Video store put out of business by Netflix
Perhaps it was only right that Netflix killed off what was left of the video stores. After all, the video stores killed off the art theaters and second run movie theaters. I'm not sure how much we should mourn their loss, or the loss of anything else. How long have they been around? It's not like they're an ancient tradition. Same goes for newspapers. Mass circulation newspapers haven't been around that long because mass literacy hasn't been around that long.
There was a high brow video store in town that closed after years and years in business. The manager once had to apologize for telling a reporter that a local independent movie theater going out of business was no great loss. Now he was the one going out of business, and I did miss them.
The place was getting ready to close. It wasn't long before that that they had sold off their stock of VHS tapes and now they were selling off their DVDs.
Someone had the idea that the public library should buy them. And they did.
Perhaps that will be their revenge----their stock of DVDs is now available for free at the public library, perhaps depriving Netflix of some business.
I renew my library card
I had gone to renew my library card a while back. I had to show them ID. I showed them my license which had started peeling for some reason. The address on it was no longer legible and the person refused to renew my card.
So I didn't go back for a long time.
I went back again. I had a piece of mail with me. But it occurred to me as I walked in that it was addressed to my P.O. Box, so I wondered...
But I talked to a different person this time. She didn't care. She renewed my card and made me pay an old fine. It was twenty bucks. I took out twenty dollars and put it down on the desk. I didn't hesitate an instant. I showed no surprise. I made me feel like a rich guy, but no one's ever impressed.
Pink Flamingos
I got some other stuff I needed to check out. I stopped. I looked briefly at the movies. I grabbed Pink Flamingos for some reason. I had seen it years ago and never had any interest in seeing it again, but there it was and it was free.
There was a cast member of Plan 9 From Outer Space who kept saying that he thought Pink Flamingos was the worse movie ever made, and I figured he had missed the point of Pink Flamingos, but, no, I don't think that anymore.
It was very crudely made. I think Waters wanted to avoid editing which may have had to do with his using a single system sound camera. I think he got it from a TV station. The scenes were all done in one shot with some jerky panning and zooming.
There wasn't anything to recommend it except as a historical oddity. They harmed an animal during production. It wasn't funny. Waters explained that he laughed whenever he was offended, so his idea of comedy was to simply be as offensive as possible.
As I said on this blog before, Waters was somewhat apologetic about one of his other movies, Multiple Maniacs, which made light of Charles Manson's crimes without, he said, any thought about the victims.
There had been some talk about making a sequel to Pink Flamingos, but Divine started appearing in regular movies in male roles and didn't want to do it. He had other doubts about it. Who would want to watch it? Would young people accept it knowing it was made entirely by the middle aged?
