In Baltimore, the future of film culture is an old-school video store
You cannot trust the internet to keep media available, and you cannot trust corporations to commit to supporting film culture.
I love the idea of keeping video stores alive.
Unlike vinyl, there’s really no advantage to the physical media of films. That’s not the part that’s missing.
Here’s what I miss about video stores:
Walking around, scanning the shelves, and picking up boxes to read the back. I could easily see 100 videos at once and just sort of visually scan them. It’s not the same as looking at Netflix or Amazon apps.
More importantly, I miss actually choosing a damn movie to watch. These days I scroll around with the remote and watch trailers and never decide what to watch because it feels like everything ever made is just one click away so let’s check and see. To watch a movie from the video store, you had to pick one. Then you brought it home and that was what you had to watch. What now seems like a limitation was actually awesome.