Vidiots to Reopen in Northeast LA, Hooray

The fabled video store will jump from Santa Monica to Eagle Rock, complete with rentable goodies and a theater, too.

What to Know

  • Opening Fall 2020
  • Eagle Rock
  • A "community entertainment space" will include both a video store and theater

"Stranger Things" may have helped to revive the mall's mojo, and other throwback flicks are making leg warmers hot again, but truth? A love of '80s pop culture never truly dimmed.

Exhibit A? Affection for video rental stores, which came of age in the 1980s, does, in fact, shine as brightly as a neon sign in the hearts of film fans.

But finding a solid local shop devoted to new releases, deep cuts, indie gems, and foreign treasures can be as difficult as remembering if you rewound the VHS tape sitting atop your television set.

Los Angeles is home to a few fantastic video rental hubs, from South Pasadena's Vidéothèque to Eddit Brandt's Saturday Matinee in North Hollywood. But other places, like the legendary Vidiots, have shuttered over time.

But you can't keep a VHS inside its clamshell case forever, nor will a great video store stay down for long. Vidiots shall return in the fall of 2020, not to Santa Monica, where it ruled the old-school from 1985 through 2017, but to Eagle Rock's historic Eagle Theatre.

Which means that, yes, the beloved rental joint will also be hosting a number of screenings and special events alongside its store, which will include over 50,000 titles.

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Which means that, yes, you will probably find something to rent on a Saturday night, even if the film you showed up for is checked out. 

Is there any greater disappointment, followed by total immense pleasure, than finding a video you wanted checked out, only to make a nearby discovery that absolutely changes your weekend, and possibly your life, for the better?

It's an in-person, raw-emotion'd experience that streaming has not yet paved over, and thank goodness for that.

Vidiots, by the by, turns 35 in 2020, which is quite the auspicious anniversary. Also auspicious? The Eagle will mark its centennial less than a decade after Vidiots opens there (yep, it was formerly the Yosemite Theatre).

Video rental buffs, are you ready for screenings of all sorts, rare treats for cineastes, tens of thousands of movies to rent, all in "a variety of formats," and a center for movie mavens to congregate around?

If only we could hit fast forward on the next year.

Vidiots, welcome back. It may be kind to rewind, but it is even kinder to move towards to a brighter, movie-rich, popcorn-scented, film-fab future.

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