The death of Elizabeth Taylor was, to many, the death of the Golden Age of film. She’d been in ill-health for a long time, so her passing was not a shock, but it was still something that hit me harder than I thought it would, and I wanted to mark the occasion. As Richard and I get together periodically for day-long movie fests involving fattening food and drink, it seemed natural to toast to Liz with him. We’d been discussing how much we each wanted to see A Place in the Sun for years, so it’s of course the answer to today’s, “A Movie I Plan on Watching.” This is another one of the silly questions, as there are dozens upon dozens of movies I plan on watching in my lifetime, but how this film has eluded me is the real story for today.

Being that Richard is crazy-busy at all times, I had to book his time about a month in advance, and we were agreed we’d be watching A Place in the Sun and Giant. Since there is usually a noticeable run on the movies of stars who have recently died, I kept thinking I should have the movies in hand. I have the unlimited Netflix account that means I periodically let movies sit for months and months unwatched, and I just never got around to sending those back to trade for Liz. No problem though, enough time will have gone by for something to be available at the neighborhood Blockbusters. Surely they’d stock enough of Taylor’s films… after all, I live in Hillcrest.

Still, I left it too late. On the day before we were to celebrate Liz, I checked availability online at the local Blockbusters. At first, I thought there must be something wrong with the search feature, because for every movie I got the same “Not at this location” result for the nearest ten to twenty stores. It occurred to me then that though they hadn’t closed their doors, the company had filed for bankruptcy, and this was probably a sign of their stock being liquidated. Depressing though it was, I still had my ace in the hole: Kensington Video.

If you’ve never lived in San Diego, you have no idea of the wonder that is Kensington Video, so allow me to explain; it’s a utopia for movie-philes. They have a stock numbering in the neighborhood of 50,000, specialize in silent and foreign films, and still rent VHS. Owned and operated by three generations of the same family of movie buffs, it’s one of my favorite places in the world. They have no computer system, write the movies you’re checking out down on a simple receipt to be filed in what looks like a recipe box, and are always packed and busy. Long may Ken Video live in San Diego! The problem for my purposes, however, is that I knew they would have Taylor films, but I also knew that everyone else would be going there too.

One of the owners that day confirmed that they hadn’t kept any of her movies in stock over the past month, though they thrillingly had Giant, so at least four hours of our day was set. Being that the woman has a vast knowledge of film, she kept suggesting things and going back to look to see if they had them, only to come up empty each time. It was frustrating, but Ken Video is never anything but a comforting experience for me. On the way home, It occurred to me that I could just go and buy A Place in the Sun! After all, it’s a movie I’d wanted to see for a long time, it was made by one of my favorite directors, and it would be worth it to not have the day of tribute ruined.

So I stopped at Borders in Mission Valley, remembering that they too had filed for bankruptcy (since then it’s been announced they’re closing all stores for good), but I was undeterred. I went directly to search their system by computer… and nothing came up. Again, I thought there must be something wrong with their search feature and tried movie after movie, only to find that there were simply no Elizabeth Taylor movies at all in the system. Let me repeat; there was not even anything listed that said “Not at this location” or “on back order” or “will take 1-2 weeks for delivery.” Just nothing was there. And then finally it occurred to me that though not all stores had closed, they were probably… liquidating their stock.

Was the economy that bad? Was this the twenty-first century’s equivalent of the boarded-up business, the blinking cursor and the stark “not in stock?” Was this a sign of worse to come? My friend, Shalico, thought that it was probably not so dramatic, but that it was merely a sign of changing times. The move to on-demand and streaming video, coupled with DVDs delivered right to your door, is making the video store obsolete. Though I was mainly thwarted here by neglecting to plan ahead, I often spontaneously rent movies. Just a month before all of this I’d been looking something up on imdb, saw the ad for X-Men, First Class (which was cool, by the way) wound-up on James McAvoy’s page, and then read about The Last Station from there. That got me up, out, and to the video store within the half-hour, and I loved the film.

I fear that the days of being able to have any movie in your reach within an hour or so and a drive are over, and I’m saddened by it. There will be more and more easy ways to get new releases to you with no effort whatsoever, but if it’s more obscure and a Saturday (and you’re not within reach of Ken Video – long may it reign), you’re out of luck. It’s the end of an era, indeed.