A Film Canon

I come here to be around neon, even or especially in daylight. There's a carnivalesque vibe - it feels like a video store designed largely for young children. Not only is there a fridge full of ice cream, but there's a giant pit of discount confectionary. Something irreducibly American about it makes me want to call it candy, not confectionary. Even after all this time, I can't remember whether there's one of those crane game machines, but that seems part of the point of the whole place - at least the process of choosing a title here partakes of the same glassy, multicolored sense of risk. It's that sense of quaint consumer risk that makes it feel like such a place of the past. In a distant way - or in a more immediate way, on quiet, abstracted nights - it's an 80s mediascape, a reminder that the video store was formed partly on the basis of the cinema foyer. I always think of the wonderful lobby in Night Of The Comet in particular (I tried to type 'lobby' three times before my fingers stopped instinctively keying in 'lovvy'). This was where I first hired out The Lost Boys - one of those films that I saw belatedly - so it's also seeped into the video store in that film, and the fairground attached to it. I like the idea that vampires might just be people who spend too much time in video stores (and I always seem to be here right on closing time, when the hush is starting to settle). There's an enormous wrestling section, although I'm told it's not actually that extensive compared to other Civic franchises. In my mind, it's continuous with the gaming section - they're both in my fringe vision, in a part of the video store microclimate I don't visit all that often. Urban Legend 2 is "Recommended".