Dust On The VCR Presents: Tape Night at the Sidewalk Cinema!
Happy Tuesday, reader! I’m sliding into your inbox with another mid-week surprise. That’s right, it’s promo time.
If you live in or near my home base of Birmingham, I hope you’ll mark your calendars for next Thursday. Because I’ll be bringing Dust On The VCR to the Sidewalk Cinema for another mystery movie!
At 7:00 on Thursday, February 13th, I’ll be debuting Tape Night, a seasonal screening series that my good friend Corey Craft (the head programmer at the Sidewalk Cinema) has blessed me with. Every Tape Night will go something like this: If you reserve a free ticket, you’ll be treated to a screening of a classic(?) film on warm, fuzzy VHS!1 The title won’t be revealed until I hit the stage to introduce it, but each Tape Night graphic will have some genre clues in it to give you an idea of what to expect!2 (Does that mean this month’s film is a romance, a comedy, and a sci-fi saga? It sure does, folks.)
Did I mention that it’s free? It’s free! Just make sure you reserve a seat.
Many of you came through back in November for our Tapesgiving double feature with KBSVHS, which was kinda like an unofficial launch party for this series. And y’all showed out. The event house was packed—they even added some chairs to accommodate everybody—and the crowd was lively. We kicked the evening off with Son in Law and I swear you would’ve thought I’d put in Groundhog Day or something.3 Then a coin flip determined that the second feature would be Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering rather than Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest and…well, let’s just say everyone got to spend 85 minutes with Naomi Watts and Karen Black, and that’s worth something.4
Need a little extra enticement? How about this: February’s mystery movie was recommended by my good friend Bradford Thomason, co-director of terrific documentaries like Butterfly in the Sky and Jasper Mall. Bradford’s a scholar of 80s and 90s pop culture, and when he suggested this title to me, he assured me of one thing: “It parties.” Do you need more of an endorsement than that?
Anyway. I’m really excited about this whole thing. And I hope that this will be the first of many Tape Nights yet to come. But I need your help. As that ghost said in Field of Dreams, if you don’t come to the thing I built, it will die. Or something like that. Point being, if we can keep attendance up after our Tapesgiving sell out, we might get to party together on a regularly basis. I may even bring a special guest for the spring edition. (Not Bradford, though. He lives in Los Angeles.)
So I hope all you people of the Magic City will delay your Valentine’s Day plans until the weekend so that you can enjoy the cinematic experience of yesteryear with me and all my rowdy friends.5 And then the next day’s newsletter will be about the film we just watched together. How about that?
Hope to see y’all next week! Thank you in advance for traveling back in time with me.
Some of you have asked me “Wait, do y’all actually project a videotape onto the big screen in a movie theater?” You bet your ass we do. We party like it’s 1999.
Shouts out to my talented pal Courtney LeSueur for designing yet another killer graphic!
No seriously. People were howling, cheering, awwing, talking to the characters. It was a riot. It was wonderful.
I promise Children of the Corn III is a little bit better. I was rooting for it. Blame the coin!
If you and your partner come to Tape Night for a date night, your popcorn is on me. No seriously. We will celebrate your strong, beautiful commitment.