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Film Review: ‘Kim’s Video’

Movies

Apr 9, 2024

The late, lamented video store culture and its fanatics always make good copy for whimsical news coverage. Even the most hidebound, no-nonsense media outlet seemingly harbors a contributor who once upon a time toiled—like Quentin Tarantino—in a grubby urban hole-in-the-wall stuffed to the rafters with the most arcane film offerings in existence, usually in outmoded home-video formats.

One such temple of obscure thrills was Kim’s Video, a New York City mini-chain of shops that grew out of proprietor Yongman Kim’s obsession with classic motion pictures. In Kim’s case, “classic” didn’t connote only such film-school stalwarts as Chaplin, Eisenstein, Kurosawa, Renoir, Hitchcock, Ford and their ilk. The Korean immigrant businessman’s interest in marketing cinematic art, which grew out of the small display spaces he set up in some of his dry-cleaning establishments, took in a ridiculously wide range of onscreen entertainment.

The satisfyingly “termitic”—as defined by critical avatar Manny Farber—documentary Kim’s Video points out that Yongman Kim’s seven metropolitan video rental locations specialized in the most outré titles, the sort of ephemera that inspired former Kim’s customer David Redmon and his collaborator Ashley Sabin to make this doc in the first place.

Kim’s stores were a hipster fixture in Manhattan’s East Village. Beginning at the height of Lower East Side chic in the 1980s, Kim’s Video & Music stocked some 55,000 film titles on VHS, everything from Poltergeist to Robert Downey Sr.’s Chafed Elbows to muckraking feminist Lizzie Borden’s art-house agitprop fantasy Born in Flames. Film-nerd customers flocked in from around the world. The Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, were evidently such regulars that when the store finally closed in 2014, they owed hundreds of dollars in late fees.

In his zeal to round up esoteric videos, Kim supposedly dealt in bootlegs as well as hard-to-find foreign releases. Police reportedly investigated those bootlegs, but the rise of the internet and streaming video turned out to be the final insults to the “physical media” business model. In the late 1980s customers began moving online. Kim faced a challenge: how to establish his collection as a permanent archive and gathering place for Kim’s Video subscribers. Redmon and Sabin’s doc discloses that New York University was discussed as a potential home for the horde of tapes.

However, in 2008 Kim bypassed that plan to make a deal instead with a shadowy group of local officials in the far-off town of Salemi, Sicily. In addition to storage space, arrangements supposedly included screening rooms and digitization of the entire archive, plus such hard-to-believe accoutrements as hotel rooms for visiting film fans. All Kim and his staff had to do was box up the huge stash of vids, ship it to Salemi, and the Italians would do the rest. Yeah, right. Kim and his group should have gone with NYU.

At this point the documentary enters its fuzzy middle third, with numerous comings and goings of bigwigs from Milan and Rome, trailed by Redmon and his camera. The filmmakers, at the behest of former Alamo Drafthouse honcho and erstwhile Kim’s customer Tim League—Drafthouse Films is the doc’s releaser—visit Salemi to see for themselves, and meet a colorful cast of characters reminiscent of the con men in John Huston’s Beat the Devil.

Many of the reference points in the doc are illustrated by vintage film clips. A large chunk of time is taken up with scenes from old movies, perhaps to distract from the lack of deeper investigative reporting. Curious audiences will probably come away with more questions than answers about the Kim collection’s 12-year stay in Sicily—which ended with the store’s reopening in 2022, back in the East Village, with “rescued” vids. The store is now closed.

Redmon and Sabin’s doc claims the story of the Kim’s Video diaspora is an “overlap of art, crime and cinema.” It lives up to that description, in an amiably sloppy way.

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In theaters

Free Will Astrology

Astrology

Rob Brezsny

Apr 3, 2024

ARIES March 21-April 19
Aries author Eric G. Wilson claims, “Darker emotional states—doubt, confusion, alienation, despair—inspire a deeper and more durable experience of the sacred than contentment does.” I disagree. I know for a fact that an exquisite embrace of life’s holiness is equally possible through luminous joy and boisterous triumph and exultant breakthroughs. Propagandists of the supposed potency of misery are stuck in a habit of mind that’s endemic to the part of civilization that’s rotting and dying. In any case, Aries, I’m pleased to tell you that in the coming weeks, you will have abundant opportunities to glide into sacred awareness on the strength of your lust for life and joie de vivre.

TAURUS April 20-May 20
Will humans succeed in halting the decimation of the
environment? Will we neutralize the power of fundamentalism as it fights to quash our imaginations and limit our freedoms? Will we outflank and outlast the authoritarians that threaten democracy? Sorry I’m asking you to think about sad realities. But now is an excellent time for you to ponder the world we are creating for our descendants—and resolve to do something in loving service to the future. Meditate on the riddle from Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

GEMINI May 21-June 20
The genius polymath Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) contributed much treasure to science and engineering. One encyclopedia sums up his legacy: “He was the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.” Unfortunately, many of Galileo’s ideas conflicted with the teachings of Catholicism. The church fathers hounded him for years, even arresting him and putting him on trial. The Vatican eventually apologized, though not until 350 years after Galileo died. I expect that you, too, will generate many new approaches and possibilities in the coming months, Gemini—not Galileo level, of course, but still: sufficiently unprecedented to rouse the resistance of conventional wisdom. I suspect you won’t have to wait long to be vindicated, however.

CANCER June 21-July 22
Now would be a perfect time to prove your love. How? You might begin by being extra considerate, sensitive, sweet and tender. I hope you will add sublime, scintillating touches, too. Maybe you will tell your beloved allies beautiful truths about themselves—revelations that make them feel deeply understood and appreciated. Maybe you will give them gifts or blessings they have wanted for a long time but never managed to get for themselves. It’s possible you will serenade them with their favorite songs, or write a poem or story about them, or buy them a symbol that inspires their spiritual quest. To climax all your kindness, perhaps you will describe the ways they have changed your life for the better.

LEO July 23-Aug. 22
Leo naturalist and ornithologist William Henry Hudson (1841–1922) said, “I am not a lover of lawns. Rather would I see daisies in their thousands, ground ivy, hawkweed, and dandelions with splendid flowers and fairy down, than the too-well-tended lawn.” I encourage you to adopt his attitude toward everything in your life for the next few weeks. Always opt for unruly beauty over tidy regimentation. Choose lush vitality over pruned efficiency. Blend your fate with influences that exult in creative expressiveness, genial fertility and deep feelings. (PS: Cultural critic Michael Pollan says, “A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.”)

VIRGO Aug. 23-Sept. 22
I praise and celebrate you for your skills at helping other people access their resources and activate their potentials. I hope you are rewarded well for your gorgeous service. If you are not, please figure out how to correct the problem in the coming months. If you are feeling extra bold, consider these two additional assignments: 1. Upgrade your skills at helping yourself access your own resources and activate your own potentials. 2. Be forthright and straightforward in asking the people you help to help you.

LIBRA Sept. 23-Oct. 22
I don’t regard a solar eclipse as a bad omen. On the contrary, I believe it may purge and cleanse stale old karma. On some occasions, I have seen it flush away emotional debts and debris that have been accumulating for years. So how shall we interpret the total solar eclipse that will electrify your astrological house of intimate togetherness in the coming days? I think it’s a favorable time to be brave and daring
as you upgrade your best relationships. What habits and patterns are you ready to reinvent and reconfigure? What new approaches are you willing to experiment with?

SCORPIO Oct. 23-Nov. 21
At your best, you Scorpios are not invasive manipulators. Rather, you are catalysts. You are instigators of
transformation, resurrectors of dead energy, awakeners
of numb minds. The people you influence may not be aware that they long to draw on your influence. They may think you are somehow imposing it on them, when, in fact, you are simply being your genuine, intense self, and they are reaching out to absorb your unruly healing. In the
coming weeks, please keep in mind what I’ve said here.

SAGITTARIUS Nov. 22-Dec. 21
In my astrological opinion, it’s prime time for you to shower big wild favors on your beautiful self. Get the fun underway with a period of rigorous self-care: a physical checkup, perhaps, and visits with the dentist, therapist, hairstylist and acupuncturist. Try new healing agents and seek precise magic that enhances and uplifts your energy. I trust you will also call on luxurious indulgences like a massage, a psychic reading, gourmet meals, an emotionally potent movie, exciting new music and long, slow love-making. Anything else, Sagittarius? Make a list and carry out these tasks with the same verve and determination you would give to any important task.

CAPRICORN Dec. 22-Jan. 19
The coming days will be a favorable time for you to wrestle with an angel or play chess with a devil. You will have extraordinary power in any showdown or collaboration
with spiritual forces. Your practical intelligence will serve you well in encounters with nonrational enigmas and supernatural riddles. Here’s a hot tip: Never assume that any being, human or divine, is holier or wiser than you. You will have a special knack for finding compassionate solutions to address even the knottiest dilemmas.

AQUARIUS Jan. 20-Feb. 18
Your featured organ of the month is your nose. This may sound beyond the scope of predictable possibilities, but I’m serious: You will make robust decisions and discriminating choices if you get your sniffer fully involved. So I advise you to favor and explore whatever smells good. Cultivate a nuanced appreciation for what aromas can reveal. If there’s a hint of a stink or an odd tang, go elsewhere. The saying “follow your nose” is especially applicable. PS: I recommend you take steps to expose yourself to a wide array of scents that energize you and boost your mood.

PISCES Feb. 19-March 20
When is the best time to ask for a raise or an increase in benefits? Can astrology reveal favorable periods for being aggressive about getting more of what you want? In the system I use, the time that’s 30 to 60 days after your birthday is most likely to generate good results. Another phase is 210 to 240 days after your birthday. Keep in mind that these estimates may be partly fanciful and playful and mythical. But then in my philosophy, fanciful and playful and mythical actions have an honored place. Self-fulfilling prophecies are more likely to be fulfilled if you regard them as fun experiments rather than serious, literal rules

Homework: Imagine that everything and every place in your life are holy.