Cinematic Point Of View

“Videoheaven” (2025) Official Trailer Leaves You Feeling Nostalgic

Cinematic Point Of View
1–2 minutes
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Using a wide array of archival footage, and narration by Maya Hawke, director Alex Ross Perry takes a nostalgic look at the history of VHS’s rise in the 1980s, it’s cultural influence, and they way it transformed how we watch movies.

Check out the trailer for Videoheaven.

Over the course of my life, two of my favorite jobs have been working at video stores. First there was “Take 2 Video,” a small locally owned video store/computer repair shop and then the corporate chain “Hollywood Video.” Both were great experiences. I’d clock in, put on a movie, talk shop with the regular customers. What’s not to love?

I have so many memories of video stores. All kinds. Everywhere. The countless hours I’d spend searching the aisles looking for the perfect movie on a Friday night or dropping into a little Mom and Pop shop in a tiny town. In Austin we had so many different videos stores. Nothing I loved more than dropping into a poorly organized, overstuffed eclectic shop full of foreign films unavailable anywhere else and searching for buried treasure. Who knows what you might find.

I remember there was a Chinese grocery store in Austin that had a video section full of bootleg Jackie Chan movies on VHS. You could drop a 10 dollar deposit and never have to return it. A bit of a wink, wink, nod that it’s all yours. Brilliant.

Ahhh that good old days.

12 responses to ““Videoheaven” (2025) Official Trailer Leaves You Feeling Nostalgic”

  1. Uri Avatar
    Uri

    I saw this trailer a few days ago because the YT algorithm offered it to me, then I noticed your post about it today.
    Oh, the nostalgia. In Yugoslavia in the 80s, there were no official videos that you could buy. Video rentals had 100% pirated stuff from all over. All had subtitles made by who knows who, mostly in Serbo-Croatian, very few in Slovene. The official language of Yugoslavia (until the famous breakup in the 90s) was a mashup of Serbian and Croatian. But each republic had its own main language. All official material had to be available in both languages, but 90% of the people spoke the language of their republic.
    After the breakup, the official local distributors formed and started to buy rights for films, also for home video (not just cinema and TV). At the same time, local commercial TV stations started to pop up, and the VHS market started to slowly die. Partly because inspectors started shutting down pirate video rentals that refused to carry legal copies, while the increasing popularity of satellite TV (all over) and cable TV (urban areas) started to offer more alternatives…
    I find it interesting how our viewing habits were very similar, no matter where we grew up. On Fridays, I used to stop with my school friends on the way home at a video rental, and we got 5 movies for the price of 4. Usually it was an action movie, a horror movie, a comedy, a drama, a sci-fi, or a kids’ movie. We watched one right after, then the rest with the family, and probably one alone. Usually, renting was for 1-2 days, but over the weekend it was 3. I think a single movie was for a day, and 2-4 movies for 2 days. Depending on the place. If you returned it without rewinding it, they charged you extra. Something today’s generation will never understand. 😀

    Be kind, rewand.

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    1. Cinematic Point Of View Avatar
      Cinematic Point Of View

      Absolutely fascinating how similar are viewing habits were! I think there must be some sort of magic in the phrase “Be Kind and Rewind.” There is a simple, deeper meaning in those words. Think of others. What were some of your favorite movies from back in the day? Any awkward family movie times? I think about how we would just grab a movie with no idea of the kinda adult content that might be about show up on screen as we sat there with our parents. lolol Oh man, kids today don’t know the embarrassment and adventure of a random movie pick. I remember when I was working at Hollywood Video and all those late fees. How painful it was to return a movie you didn’t even get aroun to watching AND have to pay extra before you could rent again. Ouch. When I worked at Hollywood video sometimes you could just wipe out someone’s late fee for them. It felt like an act of God. Poof. Enjoy your night! I’m sitting here thinking about your pirate video dealers being shut down and the people who’s job it was to shut them down. I bet that would make a great film!

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      1. Uri Avatar
        Uri

        LOL, yeah I should check if someone made that movie in Slovenia already!
        Hmm awkward moments. I’m not sure if they were movie rental related, but from time to time there was a steamy scene and my father’s reaction was “Oh boy, those two really like each other” 🤣

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Uri Avatar
    Uri

    P.S. We had a very good JVC VCR which had a turbo rewind function, which came in handy on Mondays when I had to run to return the movies before closing time. 😀

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    1. Cinematic Point Of View Avatar
      Cinematic Point Of View

      YES! The high end features like “turbo” rewind. We never had one of those but I remember there being rewind machines specifically for tapes that video store. Out of all the stores out there, I’d say Blockbuster was the most militant about rewind fees. Brutal.

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      1. Uri Avatar
        Uri

        Now it makes total sense, but I never heard of rewind machines until the other day when I was writing my comment here and then googled JVC turbo rewind and found pics of those machines.
        We lived in a two-story house with granny and my aunt on the top level. If I was in a hurry I would take the second tape to my aunt’s room and rewind it in her VCR. 😁

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      2. Cinematic Point Of View Avatar
        Cinematic Point Of View

        Ha! Love it.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. Uri Avatar
    Uri

    About my favorite movies.. Let’s see what stuck in my mind…
    BMX Bandits, The Return of the Living Dead (Part I and II), Critters, Gremlins, Karate Kid, The Delta Force, Teen Wolf, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Alien, Aliens, Airplane, Top Gun, Conan the Barbarian, Commando, Terminator, Naked Gun, American Ninja, Goonies, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, James Bond (Octopussy, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights), Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, Beverly Hills Cop, 48. Hours, Ghostbusters, Mad Max…

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    1. Cinematic Point Of View Avatar
      Cinematic Point Of View

      That sounds like my childhood. Like each and every title there.

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  4. Uri Avatar
    Uri

    I totally forgot Friday the 13th series and A Nightmare on Elm Street!!!!
    Because my focus was on the movies, I also skipped a big part, which is the animation category. Everything from Disney, which was very hard to get, since in Yugoslavia, the animated features were exclusively shown in the cinema. I think we finally got Disney movies on video only in the late 90s, early 2000s. I heard an explanation that Disney wanted everything dubbed, but only a few cartoons were dubbed for TV and none for the cinema, so we had subtitles, and if you could not read, your parents would explain things to you or even whisper some parts.

    I was crazy about anime, which from time to time came out in the cinema, but mostly I was watching series on Italian TV, which we got only at the summer house, close to the Italian border. All dubbed in Italian, which I understood only a few words, but that didn’t matter. From time to time, local TV aired some anime series like “Kimba the White Lion” and “The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee“. What I remember strongly about those that some episodes made me very emotional to the point I was watching them through heavy tears. And I could not resist stopping. Looking back, it felt like a pull that I could not resist. I never had problems crying during a film or series, but those anime stories could really pull on my heartstrings.

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    1. Cinematic Point Of View Avatar
      Cinematic Point Of View

      I gotta say you’re childhood watching habits in Yugoslovia sound identical to my childhood watching habits in Texas. Pretty awesome. Yeah, anime was hard to find as a kid especially with English subtitles. I’d was really into Robotech and would watch anything I could get my hands on at Flea Markets, comic book shop, conventions, even without subs. I remember getting ahold of The Guyver and it just blew me away. No idea what they were saying. And Robotech, there were so many episodes that brought me to tears, I would carry those VHS copies I made off of television everywhere.

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  5. Uri Avatar
    Uri

    Back to the Future series, Jaws, Labyrinth…

    You opened the floodgates! 😀

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