“Vidiots is a video delight.  And like a good old bookstore, a secret treasure to find and linger over. “—Oliver Stone

Recent Events: OLIVER STONE AT VIDIOTS

On Friday, Feb 13 a crowd of over 200 filled what seemed like every available inch of Vidiots to greet writer-director Oliver Stone. The acclaimed filmmaker of "Salvador", "Platoon", "Wall Street" and most recently, "W." sat in conversation with Vidiots' own Ryan Marker. Stone was gracious and raucous, both expansive and acute in his dialogue about politics, the effects of empire, and the circuitous ways movies get made. In "W.", Stone was out to capture, among other traits, the "deep foreboding" within Bush's neo-con appeal and from a character perspective, the tragic flaw of "stubbornness in the face of stupidity." When Marker asked about the motivation for making the film, Stone replied: "The best thing you can do with a nightmare is look back and see the monsters that were chasing you." Stone also spoke about his meetings and documentaries on Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, a leader whose image among South Americans is usually quite different from U.S. portrayals. Quoting "Natural Born Killers", the director noted that "the media is man-made weather." After a generous fielding of questions from the audience, Stone stayed to sign DVDs and posters for everyone in the lengthy line of fans.

For almost 25 years, Vidiots has been bringing movie-lovers and filmmakers together for special events. Coming soon: An Evening with Catherine Hardwicke, director of "Thirteen", "The Lords of Dogtown" and the phenomenon, "Twilight." In addition to selling copies of "Twilight", we'll also be offering copies of Ms. Hardwicke's new book, Twilight: A Director's Notebook: The Story of How We Made the Movie Based on the Novel by Stephanie Meyer. Date and details to be announced and e-mailed soon.

Blu-Ray: If you've visited out "New Arrivals" section lately you've noticed our Blu-Ray section has been rapidly expanding. We're proud to offer not only mainstream releases but also the best in vintage and eclectic Blu-Ray format titles.

Recent Special: Our latest rental special was a big success. If you came in or called in on the day of the Academy Awards, you could purchase 10 rentals for 25.00, a real bargain.

Many of the Oscar and Independent Spirit Award winning films have been released recently or will be shortly...check our new arrivals section for "Frozen River", "Vicky Christina Barcelona", "In Bruges", "Man on Wire", "Rachel Getting Married" and many more.

Need a treat to take home with that movie?

We're now offering delicious organic chocolate bars at the counter.

HIDDEN GEMS: Here's a sampling of why it's so worthwhile to come into Vidiots and, as Mr. Stone suggests, leisurely peruse our wide-ranging "New Arrivals" section.

Vanishing Point (1971): Probably the drive-in movie to end all drive-in movies, a throwback to existentialism viewed from the front seat of a charged Dodge Challenger, a toast to DJs (you'll see what Walter Hill's "The Warriors" stole from here) and well before "Thelma and Louise", the beginning of the end of the open road. Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA4ymmXa8rs

Gumshoe: Stephen Frears' first film, featuring Albert Finney as a bored comic and bingo-caller who decides to change his life by running an ad as a private detective. Soon he's embroiled in Liverpool-meets-Chandler intrigue; Finney is at the peak of his frumpled, knotty charm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87iHy35x6GY

Breaking Bad: Bleak but compelling AMC series featuring the great and apparently fearless Bryan Cranston.

C.R.A.Z.Y. a Quebec boy's feisty coming of age, set to stinging mid-seventies glam rock. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuUJ0AO7sPk&feature=related

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage: Blu-Ray release of Dario Argento's tightly wound debut, signature creepy/beautiful signature enhanced.

The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival: The band in dynamic transition. (On a total side note, neo-hippies and anxious fashion fetishists: note the generous crowd shots of 1970 audience garb)

The documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father was named one of the "Top 5 Documentaries of 2008" by the National Board of Review. "Dear Zachary" starts off like a kind elegy spoken in raw, cold sunshine. It then becomes something almost unclassifiable: lacerating, furious, somehow implosive yet explosive, a whipstorm of horrifying law and disorder. http://www.dearzachary.com/

Our Man in Havana: Alec Guinness, directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene, droll espionage…it hardly gets more 'Best of the British 20th Century' than that.

I Served the King of England: Easily one of the most overlooked movies of last year. Nothing I can say in summarizing the plot, about an Everyman Czech waiting on the upper class at a resort, can convey its wit about lust or servitude, its luscious draping of linen and flesh, or its scarring march towards tragedy.

Frontrunners: Droll take on high school overachievers running for student body president; "Election" for the IPhone generation.

This Is Hardcore 2008: Over 20 contemporary hardcore bands recorded at the Starlight Ballroom in Philadelphia.

The Outsider: James Toback made a wild, startling debut with 'Fingers' back in 1978. His few films since, generally developed outside the studio system, make for rambunctious and prickly debate. The eclectic group of Toback's friends who appear in this doc about his process include Norman Mailer, Jim Brown, Neve Campbell, Woody Allen, Brooke Shields, Mike Tyson, and Bijou Phillips.

TOM'S PICK O' THE MONTH: Chris and Don: A Love Story On Valentine's Day in 1953, the 48 year-old British writer Christopher Isherwood met the young Southern Californian Don Bachardy on an LA beach. Isherwood was a celebrated writer, intellectual, and mystic; Bachardy, later to become an acclaimed portraitist, was 18, still unformed. So far the stage is set for, typically, a brief, forbidden affair, or perhaps martinis and Pygmalion in the Hollywood hills. What unfolds instead in "Chris and Don" is the story of a rare, deep love, transcendent not only of social conventions but at times, it seems, of this earth. This film may be one of the most tender, unexpectedly affecting films I've ever seen, almost impossible to take in without considering one's own relationships. It is also elegantly structured, dappled with sunny home movies from a more paradisiacal Los Angeles as well as tonic commentary from celebrated friends and the infinitely charming Bachardy himself, who along the way adopted Isherwood's accent. This eccentricity, at first troubling, begins to make sense; the two men clearly came to inhabit each other, not least because of their shared passion for art. When Isherwood, at 81, lay in their Santa Monica apartment dying, Bachardy rigorously continued to paint him in spare, unsentimental sketches. By the end of "Chris and Don", you can't help but be moved by two people who kept their ties to each other but seemed to untether almost everything else. Most films called "love stories" are brief froths or vain epics; here's one they should be showing in the courts.