In the words of Stained: "It's Been a While"

This is the longest I’ve gone without blogging and I’ve finally decided to break the silence. The silence hasn’t been by choice, there’s lot of things I wish I could do but as Darris Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish says “Time you ain’t no friend of mine”.

But a lot’s happened. I left off blabbing about pre-production on Hollow Spaces and rambling on about the flick The Ugly Truth. Now two whole months later (almost to the day) - an actual update on stuff.

In short: I quit my job, went to grad school, finished Hollow Spaces (we wrapped at 9PM on a Wednesday night, the next morning at 9AM I was on the road and in route to Buffalo to start an MFA program at UB). Editing has been going slow thanks to a few other projects, school work, the move, and the Toronto International Film Festival. I couldn’t be happier actually.

I have much to blog about and this time I promise to keep up the pace I had back in the day when I had my Live Journal. So consider this a reactivation of sorts. An actual set of updates in graphic, explicit, full details to come.

The Ugly Truth about The Ugly Truth

Last night I caught a screening of The Ugly Truth and this morning I’m going to spoil it. You may want to revisit this essay after you’ve had a chance to see it (it opens wide on Friday). I’m not sure I can totally recommend it, but will say that it has its moments - I think most people will actually kind of enjoy it - so make of that what you will.

The Ugly Truth starts with some hard hitting observations - I liked it. It was more like Neil Strauss’ The Game than He’s Just Not That In To You - then (spoiler, but you knew it) it goes soft. Granted it make some excellent points, that would negate the value of The Game, here is a self help guy that dismisses all other self help guys - with a point. No offense to anybody, but there is a multimillion dollar industry with these self help books and dating websites out there. Some work, perhaps  - others seem like a waste.

Now for a full on disclosure: I am single. It is by choice, soon there will be a life circumstance change I will have that will allow me to look for something more serious but until then I like my life style. What men want, as the film would agree I think, is freedom with the ability to have sex any time you want. Of coarse the reality, and (I don’t disagree, it only seems fair) is that real relationships require investment, some times sacrifice to make sure it works. It may be small things, like going to see The Proposal with your girl - or going to some party thing that you really don’t want to go to. I spoke to a friend the other day who was on vacation with his girl, he sounded miserable. The things we do for beatiful women.

Of coarse there are women that put up with a lot of shit from guys. Too much. They are are looking for that perfect guy and end up staying in a relationship they are ultimately unhappy with because they don’t want to risk the social implications of walking away from this person. Or they have a kid with him. The Ugly Truth assumes everyone is 30, good looking and single. Most people I know are pretty average looking, but the film’s softness towards the end negates its message in the beginning. 

I often know being burned by love can lead one to dismiss it, often for years at a time. After all in Neil Strauss’ The Game, the whole “pick up artist” culture was born out of rejection: the men weren’t traditionally handsome or athletic, never dated the hot girls, now they’re out to bang as many as they can, at first by rejecting them. Gerard Butler’s Billy Mays look alike Mike isn’t a terrible guy- he claims the rejection advise isn’t for girls in puberty, but “hot 25-year olds that can get any guy they wanted”. Still does it work, it assumes using the technique will get you attention, but perhaps of the wrong kind. I would illustrate an example I once observed out, some times harsh techniques like being a jerk will lead the girl to hook up with a guy who isn’t a jerk, say someone like yours truly.

As far as I’m concerned I’m not taking these things too seriously. After all movies, books, television, music effect how our culture behaves. Some reflect really dark places (ie: Lil’ Wayne and Young Money who are the rap game’s equivalent to R. Crumb: they go places that are too clinical for the average person, but then again Lil’ Wayne has his own women probables, he’s knocked up 3 so far. Then again why would any self respecting women sleep with a guy who sings “I wish I could fuck every girl in the world”? I’ll let somebody out there answer that - and trust me there some girls I wouldn’t go near).

The Ugly Truth has the power to make some hard hitting social observations, it seems fresh for the first 20-minutes, I had thought I got a more upbeat, less mean spirited version of In The Company of Men. Neil Labute’s In The Company of Men is brilliant but harsh, it’s the ugly truth - we know more men like Aaron Eckhart’s Chad in that film than like Gerard Butler’s Mike or even Eric Winter’s Colin, the young/handsome doctor from next door in Ugly Truth.

Then again one of the things I deal with, especially with my producer is the fact you don’t go to the movies to see people you know on screen, you go to see an escapist fantasy. You want the guy to get there girl at the end, even if its not the point of the film. I remember when the virtually unwatchable The Break Up came out, everyone hated it. I hated it because it was boring and a lot like a sitcom. Everyone else hated it because the couple didn’t get together - those dumb bastards: it’s called The Break Up. Right?

So why was I pissed when opposites attracted at the end of The Ugly Truth. I agree - Katherine Heigl is a lovely women, but the control freak aspect of her is off putting. For example she’s goes out on a dates prepared with talking points and the guy’s background check. Scary stuff. 

But think about this: eHarmony, JDate, Plenty of Fish, Match.com - and so on - are good in that you wouldn’t have to settle for the luck of the draw you get in real life- there are plenty of fish out there, all presumably single. You can filter out the guy that watches NASCAR obsessively - unless you like that sort of thing.

But doesn’t it take some of the fun out of the searching? Maybe I’m young and optimistic but I try to find women when I’m out, interesting. I’m not looking for a random hook-up that night, I’m looking for somebody who I could potentially hang out with again. The sites take the fun out of asking the right questions by listing essentially what their favorite music, movies and TV shows are. If I were to go out on a date with someone from a site like that I would have this preconceived notion of the person knowing they love the show Hells Kitchen and their favorite song is awful one where they sing ‘shush girl, do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips”. That doesn’t sound like somebody I’d ever be interested in, but if I’m out talking to her and this doesn’t come up, it’ll help me to build a good impression.

My friend Ercan Bas gave me some advise: you should always appear to be mysterious. Same for a women, The Ugly Truth builds an ideal women out of the modest Katherine Heigl who is beatiful but dresses for comfort and efficiency. One of the film’s best exchanges goes like this:

“What’s wrong with comfort and efficiency?”

“Nothing, but who wants to fuck it?”

This was the movie that He’s Just Not That In To You should have been - that film, was desperate while only flirting with observing normal human behavior. The main character really felt creepy without really having to be: as I said I would have enjoyed having dinner with her, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed the 15 follow up calls that would have come along with it. The Ugly Truth starts off with a theory: men are programed a certain way, then it reverts to being a formula romantic comedy. Yes, I should have known it’s a slightly more edgy date movie from the trailers and it’s going to work out, but the R-rating gave me hope. If your restricting admission to those under 17 why shader a bubble or two. Why can’t she choose someone all together different and Mike go on as a motivational speaker. Is romance the real end to the hunt? I suppose, after all a film needs a conclusion (except Matrix: Reloaded).

The film, rancher than most ends in orgasm which is a subtle nod to a women taking back the power. The power shifts all of the place here and that’s interest to watch as a tennis match of sorts. The pursuit I suppose ends with fulfillment, but why should it? Chasing Amy ended in heartbreak and it was brilliant, smart and sharply observed, while presenting all sorts of impossibilities (like a beatiful lesbian falling in love with Ben Affleck). 

The first half of The Ugly Truth is useful, more so than the self help books. I like Billy Bob Thoroton’s quote in the otherwise unmemorable School for Scoundrels “How can you help yourself, when yourself sucks”. Good point. Most of the modern literature we have about love comes in the form of pop songs, most give us templates for how to live, love or get over love. Just look at the iTunes top 10:

I Got A Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas - this sounds like it could be an ad for alcohol, I keep expecting to hear a bland announcer come on towards the end of the song and say “Hennessy - 40% alcohol by volume, drink responsibly”.

Fire Burning by Sean Kingston - not about the Station night club fire in West Warwick, RI but about a crazy night at a club - I had one of those at the Borgata last fall while out in AC on business.

You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift - a vivid, well told story about small town life and telling yourself: soon you’ll see... you belong with me.

Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas - more of the same, damn The Black Eyed Peas are loosing their edge and getting too commercial sounding. Not commercial as in selling a lot of records, but commercial as in they sound like they’re making radio jingles, I keep thinking an announcer is going to tell me about Verizon’s latest service break through at some during the song.

Good Girls Go Bad by Cobra Starship - need I say more - “I make them good girls go bad”. Fantasy, sure.

Here We Go Again by Demi Lovato - don’t know it as well as the rest but it sounds like from the sample a women is dealing with the same shit from her “unforgettable” and “addictive” man. Hopefully he doesn’t beat her.

Best I Ever Had by Drake - a template for telling a girl who wonderful she is, even if gross he claims he can make her vagina whistle like the Andy Griffith Theme Song. I’m not making this up, I feel dirty for observing that. See isn’t Lil Wayne and his Young Money crew just a tad too clinical for the mainstream. Am I the only one that thinks being made uncomfortable doesn’t necessarily mean its good - and I’m no prude.

LoveGame by Lady Gaga - She’s the new Michael Jackson, this one is pure fun. Deal with it.

He Could Be The One by Hannah Montana - need i say more.

Use Somebody by Kings of Leon - I can explain their sudden popularity - look at the rest of the top 10, here we have a band that’s still pretty young (their mean age is 27) that appeal to everyone who feels alienated by the rest of the top 10. I feel most of it is for “kids” - where as Kings of Leon are dealing with things the same way that a real human being does, not some character on the Disney channel. I can’t say the same for Jordin Sparks, Kristinia DeBarge, Soulja Boy, and Beyonce. That and their music is good, I’ve been a fan since the McFearless days, nice to see you’re finally on board.

As for films that offer templates for how to live, there are many in the top 10 (none of which last weekend were I Love You Beth Cooper, speaking of Disney channel charactures) but they’re hard to really talk about since can be more complex then music, you can think of a film like reviewing a whole album. This was my review of The Ugly Truth, so for all the women looking for guys out there - don’t just like what in the top 10, we’ve been there and done that. 

Meeting someone is often destiny. I still contend and you can find it fully explored in the Fink archives that meeting someone you like is best explained by the music video Fine Again. A pretty girl in the middle of a crowded carnival holds a sign reading “I Will Change Your Life” - but if you don’t notice her, don’t strike up a conversation, don’t find her interesting, had a bad day and be a dick to her - she may not change your life. Everyone has potential, it’s just unlocking that potential. Isn’t that part of the fun along the way? Why rush it?

Now I’m off to write my self help book.

Hollow Spaces - Casting / Pre-production + other crap

So I figure its time for a few updates about stuff - the first is my summer project Hollow Spaces, which is moving at full speed now, and I’m involved in post-production stuff (budgets, casting, ect), it’s coming together, all thanks to my producer Ercan Bas, who I bother at least 5 times a day with stupid random questions and concerns. Those that know me, now I freak out before hand - which I guess isn’t a horrible thing, as long as I don’t freak out with the actors.

I’m in this stage of my life right now where everything feels pretty good - it’s pretty exciting to be me, and I’ve decided as a result of seeing The Windmill Movie last night to step backwards. I will blog about reading my own journals, a record for every day since October 2003 that I’ve kept. Now as I’ve told you before, these journals are pretty boring as a read for anyone that isn’t me, but as evidence of certain things - they’re bleeping golden.

How so? Remember the time when your roommate got drunk and did something really stupid - if it amused me it’s probably there. Now most of it is pretty boring (i.e.: my Friday night - “Today I went to work, then the gym. I had dinner with mom at CPK and saw My Sister’s Keeper at GSP”. Totally unexciting. Well there are more exciting days, I assure you. I hope to blog month by month as I read these memories, of coarse names will be changed to protect certain people.

I still have other blogs and ideas floating around, including an idea for a feature film that I want to shoot in like East Bumble fuck Upstate New York. More on that when the time comes.

For now, Hollow Spaces, a film that’ll be shot in and around the fine town of Pompton Lakes, NJ is my focus, and locations are probably my biggest concern right now. Any help would be amazing.

(Headshots for a chance to audition are also great too over at hollowspacescasting@gmail.com)

Status of Stuff: Hollow Spaces

So where I stand on Hollow Spaces is that I’m still hoping that it comes together this summer. The screenplay is on the fifth draft, I was hoping to bang out 10 drafts before rolling so its entirely posable, now that leaves us with everything else (the script, while not easy, only requires me - now we’re got to assemble the rest of the crew).

So I’m looking for people - friends I trust to review the script and provide feedback, who knows - maybe I’m way off and I’m blinded here and this thing really sucks and would be a waste of time. (if you feel up to reviewing it hit me up at johnjfink@gmail.com or on facebook).

As for the next phase - we’re looking for cast and crew and are starting that process, feel free to use the above methods of contact if your interested in that. I’m also looking for bands, I’m not sure what I’m going to do about music yet - my hope is that we can find a good local band that’ll donate a song or two in exchange for credit and perks of having a song in a short film that will hopefully make the festival rounds. Again - know anybody, or your interested hit me up.

This is sort of the in between phase where things can go either way - hopefully they’ll all come together nicely. That’s really it for now.

10 in 2010

A surprising move came today as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Oscar folks will now nominate 10 films for Best Picture, up from five. The New York Times reports this reason: The Dark Knight. It was the most popular film of the year, well reviewed - whereas a majority of the Best Picture nominees (including The Reader) weren’t nearly as popular. Then again they all didn’t have Batman.

The Dark Knight is a fine picture representing the very best of Hollywood storytelling ripe with emotion, it was a strong work. Slumdog Millionaire rightfully won, it was an energetic, vibrant and amazing film, also a crowd pleaser. I saw it at Toronto last September and knew it was going to be huge. On the eve of its Best Picture win I saw it again in Paramus at Garden State Plaza, with a sold out audience, it received an equally enthusiastic reception, it was no fluke.

The fact that The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated, some proposed, meant that the Academy was out of touch the public. I would propose that the Oscars are not the people’s choice awards, however they are Hollywood’s awards. Film snobs like me have the annual listings in Film Comment, which I am in synch with it appears, they also gave the top honor to Wendy & Lucy, whereas two years ago the magazine and the academy agreed on The Departed.

10 has its benefits. For starts Pixar has been overlooked time and again in the Best Picture category - it would be shocking if Up, a masterpiece is overlooked. For me, I’m hoping the Academy will dive into the truly overlooked films that come close to vanishing into obscurity. Sadly IFC Films, who releases some great films and Magnolia disqualify themselves with VOD releases prior to theatrical.

VOD to its credit has introduced audiences to new filmmakers and IFC to its credit did give Hunger an Oscar Qualifying run, it wasn’t successful which is a shame since it was a powerful film. Then again there are only so many movies and so little time, choosing 10 seems hard, I have a problem doing my top 10 list and I see a great deal of films throughout the year. 

This year could also see some other films, but it feels, knowing of the criticisms of AMPAS that the move is meant to include more popular films. Paul Blart: Mall Cop may be the most popular film of the year, and it was pleasant enough - but we’ll have to wait and see what sort of diversity is in this set of 10. Hopefully, if anything, those films will all be well deserving, critically acclaimed, and released throughout the year. If anything Paul Blart has the January opening working against it.

What does deserve a nom, thus far? Glad you asked:

Up

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Treeless Mountain

Goodbye Solo

Adventureland

Knowing

Watchmen

Coraline

Memorial Day

The Hurt Locker

Medicine for Melancholy

Of Time and the City

*Out of those UP is the only one, that stands a chance.

Indie-Wired: The Death of the Studio Indie and the Rise of something perhaps unustainable

Is indie dead or is the term somewhat meaningless. Warner Brothers I think thought so when they decided to close Warner Independent and Picturehouse, citing that some films from WIP could have been distributed by Warner Brothers and vice versa, in fact a few were picked up by major Warner Brothers, some more successful than others.

There are a few upstarts that have come to town recently, I think being well capitalized and smart in that you don’t over extend yourself is a good strategy. I think the best example is Summit Entertainment, which I think is being overly cautious with The Brothers Bloom (although I see there point - after all, it’s better to have a slow build up for a film thats quirky than a bam - big release that lasts a week). After P-1, their first release seemed like a loss leader they’ve been released films that didn’t feel independent in the least, they felt like they came from the big studios: Twilight, Knowing and Push.

They seem to have a formula that works - they set realistic expectations and for the most part (aside from Push) make pretty good films. Indie film, or small budget films can be successful, I think with realistic expectations. An example at Summit is Next Day Air, it cost 3 Million to make, and grossed 9 Million, modest but considering that its marketing budget was probably reasonable it seems profitable.

A tiny example of this, right off of IMDB is Kelly Reichardt’s first feature Old Joy - it cost $64,000 to transfer the film from 16 to 35 and cover prints, $6,500 on trailers and the studio spent $7,000 advertising the film. The film itself cost $30,000 - therefore it was modestly profitable at $107,500, all together. It grossed $255,352 in theaters.

These spreads are tiny compared to the fuck you money a big blockbuster flick that a Warner Brothers blockbuster does - but then again some of those films loose money. Old Joy, to me seemed like a success, modest, sure but better than loosing money, and it played in theaters. 

Reichardt’s next film, Wendy and Lucy made just shy of 1 million dollars and played in mostly every major art house in the country from a new upstart distributer that really has great taste in film - Oscilloscope Pictures. I respect their view that you have to do some theatrical - that you should just do video on demand stuff.

I also think with digital projection (sure it doesn’t match the beauty of 16MM or 35MM) content can be delivered to theaters the same way that theaters show the Metropolitan Opera - designated an indie film night. You show up at 7:30 on Wednesday for example and we’re going digitally project a new indie film that’s currently only in New York City (not a big deal for me in Northern NJ, although I might use it as a way of getting out of paying a toll, waiting in traffic and dealing with parking). 

The death of indie film is a little scary - there was always two tiers of indie and now with cheap HD technology there is an even wider gap, like America, the middle class is disappearing. This isn’t such a bad thing, but studios, aside from Fox Searchlight and maybe Lionsgate are getting out trying to sell a film on it’s “indie” appeal.

The IFP/Film Independent Spirt Awards award films based on their “independent spirit” - I have tired to figure this out many times, even their years seem off. This year I saw Sugar and The Hurt Locker before you all did, yet The Visitor, which premiered last year (2007) at Toronto (where Hurt Locker did in 2008) was also considered. Slumdog Millionaire, a film so indie Warners didn’t know how to release it wasn’t considered, but Election won big a few years ago despite coming from Paramount and MTV Films. And I’m a member of this great organization? I don’t really get it.

This rant comes on the heals of two news stories recently reported in indiewire: the creation of one company and the shutdown of another. Let’s deal with the shutdown first.

Senator Entertainment is shutting down its film distribution business after one awful film that made no sense graced some 482 screens across the country and made 300,000.00. The Informers had a budget of 18,000,000 per IMDB. Call that a monumental fuck up - hopefully they made some money on the foreign rights (probably not so much). It was an awful film with some big name talent. Directed by the talented Gregor Jordan and staring Billy Bob Thorton, Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder, Jon Foster and Amber Heard - while watching it’s nonsense I thought to myself “hey this is one of those movies that I’d see in the basement of the Village East 7 on a rainy Saturday afternoon, be alone, and the film would never be heard of again”. I was right, except I saw it on a Sunday night at the Headquarters Plaza in Morristown, and was in the theater with exsactly two other people.

Senator’s departure leaves behind a few unreleased titles including the God-awful All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (can’t say I’m unhappy about that not seeing the light of day after it was dropped by the Weinstein Company after a disastrous test screening I saw two years ago), Brooklyn’s Finest (Antoine Fuqua’s latest, which I do want to see), and Gregor Jordan’s next film, Unthinkable.

It’s not easy, The Weinstein Company is having cash flow problems, some think because they’ve stretched themselves too thinly. I think the films are the problem, like at Miramax, they’ve released too many in too small releases, they need a hit. I think they still have it, but I suspect they rely too much on test audiences, I contend, while a test screening is a good thing for determining a film’s playability, you cannot please all of the people all of the time, if you try, you make a film nobody likes. However, I’m sure with foreign sales they manage to break even, they invented the commercial indie film and were great at turning small flicks into hits at Miramax - an example is Chasing Amy, it cost 250,000, it made 12 million dollars.

There are some indies still in the game - Sony Classics still stays true to its core, stretching once in a while to a wide release that some how doesn’t seem to work quite as well. They also, I think, botched the release of Atom Egoyan’s masterpiece Adoration which should have been given a slow build and then bam - a big 400-print release. Egoyan has never had a cross-over hit despite churning out masterpieces time and again. I just re-watched The Sweet Hereafter and it still is a powerful and amazing film. The Weisntein’s I think gave Egoyan his greatest box office success with Exotica, the title is an easy sell, so much so it ended up in the “mature” section of my local video store once along with soft core sex titles that weren’t raunchy enough for the back room. It is anything but that.

Oscilloscope is probably the most exciting new company around, run by a Adam Yaunch of the Beastie Boys is releasing some groundbreaking titles, I think the fact most of their films have recently debuted at the Film Forum proves their artistic success. They don’t have the money to go crazy and make Treeless Mountain the family film hit that say a Sony Classics might have tried to do, but they know their audience. They opened Treeless Mountain simultaneously at the Film Forum and at an AMC Theater in a Korean neighborhood in New Jersey.

The other announcement that spawned this rant is the launch of DF Indie Studios, run and advised by several indie film figures. It seems like a hedge fund approach to creating 8-Million Dollar studio films. Not all will be Little Miss Sunshine or Sunshine Cleaning, but the hope is they can be. In that range you can attract stars, it’s a lot of money, hell it could do Informers’ numbers if it’s not well reviewed or the studio botches the release.

Informers, of coarse is a complex case of having a film that should be driven by positive reviews and word of mouth be, simply unwatchable. It wouldn’t do well in New York and LA because they’re review driven cities, they would never stand a chance to expand to 300 screens if they failed in New York and LA, but who knows maybe they were contractually obligated to do a release of that size.

I will take a wait and see approach of DF Indie Studios. I wish they’d make films for under a million dollars, like In/Dig/Ent set out to do years ago before giving up. Is indie film a profitable business to be in. I’d like to think if it was more studios would do it. Sure we now have major studio films with the swagger of indie

The game has changed so much. Tonight I saw Downloading Nancy, a film that a few years ago might have come out under the Miramax banner - now it’s being released in theaters by tiny Strand Releasing and on demand by IFC Films. Video on demand seems like the future, it’s a good way of getting small films out there to places where they wouldn’t play, but I like the idea of “Indie Film Night” more, use those digital projectors for the reason they were intended - bringing in new, exciting and diverse content to a theater on a night when people would rather stay home on the couch with their snuggy. If it’s poorly attended then you’ve only given up one showtime on an unpopular night in a small auditorium.

This won’t save indie film. Indie film ranges from garage band filmmakers to fully funded $20 million dollar films - some more risky than those garage band films. Defining what is undefinable won’t save it either. Start up firms come and go, none really last - hell even Lionsgate is on the verge of being taken over, and they took over Artisan, the firm that was considered so brilliant a few years ago when they released the massive hit The Blair Witch Project. Summit may have its rough patches, Oscilloscope I think will stick around and not fall into the traps of the small upstarts like Think Film, which ventured into larger releases and budgets.

The way I see these two upstarts is this: Oscilloscope is like Strand Releasing in terms of the scope of their releases, they pick up films based on their artistic merit, in a way they have picked up where New Yorker Films left off after being sold to another company with grand indie ambitions - Madstone.

Madstone proposed running theaters, converting low performing sites abandoned by General Cinema, Mann, and other chains to high end art theaters. It didn’t go so well and the theaters lasted only a few years, after all some markets cannot sustain an art house with several screens. Sadly Norther New Jersey (i.e. Montclair) streamlined years ago - the town had 3 theaters, combined with 11 screens of art films, we’re now down to 6 at the Clairidge.

Perhaps indie is as meaningless and as broad as “IMAX” has become. I hate to see it as a brand in the way that I hate that people say they like “indie films because they are different”. I really hate hearing people say that on an elevator ride up to the car in the Montclair parking garage. New York City of coarse is the greatest city for film lovers - where else will a Turkish art film sell out at 9:40 on a Tuesday night at the Film Forum? Not in Ann Arbor.

Die a Virgin: the Virgin Megastore in its Last Days

The other day I witnessed the demise of an old retail friend - the venerable Virgin Megastore. Virgin and Sir Richard Branson did it better than any other store achieving what all good brands do: create an emotional connection with their buyers. This is what sets Target with its catchy ascetics apart from the bland Wal Mart. Virgin is the hip, urban version of Barns & Nobles, where instead of classical music they have an actual on site DJ booth spinning jams.

Going to Virgin Megastore was for some strange reason an exciting experience - especially the imports section, where for $30 you could buy a rare version of - say - the new Avril Lavigne album from Japan with 3 extra tracks on it. And that’s why you felt cool shopping there - instead of having to run around between little record shops looking for something, or hoping they’d have it at the mall or Best Buy - Virgin always had it.

Then a little thing called the internet came around. Virgin Megastores I learned actually were still profitable - why are they shutting down? Well the holding companies that run them - Related Properties and Vornado Realty Trust are real estate companies - they think the space is worth more leased out. They may be right with Virgin Megastores sitting mostly in prime real estate - Times Square and Union Square in New York, Downtown Disney is Orlando, and the Sunset Strip in LA. Other locations in malls I learn were shut down even sooner.

The last holdout to my knowledge is Union Square in New York City - the whole South East corner of the square will be a row of broken retail dreams. While I doubt Union Square will reach the apocalyptic-like images found over at deadmalls.com - with Circuit City and Virgin gone - Barns and Nobles across the park will be the only game in town (save for a few Best Buys not that far and Strand Books). 

The scene at Union Square was depressing - and strange - inside Virgin Megastore it was as crowded as it has ever been, everything is 50% the already higher than Best Buy sticker price (MSRP), the books are all gone - and its strange actually buying a CD. I haven’t done so thanks to iTunes. Instant gratification takes the fun out of delayed gratification I guess - there was a time when you’d have to get in the car and drive to a store on Tuesday to buy a new CD. Now you can download it that morning from iTunes at a lower price.

Virgin still had a great selection of DVDs and some books, the books were more limited, you felt that Virgin handpicked what was cool and fresh to sell. That’s what I liked it was like getting a recommendation - here’s the new Sarah Vowel book - because we’re the anti-Barns and Nobel, we’re younger, fresher, we’re not your parents record store.

But then a funny thing happened - our parents still go to record stores. Virgin and others (like FYE) sell MP 3 players and video games. The company that was built on Rock and Roll now cannot sell it in a retail format. There are already iTunes only releases, and other digital, online platforms. The next frontier is filmed entertainment and sites, applications and delivery methods are improving.

Perhaps the thing I’m most sad over when considering the death of the Virgin Megastore is the death of an era before iTunes and the iPod. I love these tools, in fact one can explore - you can pick and choose, even buy more guilty pleasure music. Shopping became a personal experience in that you were almost concerned that upon check out the clerk would make fun of your music tastes, I always had that fear - so I stopped buying CDs that would prompt that, as a result my taste in music got better.

Then college and iTunes happened it all went out the window. Virgin sold everything, it was a vibe, a scene - it was everything other entertainment retailers weren’t - it was kind of a tourist destination just by the simple fact most were located in major tourist hubs (aside from Union Square which survived as the hipster alternative to Times Square). And so is the end of an era.

Some retails are good at creating energy that leads to an emotional connection with one’s brand. I think Urban Outfitters is good at doing that with indie rock music, the rough brick and wood finish of their stores that look industrial, almost like something you’d find in your garage or your school’s art studio, and other branding features.

It’s my hope a theater chain will some day do this - I think if say, AMC took the Virgin Megastore approach, in that they channeled some of the energy of a good rock station into retailing - they’d have success. The example would be that the theater chain would have to transfer the energy of a film festival - the lines, the buzz, the programers and their wackiness. It wouldn’t take much to make going to the movies fun, but there are examples to be learned here in the wake of greats that came before. Good branding can convince you to purchase anything just for the experience.

** The Virgin Megastore at Union Square will close for business on Sunday