Video rental services start today in downtown Springfield – more than five years after the last movie rental business closed in the city.
Mr. Googoriums Movie Emporium is located inside Bookmarx at 325 E. Walnut. The shop's owner is Joshua Arnett. He said the promise of streaming was great when it first began. But, he said, prices have sneaked up, and ads have been put back in. And there's just something about the in-person experience.
"One thing I love about the bookstore is the experience of browsing," he said. "And that's something that is taken away when we're clicking around looking for something. I don't enjoy that. When my wife and I are in bed looking for a movie, and I, like yesterday, we chose movies and went home and watched them, and I enjoyed the experience of browsing like in a video store. I always loved that as a young person."
He said the people he's getting the most positive reactions from are young people who never had the experience of going to video stores or they were really young when their parents took them.
"You hear people, young people, talking about physical media a lot more," he said. "Like, the term physical media gets used a lot, and there is kind of a desire to return to that for younger people."
Not only does Mr. Googoriums Movie Emporium offer a variety of films – many Indie and foreign but also movies like Spiderman — it also offers the equipment required to play them. Bookmarx is offering both VHS tapes and DVDs. Arnett said they have seven or eight DVD players and five VCRs right now.
The cost to rent one movie is $2. You can also purchase a rental plan for $8 a month, which gets you unlimited rentals and is a way to compete with streaming services.
Mr. Googoriums Movie Emporium is named for Googey, Bookmarx's first bookstore cat and former Captain Springfield who passed away early last year. There's also a shrine to him in the movie space.
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