Blockbuster brains

Tue, 19 Aug 2003 20:16:00 +0000

The old video-store saw goes like this: A Paramount studio executive walks into a video store and asks the clerk for a copy of the old movie classic "Sunset Boulevard." As the clerk hands him the tape, he tries to make chitchat with the executive: "Gosh, you must be a Gloria Swanson fan."

The executive snaps, "Who's Gloria Swanson?"

A little stunned, the clerk says, "Gloria Swanson! Didn't she save your studio once upon a time?"

The executive responds mordantly, "I'm not paid to know who Gloria Swanson is. I'm paid to know who Eddie Murphy is."

Lon Shimabukuro rolls his eyes gleefully as he tells the story. He swears it occurred about 15 years ago in the independent video store that he co-manages, the Beverly Videocenter, a small but impressive collection of titles located in an Olympic Boulevard mini-mall in Beverly Hills, a stone's throw from Hollywood's talent agencies. It's a story that makes other video-store clerks chuckle in bittersweet solidarity, for it underscores a long-held belief among their Los Angeles clerking brethren: The lowly, self-taught independent video-store clerk is often incredibly film-savvy, and the studio executives who frequent their stores are often more or less film-illiterate.

Salon.com > Elizabeth Segal

Blockbuster brains