streaming this documentary. Netflix offered to sell their company to Blockbuster, when Blockbuster was in their height, and Netflix was still fairly new. As the story goes Blockbuster laughed Netflix right out of the room, and now look who’s laughing. It’s little bit of a jab from Netflix in streaming it. As I said it’s an interesting watch, it just drags a bit. I give it a 6/10.

Holidays (2016)

‘Holidays’ is a horror anthology film comprised of eight different short horror films each covering a different holiday. The eight films are Valentine’s day, St. Patrick’s day, Easter, Mother’s day, Father’s day, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. I was all ready to give this film a bad review. The still for the movie is a creepy girl, sitting on a bench covered in blood. It looks like your typical, cheesy, over the top, gore fest, low budget horror. From the looks of it, it reminded me a lot of ‘Tales of Halloween,’ another anthology film comprised of ten films covering Halloween. ‘Tales of Halloween’ was cheesy, and just not a good film. I figured however, I would give ‘Holidays’ a chance.

There’s not really any big names associated with ‘Holidays’ other than Kevin Smith directing Halloween, his daughter Harley Quinn Smith staring in her dad’s film, and Seth Green staring in Christmas. That’s about it, so i wasn’t really expecting much on that front.

I’m surprised to say it, but ‘Holidays’ delivered. Each film was pretty good, the writing was good, as well as the acting. Some films were creepier than others, Mother’s Day, and Easter especially. It is honestly one of the creepier horror movies I have watched, and it had me saying wtf more than once. If you’re wanting a creepy horror movie that’s going to make your skin crawl, then check out ‘Holidays’. It’s a solid film as far as horror movies go. I’m going to give it a 7/10.