But that is only until May 31^st, when I pack up belongings and head west, back to my (nearly) native land of Texas, where I shall recuperate over the summer before trekking back to Georgia to continue the expensive, stressful and wonderful experience that is college. 

Back in Texas, you see, the mail is fast and I can send out my Netflix and receive new movies in a few days. This is convenient because: A. It’s movies in the MAIL, man! and B. It helps me get by ever since I began my Blockbuster boycott three years ago. 

Back in Texas, there is an 18 screen multiplex ten minutes from home that gets not only the blockbusters, but also a lot of smaller movies (one of the 800 “Hot Fuzz” screens was there). If that won’t do, then I drive the extra twenty minutes to the art house theatre, where I can watch “A Scanner Darkly” and order food via waiter from the theatre. If that won’t do, I could always drive the 70 miles to Austin, where I can visit the Alamo Drafthouse, often considered the best movie theatre in the world. 

Yeah, the Texas movie scene is absolutely kicking. Once you take New York, Los Angeles and Chicago out of the picture, it’s one of the best places to see movies. Ten years of living in Texas pampered me, made me fat on the teat of cinema and other pretentious metaphors and so forth. 

Savannah is home to fascinating history, beautiful parks, lovely buildings, mild weather and a lot of great things to see and do. It is home to one of the best (and most underlooked) film schools in the nation. 

Savannah, though, is lacking in cinema. 

When I wanted to review a movie in Texas, I would hop in my car, drive for a few minutes and arrive whenever I wanted to.

In Georgia, I have to wait on the number 14 bus, get on the number 14 bus, hope that the driver isn’t slow, pray that not too many old women and children get on (they take forever to get on and off), endure the 45 at best, 90 minute at absolute worst bus drive and arrive with enough time to get a decent seat.  

If I’m lucky, a friend with a car will want to see the movie, too, but even then, it’s a 20 minute (on a good day) drive and considering how many movies I see, I usually don’t have a ride. 

I’m not complaining, no. I’ve come to enjoy the bus in some sort of masochistic way (I read a lot of books), but it does make me appreciate the convenience of having a neighboring movie theatre. My roommate, born and raised in Long Island, tells me that there are five cinemas within walking distance of his house. 

Ah, those of us outside of New York can dream, can’t we? 

Last week, “Hot Fuzz” wasn’t showing in my usually Savannah theatre. It was playing at another, down a road I never travel down in an area of the city I’m unfamiliar with. After checking the bus schedules, I find right bus and watch as we leave the streets I know and venture into what can only be described as the “rough” side of town. Let’s just say that this suburban white boy had himself a rather terrifying adventure that afternoon. 

And Netflix? This is college. Those who are paid to give you your mail really don’t care when or if you get it. Netflix is not the almost instant process I took for granted before. 

Now, I know I’m making this city out to be some sort of culture-free hellhole, but that’s not the case at all. I love this city. It’s just that part of the charm it exudes is that it feels like a small town stretched into a city and since when do small towns have multiplexes? 

There is something altogether different about the movie experience here and I feel like I only recently discovered it. 

A few weeks ago, my homework was finished, my Netflix was resting in a mail pile somewhere, my roommate was out and nothing was on TV (God forbid that I should go out and play sports or something, huh?) so I went for a walk through the city, trying to find something, anything, to do. 

At the intersection of Bull Street and Liberty Street, I came across a small storefront shop with a blue sign hanging over it, the name “Home Run Video” blasted across it. A video store? 15 minutes from the dorm? And I thought the closest store was the Blockbuster (boycotted, of course, not to mention, a twenty minute drive away). 

So I stepped into the store. 

It was one large room. Rows of shelves were everywhere, often placed oddly, often slightly blocking each other. The movies on the shelves were often placed randomly and the sheer number of movies dwarfed the shelf space, so everything seemed to be lying on top of everything else. Lying on a table were several large binders filled with even more movies, ones that couldn’t fit on the shelves. The space was cramped and a little sleazy. A door in the back was cracked ajar, bearing a sign that informed that reader that you had to be 18 or older to enter the “back room.” My initial reaction was to act a little disgusted. 

“Blockbuster isn’t like this. Blockbuster is clean and organized and shiny and-“ 

Then my face broke out into a huge grin. 

Exactly. This place isn’t Blockbuster. This is the antithesis of Blockbuster, the type of place that the big ‘ol blue and yellow have been trying to stomp out for years. This place was independent. It was the opposite of corporate. It was not a machine. It felt like a living, breathing thing. 

One look at the shelves told me that I would be renting movies here quite often. An entire wall dedicated to the Criterion collection. Several walls dedicated to foreign films. A Sci-Fi/horror section that actually included “Cannibal Holocaust” (not that I have any desire to see it, but the fact that they stock it tells you something about their selection).  

I would never expect a one room (two room if you include the porn) video rental store to house so much, well, magic. They did not clear out the classics to make room for new releases; they just stacked everything on top of everything else until the shelves nearly burst.  

This was a place where I was able to rent “Ikiru” and hear the clerk exclaim “Fantastic movie, great choice.”  

So the rest of America can stick with their slick, clean Blockbusters. I’ll stay with Home Run Video (“Home of the Hard Hits!”) and give them the money they deserve. In a city where movies seem so far away, it’s amazing to find that true cinema is closer than I thought. 

Additional Thought: Home Run Video is right next door to an independent book store called “The Book Lady.” I have yet to go in there, but last time I passed, I saw a wonderful sign on the door. The gist of it was “We here at The Book Lady respect your civil rights, so although the Patriot Act says that we should be forced to give the government a list of everything you buy, we won’t. We tend to lose all of our records anyway. This courtesy will not be extended to Georgia congressman [a name I don’t recall], who recently voted to further this clause.” 

Try to find that on a Barnes and Noble.