Kim's Video

Kim’s Video is so delightful because Redmon and Sabin have taken a subject that might have led to wistful dead ends and follow it through to such an extent that they wound up with a gold mine of material and a documentary that plays like a bold narrative feature.

Kim’s Video is endlessly entertaining, embracing the energy of the films that made Redmon, a kid from Paris, Texas, who loved movies and was thankfully able to escape to New York at the right time and find Kim’s.

The unexpected humour and sheer ballsiness of Redmon and Sabin’s quest make for an entertaining ride which is only slightly undermined by the overuse of clumsily crowbarred movie references.

Kim’s Video, co-directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin and narrated by Redmon, is less a retail history than a shaggy dog story. One that actually appears to be true. Go in knowing that and you might get a kick out of it.

Many cinephiles are nostalgics at heart, and the story of how Kim’s Video was founded, lost and eventually found again seems to reflect a greater story about how the cinema, whether consisting of Palme d’Or winners or Z-grade slashers, has been pushed to the margins of popular culture — to be fondly remembered in documentaries like this.

In trying to do too much in its mere eighty-seven-minute span, “Kim’s Video” does too little. For all Redmon’s self-described passion for movies and obsession with the Kim’s Video trove, the film has little to say about a wider view of video-store life and its relationship to the movie-viewing experience.

I hope that someone else decides to tell the story of Kim's Video again one day, because Kim's Video by Redmon and Sabin is incomplete, and a little too self-obsessed to do such an interesting story justice.