As the owner of a legacy movie theatre, the theory is I should detest video rental stores.

I don’t.

The popular narrative is that home movie rentals, along with cable television and now online streaming platforms are the primary culprits in the demise of movie theatres as viable businesses. While there is obviously substance to this simplistic take, the truth is that a complex mix of sociological currents is responsible. Over the past few decades, we’ve seen a remarkable shift in the way couples ‘date’ romantically, there is the loss of unplanned discretionary leisure time and the American relationship to automobiles and brick-and-mortar shopping has altered considerably. With a wider array of entertainment options, more tightly organized family schedules and less foot traffic in communal commercial spaces, sadly coupled with a poorer, thinner quality and selection of studio movies, it’s little wonder that movie theatres are a dying breed. Fewer people simply ‘catch a flick’ when they are at a loss for something to do, or if they need a public outing with a romantic interest. It’s been this way for decades now and it’s doubtful we’ll see any meaningful change in the near future.  

‘Catching a flick’ was always hard for me to do even back in the day. During the second half of my childhood in the 1980s, my family was living in the small Australian outback town of Alice Springs. It did not have a hardtop movie theatre and we only had one television channel, the ABC, Australian’s public broadcaster. Movies were shown either at the Starline drive-in movie theatre, the Memorial Club or the Araluen Arts Centre, but the offerings were erratic and not densely scheduled. The next closest town with a hardtop movie theatre was literally over a thousand miles away, so there wasn’t an option to just hop in the car and go to the next town over. If you were into movies in Alice Springs, you went to the video stores.

For a town of just over 20,000 people, we had any number of video stores, though I mostly stuck to the three main downtown stores in those days – Murray Neck’s VideoWorld, Plains Video and Mega Movies. This was my original Netflix, Prime and Tubi. VideoWorld had the newest and best releases and was the most expensive. Plains was giant and had the most titles at reasonable prices and Mega had the really fun trashy movies. It was in these video stores that I really came to love movies.

I’ve often referenced my ‘Godfather Epiphany’ in the past and its relevant here again. The Godfather was one of my many Alice Springs rentals in the mid-80s and I probably watched it 3-4 times on tape or TV before I finally saw it years later the way it was meant to be seen – in New York City on the big screen of a darkened theatre with hundreds of other people. The experience was an absolute revelation and heightened my need to see films in a theatre. While I was able to develop an initial appreciation for the film on VHS at a basic level, it was akin to looking at a tiny black & white reproduction of a painting in an art textbook versus seeing the real painting in museum. The poor quality of those early VHS tapes and boxy televisions were no real substitute for experience offered by the movie theatres, but rather served as appetizers for the entrée of seeing films on the big screen. In this way, the video store and the theatre actually worked together for me, not necessarily in competition, the former creating the desire for the latter.

As a result, my appreciation for video stores remains. Greenville amazingly still has one of the last operational ones in the region – Variety Video. Like drive-ins, they are highly endangered creatures with apparently fewer than 700 remaining in the U.S. (and Alice Springs, sadly, no longer has any operational video stores itself) For better or worse, the ongoing difficulty of connecting rural America to broadband internet seems to have helped sustain the local need for physical media, but I’d also add that its’ owner, Vince Rao, is passionate about movies and seems to attentively tailor his offerings to a stalwart group of regulars who help keep him open. Stepping into Variety is definitely a trip into the way-back machine and reminder of the many past pleasant hours spent picking your way through the shelves of movies, vigorously debating the available options with your friends and family before committing to the choices.

Leigh and I were sufficiently inspired after a recent visit to collaborate with Variety and Vince has allowed us to gather a modest selection of DVDs into our own ‘Greenville Drive-in Picks’ shelf. Some are films we’ve shown at the Greenville Drive-in, some are films we’d like to show but can’t due to licensing issues and most of them are referenced (or will be) here at ‘Cinema with a Twist’. It should be noted that many of the films both on our picks shelf and in Variety in general are not available on streaming. One of the ongoing misconceptions about streaming is the universality of the offerings. The truth is many, many films either aren’t available, shift platforms, or are more expensive to rent online than they are to buy outright. It seems crazy to suggest, but I do believe visual physical media, i.e. DVDs, Blu-Rays etc., will make something of a return along the lines of what we have seen with vinyl records.

In any event, if you want to re-live that part of your past where you once haunted the local neighborhood video store looking for cinematic treasure, plan a visit to Variety Video. You’ll find it right on Main Street in Greenville, across from the Stewarts. Be sure to check out our picks while you are there … Enjoy!