Dirt cheap
documentary about the struggles faced by amateur film makers, the rapid
replacement of physical media by streaming/digital stuff and the people that hunt
through the second hand piles of VHS tapes for the obscure and forgotten films
that never got digitised.
LLoyd Kaufman, who
is, I think, contractually obliged to appear in every doc of this type, also
brings up the worrying prospect of how much power the media giants have and
what they'll do to retain it in a changing world, with issues such as
censorship and net neutrality. That of course could lead to a long, tedious
pile of words on here itself, but another time perhaps.
The most striking
thing for me was the footage taken from inside video shops at their peak,
compared to that taken in their dying months, and then after closure. At their
height, they were almost like social venues, places to hang out longer than the
process of selecting a film would logically take. In the independent ones, they
would frequently be staffed by people who were knowledgeable and enthusiastic
about the films on the shelves, be on good terms with their customers and
decorate the interiors of the shops with posters, cut-outs and reproduction
props of the contemporary and enduring, older films.
Sad fucks like me
used to feel very at home in such places.
Then came the
monopoly of Blockbuster, (one victim of the change to digital that makes some
of us happy) and the small independent shops, and their welcoming character was
killed off in pursuit of bland, production line profit chasing.
Anyway, there is more
to this film about films on actual film than what I've waffled on about, and,
aside from a wobbly first fifteen minutes, it's well worth watching.
Which ironically I
did on a streaming service. Ho hum.
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