Videoheaven

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W.L. C @WayneCampbell Jul 23 In six parts and nearly three hours long, this film essay is not for the casual viewer; it is a behemoth that is suitable only for the historian and the sappy nostalgic (I’m an amateur former and avowed latter). How lucky I am that I recently restarted my subscription to the Criterion Channel! By the end of the film, I’ll admit I was a little misty. For those that never lived the experience, it’s difficult really to explain the community that surrounded the video store; there wasn’t anything like it before—café/coffeehouse discussion of film a close corollary, perhaps—and there sure as hell hasn’t been anything like it since. I can only hope it gets a wider release at some point, because it deserves to be seen by all current movie fans (yes, even the insufferable film bros) to see how their algorithm evolved from brick-and-mortar fonts of curation. If Criterion ever decides to print it, I’ll gladly buy it and stand it next to my beloved copy of "The Last Blockbuster." See more Henry D @Henry_Domke Mar 26 It looked interesting, but not interesting enough to stay with it for almost 3-hours. We quit after 20-minutes. See more Robin C @Robin_Clifford_critic 08/13/2025 “Videoheaven” In 1976, JVC introduced the Video Home System (VHS) to the world and, by the 1980s, it dominated the movie viewing market. Documentarian Alex Ross Perry, with Maya Hawke narrating, assembles a mass of archival footage of the rise and fall of the video store in “Videoheaven.” The film begins with Ethan Hawke, quoting Shakespeare, walking through a video store. Things shift to his daughter’s narrative of the history of the VHS format from its introduction to the first video rentals a year later and on to its dominance in the home entertainment field. That field was owned, primarily, by the big brick and mortar chains, like Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video. But, also remember the little mom and pop video stores that popped up everywhere over those years. A sizable portion of “Videoheaven” is showing how video stores appeared in many movies of the time, showing the social impact VHS and video stores had on the world through the movies they also appeared in as subjects. At 2 hours and 53 minutes, Alex Ross Perry’s latest work is, in a word, long. As the film approached the two hour mark, I noticed it started repeating itself. It makes the point that VHS, and the video stores it spawned, was a decades-lasting cultural icon that quickly fell by the wayside when newer and better format prevailed and VHS died. It is repeated a number of times in different ways. We still have hundreds and hundreds of VHS tapes with recorded movies stacked in our basement. We will never watch them again since DVD, Blu-ray and 4K are all much better – and, you do not have to rewind. B See more Stephen C @bob25009 07/02/2025 Real footage in 3 hours flat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See more Read all reviews

Videoheaven

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