Rewind This!

Rewind This! (2013)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Josh Johnson

Starring: This is a documentary

From: Several small companies

This was a documentary that brought back nostalgic feelings for the VHS era; it's not perfect but it's still enjoyable. I explain it all in my Letterboxd review below: 

Pretty much for the entirety of 2016 I have been an Amazon Prime member yet I haven't really taken advantage of the section of Amazon Instant Video where there are free Prime movies. Well, this is one of those and as I have known of this ever since it came out and it'll be gone from Prime in about a week and a half, I figured it was time to check it out. Of the other opinions I have heard about it, most liked it but I know someone on a messageboard who wasn't a fan because “the movie had hipster douchebags.” While there were some hipsters present and they aren't always my favorite people, I was able to tolerate or at least laugh at those goofballs who actually like pan and scan or got tattoos of cassette tapes.

The movie covers a lot in 90 minutes and there were things I wish were covered more or covered less; an odd detour was taken when they talked about how watching movies has become digital and why that's an issue. Yet, I can still say I enjoyed this as everything was covered from when VHS began to how it became popular (Basket Case and Media Home Entertainment was surprisingly a big reason why; Media Home Entertainment is a label I have fond memories of), its impact in Asia, how it allowed for a lot of low-budget nonsense to be released in the 80's-it's still crap that sometimes can be fun to watch-and the important aspect of how there are still plenty of motion pictures that never made it to disc and as not everything is on YouTube or the bowels of the Internet, people should still have a VCR. Oh, and both Betamax and pornography were discussed too, and porn did play a role in Betamax biting the dust despite superior picture quality.

I wouldn't have minded it being longer as like I said a lot was covered and many different people were interviewed... from Cassandra Peterson as herself and Frank Henenlotter (he was a highlight) to critics and some rather odd people; and I don't even know what to make of David “The Rock” Nelson and if he's a gimmick or he actually is that weird.

I am in my mid 30's so when I was a kid and even a young adult I spent plenty of time at videostores, wandering around and at times renting random things-I am glad that there was time devoted to awesome VHS cover art, albeit it was too short-and watching this brought back those golden memories. The digital movement is great and it is awesome how there's plenty of selection from famous and obscure to cult favorites and all-time classics on sites like Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Redbox and Amazon Instant Video; yet, I am sad that videostores are a critically endangered species. I only joined Blockbuster when I had to, which was in the last few years it was a thing. Before that it was the mom and pop shops for me. While the picture quality was crappy and you had to deal with such things as tracking problems, I will always have positive thoughts of both VHS and videostores.