Video Rental Stores

[tornadowrangler 6]

There is no explanation for this. By any reasoning it should not exist. However, In my small hometown of Taylor, Texas (about 30 minutes north-East of Austin), there still exists a video rental store. 
 

Not just any video rental store.  It is huge. Hundreds of titles. Not just lots of titles, but multiple copies of each. 

I hadn’t been in there in over a decade. However, my girlfriend recently started listening to the podcast with me, and wanted to watch some of the movies. She wanted to watch Super Mario Brothers. We could not find it to watch anywhere online. So, off to Video Station we went. 

Yes, of course they had it. Multiple copies in fact. However, just on VHS it seemed. I asked the owner, and it pointed me to the Family section, where the DVD copy was, for some reason. 
 

I kept my eyes open for some other HDTGM titles. Here are just a few I spotted.  (Sorry some images are sideways. That’s the way the uploaded from my phone). They must have 80% of the existing DVDs of Stealth. 

 

Anyway, just thought people might find it amazing a place like this is still around and going strong here in 2020. Any body else have a place like this in their hometown?
 

 

[tornadowrangler 6]

A few other pics.  Again, sorry some are sideways. 

 

[theworstbuddhist 572]

Some dudes are reopening RST Video, made famous by Kevin Smith and Clerks, in Red Bank, NJ apparently.

[GrahamS. 803]

Seattle is home to Scarecrow Video, which is a non-profit and is the largest video store in the United States. I don’t have any pictures—and unfortunately don’t go there as often as I should because it is a bit of a trek—but the place is overwhelmingly huge. My first time there I probably spent over an hour simply looking at the different categories. They have a computer solely for the purpose of helping you find your video because there are so many categories, sub-categories, etc. They have DVDs and videotapes that have gone out of print.

Quentin Tarantino walked across the entire city to visit there. Thelma Schoonmaker (Martin Scorsese’s longtime editor) has been there. The place deservedly has a rep.

if anyone visits Seattle and loves film culture, it’s definitely worth checking out. Scarecrow  also has a film guide (some that the staff wrote reviews of, others that  they just describe) that they published around 2005, I think. It’s a fun read and probably available on Amazon.

[tornadowrangler 6]

That’s cool, Graham. What strikes me so odd about Video Station in Taylor is that it’s in such a small town, about 15,000 people, and there’s no major highway or anything that we are along, so not much thru-traffic. It’s a mystery to me how they are still in business. And it’s pretty comical that they have so many copies of each movie (both on VHS and DVD). When I rented Super Mario Brothers, I asked if I could just buy it (there were at least 3 DVDs), and the owner said it wasn’t for sale! Guess he didn’t think he could get buy with only 2 copies on DVD and about 4 on VHS. 

Maybe I’ll start going each week to see if they have the movie they are doing on the show!