The Death of the Video Store

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blockbusterstoreWritten by Ed Tellier

When I was a kid growing up, my family bought their first VCR in 1985. I was 8 years old. I’ll never forget the day as long as I live. I’ll never forget my grandfather renting 1980’s The Dogs of War. When the movie was over, he had no idea on how to rewind the tape back so we did it manually, going all the way back through the movie in reverse order. That whole experience awakened the movie buff in me. The convenience of being able to watch a movie at home without commercial interruption was quite appealing. As the 80’s went on, the popularity of VHS rentals exploded.

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Family Matters: The Complete First Season (DVD)

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Before Michael Cera and “The Big Bang Theory,” Steve Urkel made it cool to be a geek. And not just an uber-geek but a mega-geek, someone so unashamed to be himself that he was hip, and we loved him. I won’t deny it. When I was a kid watching this series, everyone including me loved Urkel, and we thought of him as the supreme nerd to idolize even prompting the Urkel Dance to be imitated over and over. As I’ve said before: kids are stupid and we were. Watching “Family Matters” many years later, it was interesting to see the evolution of this series that started out its life in “Perfect Strangers.”

While the show does begin as a sort of new age “The Cosby Show” with a middle class, honest, loving African American family, its premiere on TGIF on the ABC network here in America was pretty boring. And I think after a while even ABC began to realize that deep down this was just a lackluster and forgettable retread of “The Cosby Show” that tried its best to muster up interesting characters and storylines and bombed big time.

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I Love Sarah Jane (2007)

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With the rising popularity of Mia Wasikowska taking the reigns of Alice in Tim Burton’s 2010 revival of “Alice in Wonderland,” and her show stopping performance in the HBO series “In Treatment,” I took a second look at Spencer Susser’s science fiction horror short “I Love Sarah Jane,” a very good epilogue to a larger story I originally reviewed in 2008 for the Sundance internet short showcase. “I Love Sarah Jane” is a teen romance set in the post-apocalyptic world overrun by the walking dead.

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Superman/Batman Annual #4

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As a big fan of the “Batman Beyond” series from the late nineties, I have to say that this fourth annual for the “Superman/Batman” comic series was a breath of fresh air and a wonderful re-visiting in to the old series with a more mature approach added. If you didn’t see the show you will have no idea what some of the references here are, but I caught on quickly.

I loved the fluid continuation from Terry McGinnis’ throwdown with Superman after being controlled by Starro, which has now turned him in to the only hero left. Superman has decided to quit fighting crime after his possession under Starro which has allowed Lex Luthor to conquer Metropolis once and for all.

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Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! (2006)

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ebkkbThough I thoroughly enjoyed director Chad Ferrin’s “Easter Bunny Kill! Kill!” I have to say that its primary downfall is that it takes much too long to build up to anything violent or horrific. A good forty minutes in to the movie I understood the build-up but could never understand why it took so long to extrapolate on the cruelty of the supporting characters. In spite of those flaws though “Easter Bunny Kill! Kill!” is a great little horror karma tale you’ll enjoy if you’re willing to invest enough time in the story and over the top performances.

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Caesar and Otto’s Summer Camp Massacre (2009)

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The best way to approach independent films looking to tap the comedy genre is to keep an open mind. Try a parking lot in the Grand Canyon type of open and you’ll be there. That’s the way I confronted Dave Campfield’s “Caesar and Otto” horror comedy. An apparent sequel to an earlier film of his, Dave Campfield enlists the horror genre to this installment and just goes all out wacky in every single instance he can muster up. Campfield doesn’t exactly follow a specific comedy formula here and it shows quite often with scenes that are just insanely nonsensical. From character Caesar’s inherent wackiness when indulging himself in a bit part as an extra in a television show (a scene that promised to be awful but was quite funny), to his implementing of “Where’s Waldo”-like glasses when reading a map, Campfield just seems to be using whatever he thinks will work no matter how nonsensical it may be and… It’s funny. It’s very funny.

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Breaking Her Will (2009)

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bhwDirector Bill Zebub’s exploitation horror film “Breaking her Will” is an exercise in torture. On the audience. It’s tedious, boring, repetitive, redundant, and has no purpose other than to be as shocking as humanly possible with torture methods that are tame compared to what I’ve seen in films like “Hostel” and “Hard Candy.” Bill Zebub doesn’t even want to try to present a premise, he just wants to get to the torture. The movie opens with a young girl hitchhiking. Where is she headed? Why is she hitchhiking? Who knows? She has no bags and barely any clothing. She’s picked up a man on the road who drives through the woods (the girl doesn’t even seem disturbed by this) and he stops at a parking lot and gets out (as she sits in the car confused!), he pulls out a knife on her and in spite of the fact the door is wide open, she submits to being taken hostage instead of doing what normal people would do like fight, or run, or scream. And that’s only the first four minutes.

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