Skimming through Amazon Prime the other day, I noticed the recent addition of extreme oddity The Face with Two Left Feet, a 1979 Italian Saturday Night Fever cash-in about a loser who also happens to be a dead ringer for John Travolta, a fact he exploits to pick up his dream girl. I bring this up not merely to recommend the film (although I wholeheartedly do) but to point out that this is decidedly not what one might expect to find on a mainstream streaming service. Not too long ago, this sort of thing would be — if you were […]
by Matt Lynch on Mar 8, 2018Vidiots, the iconic Santa Monica movie rental store-turned film non-profit, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with the goal of raising $65,000 to keep the doors open and to fund new programs. Just last year, Vidiots was in danger of closing after 30 years in business. Not long after co-owners Cathy Tauber and Patty Polinger announced they were going to have to shutter, they got a last-minute donation from film producer Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures. But Vidiots needs to continue raising money in order to launch new programs and initiatives to preserve and provide access to their diverse and […]
by Paula Bernstein on Sep 28, 2016While in Cannes I bumped into critic and programmer Aaron Hillis, who told me about the new Brooklyn-based endeavor he’ll be starting upon returning home — running a video store. Hillis, who already programs reRun, the independent cinema and gastropub located in Filmmaker’s building in DUMBO (and currently playing Contributing Editor Brandon Harris’s debut feature, Redlegs), recently bought the established Cobble Hill business Video Free Brooklyn. At a time when the independent film world is obsessed with VOD, downloads and streaming, Hillis is time-traveling back to the world of plastic cases, late fees, and, on the more positive side, savvy […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2012