The last video store on earth smells like carpet glue and plastic clamshells, which is to say it smells like 1997, which is to say it smells like a place where choosing a movie took twenty minutes and the choosing was part of the movie.
Marlene Kowalczyk has owned it for thirty-one years. She does not have a loyalty program. She has a wall of staff picks that is a better recommendation engine than anything running on a server farm, because it is allowed to be wrong in interesting directions. The algorithm is never wrong in interesting directions. That is the whole problem with the algorithm.[1]
The shelf knows things
There are 14,000 tapes and discs here, including an estimated four hundred titles that exist on no streaming service anywhere — orphaned films, regional documentaries, a Bulgarian aerobics tape from 1989 that a professor in Lyon emails about twice a year. The shelf is an archive the licensing system forgot to kill.
It is allowed to be wrong in interesting directions. The algorithm is never wrong in interesting directions.RE: STAFF PICKS WALL
Asked why she keeps it open, Kowalczyk points at the return slot. 'People used to fight about what to rent,' she says. 'Now they watch alone and agree with nobody.' She says it without sentiment, checking a tape for rewind compliance. The machine still charges a dollar for the offense. The machine is not wrong either.[2]