The ease of watching a movie at home has become something we take for granted now. There was a time however, not too long ago, that the only way to watch movies was either by going to the cinema or hoping that a movie you wanted to see was shown on TV. No other options really existed. Rewind This! is a documentary which looks at the introduction of videotapes and the impact it has had on both the industry and on movies and movie making itself.
In the age of the video I could spend hours at the video store, looking hundreds of covers and trying top pick out the movies which were worth watching. Since there wasn’t any internet around you had to take chances and I developed a sense on the quality of the movie based on the artwork on the cover. Rewind This! covers artwork, the first publishers who tried to convince studios to have movies released on the format, the Betamax vs. VHS battle and many other aspects of the format. It also looks at the amazing volume of bad movies, made specifically for the format (what we now call the straight-to-DVD/Blu Ray).
There is a huge number of people who still love watching those cheap movies, whether it’s eighties action with hardly any plot (but some cool fighting) or cheesy horror (there is one guy who has a huge collection of horror on VHS). The documentary even looks at the imperfections of the format (like how you would see if a specific part of the tape had been rewound a lot (usually just before nudity or an amazing piece of footage) as suddenly stripes would appear).
If you were not around at the dawn of watching movies at home, then this documentary really offers a good overview of how the market developed. If you were around then Rewind This! is a great trip down memory lane. Some people still stick to the format even if they are aware of its shortcomings. The opening of this film could have been tightened up a bit (it shows a guy searching for VHS tapes at a market), but once it gets going it is a fascinating look at something most of us have either forgotten or never experienced.
I remember how many tapes didn’t run all the way to the end. There you’d be, waiting to find out who-done-it or see some climactic scene … and the tape packs up, self-destructs while you scream, NO NO DON’T DO THAT. Sometimes it really screwed up your videotape player too. I’m just as happy we’ve move on technologically!
I fortunately never had that issue! It was a different story with cassettes though 😉
I remember when i first started getting into film, during the mid-90’s, I used to show up at the local VHS rental store and I’d spend an hour or so combing the shelves for stuff that caught my eye. The owner would always give me a discount because I’d always rent out up to 20 at a time (and take them back after the weekend was over….) and chew through his stock in no time. We spent hours chatting about different films, and it was he who got me onto a lot of foreign and arthouse fare that i came to appreciate, so i have a lot to be thankful for in that regard. Trouble is, the art of carrying 15-20 VHS tapes out the door didn’t feel quite the same when it came to DVD cases.
Ahh, the good old days of VHS…..
Yeah, those are really times that are behind us and most of the chatting about movies usually happens on blogs now. Carrying that much VHS tapes would be difficult indeed! Check out this doc if you can, think you will enjoy it.
I’ll look for this. My family was the proud owner of a Betamax, and to this day I still call VCR tapes VHS’s. Ah, the great days of wearing down the tape, as well as using the special VHS tape to clean the heads inside the machine.
Slightly switching subjects, a couple of weekend ago we had a party for my 40th birthday at the house and we had many guests. As I made the rounds I got to a group of friends seated at the outside deck–mixed straight & gay couples, married and single–and they were talking about porn and all the available formates to watch it. I commented the best version is still VHS. They asked why, and I replied because you can fast forward to the part you like but still watch all the action. If you stream or watch a DVD/Blu-Ray, it skips or takes you straight to the scene. After some thought and discussion they agreed with me.
Hahaha, that’s a very original argument for VHS, but I guess you are right 🙂
It sounds interesting, I’m adding it to my list of docs to watch.
Yeah, you should!