Mondo Kim's is Coming to Your House

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:45:00 GMT

Hey, independent film fans! Do you have three thousand square feet of space to spare at your place? Would you be willing to let a bunch of New York cinemaphiles tromp around in your kitchen? Are you willing to maintain a collection of over 50,000 videotapes and DVDs, many of them rare or entirely out of print? If so, maybe Mondo Kim's could be coming to your house!

Via the indispensible Karina Longworth at Spout comes news that Mondo Kim's, the Saint Marks Place location of New York hipster favorite Kim's Video, is closing down for good, and rather than just unleashing their collection at bargain prices (like they did when their Avenue A location bit the dust a few years back), they'd like to keep it together -- most likely in the hands of an institution, university, or museum, but even with a business or a private collector if they can find the right film-freak folks for the job.

If you think you've got what it takes, you can take a look at the requirements here (courtesy of Chicago's own Ray Pride at Movie City Indie), or contact Yongman Kim at Kim's directly: ironkim at kimsvideo dot com is how to do it.

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Happiness: The Video Game

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:55:00 GMT

It used to be a novelty worth commenting on that someone would make a movie based on a video game. Now, of course, in the Uwe Boll era, it's commonplace to make a movie out of a video-game franchise; for that matter, we also have movies based on amusement-park rides, board games, and for all we know, the lunch special at the Warner Brothers studio cafeteria. Video games based on movies are likewise no big deal anymore; any franchise picture worth its salt has a console adaptation on the shelves often before the movie actually gets made, and in at least one instance — the upcoming Ghostbusters game — the console game actually stands in place of a movie sequel.

Unfortunately, as Karina Longworth points out at Spout.com, indie films are left almost entirely out of the equation. In a highly amusing piece, she points out the notable dearth of video game adaptations based on successful independent films — and suggests ways in which this problem might be rectified.

Her online MMORPG based on Todd Solondz's Happiness seems like a real winner, especially (given that similar games like World of Warcraft are massive time- and money-pits) since she proposes that "because true, lasting happiness can never be achieved, no one can ever win and the game goes on forever." We're likewise fond of the idea of a Gummo first-person shooter with an all-black-metal soundtrack. But the best idea by far is a racing game based on Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny where "you're the only one on the road, and when you finish the race, instead of a trophy you get an absurdly long blow job from your dead girlfriend." Someone get Prince Vince on the line — I have a feeling he'll pay for this himself.

The Screengrab : spout

Mondo Kim's is Coming to Your House

Happiness: The Video Game