Cover Story: Beyond the blockbusters

Itching to see 'Ichi' or other obscure titles? Head to Austin's independent video stores

By Chris Garcia
February 12, 2004

Indie Video Stores More: Foreign film rental I Luv Video Address: 4803 Airport Blvd. and 2915 Guadalupe St. Phone: 450-1966 (Airport), 236-0759 (Guadalupe) Opened: 1985 Freeze-frame: Larger store (Airport) is a fearsome eruption of titles filling towering shelves in a sleekly modern two-story space covering about 7,000 square feet. Approximate number of titles for rent (VHS and DVD): 50,000 between both shops Mission: 'Wherever your curiosity takes us.' Fortes: Rare and obscure pulp cinema; overall breadth. Most requested type of movies: Fringe, Asian and television series. Least requested type: Mainstream action movies. Most popular rental: DVD version of classic acid trip 'El Topo.' Unreleased title that would round out their collection: Never-distributed 1990 Canadian film 'Terminal City Ricochet,' starring Jello Biafra. Vulcan Video Address: 609 W. 29th St. and 112 W. Elizabeth St.; www.vulcanvideo.com Phone: 478-5325 (29th); 326-2629 (Elizabeth) Opened: 1988 Freeze-frame: Functional, boxy shops divided this way and that by brimming shelves of movie-buff heaven. Lots of film posters. Approximate number of titles for rent (VHS and DVD): 40,000 between both shops Mission: 'Offer the best in every genre.' Fortes: Foreign, independent and cult classics. Most requested type of movies: Foreign and obscure American films. Least requested type: Old science fiction flicks. Most popular rentals: 'Last Temptation of Christ' and 'Behind the Green Door.' Unreleased titles that would round out their collection: Orson Welles' non-existent director's cut of 'The Magnificent Ambersons'; 'Alf: Der Film,' a feature-length movie based on the 'Alf' TV series available only in German. Waterloo Video Address: 1016 W. Sixth St.; www.waterloorecords.com Phone: 474-2525 Opened: 1994 (started in the music store location in 1989) Freeze-frame: Spotless, supertidy environment short on attitude and long on simple, inviting elegance. Approximate number of titles for rent (VHS and DVD): 11,000 Mission: 'Expect the unexpected.' Fortes: Music and foreign classics. Most requested type of movies: 'You name it.' Least requested type: Hollywood mediocrities. Most popular rental: 'Donnie Darko.' Unreleased titles that would round out their collection: 'Slacker' on DVD and Bill Hicks on DVD. Pedazo Chunk Address: 2101-C S. First St. Phone: 441-3505 Opened: 2001 Freeze-frame: Wads of exotic video boxes crammed into a vivid, 475-square-foot 'chunk' in a Day-Glo strip mall, nestled below a tattoo and piercing parlor. Approximate number of titles for rent (VHS and DVD): 3,500 Mission: 'To offer the best Spanish and Asian films there are.' Forte: Hard-to-find Asian and Spanish-language movies. Most requested type of movies: Those that have been released in other countries that have not been, or never will be, released domestically. Least requested type: Hollywood comedies. Most popular rental: Mexican crime-comedy 'Herod's Law.' Unreleased titles that would round out their collection: Luis Buñuel's 'Un Chien Andalou' on DVD; Disney's 'Elfego Baca: Six Gun Law.' More excellent independent video stores: • Encore Movies & Music: 8820 Burnet Road, suite 400, encore.austintx.com, 451-8111. • The Movie Store: 4301-A Guadalupe St., 453-1237. • Tape Lenders Video: 1114 W. Fifth St., www.tapelenders.com; 472-0844.

The Vulcan Video store in South Austin smells funny.

Not foul, but evocative -- sweet and mellow, like sandalwood, hippie-ish but wholesome. Wafting through a shared door with the Earth-friendly Eco-Wise store, it's a calming perfume that summons to mind a range of offbeat shopping experiences, from record and candle stores to herb and head shops.

Or why not a candy store? Because to enter either of the two Vulcan Video outlets in Austin -- as well as fellow independents I Luv Video, Waterloo Video, Pedazo Chunk, Tape Lenders, Encore Movies & Music or The Movie Store -- is, for the film buff, to be enveloped in a bedazzling, even mouth-watering plenitude of viewing opportunities.

Photo by Laura Skelding/AA-S

Leo Noblitt-Atkins, 4, keeps himself entertained as his father shops at Vulcan Video, where you probably could find a film about a little boy and his guitar. The clutter and colors of these overstuffed emporiums strike intimidation in the heart of the newcomer. After a stroll through the aisles, intimidation relaxes into giddy fascination, which soon (and dangerously) melts into a gluttonous rental frenzy fueled by a I-can't-believe-they-have-this intoxication. At times, even for this cine-freak, it is simply too much.

Austin's good that way. Every genus of geek -- meant in the best way -- gravitates to this cultural-intellectual magnet, Texas' mecca of minds. From the sweat of creative pursuit flows a natural backwash that shapes what the city offers in the way of film, music, art and theater. The most demanding curiosities must be fed. Lucky for us, Austin's a deep trough.

Local independent video stores -- those grungy warehouses of almost everything you'd ever want to watch -- are the byproduct of the city's vaunted film community. The relationship is richly symbiotic: Cinephiles and filmmakers seek the rare and the weird on video, which spurs video dealers to nourish their stock constantly. The Alamo Drafthouse Downtown screens an esoteric Asian picture such as "Ichi the Killer," sparking a quest for other titles in extreme Asian cinema, while director Richard Linklater expounds on Fassbinder at an Austin Film Society screening, creating a rush on movies from the German New Wave.

"There's no way you could have this many good video stores in one town unless there were that many cool people there wanting to see that much interesting stuff," says John Dorgan, co-owner of the absurdly replete I Luv Video stores in Central and North Austin.

And so indie video stores, of which there are about seven main ones locally, are jammed with interesting stuff, from the hottest foreign films to the sleaziest sexploitation; from avant-garde to animé.

"Stuff that's too weird or fringy for Blockbuster," Vulcan staffer Sam Dietert explains.

Photo by Laura Skelding/AA-S

I Luv Video co-owners John Dorgan, left, and Conrad Bejarano have an expansive inventory that includes adult titles. 'We're not trying to filter or judge,' Dorgan says. (Not all of the movies are readily, or legally, available for rental purposes, so some of the shops' titles are imports, bootlegs or second-generation tapes.)

The next breakout Mexican film in the vein of "Amores Perros"? Go to shoebox-sized Pedazo Chunk on South First Street.

Lars von Trier's "Dogville," with Nicole Kidman, which won't reach Austin until March for the South by Southwest Film Festival? Try I Luv Video on Airport Boulevard.

The most exhaustive array of music and concert videos? That'd be Waterloo Video on West Sixth Street.

The most exhaustive array of gay and lesbian videos? Tape Lenders on West Fifth Street is your place.

The south Vulcan store may bear a whiff of incense, but all of these ambitious shops share the odor of the outré, the scent of the completist. They are the fumes of a full-on geek culture.

Nerdy Sherpas

Quentin Tarantino is pop culture's first anointed video-store geek. After the double-barrel assault of his "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," the director and high-school dropout reminisced in the press how the bulk of his encyclopedic movie knowledge was gleaned from working in an indie video store in Los Angeles. Fellow independent filmmakers like Kevin Smith and Roger Avary, who worked with Tarantino at the store, also explained that ravenous video-watching was their film school.

Tarantino "was an avatar for a new wave of filmmakers raised on video, as opposed to the so-called movie brats of the 1970s, who went to film school and were weaned on the greats of world cinema," writes Peter Biskind in his new book "Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film."

Photo by Laura Skelding/AA-S

Pedazo Chunk owners Jose and Dannie Ramirez say they listen to their customers when deciding what titles to stock in their tiny South Austin shop. "With the advent of video . . . a culture of scarcity was transformed, almost overnight, into a culture of plenty," Biskind writes, theorizing that videos, "democratized movies further, rendering the middlemen -- the critic/teachers, the priests of the religion of the cinema -- irrelevant."

It is the do-it-yourself ethos actualized, so very punk, and not dissimilar to musicians born in specialty record shops, where it's possible to feed ears and cultivate taste for free, 40 hours a week.

Hiring active movie geeks is critical for Austin indie video shops to stay abreast of what's going on in local and world cinema and keep the stock up-to-the-minute. Their passion for whatever they deem cool or awesome can sometimes overheat and repel customers. (Like the Vulcan employee who sniffed at my request for "Coyote Ugly." Yeah, I deserved it.)

Yet generally staffers are sharp, informed guides, nerdy Sherpas leading the wide-eyed movie novice across vertiginous mountains of tapes and discs. Sharing their passion and knowledge, they steer customers to quality and, if necessary, away from chaff.

"A lot of times you need to be talked into a foreign film or an older horror movie," says Pedazo Chunk co-owner Dannie Ramirez, who happens to be the little sister of Harry Knowles, Austin's most famous film geek. "Otherwise people pick the same stuff they're used to renting."

Employees at Austin indie shops exude a casual hipsterism. Loud banter and collegiate spunk emanate from behind the counter, as they shove in whatever video they want to broadcast over the store's televisions. They watch videos all shift long, honing a connoisseurship that, in some cases, draws customers from as far as San Antonio.

"We've created an environment where we let everyone do their thing," says Dorgan at I Luv Video. "If a customer asks for something, we don't have some pre-agreed artistic standards. It's like, 'Cool. You're interested in it, we'll check it out.' And we've always let the employees run wild. Two guys can only give so much with their interests to a store. So there are these cycles when a new employee will come in and just infuse a ton of energy into the store."

Cinematic symbiosis

By some counts, there are more edgy, independent video stores in Austin than in such cosmopolitan havens as New York and San Francisco. It's easy to see why.

For decades, the University of Texas has been a hotbed of cinema fervor. The school's famous radio-television-film department churns out moviemakers and experts, while for years the defunct Varsity Theater and film program at the Texas Union Theatre showed a range of classic, foreign and fringe films.

Nowadays, the Austin Film Society produces a daring film series almost monthly, and events such as the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival and Cinematexas International Short Film Festival add diversity to the feast. That's not to mention eclectic venues like the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas and the Dobie, Paramount and Arbor theaters.

The relationship between this vibrant culture and local video shops couldn't be clearer.

"Cinematexas has been doing the independent video store version of video stores before video stores existed," says John Kunz, owner of Waterloo Video and Records. "Having good art house and foreign films in town helps us. That is marketing for us."

Such bounty can also make for demanding audiences, taxing even the most ardent video geeks.

"It's challenging," says Ramirez, who runs Pedazo Chunk -- "pedazo" means chunk in Spanish, creating a dada-esque nonsense name -- with husband Jose. "A lot of people have their own niches. There's the cannibal-movie fans and the Hong Kong fans and the zombie fans. And there's no way you can possibly know as much as all these people. With a store like ours, we can really talk to our customers and find out what they want. The public educates us."

Photo by Laura Skelding/AA-S

Looking for concert videos? Waterloo Video's David Morley, buyer, Darlene Offer, manager, and John Kunz, owner, keep the store abundantly stocked. Finding what the tougher customers want is the metier of the indies. They have the resources -- and enthusiasm -- to get almost any title you please, most of which are already waiting on the shelf.

For years I've been trying to locate Frederick Wiseman's long-banned documentary "Titicut Follies." A day after I told him this, Dorgan at I Luv Video found and purchased a copy on eBay for the store. ("It cost me an arm and a leg," he says.)

Once, video dealers had to tangle with middlemen, distributors and the like to obtain titles. Now it's largely done on the Internet, where a bottomless rabbit hole of occult outlets offers tapes and DVDs of any splintered speciality and subgenre from anywhere in the world. I Luv Video co-owner Conrad Bejarano says the shop orders up to 40 "off-the-radar" titles each week this way.

Off-the-radar can mean many things; some of it, like tapes of real death scenes and hardcore porn, being of debatable taste. But making it accessible is the shops' collective mission. Go to a chain superstore for obvious titles, your new Disney or David Spade pictures. Go to the indies for "El Topo," documentaries on Fidel Castro and, if you desire, pre-World War I pornography.

"We're kind of a library. You shouldn't have to go to Dreamers (a sex-specific store) if you want an X-rated movie. If that's what you're into, cool," Dorgan says. "We're not trying to filter or judge. We just want to make available to you everything, and let you figure out where you want to go. It may take some time to find out what really turns you on, but when you do, it's there."

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cgarcia@statesman.com; 445-3649