Scarecrow Party

Longtime Wallyhood sponsor and final line of defense against the Netflixification of the movie world Scarecrow Video is hosting a party tonight, Saturday June 22 starting at 8 pm.

Jen explains:

Since Scarecrow Video opened in 1988, our mission has been to unite people with film. The execution so far has been pretty simple: Have all the movies, TV shows, and other random things anyone would want to watch, all under one roof. It’s also about the connection you get having a face-to-face conversation with people about the movies they like, the movies they hate, and the movies they love.

Part of that personal connection comes with watching movies together. One of our favorite things around here is when people stop to see what’s playing on our in-store monitor. Sometimes it’s because there’s a beloved part coming up that no one wants to miss (this happens a lot with Ghostbusters). Sometimes a scene draws people in to a film they’ve never seen before. Recently a customer stood and absorbed most of a documentary on Donovan called Sunshine Superman. After being asked several times if he was being helped, he said, “I’m just watching. This is blowing my mind.” That’s what we like to hear.

While we brainstormed about how we can better share in the movie-watching experience, we realized we don’t just want to be a place where people grab a movie and go. Scarecrow should also be somewhere movie fans, from the casual viewer to the die hard cinephile, can gather and celebrate the works they love. For that, we’d need a screening room. So we cleared about 18,500 VHS tapes out of a back room and knocked down a wall to open it to the rest of the store. Then we turned to our Roosevelt neighbors at Definitive Audio for advice. With their help, we outfitted the room with a large HD television and top-notch sound equipment and transformed it into a comfortable space to sit and watch a movie. At show time we’ll pull heavy curtains over the windows, press play, and commune with fellow fans of cinema.

The inaugural event speaks to our love of passionate film discussion (and sometimes contentious debate) coupled with the summer movie season’s apparent joy in blowing up as much stuff as possible. We’re showing the pinnacle of action movie monstrosities, Michael Bay’s Bad Boys II—a film loaded with guns, explosions, and nasty violence with a casual disregard for human life and a world view that might charitably be called sociopathic.Hosts Matt Lynch and Kevin Clarke will discuss just what’s so appealing about 25 years of bad vibes from action cinema rolled up into one big fat ball and hurled straight at the audience, and how something so silly and meanspirited could also be so much fun.

The screening room will feature shows several times a week, spanning various movie and TV genres. We’ll also spotlight titles from our massive rental inventory that aren’t available anywhere else—aka a lot of movies only on VHS. The schedule will be available in the store and at scarecrow.com, and we’ll keep customers updated via Facebook and Twitter.

Since movies are usually better with refreshments, we’re also pleased to announce our beverage and snacks cart VHSpresso is now serving beer. They’ll feature a rotating selection curated by the staff’s beer enthusiasts and host Happy Hour screenings throughout the week.