TV @ the Movies: "Hoosiers" vs. "The Notebook"
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 11:10AM I know that MTV's Teen Wolf is based on an 80s movie but it's not set in the 1980s so what to make of the bizarre opening scene of its latest episode "The Tell" in which Jackson (Colton Haynes) and Lydia (Holland Roden) visit that nostalgia-inducing endangered species, The Video Store, and have the following ½ "80s" argument...
Jackson: "Hoosiers" is not only the best basketball movie ever it is the best sports movie ever made.
Lydia: No.
Jackson: It's got Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper!
Lydia: No.
Jackson: Lydia, I swear to God you're going to like it.
Lydia: No.
Jackson: I AM NOT WATCHING "THE NOTEBOOK" AGAIN
[cut to: Jackson, defeated, inside the store]
Jackson: Can somebody help me find "The Notebook"?
Haha. So, maybe this was intended it as a Men are from Mars / Women are from Venus argument but do today's teenagers (non film-fanatic variety... not you reading, obvs) even know who Dennis Hopper and Gene Hackman are? It seems like this argument was between a 30something man and a teen girl. Or maybe Hoosiers mania still lives on in high school boys? I'm not a sports person or a high school boy so I cannot speak from authority.
Once inside the store, there are a ton of movies on view but none of them seem intentionally placed there for the camera. Lazy set dressers (kidding!). For instance, there's telltale signs of a dead body (a foot!) peaking out from behind the I Am Love row. But I highly doubt the director's were like "ooh, someone dies in that Tilda Swinton / Italian melodrama that won Best Pic at the Film Bitch Awards, so let's put the body there!".
This one on the other hand is 100% intentional.
Turns out there's an evil werewolf in the store and Jackson ends up hiding right next to a copy of Let The Right One In, the only movie with its own closeup. "The Tell" that it's intentional: It's out of sequence with the other movies sitting next to it, which begin with "S". Video stores may be on the verge of extinction but surely they still alphabetize.
Reader Comments (4)
Man, this shows my age, but I remember video stores when they actually still had VHS and Beta tapes!
BTW, I think it was just last year that Blockbuster Video applied for bankruptcy protection. Video stores truly are endangered species, what with everyone either using netflix or just priating from torrents now.
On a similar note, I recently read an article that postulated that book stores with physical books will also go the way of dinosaur. The article states that with the advent of kindle...etc, people will just download ebooks. Having just recently moved apartments and lugging 5 very large and heavy boxes filled with books to my new place, I can atest that I too will now switch to kindle. Ebooks take up way less space! And an entire library can be moved without breaking one's back.
Back on topic (sort of) - I recently saw the american version of the 'Let the Right One In', and it wasn't bad. Not as good as the original, but not bad.
The Hollywood Video I used to go to (before it, y'know, went out of business) had the WORST alphabetization. We're talking "Inglorious Basterds"/"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"/"Shakespeare in Love"/"Australia". It was absolutely maddening. I once seriously considered offering to realphabetize the whole store for a few free rentals.
There is/was this fantastic video store here called Alice in Videoland. Honestly the best one I've ever seen, except it's currently closed down because of the earthquakes. What I'm trying to say here is that New Zealand is stuck hopelessly in the past, and I kind of love it. :P
And if the guys back at my old high school are anything to go by, most teens probably don't know much about film culture from before they were born. I know I've never heard of Hoosiers either. But that's probably just my complete lack of interest in sports films.
MD - at least it was the best store ever in terms of titling itself :) alice in videoland. Love that.