{"id":4906,"date":"2014-04-23T00:29:15","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T04:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=4906"},"modified":"2014-12-02T16:23:07","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T21:23:07","slug":"kims-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/kims-video\/","title":{"rendered":"I Don\u2019t Care That Kim\u2019s Is Closing, And You Shouldn\u2019t Either"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kims\"
\n

\nKim\u2019s Video and Music<\/a> is a famed unofficial landmark of NYC which stocks a wide variety of movies and records from the popular to the impossible-to-find, and has been around in the East Village of Manhattan for almost 30 years, in some form or another. There were five or six locations at one point, but over the last decade or so, they\u2019ve been disappearing, and now it appears there will soon be none\u2014on April 21st, it was announced that the final location, located on 1st Ave between E 7th street and St. Marks Place, will be closing sometime soon.<\/p>\n

This has been sad news for a lot of people\u2014none more so, I\u2019m sure, than the owners and employees who have built and maintained this institution for so long. My heart goes out to them, and they have my deepest sympathies.<\/p>\n

However, I\u2019ve never had much interest in Kim\u2019s, and I\u2019d be lying if I said I care at all about its imminent closure. I\u2019ve lived in this city all my life, but I\u2019ve been there maybe twice\u2014they\u2019re overpriced, and I\u2019m a deal hound. And although Eddie Huang\u2019s recent eulogy to the store<\/a>\u00a0<\/b>is brilliant, and does tug on my heart strings somewhat, I honestly don\u2019t see this loss as much of a blow to the city I love, or its cinephile inhabitants. There has never been a better time in history to be a film fan, and there have never been more or better \u201cportals\u201d, as he so aptly puts it.
\n
\nFor starters, one must address the biggest portal of all, the internet, and the various archives that exist on it, legal and illegal, where you can be watching rare flicks in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds. I remember that, for a while, John D\u2019Amico and I had long been having trouble tracking down a copy First Love, the 1977 film directed by the incomparable Joan Darling, who he recently interviewed\u00a0for the site<\/a>. We weren\u2019t able to find it before the interview, so he unfortunately couldn\u2019t ask her much about it, but then yesterday, I discovered that it\u2019s streaming for free on Archive.org<\/a>, one of our absolute favorite sites. If you\u2019ve never explored it, do yourself a favor and do so. Chances are you\u2019ll stumble upon a film you\u2019ve wanted to see for ages.<\/p>\n

YouTube is also a hell of a place. Contrary to popular belief, it\u2019s not all cat videos and vloggers that jump cut<\/a> so much they make Jean-Luc Godard look like Cody Clarke. It\u2019s a treasure trove of films whose rights have lapsed, are unavailable on any format, or just ones where the distributor is asleep at the wheel and hasn\u2019t noticed it\u2019s on there. If you\u2019re looking for a starting point, last year, John put together a great list entitled 10\u00a0Great\u00a0YouTube Movies You May Not Have Seen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But enough about the internet. The city losing its landmark is also full of incredible portals. Book Off<\/a> is lightyears better than Kim\u2019s, and cheaper too\u2014they mark almost all their DVD\u2019s at $5 or less, whether or not they typically go for more, and a fair amount of their CD\u2019s at $1. It\u2019s great fun to browse their stacks\u2014you never know when you\u2019ll stumble on a long out of print title that you never would\u2019ve been able to afford had you been at Kim\u2019s, or been trying to buy it online.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say though, that you\u2019re a cinema-obsessed New Yorker who doesn\u2019t have five dollars to spend on a movie. Let\u2019s say you don\u2019t have any money to spend on them at all. You\u2019re still <\/i>not out of luck, because you still have access to the greatest video store that has ever existed<\/i>\u2014the public library.<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, the library was the shitty place to rent a movie. When my Dad was broke, he\u2019d take me there instead of the video store, and I\u2019d have to choose a tape I wanted to watch out of twenty or so that were all pretty lame, most of them somewhat educational (yuck!).<\/p>\n

Nowadays, the library is the fucking shit though. They have tons of movies, including ones I can\u2019t find anywhere else for a reasonable price (Riding the Bus with My Sister<\/a>, The Love Letter<\/a>) <\/b>and ones I hadn\u2019t even heard of until I stumbled on them there (Soundtracker<\/a>, Rockstar<\/a> [not the Wahlberg one]). Even better, you can take out ten<\/i> DVD\u2019s at a time, each for seven days<\/i>, <\/i>all for free. <\/i>And if you wanna keep them out longer, you can just renew them online, unless someones has a hold on one of them. You can also place holds online, and they\u2019ll ship the DVDs to your closest branch. Plus, late fees are only a dollar. It\u2019s everything you could ever want out of a video store, and I go there every week and come out of there with a full bag.<\/p>\n

It gets even better though.<\/p>\n

The library is also the greatest movie theater.<\/i><\/p>\n

If you go on the NY Public Library website<\/a> and search, for instance, for the 1985 Eric Mitchell film The Way It Is<\/a> (which boasts early performances from Steve Buscemi, Vincent Gallo, and Rockets Redglare, and has never been available on VHS or DVD) <\/i>you will discover that they have it available on 16mm film. If you contact them, you can arrange a personal screening of it<\/i> at the library,<\/i> absolutely for free<\/i>. You can even bring friends, so long as they also have library cards. You can do this with any movie they have a film print of.<\/i><\/p>\n

At one point in time, Kim\u2019s Video was as awesome to cinephiles as the aforementioned places are to us now, because it was really the only place you could get rare and interesting films. But its time has passed\u2014it is no longer useful or exciting. Those who have been lamenting its passing are really lamenting the idea of it more than they are lamenting the actual \u2018it\u2019. The idea of it\u2014its soul\u2014is still very much alive and well, and has expanded well beyond Yongman Kim\u2019s wildest dreams. Go experience it, whether with your laptop or your feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"kims\"
\n

\nKim\u2019s Video and Music<\/a> is a famed unofficial landmark of NYC which stocks a wide variety of movies and records from the popular to the impossible-to-find, and has been around in the East Village of Manhattan for almost 30 years, in some form or another. There were five or six locations at one point, but over the last decade or so, they\u2019ve been disappearing, and now it appears there will soon be none\u2014on April 21st, it was announced that the final location, located on 1st Ave between E 7th street and St. Marks Place, will be closing sometime soon.<\/p>\n

This has been sad news for a lot of people\u2014none more so, I\u2019m sure, than the owners and employees who have built and maintained this institution for so long. My heart goes out to them, and they have my deepest sympathies.<\/p>\n

However, I\u2019ve never had much interest in Kim\u2019s, and I\u2019d be lying if I said I care at all about its imminent closure. I\u2019ve lived in this city all my life, but I\u2019ve been there maybe twice\u2014they\u2019re overpriced, and I\u2019m a deal hound. And although Eddie Huang\u2019s recent eulogy to the store<\/a>\u00a0<\/b>is brilliant, and does tug on my heart strings somewhat, I honestly don\u2019t see this loss as much of a blow to the city I love, or its cinephile inhabitants. There has never been a better time in history to be a film fan, and there have never been more or better \u201cportals\u201d, as he so aptly puts it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,18],"tags":[2941,32,4020,4031,3913,4021,4022,3242,3886,3885,4019,4018,1020,4023,4032,4027,4026,104,185,4025,406,4024,4030,4029,4028,137,4033],"class_list":["post-4906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-codysessays","tag-book-off","tag-cody-clarke","tag-eddie-huang","tag-eric-mitchell","tag-first-love-1977","tag-first-love-1977-film","tag-first-love-1977-movie","tag-jean-luc-godard","tag-joan-darling","tag-joan-darling-interview","tag-kims-video-and-music-1st-ave","tag-kims-video-closing","tag-kims-video","tag-riding-the-bus-with-my-sister","tag-rockets-redglare","tag-rockstar","tag-rockstar-bollywood","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-soundtracker","tag-steve-buscemi","tag-the-love-letter","tag-the-way-it-is","tag-the-way-it-is-film","tag-the-way-it-is-movie","tag-vincent-gallo","tag-yongman-kim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4906"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5672,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4906\/revisions\/5672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}