End of an era: iconic L.A. video store Vidiots closing after 30 years
January 30, 2015 6:54 AM   Subscribe

 
I don't know about L.A., but here in Minneapolis suburbia is littered with the hollowed-out husks of dead Video Update and Blockbuster stores. Everyone either gets their movies via videos streaming from the internet or from one of those little kiosk machines these days.
posted by surazal at 6:59 AM on January 30, 2015


I live at 20th and Pico, which is spitting distance from Vidiots. As you can imagine, most of my local friends are saddened and/or outraged that Vidiots is closing. As you can probably also imagine, when asked when the last time they were actually in the store was, the answer has almost universally been "some point around 2002".

Everyone, myself very much included, thinks that they want to preserve the world of their early twenties in amber, but the choices that they make in life suggest otherwise.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 7:03 AM on January 30, 2015 [16 favorites]


Everyone wants to stay young, but their failure to avoid change can hardly be called a choice.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:12 AM on January 30, 2015


The writing is on the wall for the video store...

Our local amazing place just turned nonprofit.

And yeah, there's streaming, but streaming has a lot of weird gaps in it's library. Anything before the mid 90s that isn't mega huge is a crapshoot.
posted by Artw at 7:22 AM on January 30, 2015


RIP Vidiots. My kids and I have many fond memories of riding down to the store in search of another creepy Peter Lorre movie or Buster Keaton collection. End of an era, indeed.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:29 AM on January 30, 2015


Video stores were such a big part of my childhood and adolescence that it's profoundly weird to think of how they were a short-lived phenomenon, that sprang into life when I was a kid and were already dying by the time I graduated from college. It was just such a fast evolution, from mom & pop places with walls of weird stuff, to the massive chains overtaking and cannibalizing the local places, to the chains dying out in favor of mail order and streaming and kiosks - it really was only about 20 years, give or take a few at either end. 30 years as a video store is the kind of thing they should build a monument for.
posted by graymouser at 7:31 AM on January 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Everyone, myself very much included, thinks that they want to preserve the world of their early twenties in amber,

Is that it, though, in this case? For me, patronizing businesses like Vidiots isn't about nostalgia or reliving my youth, I think it's more about taking for grated the embarrassment of cultural riches we have access to here. I've lived on the westside for most of the time Vidiots has been open, and I've lived within walking distance for the last decade. I could have done a lot more to support this treasure, along with lots of other "ordinary" local businesses.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:46 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


My wife and I have recently started re-patronizing one of Toronto's few remaining video stores in the hopes of helping to keep it in business. Getting there and back is, admittedly, often inconvenient, but the selection in many areas far outstrips what is available on Netflix, iTunes, etc.. The picture quality is better, too, if that's an issue for you.

I work for the public library here, and I can tell you that DVD circulation is through the roof these days. There are still a lot of people out there who either can't or don't want to stream movies.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:47 AM on January 30, 2015


The video store in Boulder, CO, The Video Station, is still open after close to 33 years. They recently moved to a smaller location, but I'm just happy they're still existent. I know it was tough for them in the go-go years when the big chains were expanding nearby and undercutting them on price, but I assume the competition, at least, has receded. They're lucky that CU has a decent film program, which likely offers a fairly renewable source of customers — I was a very regular customer while I was in college and for a few years after.

Since Kim's closed it's been tough in New York. I hear good things about Video Free Brooklyn but have never been there.
posted by Mothlight at 7:48 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


there was no shame in loving a slapstick fart comedy as much as you loved a French existential drama.

I wish more people would come to such an understanding.
posted by Hoopo at 8:06 AM on January 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


there was no shame in loving a slapstick fart comedy as much as you loved a French existential drama.

I hope the username French existential slapstick fart comedy isn't taken.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 8:07 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


French existential slapstick fart comedy

Bande à fart.
posted by graymouser at 8:08 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't know about L.A., but here in Minneapolis suburbia is littered with the hollowed-out husks of dead Video Update and Blockbuster stores.

Vidiots was closer to Discount Video in Uptown Minneapolis, which refused to alphabetize their videos, organized them by studio that released them, was managed by a bunch of surly video nergs, but had by far the best collection of cult, Asian, genre, and classic movies in the Twin Cities. Now make that 10 times larger and less aggressively off-putting and you have Vidiots.
posted by maxsparber at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Screw streaming. But screw companies like Blockbuster even more. They and their ilk were the ones that made video rentals so obnoxious that it drove everyone to alternatives. They were the Regal Cinema of rentals.

Portland still has a number of video stores scattered throughout the city. I am lucky to live only a few blocks from one. It seems pretty busy whenever I go in, which is every week or so. I suppose score one for living in a city with a bunch of dirty hipsters!
posted by MysteriousMan at 8:15 AM on January 30, 2015


>French existential slapstick fart comedy

>>Bande à fart.


Une Fart est une Fart

I know I say this in every video store thread, but as a Chicago resident I feel INCREDIBLY BLESSED to have both Facets Cinematheque and Odd Obsessions Video.
posted by Juliet Banana at 8:17 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't say screw streaming, I say screw the studios and copyright law. It should be perfectly legal for a video store to digitize and stream their tapes and DVDs, so long as only one customer at a time is streaming a given copy. This would make eminent sense based on the first sale doctrine and the fair use right of format shifting.

Sadly, courts have somehow decided that the law don't work that way, and studios have always hated the idea that a store can just buy a copy of a film and rent it repeatedly for years without paying them extra for the privilege. Otherwise, I'd be all about taking up a collection to buy Vidiots' library and start a nonprofit streaming service. Even if there weren't case law pretty much on point, the studios would sue any such operation into oblivion, despite it being no different than renting the movies the old fashioned way.
posted by wierdo at 8:30 AM on January 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


I work in documentary film and Vidiots had a huge selection of films that were very hard to find anyplace else, including Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo, and so on. Some films were released only on VHS with very limited runs--Vidiots employees knew so much about these hidden treasures. Vidiots was Cartier while Blockbusters was Target or Rite-Aid.
posted by Ideefixe at 8:31 AM on January 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


It was just such a fast evolution, from mom & pop places with walls of weird stuff, to the massive chains overtaking and cannibalizing the local places, to the chains dying out in favor of mail order and streaming and kiosks - it really was only about 20 years, give or take a few at either end.

In the small town where I grew up (population around 15,000 in the 1980s) the first two video rental stores I remember were a used bookstore which added one shelf of videos and gradually expanded that, and a furniture store which turned their front area into video rentals and that slowly became the entire business, until they stopped selling furniture altogether. That lasted until Blockbuster bought the lot right next to the former furniture store, and told the owner that if he closed down the store they would make him manager of the new Blockbuster at a nice salary, or he could roll the dice and try to compete head-on. So he became manager and Blockbuster took over the video business in my town. That was just the first of many reasons I came to hate them, and I'm glad they are basically gone now, although I mourn the loss of the offbeat niche stores.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:31 AM on January 30, 2015


I was a member of the Anthology in NY, and for Cinefamily one year here, and I always end with the same question -- in an industry where the most successful are so at a phenomenal level (financially) where is the community spirit? Grisham supported the Oxford American for years, and Tarantino bought the Beverly, but when Cinefamily had their big fundraiser two years ago, they were hoping against hope to get $150K. And it took Robert Downey Jr putting in half to make it happen.

I expect that people pulling down $20M a movie are pulled in a lot of directions, donation-wise, and are surely maybe a little egocentric about what giving back actually means (I went to the Vidiots event with David O. Russell and it was great how hard he was trying to help them, but maybe he would have been better off directing an AMEX commercial and just giving them the money?), and I've done my share of fund raising for non-profits, but I guess I'm suspicious of those beloved institutions that seem to die on the vine -- that perhaps their leadership has a much to bear as changes in culture (in the case of Cinefamily, I've heard a number of complaints about how they are managed). The thing that makes a scrappy underdog work is not the same thing that make something a beloved institution and if you can make that transition seems to be the biggest factor in these sorts of situations.
posted by 99_ at 9:43 AM on January 30, 2015


If you want a physical meeting space with which to meet people who share your interests in the arts, you need to get together and set up a physical meeting space for that purpose. Corporate America will no longer do it for you.
posted by ocschwar at 9:47 AM on January 30, 2015


Sic semper tyrannis
posted by rocketman at 9:57 AM on January 30, 2015


I live at 20th and Pico

Hey, former neighbor! I lived at Euclid and Pico for a long time. I probably still owe Vidiots money--they had an awesome selection of LGBT films of the not-on-Netflix variety. Also, one time I walked in to browse and literally bumped face-first into the back of a big guy in one of the aisles. It was Oliver Stone, who had come in early before doing a talk of some sort.

I live in SF now, and Faye's Video is the closest analogue I really like. The selection is nowhere near as extensive, but you can get a coffee while you browse and the staff are a little friendlier. Diversification is the price we pay to stay alive and operating, and Vidiots never seemed interested in doing anything but its own thing--for better or worse.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 9:57 AM on January 30, 2015


Sounds like this needs to be a library. I have an image in my mind of monks copying VHS tapes for centuries, waiting for someone to appreciate the obscure treasures they have preserved.
posted by clawsoon at 10:23 AM on January 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


Vidiots has many obscure and wonderful videos that are difficult if not impossible to find elsewhere. In the past I have rented many films from them but I haven't been back in several years. I am not less interested these days, nor am I satisfied with streaming services like Netflix, but in truth I can't even keep up with movies in theaters, good TV and DVDs from the library.
posted by conrad53 at 10:53 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Louisville's Wild and Woolly Video, which Slint bassist Todd Brashear opened eighteen years ago with Spiderland royalties, announced earlier this year that it was closing in March. They had all the new releases and current television box sets, but specialized in All Things Cult, from B Horror to foreign classics to obscure docs. The closing is a huge loss to the Highlands neighborhood and area film fans. Sad days.
posted by chaoticgood at 11:06 AM on January 30, 2015


At least Vidiots outlasted the Blockbuster on 14th and Wilshire.
posted by RakDaddy at 11:28 AM on January 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

--Jack Valenti


Hollywood is safe at last.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:35 AM on January 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Mothlight, I'm so glad to hear that The Video Station is still going strong. That place was a freaking lifeline when I was going to school on Boulder.

Still sad about Vidiots, though. That place was incredible.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:02 PM on January 30, 2015


I was going to say that my town still had an indie video store but a look at their website tells me that they closed last 13 months ago.
posted by octothorpe at 3:50 PM on January 30, 2015


OH GOD, VIDIOTS. Spent many, many years as a Hollywood assistant, which led to many, many calls to Vidiots back in ye olden days before Netflix and YouTube and streaming and the like. "Do you have (obscure random film) for (whatever director/producer I was working for at the time)? Yes? Okay, I'm sending a messenger."

For books it was Book Soup (still open) and then there was (is?) also Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee for a larger collection of silent films and stuff that was straight-up recorded off the TV or Z-Channel onto VHS, which they couldn't legally rent you but they'd toss it in for free if you just rented any old other thing. Brandt's had really weird hours/days of operation, though, so Vidiots was really the go-to.
posted by BlahLaLa at 4:20 PM on January 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Megan Ellison is saving Vidiots. Because I didn't have a big enough crush on her before.
posted by dogwalker at 7:51 PM on January 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


Holy cow, that's awesome!
posted by Room 641-A at 7:59 PM on January 30, 2015


> there was no shame in loving a slapstick fart comedy as much as you loved a French existential drama.

Years ago (like, the '90s) I got the sneering of a lifetime at the aforementioned beloved Toronto video store when I rented Congo.

Although to be fair a couple of years ago I re-watched it, sober this time, and...yeah.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:52 PM on January 30, 2015


Well, cool!

...does that mean this topic closes itself now?
posted by RakDaddy at 8:56 PM on January 30, 2015


Like graymouser said, it's amazing how fast it came and went, the video store industry. I can remember the first store opening near us when I was a kid, that you had to put $100 or so down as a deposit to become a member before you could borrow anything. And then in my 20s, for quite a while, videos were What We Did on the weekends, we'd go to Blockbuster or Video Vault in Alexandria that had all the Hong Kong flicks and obscure flicks, everyone would pick out one, and we'd watch stuff on Friday or Saturday nights. And by the time I was 35, it was already well on the downhill slide.
posted by tavella at 9:24 PM on January 30, 2015


SAVED!

I... I believe that singing "Sugarhigh" on the roof may be in order.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 10:22 PM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Here's the latest.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:42 PM on January 31, 2015 [1 favorite]


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