If you’re like most film geeks gearing up for the big holiday splurge-fest, you’re probably used to the idea of trolling the racks at Suncoast Video and similar DVD outlets and ricocheting between the racks of grade-Z, Good Times-manufactured knockoffs of great genre films transferred to DVD by, for all intents and purposes, one-eyed former grindhouse projectionists bearing undisclosed grudges. There is, of course, a better way, namely whipping out the plastic and wrapping up all your filmcentric shopping needs online. To that end, here’s a (very) partial list of some of the best video and DVD outlets on the Web, with an eye toward the obscure, the outré, and the oddball.
Facets Video, www.facets.org, is one of the oldest specialty video/DVD outlets online; their mailbox-obscuring mail-order catalog has been crowding out Sears catalogs in my house for years. With an emphasis on foreign films (Kieslowski’s The Decalogue is currently in heavy rotation) and the arts (perennial fave Dali gets a nod), as well as books, CD-ROMS, and film rentals, Facets is the video equivalent of the National Film Registry (which they helpfully provide a link to and movies of).
Something Weird Video, www.somethingweird.com, has been a personal goldmine for years. Where else can you find that essential stocking-ripper Santa Claus Conquers the Martians for a paltry $15? Add to that plenty of Bettie Page nudie loops, Cash Flagg’s mondo-stoopid Sixties-era exploitation rave-ups, and, holiest of holies, Rudy Ray Moore’s Afros, Macs, and Zodiacs, and you have the makings for a very strange expression on Grandma’s face come Christmas morn.
Kino International, www.kino.com, shares some of the same areas of expertise as Facets, but their nonstop parade of Louise Brooks obscurities (Diary of a Lost Girl, etc.) and lovingly restored silent comedies makes them more than your average highbrow art source. Plenty of rare German expressionism, Czech oddities, and the 1959 beatnik freakout Expresso Bongo (“Go daddy-o!”) means less time spent slogging through AMC’s overnight schedule to find that classic Buster Keaton short you’ve been hearing about all these years.
This article appears in December 7 • 2001.