Indie Watch
Rewind This!
By Dan Krovich
September 12, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
VOD Pick of the Week
Rewind This!
In today’s On Demand, Watch Instantly world, it is easy to forget that it was only about 30 years ago that you could only watch movies in theaters or when they aired on television and you could only watch television programs on the network’s schedule. Then the invention of VHS ushered in the home entertainment industry and the rest is history. That history is tracked in the documentary Rewind This! from director Josh Johnson.
Beginning with the battle between Beta Max and VHS, filmmakers, critics, and collectors as well as several VHS pioneers recount the explosion in popularity of the format that allowed viewers to watch films in their own home. Video stores popped up everywhere and a normal Friday night often involved picking out what movie to watch with your friends that weekend. As is often the case, the big studios didn’t jump in immediately, afraid to give up any control of their product, which allowed an opening for independent product to take advantage of the video stores’ need to fill shelf space with product. Many of those films fell into the action and horror genres that were popular with teens.
The new industry also provided for several side businesses. With no advertising budget or big name stars, the best way for movies to draw attention was through their video box art providing artists a way to get paid as the art was done by hand before photoshop took over. Also, the porn industry took advantage of VHS (and vice versa), allowing viewers to watch adult movies in their home without fear of embarrassment.
Of course, the era of VHS could not last forever, and next came DVD and Blu-ray and digital streaming. None of those really match the seismic shift that VHS brought about, though. Yes, they provide higher quality picture and sound and more ease of availability, but they are still just offspring of the revolution that VHS started in home viewing. VHS still holds a place in collectors’ hearts. Part of that is simple nostalgia, but it is also due to the fact that many of the films that made a name for themselves on VHS have never made the jump to digital and VHS is the only format that they are available on. Rewind This! shines a light on a very pivotal part of film and pop culture history.
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New releases for September 13th
Blue Caprice: In 2002, the Washington D. C. area was terrorized by a series of sniper shootings perpetrated by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. Blue Caprice dramatizes those events through the point of view of the two killers. It is largely the story of an abandoned boy who is taken in by a dangerous father figure. Even more than being about the shootings themselves, it is more a study of how a young, impressionable man can be influenced by someone who provides them with attention and an air of authority.
Jayne Mansfield’s Car: It has been over a decade since Billy Bob Thornton has directed a narrative feature film, but he returns with this culture clash period drama. After his wife left him in 1940s Alabama and fled to England, Jim Caldwell (Robert Duvall) was left to raise his for children. Years later in 1969 his estranged wife dies, she leaves a request to be buried back in Alabama. When her new English family travels to Alabama, the two families must attempt to adjust to each other.
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Available at iTunes
Available at Vudu
Wadjda: Wadjda is a 10-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. She is fun loving and free spirited, but that does not always fit in for a girl living in a conservative society. When she sees a green bicycle that her mother won’t buy for her because it is not appropriate for a girl, Wadjda becomes determined to earn the money to buy it for herself. After her initial schemes to raise the money fail, she enters a Koran recitation competition to win the cash prize. Wadjda was the first feature film shot entirely within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.