Image: Carnivalesque Films
As any cinephile well knows, the physical places that serve as meaningful ports of entry to our love affair with cinema can often take on swollen, totemic value. It’s fitting, then, that one of the most legendary independent American video stores of all time gets its...
As any cinephile well knows, the physical places that serve as meaningful ports of entry to our love affair with cinema can often take on swollen, totemic value. It’s fitting, then, that one of the most legendary independent American video stores of all time gets its...
- 4/5/2024
- by Brent Simon
- avclub.com
When documentarians go on the hunt for something specific, it’s often a historical artefact or, sometimes, as with Searching For Sugarman, a person. The object of desire in this quirky film from David Redmon and Ashley Sabin is more modern than most - the contents of a once-famous New York video rental store.
Kim’s Video was on St Mark’s Place in the city’s East Village and it was a treasure trove of films, a place where Debbie Does Dallas rubbed cases with 400 Blows. The store, which had begun as a small offshoot of a launderette run by Korean-American businessman Yongman Kim, was home to more than 55,000 movies, many of them bootleg copies which added to their rarity value. Importantly, for the purposes of this film, it was a Mecca for Redmon, whose near-obsessive love for the store is vital to the success of this highly personal doc.
Kim’s Video was on St Mark’s Place in the city’s East Village and it was a treasure trove of films, a place where Debbie Does Dallas rubbed cases with 400 Blows. The store, which had begun as a small offshoot of a launderette run by Korean-American businessman Yongman Kim, was home to more than 55,000 movies, many of them bootleg copies which added to their rarity value. Importantly, for the purposes of this film, it was a Mecca for Redmon, whose near-obsessive love for the store is vital to the success of this highly personal doc.
- 1/25/2023
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
New York City’s fabled movie rental chain, Kim’s Video, shuttered its downtown locations throughout the early-to-mid aughts, offering an early warning sign that the cinema as we once knew it was dying, or at least migrating to other formats.
The chain’s disappearance left an open wound among lower Manhattan film buffs, stranding Kim’s hundreds of thousands of members without a good place — any place, actually — to rent movies, while leaving behind a collection of 55,000 VHS tapes and DVDs that encompassed everything from horror flicks like C.H.U.D. to the complete works of Paul Morrissey to bootleg copies of Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma.
What happened to Kim’s treasure trove of films remained a mystery for quite some time, with occasional stories popping up — including a long-form Village Voice piece by movie critic and podcaster Karina Longworth (You Must Remember This) — explaining...
The chain’s disappearance left an open wound among lower Manhattan film buffs, stranding Kim’s hundreds of thousands of members without a good place — any place, actually — to rent movies, while leaving behind a collection of 55,000 VHS tapes and DVDs that encompassed everything from horror flicks like C.H.U.D. to the complete works of Paul Morrissey to bootleg copies of Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma.
What happened to Kim’s treasure trove of films remained a mystery for quite some time, with occasional stories popping up — including a long-form Village Voice piece by movie critic and podcaster Karina Longworth (You Must Remember This) — explaining...
- 1/20/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Kim’s Video was a grungy movie rental empire and cinephile paradise in downtown Manhattan that grouped its tapes and DVDs by director. Started in 1987 out of a dry-cleaning business by Yongman Kim, who was a little-seen and mysterious figure to even his employees, Kim’s Video eventually expanded to five stores and became a way of life for both the customers and the people who worked there.
(I worked at the Kim’s farthest west on Bleecker Street one summer and we all gorged ourselves on movie classics, cult films, outsider art, bootlegs of rarities, and shelves and shelves of unclassifiable ephemera.)
Video stores started to close by 2008 when the near-mythical Mr. Kim offered his collection of 55,000 movies to any institution that would keep it intact. The town of Salemi, Sicily, acquired the archive, and in 2012 there was an article in The Village Voice by Karina Longworth that attempted...
(I worked at the Kim’s farthest west on Bleecker Street one summer and we all gorged ourselves on movie classics, cult films, outsider art, bootlegs of rarities, and shelves and shelves of unclassifiable ephemera.)
Video stores started to close by 2008 when the near-mythical Mr. Kim offered his collection of 55,000 movies to any institution that would keep it intact. The town of Salemi, Sicily, acquired the archive, and in 2012 there was an article in The Village Voice by Karina Longworth that attempted...
- 1/20/2023
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
Premiering on the first day of the Sundance Film Festival, Kim’s Video is the perfect Sundance documentary, a playful and intelligent film that teases one thing and delivers quite another. Just as 2012’s Searching for Sugar Man set out to find a missing soul singer and uncovered a secret history of anti-apartheid rebellion in South Africa, this affectionate and funny film by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon and playing in the fest’s Next lineup starts as a nerd’s quest and transforms into, well, actually two things: one a glorious shaggy dog story that somehow links a New York dry cleaner, the Coen brothers’ late fees, South Korea’s CIA and the Mafia, the other an astute and actually rather moving rumination on the very real social importance of film history.
The subject matter raises questions that have bugged even casual visitors to Manhattan of a certain age:...
The subject matter raises questions that have bugged even casual visitors to Manhattan of a certain age:...
- 1/20/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Before streaming platforms took over home entertainment, there was New York City’s legendary video rental store Kim’s Video. With more than 55,000 beloved and rare movies to choose from, the Kim’s Video flagship store in St. Marks Place was essential stomping ground for not just cinefiles, but anyone who liked watching movies. The knowledgeable clerks could be scary, but being able to access the vast collection of films was worth being yelled at for not knowing enough about Hungarian cinema. The store was a magnet for big-name filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers. Then, in 2008, facing a changing industry, Kim’s Video founder, Yongman Kim, offered to give away his collection provided that it stay intact and be available to Kim’s Video members. Not long after, before all late fees had been collected from customers including Joel Coen, the archive found a new...
- 1/19/2023
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
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