reprint from NY Times

October 3, 1999
A SELECTIVE GUIDE; Movie Mavens and Havens
By PETER M. NICHOLS

MICHAEL BECKER
The Video Room, 1487 3d Avenue (at 84th), Manhattan; (212) 879-5333; 300 Rector Place, Battery Park City; (212) 962-6400.

A longtime purveyor of films for a traditional Upper East Side clientele, Mr. Becker has found a new downtown world at a second store in Battery Park City, which has few video stores.

”They were underserved, to say the least,” he said. Uptown, he said, customers are as ardent as ever about foreign and independent films. Downtown customers are discerning but slightly hungrier for newer titles. ”They’re just happy to have movies,” he says.

Crowd Pleasers: ”9 1/2 Weeks,” ”Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” ”True Romance,” ”Blue Velvet,” ”Brideshead Revisited” and anything British. ”All the BBC stuff just flies out the door,” Mr. Becker says.

KATHRYN SHAIFER
TLA Video, 52-54 West Eighth Street; (212) 228-8282

TLA, born in Philadelphia, takes its name from the Theater of the Living Arts, an extinct movie house. In New York, TLA established itself in another shuttered cinema, the Eighth Street Playhouse. ”People stop in because they remember the theater and for nostalgic reasons,” Ms. Shaifer says, ”and they’re happy to see that it stayed in the movies.”

TLA has a huge mail-order catalogue (40,000 titles), and the store carries 12,000 to 15,000 of them. The store is near New York University; like all video proprietors, Ms. Shaifer describes students as among the sharpest movie buffs around.

Crowd Pleasers: ”Bottle Rocket,” ”Waiting for Guffman,” the Chinese film ”Happy Together,” the Indian film ”Fire,” ”Clockwork Orange,” ”Flirting With Disaster” and ”Oscar and Lucinda.”

JACK PARTAMIAN
Video Station, 102-19 Metropolitan Avenue, Forest Hills, Queens; (718) 544-0300

Mr. Partamian, who has been in business since 1979, says his store is the oldest in Queens. ”We’re a neighborhood hangout,” he says.

In other respects, the video scene is vastly different. After chains arrived in the mid-80’s, the independent stores that survived have made big adjustments. ”I decided to become a niche player,” Mr. Partamian says. He focused on foreign movies, classics and independent films and now has 18,000 titles.

Crowd Pleasers: ”Latcho Drom,” a 1993 film about Gypsies; ”Central Station,” ”Shall We Dance?,” ”Children of Heaven” and Tod Solondz’s ”Happiness.” The owner is careful about recommending the unsettling Solondz film. ”Can’t just give that one out to anybody,” he said.

GARY DENNIS
Movie Place, 237 West 105th Street, Manhattan; (212) 864-4620

Mr. Dennis, an independent dealer with long experience and thousands of titles, has welcomed the chains. ”I have a Blockbuster two blocks from me,” he says. ”When they opened, our business went up dramatically.” The explanation: his superior selection of foreign and older films.

Movie Place draws customers from as far as Westchester County, and with Columbia University close by, Mr. Dennis also attracts a university crowd, ”the Upper West Side intelligentsia,” he calls it.

Crowd Pleasers: ”On the Waterfront,” ”Raging Bull,” ”Sweet Smell of Success,” ”Bicycle Thief,” the 1931 ”Dracula” with a Philip Glass score performed by the Kronos Quartet, ”Little Voice” and ”My Name Is Joe.”

HARVEY ROOT
Baywear Video, 645 Bay Street, Staten Island; 718-816-8663

Mr. Root says he carries the state’s largest collection of foreign films. In all, he has 25,000 titles, but with room for only 18,000 to 20,000 in his Stapleton store, he keeps the rest in the basement. Mr. Root, an accountant, isn’t even a full-time video dealer. His love of movies goes back to the days of double features. ”My mother would hand me an apple and a hamburger and send me to the movies,” he said.

Crowd Pleasers: ”Gabbeh,” ”Central Station,” ”Storm of the Century,” ”Boys of St. Vincent,” ”Pecker,” ”Twin Dragons,” ”Children of Paradise” and ”1900.”
PETER M. NICHOLS

More of Gary's Scrapbook