Yes, my innocents, those are movie posters. Perhaps I should say "film" or "cine" posters. Ancient classics. German
noir. M, of course, was the first major role for a youthful Peter Lorre. (Yes, Virginia, he was young once.) The posters are just one small difference between Show Biz and BlockBuster or even NetFlix.
Enter the doors over on Goodwin St., as I did this afternoon to get my tickets for the big
Coyote Radio Day of the Dead blast, and count the many differences between ShowBiz and mainstream.
The exotica on the bulletin board, for one...
...plus a lit table promoting interesting ventures and opinions.
Oh yes -- and a forgotten sandwich on the desk that looks out the front window.
Randy, the collector/entreprenuer who came down from the hills of Idaho (as I recall) to warm up in Prescott a number of years ago, was busy minding the store. The stock? His computer puts the tally at 31,000-plus different tapes and DVDs. Late husband and I came here when we wanted to see
all of Dennis Potter's wonderful
The Singing Detective as well as his
Pennies from Heaven, another British TV miniseries. It's that kind of place.
Of course you can rent the latest. But you can also spend days looking at gorgeous National Geographic cinematography. too.
I knew that Ma and Pa Eames made chairs praised for their good design by the Museum of Modern Art. I didn't know that they had also made a handful of documentaries.
Of course Show Biz has a sizeable collection of film noir. But Tarzan? Yes.
And the manned space exploration series. Kiddie movies coming out the kazoo ... wholesome family stuff ... plenty of Westerns and foreign films. To give a few examples. My kind of place.
Yes, my innocents, those are movie posters. Perhaps I should say "film" or "cine" posters. Ancient classics. German noir. M, of course, was the first major role for a youthful Peter Lorre. (Yes, Virginia, he was young once.) The posters are just one small difference between Show Biz and BlockBuster or even NetFlix.
Enter the doors over on Goodwin St., as I did this afternoon to get my tickets for the big Coyote Radio Day of the Dead blast, and count the many differences between ShowBiz and mainstream.
The exotica on the bulletin board, for one...
...plus a lit table promoting interesting ventures and opinions.
Oh yes -- and a forgotten sandwich on the desk that looks out the front window.
Randy, the collector/entreprenuer who came down from the hills of Idaho (as I recall) to warm up in Prescott a number of years ago, was busy minding the store. The stock? His computer puts the tally at 31,000-plus different tapes and DVDs. Late husband and I came here when we wanted to see all of Dennis Potter's wonderful The Singing Detective as well as his Pennies from Heaven, another British TV miniseries. It's that kind of place.
Of course you can rent the latest. But you can also spend days looking at gorgeous National Geographic cinematography. too.
I knew that Ma and Pa Eames made chairs praised for their good design by the Museum of Modern Art. I didn't know that they had also made a handful of documentaries.
Of course Show Biz has a sizeable collection of film noir. But Tarzan? Yes.
And the manned space exploration series. Kiddie movies coming out the kazoo ... wholesome family stuff ... plenty of Westerns and foreign films. To give a few examples. My kind of place.
Hi Julie,
ReplyDeleteThe day I moved to Presott, many years ago, my brother - another cinephile who already lived here, took me to Show Biz and introduced me to Randy.
Having just moved to Prescott from Chicago, where I had a membership at Facets- one of the top ten video stores in America, I was completely elated and suprised to find a video library of this quality in a town this size.
But that is only a small part of the greatness that is Show Biz. Randy Rogers is the beating heart and soul of the place.
He knows and cares about all his customers, humanity is his business - as the ghost would say, if he ever departs this realm they will have to create an animatronic version of Randy to keep Prescott's culture life healthy.
Imagine something from Disney's Hall of Presidents standing behind the counter, handing you that Criterion version of "Ikuru," saying, "And I thank you verrrry much." That's entertainment, m' fren.
(BTW: Bonus points for actually sneaking a photo of him. There are endangered animals who are less camera-shy than Randy.)
Wish we had one in our neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI would take more advantage of Show Biz if I were to get back into movies. After my film series days and time living in Chicago's Hyde Park, with that wonderful theater, I had a child and so we didn't get out much. The modern film is either all pores and sweat plus gross visible make-up or pow-bang-pow. And I hate -- absolutely hate the modern sound systems. As for watching movies at home -- I'd do it, but it somehow seems sinful to spend that much time in front of the tube!
ReplyDeleteThe Singing Detective? OK, so our Netflix queue is 200 films long already, but I'm gonna put that series on there as well! I do still love to go to the library where there I can see the covers as well.
ReplyDelete