Outside of the Beacon Street Whole Foods Market, a bright blue newspaper dispenser defies the rules of the streaming era.
The box’s logo, an icon of a VHS tape sprayed on in yellow paint, pays homage to Blockbuster, the video rental chain that closed its corporate stores in 2014. Behind the box’s clouded, dusty door, treasure awaits: copies of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and Robert Downey Jr.’s “Sherlock Holmes” on DVD, “Chariots of Fire” and “The Thomas Crown Affair” on VHS and even a compact disc of Christmas carols, all for the taking.
A sticker on the door instructs visitors to “Take a movie, leave a movie, be kind and rewind.”
Taking as a model the Little Free Libraries that encourage visitors to “Take a Book. Share a Book,” Brian Morrison founded the first FreeBlockbuster box in 2018 out of his Los Angeles home, inspired to build his own box by seeing piles of VHS tapes in the garbage across Los Angeles. As a cinephile and former Blockbuster employee, he was horrified. “Just because the usefulness of something changes, it doesn’t mean it’s trash,” Morrison said in a phone interview Jan. 10.
The project has expanded to nearly every state and to Canada, Mexico and England. The Somerville franchise – the only location in Greater Boston – was founded in March 2022.
Although platforms such as Netflix and Hulu have, in some ways, made movie watching easier, Morrison thinks they’ve done more harm than good.
In the past, you could just loan a movie you loved to a friend. Now, with more than 200 streaming services available worldwide, it’s not as simple: Between navigating licensing rules and shifting film ownership, recommending a movie today often means encouraging friends to spend money on streaming or rentals, Morrison said. “You cannot drive interpersonal relationships and community with streaming. You drive isolation,” he said.
FreeBlockbuster encourages community members to engage with one another as a remedy, Morrison said. He hopes to facilitate bonds between neighbors through small interactions, such as donating a treasured film to a box or using it discover a new favorite.
It’s not just big Hollywood hits, or even movies, that make it into FreeBlockbuster boxes. Occasionally, aspiring filmmakers donate their work to a box for their neighborhood to enjoy. In Los Angeles, screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker of “Se7en” fame left behind a few free Blu-ray copies of his animated feature “Nerdland,” Morrison said. In Somerville, the box’s proprietor has been known to donate Raisinets and microwave popcorn for at-home movie viewers.
Attempts to reach the manager of Somerville’s FreeBlockbuster, including through Morrison, were unsuccessful.
Tapes and disks, bricks and mortar
Blockbuster, which once had more than 9,000 stores around the world, left behind 50 franchise locations when it shut down its final corporate-owned storefronts. They dwindled until in 2018 only one locally owned shop remained in Bend, Oregon. Still in operation, it has become a tourist destination as well as the subject of wistful remembrances: A documentary, “The Last Blockbuster,” was released in 2020; a fictionalized series about a last store (called simply “Blockbuster”) made it to Netflix in 2022 starring Randall Park. It lasted for one 10-episode season.
The last video shop serving Cambridge and Somerville, Hollywood Express, closed June 30, 2015, at 1740 Massachusetts Ave., in a basement space near Porter Square that now holds the Keezer’s vintage shop. The independent Hollywood Express had been in business for nearly 30 years. “We had great, loyal customers – but just not enough of them,” manager Joe McClure said upon closing, describing how the Internet seemed to eliminate customers’ curiosity. “Technology just caught up with us.”
Rentals never fully left Cambridge and Somerville: In addition to the finally disappearing Redbox kiosks that dispense discs, libraries stock DVDs and Blu-rays.
More than boxes
Although FreeBlockbuster has attracted an audience nostalgic for the old Blockbuster Video, Morrison’s target audience is future generations who may have never experienced the magic of the video store. “They are just having the same thrill of discovery that I had with my parents back in the ’80s or the ’90s. And that’s so cool to give them that thing they never had,” he said.
While many FreeBlockbusters have homes in abandoned newspaper dispensers, Morrison said establishing a franchise is as easy as “taking movies and making them available for free to a community.” Beyond boxes, FreeBlockbuster franchises have been located in college dorms and office buildings.
Morrison encourages anyone interested in founding a FreeBlockbuster franchise to visit FreeBlockbuster.org.
Somerville’s is at 45 Beacon St., Ward 2, near Inman Square.
A stronger
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Nice to know it’s a movement. If anyone finds any more in the area, let me know – I coordinate the local LFL-related map (which has this one on it, and many others not on the global LFL map). I’m easy to find, at erichaines dot com