Adult Tail, Part II

WARNING! This posting is not for the faint of heart! Everything you are about to read is absolutely true! In order to present it in the most delicate way possible, it shall be done in the form of a multiple choice question! QUESTION: What was the worst thing we ever found in the adult section at our video store? A.) A fresh pile of human feces? B.) A used condom? C.) A teenaged boy masturbating in front of the male adult section? D.) All of the above? If you answered "D.) All of the above" then you were correct. At one time or another over 15 years all of those items were found in the adult section at our store. (The teenaged boy masturbating was actually at one of our other locations, but who's counting! By the way, they say he was using a bottle of shampoo for lubrication.) I apologize for the sleaziness of this posting, but as they often say ... the truth shall set you free!

Video on Demand, Part IV

It, starring Roddy McDowall was made in 1966 by Seven Arts Productions, a joint US and British release.
Filmed in England, McDowall plays Arthur Pimm, a sort of British Norman Bates. At home he speaks to his deceased decomposed mother propped up in a rocking chair complete with a wig and dress. At work, Pimm serves as a museum curator who discovers a secret scroll that brings to life a real Golem. Presented here as an ancient curse from Jewish folklore, the Golem is made out of mud and stone and is controlled by placing the tiny sacred scroll in its mouth. Of course McDowall uses the Golem for sadistic and devious purposes, and in a odd way to help him woo the heart of sexy costar, Jill Haworth. Herbert J. Leder wrote and directed the film, and like his cult classic, Fiend Without A Face, It! is often an intense creepy horror movie, yet at times it comes off cheesy and laughable. When I first saw the film as a child I thought it was absolutely frightening. But watching it 40 years later, it's script and special effects haven't aged very well, but it's still a lot of fun with a great looking monster and a fun and campy performance by it's star, Roddy McDowall. The film has never been released to home video, not even in England. With the recent release of a Hammer Horror Collection box-set, maybe in time some of the lesser known British gore films from the 60s and 70s will find the light of day on DVD.

Roddy McDowall Movies

Summer Reading!

Every year around this time the ailes at the video store would be full with frantic parents and their children looking for the last copy of The Scarlet Letter to rent. Or maybe someone would rent that old VHS copy of John Steinbeck's The Pearl we had. No, these weren't eager students of classic literature looking to view Hollywood's take on the classics, but rather an angry mob of parents and their kids hoping to find movie versions of all the books they were supposed to read over the summer. When I first started to work in video retail in 1986, their were a handful of parents renting the movie versions of books for their kids. They would always claim that their child had read the book but now wanted to see the movie. But by the time we closed in 2004, the parents just came out and admitted that their kids didn't even bother to read the books that they were assigned. The new excuse was that they didn't understand what they were reading. Well, if that's the case then perhaps there is a bigger problem then just not wanting to read. Maybe the child doesn't know how to read, and if so why aren't the parents concerned? What would amaze me was when the parents would get on waiting lists for a movie that we only had one copy of, like The Invisible Man. The Invisible Man was one of my favorite books to read when I was a kid. I am also a fan of the 1933 Universal Studios film version starring, Claude Rains. And it is that version that parents would rent for their children. That film is almost nothing like the book. And secondly, the book is so short and such a quick read, that in the time the parent waits for the only film to become available, their child could have read it twice over. While parents are partly responsible for this lack of interest in the written word by their children, some teachers are to be blamed as well. In my time behind the counter I saw many teachers who would rent films to show in their classrooms, and not all were part of the lesson plan. Teachers would flat out tell me that one day a week would be set aside to show movies in class. These were not films related to certain lessons that were being taught, but just a movie or two that the teachers felt would keep them occupied. That kind of laziness is really absurd. Have teachers adopted a defeatist attitude? "If you can't beat them, join them!" Is that what they think! No wonder the educational system is in such disrepair in this country. But at the same time I must admit that the sudden surge in popular children's books like the Harry Potter series brings me hope. Maybe things will start to turn around and future generations raised on Potter and Narnia will actually want to read first and then go see the movie.