"Going to the video store back then held so much possibility," Coral Gables Art Cinema's communications and engagement director tells New Times. "You had to get out of your house and drive to the place! It was exciting to pick out a movie, which is an entirely different feeling than scrolling through a streaming service."
In an increasingly atomized, ephemeral, toss-away culture, it all seems like an experience lost to time and nostalgia. That's how Humphreys felt, too, until she learned about the burgeoning Free Blockbuster movement, which aims to do for DVDs what the Little Free Libraries have done for books. She sensed an opportunity to connect her day job to her youthful adventures in movie fandom.
Now, Gables Cinema is one of more than 200 North American locales with its own Free Blockbuster box. It's already a hit, with a steady tide of incoming and outgoing DVDs of all genres and subgenres rolling in and out.
"We believe that art should be accessible to everyone, and we believe that this box symbolizes that," says Humphreys. "It's a free, community-driven offering, and we hope that people get excited about sharing their old movies and maybe picking up new ones."
Here's how the cross-pollination works: Young film director Jorge Rodriguez, 25, first visited Gables Art Cinema as a child with his mother. He's been a regular ever since, but he made a special trip when he saw a post about the Blockbuster box on Instagram. He scooped up Michael Haneke's French neo-noir Caché, Woody Allen's landmark Annie Hall, and a compilation of Dada shorts from 1921 through 1926. "I haven't seen any of the movies, but the Dada comp is the reason I love the box," he says. "I would've probably never seen these shorts otherwise...Also, to me, if you care about film, it is becoming increasingly important to have physical media because, with everything switching to streaming services, studios take movies down for any reason they choose, and then it's gone."
In return for his bounty, Rodriguez dropped the Jane Fonda-starring 1968 mod space opera Barbarella, Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's dreamlike masterpiece Amélie — the latter of which found its way into the hands of Paula Pulgar-Vidal, 27. "I loved it so much," she says. "I actually brought it back after watching it and dropped off Fried Green Tomatoes from my dad's collection — another classic."
For Pulgar-Vidal, this is a sacred transfer: Her father has carefully curated his DVD collection since he first immigrated to the United States from Peru, and the medium has been a nexus of father-daughter bonding. "I used to love showing friends his floor-to-ceiling library of DVDs," she says. "I recently moved to the Gables and had only been to the cinema once before, but now I've been going often. I really appreciate having an independent theater within walking distance from me. I love the box, which is such a cool way to help ensure DVDs don't become another lost media form."
Cinema is likewise a family affair for Ozzy Rosenberg, Michelle Zambrana, and their two kids, Abe, 10, and Ben, 5. "I have been a movie fan from as far back as I can remember," Rosenberg says. "I've always loved everything about films — how they're made, the stories, the way they transport you to different worlds." Since having children, however, his relationship with Gables Cinema has deepened — he's collaborated with the theater via his Miami Dads Group and even moderated a film discussion with Eugenio Derbez about the actor-comedian's 2023 movie, Radical.
The theater's Free Blockbuster box has provided happy accidents of entertainment for Rosenberg's family and imparted important lessons about sharing and community to their kids. "I donated Top Gun — which is still one of our favorite blockbusters," says Rosenberg, "but it was our smallest's idea to give away his Paw Patrol collection. He's aging out of it, and he wanted to give other kids a chance to discover something he loved so much and was so important to him."
In a small nook near concessions, underneath cool kid wink-wink-nudge-nudge film nerd enamel pins, T-shirts, and other merch, Humphreys believes this relatively small blue-and-yellow box punches far above its weight.
"The box absolutely reinforces the idea that movies are a communal experience," she says. "These are someone's personal selections" — for the record, Humphreys has donated a couple of Woody Allen films, Predator, and Mean Girls — "and they get to share those with others."
The best part? No late fees.
