​Perry rewinds to the age of the movie rental store in ‘Videoheaven’

By Greg Carlson

Alex Ross Perry follows his excellent “Pavements” by tackling the essay film with “Videoheaven,” a nearly 3-hour long analysis of the rise and fall of brick and mortar movie rental. Stimulating and satisfying for both older connoisseurs and curious cinephiles too young to have experienced the heyday of either mom-and-pop indie outlets or the blue and yellow ubiquity of Blockbuster’s corporate juggernaut, the documentary draws from Daniel Herbert’s 2014 book “Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store.” Engagingly narrated by Maya Hawke, “Videoheaven” is smartly assembled from dozens of film and TV scenes by editor Clyde Folley, whose work for the Criterion Collection marks him as an ideal collaborator.

In March, Folley celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the debut of VHS with a Perry interview available to read for free at Current, Criterion’s online magazine. In that piece, the two movie lovers apply a level of detail and care matching the “Videoheaven” endeavor, discussing supplementary aspects of rental history and fandom that couldn’t comfortably be squeezed into their already jumbo movie. From the concepts of time-shifting and home taping — which might easily consume another healthy chapter or full companion doc — to the particular joys of experiencing certain movies on tape, Perry and Folley dive deeper into a now bygone, frozen-in-time era.

Across several distinct chapters of “Videoheaven,” Perry contemplates video store culture with an anthropological eye akin to the best movie-centric journeys undertaken by essayists like Mark Rappaport and Thom Andersen. Perry’s own tenure at Kim’s Video provides the bona fides to locate and break down themes that coalesced into common tropes used by both independent and studio filmmakers.

In one delightful segment, the onscreen video store employee receives a thoroughgoing examination. Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith cemented the 90s argument that using a job at a video store as a stepping stone to Hollywood effectively obviated the need for an expensive film school degree. And how many times did we see sitcom episodes or features in which snobbish, opinionated and unhelpful counter jockeys shamed customers for their inferior taste or lack of movie knowledge?

Despite, or perhaps due to, the solipsistic and masturbatory nature of movies about movies, Perry goes hard when it comes to the metatextual. Troma was not the only outfit to capitalize on self-promotional product placement. Perry points out that TriStar’s “The Fisher King” stocks the movie’s in-universe rental store with the “red-trimmed, identically typefaced RCA/Columbia videotapes” of the production’s parent company. Additionally, Perry has a lot of fun with actors who appeared in multiple projects calling for video store characters and scenes: Jeff Bridges, Jack Black, Matthew Lillard and David Spade all have membership cards in that club.

“Adults Only,” a discussion of pornography that extends beyond the topic’s placement as the movie’s fourth chapter, peeks behind the swinging doors and beaded curtains that led patrons to the glossy, oversized boxes featuring hardcore fare. Perry lays out the tensions of how backrooms embodied “privacy in public” and the pre-internet likelihood of inevitably and embarrassingly seeing someone you know while browsing/renting. Scenes from “Seinfeld,” “Jersey Girl,” “The Simpsons,” “(500) Days of Summer,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “King of the Hill,” “True Blood,” “Beverly Hills, 90210” and many more, to one degree or another, reinforce the misperception that “ … adult videos and adult sexuality are the domain of the undesirable and perverted.”

A complete list of all the excerpted movies appears in the end credits of “Videoheaven,” providing viewers with a useful guide for further exploration. Before we get there, Perry singles out a few essential titles as landmarks of one sort or another by extending commentary. Early entries like “Videodrome,” “Body Double,” and “Disconnected” anticipate home video’s social revolutions. And no film about video stores would be complete without acknowledging Cheryl Dunye’s brilliant “The Watermelon Woman.” I was also taken with a fine discussion of the many layers on display in Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind Rewind.” Perry positions an unexpected choice, “I Am Legend,” to sum up the proceedings, nodding to the deep supply of stories drawing on the once (and future?) prominence and potency of physical media.