'Celebrate the uncertainty': New Saskatoon video store offers throwback experience
A Saskatoon church is turning back the clock to a simpler time, where families would scour the walls of a video store, hemming and hawing about which movie will take up a temporary residence in their living room on a Friday night.
Reverend Mark Kleiner at Christ Church Anglican in Caswell Hill recently cut a ceremonial strip of video tape at the new video rental store Nutflakes. A place where people could browse movie titles and reconnect with the community.
“I think what a lot of us are finding is a lot of the ways we do things we used to do socially, whether it’s shopping, or picking a movie or seeing a movie, we now do that in the privacy and comfort of our own homes,” Kleiner told CTV News.
“Obviously there’s a lot of advantages to that but what's done is it’s eviscerated our communities, we’re all living these isolated lives so the hope is that we can have a more socially-interactive experience in life period, but this is one small step towards that.”
With hundreds of titles to choose from, Kleiner has been working towards this moment for the past year. Now Nutflakes is open Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. offering a plethora of movie titles including many classic Disney VHS tapes and even the original Star Wars trilogy, on VHS.
Craig Silliphant, pop culture critic and editor of the Feedback Society, is a fan of Kleiner's endeavour.
“That’s not even available on streaming or on digital home media because they stopped making the original version so you have to get your hands on one of those old VHS copies,” Silliphant said.
Video rentals are free, but Kleiner and the church are accepting donations for CHEP Good Food, an organization that helps with food security in Saskatoon. Videos are allowed to be rented for seven days, and Kleiner has even brought in another nostalgic feature to his video store, the rental drop-off slot.
“If they don’t have their VCR players we have a VCR for you,” he said.
Kleiner said he hopes to pull people away from their streaming services and back out into the community.
“Here is a safe place to celebrate the uncertainty and you may not get the title you expected or hoped for, but maybe you’ll get something even better and you’ll be surprised,” he said.
Silliphant said a trip to the video store will no doubt offer people a different selection of movies, because most of what we see now on streaming services is selected based on what we’ve already watched.
“We’ve also become slaves to the algorithm you’re not searching out those things, it used to be really fun to go to the video store on a Friday night and pick out what movies you were going to watch,” he said.
Despite the hundreds of titles available now, Kleiner intends to keep the collection fresh switching out inventory with the more than 10,000 video tapes and DVDs stashed in plastic totes in his basement.
“Each one of these titles is like one of my children so to ask me, I don’t have a favourite child and I don’t have a favourite title.”
Nutflakes is located inside the Christ Church Angilcan Church at 515 28th St. W.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
DEVELOPING Defence rests without Donald Trump taking the witness stand in his New York hush money trial
Donald Trump's lawyers rested their defence Tuesday without the former president taking the witness stand in his New York hush money trial.
Passenger killed, 30 injured as Singapore Airlines flight hits severe turbulence
One passenger was killed and 30 injured after a Singapore Airlines SIAL.SI flight from London hit severe turbulence en route on Tuesday, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, officials and the airline said.
Feels like mid-30s in parts of Canada, while other areas expecting snow
Anything is possible this week, as far as Canada's weather is concerned, with forecasts ranging from scorching heat in some parts of the country to rain and snow in others.
Canada's inflation cools to 3-year low of 2.7%, in boost for rate cut bets
Canada's annual inflation rate slowed to a three-year low of 2.7 per cent in April, matching expectations, and core measures continued to ease, data showed on Tuesday, likely boosting chances of a June interest rate cut.
Trump campaign calls 'The Apprentice' 'blatantly false,' director offers to screen it for him
Donald Trump's reelection campaign called 'The Apprentice,' a film about the former U.S. president in the 1980s, 'pure fiction' and vowed legal action following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. But director Ali Abbasi is offering to privately screen the film for Trump.
Nestle to sell $5 pizza, sandwiches in the U.S. for Wegovy, Ozempic users
Nestle NESN.S will market a new, US$5 line of frozen pizzas and protein-enriched pastas in the United States which it says it designed specifically for people taking drugs such as Wegovy or Ozempic for weight loss.
What is BORG drinking, and why is it a dangerous trend? An expert explains
If you've been to a party lately and haven't seen someone drinking a BORG, you're likely not partying with college students.
Independent stores and grocery alternatives see sales boost amid Loblaw boycott
As the month-long boycott of Loblaw-owned stores wears on, small independent food retailers and alternative grocery options say they're seeing a boost in traffic and sales.
London judge rejects Prince Harry's bid to add allegations against Rupert Murdoch in tabloid lawsuit
Prince Harry can't expand his privacy lawsuit against The Sun tabloid publisher to include allegations that Rupert Murdoch and some other executives were part of an effort to conceal and destroy evidence of unlawful information gathering, a London judge ruled Tuesday.