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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Film / Nerd Va Va VHS

Posted by Lindy West on Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:23 PM

This poster for the upcoming VIVA VHS program at Northwest Film Forum has been making me happy over and over again since it arrived in my Inbox last week. As a person born in the early '80s, my nostalgia for VHS tapes is mighty. The poster (designed by Marc Palm) rules:

(See a list of the VHS boxes cannibalized for the collage right here.)

VIVA VHS will take place at NWFF August 8 at 9 pm:

Celebrate the bygone days when VHS was king and explore the cinematic oddities that can only be found on ½" videotape. The folks at Scarecrow have delved into their archives and unearthed forgotten gems and mind-blowing revelations of magnetic mayhem for this special salute to the now neglected medium. Join us in paying tribute to the shining memory of mom and pop video stores and the vanishing magic of home videocassettes. We’ll be screening Scarecrow picks, raising a glass to the last remaining veterans of video, plus there will be some surprises! Refreshments will be available in the cinema. LONG LIVE VHS!

Oh, mom and pop video stores. Mine was Video Revue in Wedgwood (I can smell it now).

ALSO: For further VHS + visual art mashups, see Frank Zadlo's weird, intricate, embellished movie boxes (involving markers and pencils and thread and concentration) here and here. Jen Graves wrote about Zadlo here.

Comments (8) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

That is frickin' sweet.

It's weird, when we first got a VCR, my brother and I rented "Body Double" a lot. Well, at least more than once. In retrospect I think it's kind of weird that my parents let us rent "Body Double." But hey, it all turned out okay.

Posted by Strath

on July 28, 2009 at 2:33 PM

Oh man, so many memories of the old video store by my parents' house (in Lynnwood). The middle-aged couple and their slacker adult son who spent all day providing bad service and playing Zelda for Super Nintendo with his fellow mulleted layabouts...

Posted by Hernandez

on July 28, 2009 at 2:35 PM

I used to work at Video Revue, that old lady was a bitch

Posted by Adie on July 28, 2009 at 2:58 PM

@3: Yeah, I'm glad she was neither my mom nor my pop.

Posted by Lindy West on July 28, 2009 at 3:38 PM

Ages ago I had what amounted to a video mixtape consisting of recorded bits of MTV one after another. You don't get that these days.

Posted by K on July 28, 2009 at 3:54 PM

@5: I made those too.

We used to hang out at Rocky's Video in Rockville MD when I was in (and just out of) high school. 7 or 8 of my friends worked there at one time or another, there was no real night manager so we just ran the joint. It was the only store in the area with a porn selection, the back room almost glowed beige from all the reflected skin on the VHS boxes. Something like 75% of the store's revenue came from the porn section.

Posted by Asa on July 28, 2009 at 4:13 PM

video revue by the broiler? never was a fan.

liked the one by black pearl that had take-and-bake pizza though. good porn selection for a neighborhood place.

Posted by Max Solomon on July 28, 2009 at 4:34 PM