Chris Rose fondly remembers the days when he worked at the independent video store We Luv Video in Austin, Texas.
He was in his early 20s and finishing film school at the University of Texas at Austin before heading to New York, where he eventually worked as a producer on “The Daily Show.”
Now an L.A.-based writer, director and producer, Rose, 41, recalls the Austin store’s eclectic assortment of cult oddities and world cinema.
“It was a spectacular kind of hip, indie video store that had just about any and every film you could ever want,” he says. “They would have British or Japanese imports you couldn’t get in the United States yet. It was a really, really special place.”
Stephen King’s 1986 horror film “Maximum Overdrive” plays on a 1970s-era Hitachi television Rose found on Craigslist.
Rose’s thoughtfully curated film categories change from month to month, including his staff picks.
Although he can no longer visit the video store, Rose doesn’t have to go far to rent these days, as he has brought a similar yet distinctive collection to the kitchen of his one-bedroom bungalow in Silver Lake, which includes a small backyard.
The idea for his personal Kitchen Video, a micro version of an old-school video store, came to him one day as he was working on his laptop at his kitchen table.
“When I worked at the video store, we would put bad Stephen King movies on in the background and halfway pay attention to them,” he says as “Maximum Overdrive” plays on a 1970s-era Hitachi television next to the refrigerator.
With that in mind, he thought it would be fun to play movies in the background while he worked from home. “It’s such a weird dead zone,” he says, gesturing to the space next to his kitchen. “It needed something as it’s not big enough to be a dining room and not small enough to be part of a regular kitchen.”
Kitchen Video merchandise in the kitchen.
Rose displays his Kitchen Video membership card. He still has his Blockbuster rental card from when he was a kid.
At the top of the more than 20 thoughtfully curated shelves filled with dozens of VHS tapes, Rose has placed a sign in bold red typeface that reads: “Kitchen Video.” The sign serves as a playful nod to the space’s dual function, reminding visitors that they are not just in a kitchen but also a video rental library.
Like We Luv Video and more traditional video rental stores like Blockbuster, Rose handpicks his staff favorites every month. This month’s category is cyberpunk, or “the internet is scary,” he says of the lineup, which includes “The Net,” “Fear Dot Com” and “Johnny Mnemonic.”
“The fact that someone titled a movie ‘Fear Dot Com’ is still, I think, one of the funniest things ever,” he says.
Clearly, for Rose, discovering surprising and bizarre films is part of the fun of creating his own video library, and his personal taste and sense of humor in the selection process are evident.
His favorite category? “Comedies with White Backgrounds,” a quirky selection of films including “There’s Something About Mary,” “The Three Amigos” and “Kung Fu Hustle.”
“It’s a trend,” he says with a chuckle.
Rose’s VHS tape collection is reflected in a decorative tiger mirror in the kitchen. Rose added some drama to the rental by adding floral peel-and-stick wallpaper to the wall behind the mirror.
Copies of “Miami Vice” on VHS are on display in the kitchen.
Other categories include Burning Hearts, a collection of what Rose describes as “messed-up romance movies” such as “Basic Instinct,” “Moonstruck” and “Wild at Heart.”
His personal Criterion Collection of poorly reviewed films that he, in fact, enjoys includes “Con Air,” “Face/Off” and “Point Break.” For his Film School category, Rose has chosen clichéd movies that students would watch in film school, like “Harold and Maude,” “The Last Picture Show” and “Chinatown.” And then there’s From Ship to Shore, where Rose has attempted to transition from “Ghost Ship” to “Encino Man” with Pauly Shore.
“That’s the most obtuse one,” he says. “It took me three hours to figure it out. I wanted to make each film a logical jump — whether it was the director, actor or screenwriter — which was hard and ultimately not worth it.”
And, of course, the Texas native couldn’t resist devoting an entire shelf above the kitchen door to classics like “Friday Night Lights,” “Clerks,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Paris, Texas” and “Tender Mercies.”
Vintage cowboy boots Rose bought in Santa Fe, N.M., on one of his road trips to Los Angeles.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Rose’s most cherished possession: his grandfather’s illuminated globe.
Although his Kitchen Video is not open to the public, Rose invites his friends to come and “check out” videos, and he has even purchased old VCR players so they can watch his video library selections at home. In his enthusiasm, he admits he has gone “a little overboard” and created his own line of merchandise: Kitchen Video hats, aprons, tote bags and membership cards.
But that’s not his only video-store membership card. He still has his Blockbuster rental card from childhood, where he says renting movies like “Rushmore,” “Raising Arizona” and “The Graduate” opened up a whole new world to him.
“I lived in a small town in Texas, so movies were not a thing really beyond just what was playing at the theater that week,” he says. “So going to a Blockbuster and digging to discover these hidden gems was really exciting.”
His apartment has all the signatures of Rose’s style, which he describes as “Southwest Marfa vibe meets eclectic thrift store discoveries.”
In the bedroom, his vintage cowboy boots are neatly lined up against the wall below felt hats. In the living room, portraits of Willie Nelson and Hank Williams adorn the walls, alongside paint-by-numbers artworks, a cow skull and a Bennington flag he found in a Santa Fe, N.M., antique store.
When he moved from New York to L.A., he started over, but he did keep a coffee table made from the wreckage of Hurricane Sandy.
In the living room, portraits of Willie Nelson and Hank Williams are displayed alongside paint by numbers art, photographs, a Georgia O’Keeffe-style cow skull and a Bennington flag.
“One of my friends called it ‘repressed cowboy,’” he says in describing his style as the Austin band Cactus Lee plays in the background. “I really try to make it feel put together, but always with a bit of irony or something tongue-in-cheek.”
One thing he is serious about, however, is the illuminated globe that belonged to his grandfather. “That is what I would grab if my apartment were on fire,” he says.
Despite the surplus of videos in his closet, Rose observes that he only invests in films that strike a chord with him, ones he plans to revisit. He scours the internet and local spots like Whammy in Echo Park for rare finds, but it’s the ones he stumbles upon during his road trips between Texas and Los Angeles, in Goodwill and thrift stores, that hold a special place in his heart.
Like his Kitchen Video, film themes extend throughout the apartment, for which he pays $2,060 a month, including a Pop Art painting of David Byrne from “True Stories” and a print of Brandon Bird’s oil painting “No One Wants to Play Sega With Harrison Ford” in the living room.
Recently, Rose started collecting audio cassettes, which he plays on an outdated boombox complete with an antenna.
“It’s nostalgic,” Rose says of analog technology. “It’s the reason everyone collects vinyl. I have Netflix and Spotify, but there is real fulfillment in physically doing something.”
In the summer, Rose enjoys hosting outdoor movie nights in his Silver Lake backyard.
A screen hangs in the backyard, ready for an upcoming screening of the 1996 film “Bottle Rocket.”
In the summer, Rose finds hosting movie nights for his friends in his backyard equally fulfilling. It’s a luxury he has come to appreciate after living in a studio apartment in New York for a decade. “This is the nerdiest part: I’ve figured out a way to connect the VCR to a modern projector so I can screen movies from the VCR,” he says, laughing at himself.
Most movie nights, he chooses popular films that are familiar but also unexpected. At his last screening, he showed Doug Liman’s 1996 film “Swingers,” which was filmed in Los Angeles, and for his upcoming gathering, he plans to screen Wes Anderson’s first film, “Bottle Rocket.”
That’s not to say there isn’t room for B movies that are “spectacularly wild and bad,” he says.
“I just picked up this VHS called ‘Repo Jake’ that I’m really excited about watching,” he says of the 1990 film starring Dan Haggerty of “Grizzly Adams” fame. “According to the box, our hero, Jake, is ‘whipped into supersonic action involving a vicious crime lord, mob of angry car owners and a sadistic porno ring.’”
“That might be perfect for a screening,” the cinephile says, underscoring the joy in discovering a movie that is so bad it’s good.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
