:
As is my want on a lazy Saturday afternoon I like to lose myself in the local Tsutaya.
The
Valhalla for video gods, no minor deity is left out in this church,
they have them all here, every Western produced film you could never
find on Video or DVD back home from "Zardoz" to "Elephant Man",
though much to my discontent, a very small Japanese cinema section and
if there is one, almost all films have no subtitles leaving me to
understand about only 50% of the plot with my current level - but
that's a groan for another day...
...So...all
the choice, an available excellent back catalogue that IMDB would be
proud of. Last week I was able to rent Ken Russell's "Altered States" and the rare Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis Australian thriller partnership that is "Road Games"
(Keach and Curtis in Australia divided by thriller multiplied by 80's =
It really happened !) two films I saw when I was about 7 years old ,
intrigued by and wanted to see again via the video shop as I originally
saw them but thought I would never see again.
Despite
this the Japanese video shop is strange beast, no sooner than you
stumble upon a complete collectors edition of BBC produced "Neverhwere" by Neil Gaiman
for rental and you get glanced in your line of sight like a glass in
the face by "Van Helsing 2" - the straight to video boogaloo, starring
ex coke head porno stars with lower than snuff production values.
If
it isn't "Van Helsing 2" its "Stevan Seagall's - Into the Sun" or
"alien virus attack matrix" (I made that one up, but its atypical,
think Alien crossed with The Matrix dubbed in Japanese - they seem to
be popular copy themes for straight to video film makers)
It makes me think about the Japanese video renting public. Do they pick up an original VHS rental print of Time Bandits and think it's on par with "Space fuckers - Silox Revenge"?
I
know every video shop has its shit selection area of American straight
to video trash, but In Japan those sections can supersede the good
movies at times - A classic example in my local Tsutaya - 4 copies of
Seagall's "Black Dawn" but only 1 copy of Takeshiis's "Blood and Bones"...Still
its amusing as a gaijin listening to couples pick a movie, the ちゃぱつ and
blonde dyed hair goons wave a Seagall at their partner with "what do
you think?" only to be met with a Japanese equivalent of "naw, don't
want to watch foreign shite with subtitles"...makes me wonder who rents
those videos at all.
(Geek note: I rented Beat Street and breakin 2 - the electric boogaloo
in Japan on VHS in original cases with covers from a Tsutaya in Minami
Kashiwa - I was rockin and shockin, had'ta get the Doc in..wasny havin
a heart attack , just a major break attack...)
ps Notice in the picture Jude Law's "Alfie" in the shit film section where it quite rightly belongs.
