“Docu-liberals” is how my former distribution colleague referred to them—the generally educated, generally white, left-leaning folks who like documentaries, and will go to see one with an inner city theme faster than an inner city audience will.
So I was thinking of this as I was watching Pressure Cooker, Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman’s film about an aggressive culinary arts high school teacher in Phillie who successfully coaches her inner city students in a scholarship competition.
Then I thought about Nel, my smart, artistic teenaged “little sister” from Harlem who I’ve mentored for three years in the Big Sisters program. If she had seen this film when she was 12 or 13, I think it would have made a big impact on her life. Those early teen years are pivotal. There is nothing like seeing the kids in the film get focused and work towards a goal, with a tough but caring mentor. This is a film for a younger version of kids like them.
Sunday evening, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary celebration for the IFP, I was standing at the edge of a balcony on a vertiginous penthouse suite on the Bowery. There at the Cooper Square Hotel, co-host and producer Anthony Bregman (Synecdoche- New York, Sleep Dealer) announced a new annual IFP initiative to address global issues through documentary film, in conjunction with the UN. This year the Envision program will take place May 14-15 at the DGA in New York, and it will focus on women’s issues.
In attendance at the celebration were a number of local filmmakers, as well as co-host and producer Hunter Gray (Half Nelson, Momma’s Man), and the evening’s event chair—whose indie credits (Pieces of April, Thank-You for Smoking) trump her Hollywood credits (a good thing)—an elegant and taller-than-I-expected, Katie Holmes.
Yeah, it’s true. I went to the Quentin-Tarantino-school-of-cinema studies, and worked behind the counter of a video store. This was in the 90s, before Netflix and online streaming. Man, was it fun. Every Tuesday was Christmas when the new arrivals would come in and we would arrange the boxes on the shelves. All the while I was a sponge, learning about the business and borrowing multiple selections to watch at home. I loved talking to the customers and making recommendations.
Some people came in just to talk to me about movies. It was a great place to hang out with like-minded folks.
In 2005, I wrote a feature on how Evergreen Video and the business in general was struggling to remain viable. Two years later, Evergreen closed.
There’s been a lot of press on the recent closing of Mondo Kim’s. To tell you the truth, I never spent much time there because of the snarling clerks. The cultivated bad attitude continued in Kim’s catalogs, where pages were covered with intentional typos.
Over the years, I have succumbed to modern conveniences, but I miss the camaraderie of the video store environment.
This past weekend I needed to rent a couple of obscure titles quickly and headed over to World of Video. It was nice to see a busy operation. I asked one of the managers, Sean Gallagher, how business was. He said it was pretty good given the state of the economy, and that it all depended on what new movies had come in. He said that March 10 will be a big day when Milk, Let the Right One In, and Happy-Go-Lucky hit the shelves.
Owner Linda Samuels came out from the back office to add that the video store, now in its 26th (!) year, is thriving. They still rent VHS tapes along with DVDs and like many other stores, make a profit from “adult” fare.
02-16-09: Manager Sean Gallagher at World of Video in Greenwich Village
rania posted to
Film Biz on February 16, 2009 |
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Factory fresh and self important, the two Bens were scripted from birth to luck into some plum gig like the latest incarnation of the classic “Siskel & Ebert” show.
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A new theater opened today on Manhattan’s Upper East Side! And—be still my heart—foreign language pictures will be among those shown!!!
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