Videoheaven

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Robin C “Videoheaven” In 1976, JVC introduced the Video Home System (VHS) to the world and, by the 1980s, it dominated the movie viewing market. Documentarian Alex Ross Perry, with Maya Hawke narrating, assembles a mass of archival footage of the rise and fall of the video store in “Videoheaven.” The film begins with Ethan Hawke, quoting Shakespeare, walking through a video store. Things shift to his daughter’s narrative of the history of the VHS format from its introduction to the first video rentals a year later and on to its dominance in the home entertainment field. That field was owned, primarily, by the big brick and mortar chains, like Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video. But, also remember the little mom and pop video stores that popped up everywhere over those years. A sizable portion of “Videoheaven” is showing how video stores appeared in many movies of the time, showing the social impact VHS and video stores had on the world through the movies they also appeared in as subjects. At 2 hours and 53 minutes, Alex Ross Perry’s latest work is, in a word, long. As the film approached the two hour mark, I noticed it started repeating itself. It makes the point that VHS, and the video stores it spawned, was a decades-lasting cultural icon that quickly fell by the wayside when newer and better format prevailed and VHS died. It is repeated a number of times in different ways. We still have hundreds and hundreds of VHS tapes with recorded movies stacked in our basement. We will never watch them again since DVD, Blu-ray and 4K are all much better – and, you do not have to rewind. B Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 08/13/25 Full Review Stephen C Real footage in 3 hours flat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/02/25 Full Review Read all reviews

Videoheaven

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