Possible closure an Aro through the heart of those who love video
Wellington’s Aro Video represents one of the last links to a business type that also helped create a sense of community, writes James Croot. We can’t let it die.
The debut of Netflix’s disappointingly dire video store-set sitcom Blockbuster was bad enough, but the news that Wellington’s beloved Aro Video needs a miracle to stay open felt like a hammer blow for us lovers of physical media and the businesses that were once an essential part of any community.
I accept that the growing desire for films ondemand beamed directly into your home meant that bricks-and-mortar movie libraries would inevitably go the same way as the milk bar, draper and Deka, but the prospective loss of what has been a haven for the capital’s (and latterly nation’s) movie lovers of all tastes just feels particularly poignant.
It has also brought back memories of my own experience of working in a video store in those halcyon days of the late-90s when renting the latest release was a Friday or Saturday night entertainment staple.
Situated in suburban Dunedin, my video store was no slick franchise outlet, a la Blockbuster. It was literally a Mom-and-pop operation (admittedly eventually attached to a chain) where the owners hand-picked their titles as much as possible.
Having returned from a summer studying law in Wellington – and still hurting from being overlooked for a postgraduate journalism course – I had resigned myself to collecting the dole while writing up a final research project on the – wait for it – Super 12 Rugby player transfer system (inspired by recently seeing Jerry Maguire, I’d decided being a sports agent suddenly sounded like an attractive career).
However, I only ever made one visit to Winz and never received a payment, because while signing up, I spied a job advertisement for a part-time position in a video store.
Deciding to circumvent the red tape, I simply showed up at the store CV in hand, eager to regale them with my film knowledge and point to my three years’ experience at the city’s multiplex.
While demonstrating the poker face and dry humour I would grow to love, the store’s patriarch didn’t seem that fussed, but agreed to give me a go. What followed was about 18 months of some of the most fun and entertaining and enlightening employment experiences I’ve had.
It was in those moments, or listening to clients complain about the movie they wanted being out that always made me think I was living the real-life version of Kevin Smith’s Clerks, pictured right.
The shifts were so enjoyable, even when I landed a full-time job on a community newspaper, I was still keen to spend a few hours a week soaking up the eclectic atmosphere and wondering what crazy customers we were going to serve – and if we could guess what titles they were going to pick.
You see, as well as multiple copies of the blockbuster titles, we also stocked a variety of lesser-known, direct-to-video dreck like Poison Ivy II, Children of the Corn IV and Theodore Rex.
These were surprisingly popular, the plastic counters (which meant we could keep the boxes on the shelves) often brought up just as regularly as the star-studded, heavily promoted bigger releases.
With myself and all the other regular parttimers the 20-something Gen-xers used to tease the boss about some of his odder selections, especially the ‘‘family movies’’.
Flipper and Andre rip-off Slappy and the Stinkers was a particular flashpoint, us hip Reality Bites-loving cinephiles convinced that no-one wanted to see a D-grade tale starring B D Wong, Bronson Pinchot and Jennifer Coolidge about a group of annoying brats and an abused circus sea lion.
That only made our employer even more determined to recommend it to everyone he could and smile smugly when he could believe it once again had a waiting list.
Despite any misgivings about the content, he also saw the business sense in having an evergrowing section devoted to adult videos (and yes, in those days that meant compilations, as well as the often hilariously titled porn parodies of Hollywood hits).
Smartly tucked away in a corner behind a pair of saloon-style swing doors (so there was no way anyone could go in and out without being heard), it had its regulars (mainly middle-aged men) who, perhaps emboldened by our counter system that only displayed catalogue numbers, would often come up to the front with a half-dozen selections at a time.
One bloke in particular could even reel off a list of the ones he was after just by the numerals and jotted them down in a special notebook.
It was hard to keep a straight face when we then typed them into the computer and saw their actual titles.
Of course, one of the worst jobs would be ringing up those who had failed to return these particular videos on time – there was always a competition to decide who would get the short straw (if there were two – or on rare occasions three – of us on) to make the call.
It was in those moments, or listening to clients complain about the movie they wanted being out or that the video they were returning had been crap, that always made me think I was living the real-life version of Kevin Smith’s Clerks.
While we tried hard to refrain from exclaiming ‘‘I’m not even supposed to be here today’’ or recommending ‘‘Happy Scrappy Hero Pup’’, we’d swear we had the suburban Dunedin equivalents of Jay and Silent Bob among our regular renters.
As we were in a semi-detached, single-storey premises in an industrial area that backed onto a major park, rooftop hockey was unfortunately out of the question during quiet times.
Instead, our entertainment came from making sure we were familiar with our product (including the Sony Playstation), debating the merits of various films and taking the mickey out of one another.
When the bosses bought a laminator, one of our team made it her mission to try to encase anything she could in it – including potato chips – which didn’t go down too well.
Perhaps I was lucky I only had a taste of the video store life and in a business that never got crazily busy or was situated in a location that attracted bored teens or ne’er-do-wells, but I loved those days surrounded by thousands of film titles, soaking up my own small slice of the movie industry, while imagining I was Clerks’ Randal, if not Quentin Tarantino.
And, as the last of New Zealand’s such stores are fighting to stay afloat, I lament the fact that my children (especially my movie-mad son) will likely never experience that joy or the delight of scanning the shelves (rather than being ‘‘guided’’ by an algorithm) on a Saturday night to pick out something to view purely based on its cover – or recommended by the in-store ‘‘experts’’.