The Movies

Yesterday, as a friend and I were doing one of our urban walks up Clinton Street in southeast Portland we came to Clinton Street Video with a note taped to the door saying they were closing. This is perhaps the last video in Portland. Movie Madness has moved to its non-profit status at the Hollywood Theater where its massive collection will remain intact for those of us who like to wander the shelves and look for films we had forgotten or never knew existed. This is particularly moving to me, since my wife and I and my wife's brother owned a wonderful video store in Portland. It is gone now, a victim of streaming, owner fatigue, and Portland's high rents. We owned Trilogy Video in Portland. Gone, but for me, never forgotten.

The last day it was open, the day of the sale, the line of movie buffs was a block long. The current owner for whom I volunteered for free rentals, asked me to monitor the door and let in twenty-five people at a time. There wasn't much floor space because it was crammed with films. As I stood there waiting until the ten o'clock opening, I happened to be across from the British section. My eyes roamed over the eight, five foot wide shelves of DVDs and VHS tapes on edge, and saw Alfie, the start of Michael Caine's career and more recently, The Quiet American. There was My Left Foot, for which Daniel Day-Lewis got his first academy award. But where was My Beautiful Laundrette? In the Director area under Stephen Frears. Monty Python had their own section. The history of British cinema was right there before me, all together, and all about to be torn apart. It made me really sad. And still does.

The internet has never succeeded in having all this stuff available unless you are a pirate and use a VPN to find things folks have made available via systems like BitTorrent. Netflix is a joke. They have some DVDs available but their streaming is pitiful. Chicago's video-store/distributor turned internet provider, Facets, is the closest place I know of to get everything online or via USPS rental. There may be others. I don't keep track anymore. I don't go the movies much anymore. It will never be the same.

I grew up working at the Laurelhurst movie theater in Portland. It paid for my dates and clothes. When I wasn't working a weekend night, I would frequently go across town to the 21st Avenue Cinema and see whatever foreign film was playing. I saw Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita there during high school, among others, and later Satyricon.

A few days ago as I was cleaning out files I came across my notes from my meeting with Andy Lasky, the owner of Lasky's Video Library, the only good video store in Portland in 1989. For $100 Andy told me how to find all the great films that one never saw in most video stores; the foreign films, the cult classics, the cutting edge films by yet unknown directors. We ended up buying his collection. He needed the money to finance a pilot for a TV show like Siskel and Ebert but reviewing newly released movies on tape rather than new to theaters. It didn't fly. When I looked up Andy's name to be sure I spelled it correctly, I found his obituary. He died in 2017 in Pennsylvania.

So - from High Fidelity - hey Frank, what are your top five films of all time? Ho, ho, ho! Today they are Cold Fever, The Seven Samurai, Cherry Blossoms (Dörrie), Blade Runner and (of course) High Fidelity. One is tempted to include all the strange, memorable ones like Eraserhead, Le Chien Andalou, Repulsion, or Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I don't watch those over and over. I wanted to include in my top five also Chan is Missing, White Men Can't Jump, The Dead, Vernon Florida, and Easy Rider, but the top five means five. But I can't help myself and this is my blog so here goes.

Chan is Missing is Wayne Wang's first film and the reason I owned a video store. I loved Wang's films but couldn't find Chan is Missing. This was pre-internet. So I went to Lasky's Video Library to ask if they had it and the clerk behind the counter said, "No. But we've been waiting for it to come out. It's supposed to be great." And it was. Filmed in San Francisco's China Town for $50,000, Chan's friends go looking for Chan because he has disappeared. What they find is the heart and soul of the Chinese community, all in black and white. White Men Can't Jump has two stellar performances by Rosie Perez and Woody Harrelson in which he plays a basketball hustler and she a Jeopardy hopeful. This movie is about men and women with humor and pathos. The Dead was my number one film for a long time. It was John Huston's last film and starred his daughter Angelica. His son wrote he screen play by adapting a James Joyce short story about a epiphany party if Belfast in 1907, put on by three maiden music teachers. It is a little story done in a big film style. Absolutely stunningly beautiful. When Mr. Green reads the poem by Dame Lady Gregory, you feel like you are Irish. There was a documentary called The Making of the Dead. Try and find that. Vernon Florida by Errol Morris is the only documentary on the list and almost indescribable. People in a small town tell their own, true stories. People are all unique. Easy Rider knocked us all out when it came out. It is still a classic and began the career of Jack Nicholson.

There are so many more...In the Mood for Love, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Casablanca, Fitzcarraldo....it's endless.

At the end of our walk, we did a circle, we came by Longfellow's Books. I had read it was closing. Longfellow's was a classic used book store. The owner was tall and quiet but if you had a question he was happy to talk and had interesting things to suggest. The store was semi-organized but packed with good things waiting to found. His son was packing up the place, loading a truck with shelving and books to go to another bookstore in Salem. I told him about my frequent visits to the store when my daughter was in school near there and about my conversations about books with his dad. He said that was what his dad loved the most; the talks with customers about books. It's hard to do that online.

A video store closing and a book store closing. Too bad. That person-to-person meeting over great art or humorous nonsense lights up my days. But, on this same walk I met an Italian guy who runs a restaurant. He was making bread for the evenings diners. The door was ajar so I went in, even though it was closed and we spoke Italian for a while. It was just like being in Italy......