FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Corporate Communications 214/854-3190   RENTALS OF "MOM" MOVIES INCREASE ON MOTHER'S DAY AT BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO® STORES 'Terms Of Endearment' Tops List Of Favorite Mother/Child Relationships In Movies DALLAS, April 17, 1998 -- Moms. They love us, teach us, inspire us and, perhaps, sometimes get a little too close for comfort. So it's no wonder that we love to watch movies about mothers and our relationships with them. A recent poll commissioned by Blockbuster Video about favorite movie moms found that it was the positive relationships with moms that are the biggest winners with customers. Those surveyed chose Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger's enduring relationship as Aurora Greenway and Emma Horton in "Terms of Endearment" (1983) as the best portrayal of the relationship between a mother and child. In fact 1997 rentals of "Terms of Endearment" increased 250 percent during the month prior to Mother's Day. The next four most popular "mom" movies chosen were "Soul Food" (1997), "Steel Magnolias" (1989), "Mother" (1996) and "Little Women" (1933, 1949, 1994). Two other popular mentions were the powerful movies "The Joy Luck Club" (1993) and "Mask" (1985). "Of course, you can't do a survey about mothers without people mentioning movies like "Mommie Dearest" (1981), "Eye For An Eye" (1995), or "Throw Momma From The Train" (1987) that show the gloomy side of the mother/child relationship," said Allen Klose, vice president for Blockbuster Market Research. "Positive relationship portrayals were by far the favorites." In fact, says Klose, another most frequently mentioned mother/child movie is the classic "Bambi" (1942). Blockbuster Entertainment operates approximately 6,000 Blockbuster Video and 400 Blockbuster Music neighborhood entertainment stores in the United States, its territories and 26 other countries and may be accessed internationally at www.blockbuster.com. Blockbuster is a unit of Viacom Inc., one of the world's largest entertainment and publishing companies and a leading force in nearly every segment of the international media marketplace. ### |  Current Releases   |  Archives   | BLOCKBUSTER name, design and related marks are trademarks of Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. © 1998 Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.