Chris Rose recalls with love the days he worked at the Independent Video Shop I Luv Video in Austin, Texas.
He was in his 20 years and ended the film school at the University of Texas in Austin before heading to New York, where he finally worked as a producer in “The Daily Show”.
In this series, we highlight the Los Angeles Rentals with style. From perfect gallery walls to temporary decoration pirates, these tenants become creative, even in small spaces. And Angelen needs inspiration: most are tenants.
Now, a writer, director and producer of the 41 -year -old Rose, recalls the eclectic variety of worship oddities and world cinema from Austin's store.
“It was a spectacular hip guy, independent videos that had almost every and every one of the films that could be desired,” he says. “They would have British or Japanese imports that you couldn't get in the United States yet. It was a very, very special place.”
Stephen King's 1986 horror film, “Maximum Overdrive”, reproduces on a Hitachi television rose in the 1970s found in Craigslist.
Rose's carefully selected films categories change from month to month, including the selections of your staff.
Although you can no longer visit the video store, Rose does not have to go to rent these days, since he has brought a similar but distinctive collection to the kitchen of his bungalow of a room in Silver Lake, which includes a small backyard.
The idea of his personal kitchen video, a micro version of a video store of the old school, came to him one day while working on his laptop at the table in his kitchen.
“When I worked in the video store, we put Bad Stephen King's films in the background and paid attention to half,” he says when he reproduces “maximum overwhelon” on a Hitachi TV in the 1970s next to the refrigerator.
With that in mind, he thought it would be fun to play films in the background while working from home. “It is such a strange dead zone,” he says, pointing to space next to his kitchen. “I needed something since it is not large enough to be a dining room and not small enough to be part of a normal kitchen.”
Kitchen video merchandis in the kitchen.
Rose shows her kitchen video membership card. He still has his blockbuster rental card as a child.
In the upper part of the more than 20 carefully selected shelves full of dozen VHS tapes, Rose has placed a sign in the bold red type of lyrics that say: “kitchen video”. The sign serves as a playful wink to the double function of the space, reminding visitors who are not alone in a kitchen but also in a video rental library.
Just as I love the most traditional video and video rental stores such as Blockbuster, Rose selects your personnel favorites every month. This month's category is Cyberpunk, or “Internet is scary,” he says about alignment, which includes “the network”, “Fear Dot Com” and “Johnny Mnemonic.”
“The fact that someone entitled a movie 'Fear Dot Com' remains, I think, one of the funniest things in history,” he says.
Clearly, for Rose, discovering surprising and strange films is part of the fun to create your own videos library, and your personal taste and their sense of humor in the selection process are evident.
Your favorite category? “Comedies with white funds”, a peculiar selection of films that includes “There is something about Mary”, “The Three Friends” and “Kung Fu Hustle”.
“It's a trend,” he says with a smile.
Rose's VHS tapes collection is reflected in a decorative tiger mirror in the kitchen. Rose added a little drama to the rent by adding floral tapestry paper and stick to the wall behind the mirror.
“Miami vice” copies are exhibited in VHS in the kitchen.
Other categories include Burning Hearts, a collection of what Rose describes as “disorderly romantic films” as “basic instinct”, “Monsruck” and “Wild at Heart”.
His collection of personal criteria of poorly reviewed films that he, in fact, enjoys “with Air”, “Face/Off” and “Point Break”. For its film school category, Rose has chosen Cliché films that students would see in the film school, such as “Harold and Maude”, “The Last Picture Show” and “Chinatown”. And then there is from the ship to the coast, where Rose has tried to make the transition from “Shost Ship” A “Encino Man” with Pauly Shore.
“That is the most obtuse,” he says. “It took me three hours to solve it. I wanted to make each movie a logical jump, be it the director, actor or screenwriter, who was difficult and, ultimately, it was not worth it.”
And, of course, Texas's native could not resist dedicating a complete shelf on the kitchen door to classics such as “Friday Night Lights”, “employees”, “stunned and confused”, “Paris, Texas” and “tender mercies”.
The old Vaquero boots Rose bought in Santa Fe, NM, on one of his road trips to Los Angeles.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Rose's most precious possession: his grandfather's illuminated globe.
Although his kitchen video is not open to the public, Rose invites his friends to come and “visit” videos, and have even bought old video speaker players so they can watch their video selections at home. In his enthusiasm, he admits that he has gone “a little for the board” and created his own merchandise line: kitchen video, aprons, bags and membership cards.
But that is not your only video membership card. He still has his childhood rental card, where he says to rent films such as “Rushmore”, “Raising Arizona” and “The Grauate” opened a completely new world.
“I lived in a small town in Texas, so the movies were not really beyond what was reproduced in the theater that week,” he says. “So going to a blockbuster and digging to discover these hidden gems was really exciting.”
His apartment has all Rose's style firms, which describes as “the atmosphere of southwest Marfa meets the eclectic discoveries of second -hand stores.”
In the bedroom, their vintage cowboy boots are perfectly aligned against the wall under felt hats. In the living room, the portraits of Willie Nelson and Hank Williams adorn the walls, along with works of painting art by numbers, a skull of cows and a Bennington flag that he found in an antique store in Santa Fe, nm.
When Los Angeles moved from New York, he started again, but maintained a coffee table made of Hurricane Sandy.
In the living room, the portraits of Willie Nelson and Hank Williams are shown together with painting by art, photographs, a skull of cows in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe and a Bennington flag.
“One of my friends called him 'repressed cowboy,” he says when describing his style while Austin Cactus Lee band touches in the background. “I really try to make him feel good, but always with a little irony or something ironic.”
However, one thing that is taken seriously is the illuminated globe that belonged to his grandfather. “That is what I would grab if my apartment was in flames,” he says.
Despite the surplus of videos in his closet, Rose observes that he only invests in films that give him a chord with him, which plans to visit again. Tour on the Internet and local places like Whammy in Echo Park for rare findings, but they are the ones that stumble during their road trips between Texas and Los Angeles, in goodwill stores and second hand, which occupy a special place in their heart.
Like their cooking video, the cinematographic themes extend throughout the apartment, so it pays $ 2,060 per month, including a pop art painting by David Byrne of “True Stories” and an impression of Brandon Bird's oil painting “Nobody wants to play Sega with Harrison Ford” in the living room.
Recently, Rose began to collect audio cassettes, which plays in a complete obsolete boombox with an antenna.
“It's nostalgic,” says Rose about analog technology. “It is the reason why everyone collects vinyl. I have Netflix and Spotify, but there is real realization in doing something physically.”
In the summer, Rose enjoys organizing outdoor cinema nights in his backyard of Silver Lake.
A screen hangs on the backyard, ready for an upcoming screening of the 1996 movie “Bottle Rocket”.
In the summer, Rose finds film notes for his friends in his equally satisfactory backyard. It is a luxury that has come to appreciate after living in a study in New York for a decade. “This is the most nerd part: I have discovered a way to connect the VCR to a modern projector to be able to project VCR films,” he says, laughing at himself.
Most movie the nights choose popular films that are familiar but also unexpected. In his last projection, Doug Liman film showed in 1996 “Swingers”, which was filmed in Los Angeles, and for his next meeting, he plans to evaluate Wes Anderson's first movie, “Bottle Rocket”.
That does not mean that there is no space for B movies that are “spectacularly wild and bad,” he says.
“I just pick up this VHS called 'Repo Jake' that I am really excited to see,” he says about the 1990 film starring Dan Haggerty of the fame of “Grizzly Adams.” “According to the box, our hero, Jake, is” advanced in a supersonic action that involves a vicious criminal man, the multitude of angry car owners and a sadistic porn ring. “
“That could be perfect for a projection,” says the cinephile, underlining the joy of discovering a film that is so bad that it is good.
