UNIVERSAL VIDEO: One of the Oregon Coast’s Last Video Stores

A Tour by D.M. Anderson & Lucy Anderson

The family and I love visiting the Oregon Coast, and are fortunate to live close enough that we can venture there a few times a year. More often than not, we choose the town of Seaside because the weather in this region is wildly unpredictable. So if it happens to be too cold, windy or rainy to hang out on the beach (about 50% of the time), there are lots of shops, arcades and an aquarium to justify the drive. There are also plenty of antique stores. I don’t know if this is true for coastal towns in other parts of the country, but in Oregon, antique stores and the beach go together like cops & doughnuts.

Off the beaten path of Seaside's main street leading to the beach is a place called Universal Video, which is kind of an antique store unto itself. In business since 1983, it’s one of the last remaining video rental stores on the Oregon Coast. Considering all the other attractions in town to grab people’s attention - and money - I don’t know how the place manages to remain in business. Perhaps it’s simply a labor of love for the two older gentlemen who greeted my daughter, Lucy, and I as we entered. In addition to being the presumed owners, I suspect these two guys are the only employees.  

Walking into this place was like going back in time…to when mom & pops still dominated the rental business and new releases were promoted with poster & big cardboard displays (that would probably go for hundreds on eBay). Practically a museum of a bygone era, shrines to the likes of Pulp Fiction, Jurassic Park and Liar, Liar were everywhere, likely in the same spots as they were when put there in the '90s.

When I asked if I could take some pictures, the guys’ congenial smiles that told me that a majority of their visitors come in to do the same thing…

Thousands of DVDs

Thousands more.

A big VHS selection!

The back room (with more VHS) that was probably the "adult" section back in the day. All mom & pops had 'em. 

Lucy unearths a priceless relic from the 23rd Century.

Overlooking the checkout counter.

Something has survived...like this awesome display.

I've never seen this particular promo, and I was unable to talk them into selling it to me.

In the 90s, no video store was complete without these things hanging from the ceiling.

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KITTEN COLLECTIBLES #9: Another Small Town Alien Invasion

A Treasure Hunt by D.M. ANDERSON💀

In addition to watching and writing about films, I’m something of a memorabilia collector. Cursed with a teacher’s salary, I ain’t out there bidding on Dorothy’s ruby slippers or anything, but certainly enjoy haunting local shops for a variety of movie-related stuff. Or when feeling particularly bold, I’ll occasionally overpay for some retro relic on eBay. More often than not, I leave stores empty-handed. But every now and then, I’ll find a small treasure that doesn’t completely empty my wallet and give it a new home in the Dave Cave.

About once a year, I'm dragged kicking and screaming to my mother-in-law’s house. Not that I don’t enjoy her company, but we live in Portland, Oregon and she lives four hours away in Grandview, Washington, a small agricultural town where the cows outnumber the people. To get there, we’re required to drive through the Columbia Gorge, which is admittedly beautiful, but interminable if you’ve been making that trek most of your adult life. 

Oregon is widely considered a “blue state” populated by liberal-thinking people, which to a certain extent is true. But that’s only west of the Cascade Mountains, where most of the population lives. The further east you go, the towns grow smaller, while the number of TRUMP banners and pick-ups grow larger. It’s through this wasteland of gun racks & MAGA hats we must journey.

Still, my wife and I make the most of it by making stops along the way…wineries, the local fish hatchery and a little antique store I discovered a few years ago in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Bingen, Washington.  Located on the main (only?) street is Antiques & Oddities, a large place with a few dozen vendor booths. For the most part, these booths offer genuine antiques, as opposed to stuff someone’s trying to unload after cleaning their garage. 

Since I only visit the store about once a year, I usually find something that makes paying the bridge toll into Washington worth it. This time I grabbed something I didn’t know even existed: a board game from Parker Brothers based on the classic 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind…still sealed! The movie doesn’t really seem conducive to a board game tie-in and the description on the box makes it sound kinda boring. But hey, I wasn’t planning on opening it to find out, anyway. The sealed box alone was worth the forty bucks I shelled out for it. 

Another thing I didn’t know existed was a line of action figures based on the 1999 film, Virus. The movie itself is a derivative Alien rip-off about an extraterrestrial entity that manipulates technology and turns its victims into Borg-like monsters. As disposable sci-fi junk-food goes, it’s a passable time killer, but does feature Jamie Lee Curtis. The figure I found is her character, Kelly Foster (with a similarly hot bod). I didn’t pay much for it, but there’s something fun about finding relatively obscure action figures nobody asked for based on movies nobody saw.

We left about seventy bucks lighter ($80, counting the coffee we needed to stay frosty for the rest of the journey). But this brief detour was well worth it, as I’d never seen either of these things before.

BACK TO THE DRIVE-IN Paints a Gloomy Picture

BACK TO THE DRIVE-IN (DVD)

2022 / 105 min

FROM UNCORK’D ENTERTAINMENT

Available at MovieZyng.com

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😽

Being of a certain age, I have fond memories of drive-ins. From piling into the backseat in my jammies as a kid to piling into the backseat with dates, it was always a lot of fun. More often than not, whatever movie was actually playing was secondary to the experience. 

Though hardly the optimum way to view a film, I miss drive-ins. They aren’t quite extinct yet, but there are only two left in my home state and the closest is a 90-minute drive away. Like Fotomat booths, it’s just a matter of time before they’ve all gone the way of the dodo. Because of its subject, I thought I’d enjoy Back to the Drive-In a lot more than I actually did. But it's not-so-much an affectionate reflection of the past as a gloomy forecast of the future.

This documentary visits 11 currently-operating drive-ins across the country, from big multi-screen spreads to humble family-run businesses and everything in between (such as an enterprising man who turned his own backyard into one). Some of them have been open for decades, while others are - surprisingly - fairly new. We meet the owners and managers who discuss the joys and tribulations (mostly the latter) of operating such a business in this day and age.

If this is what's playing, I'm not going to the drive-in either.

The locations may be different, but their stories are more or less the same…the COVID pandemic triggered a brief resurgence in the popularity of drive-ins, but since then, business and interest continues to dwindle. These owners seem determined to remain open, but also appear painfully aware that the days of drive-ins as a sustainable business are probably numbered. Filmmaker April Wright must think so, too, since the entire film is accompanied by the kind of melancholy score one usually hears in a poignant death scene (even during moments of levity).

Hence, the film ends up being kind of somber. Seeing how these theaters operate is certainly interesting, as are the personal stories of owners explaining how and why they got into the business in the first place. And if nothing else, I’m inspired to finally make that 90 minute trek to my nearest drive-in just to relive the experience one more time. But Back to the Drive-In is hardly the nostalgia trip I was expecting. As someone who fondly recalls enjoying movies under the stars, it’s more like visiting a loved one who’s on life support.