Remember when Disney released its movies on home video in those oversized white cases that were incompatible with VHS racks?
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…
…and once again the most interesting exhibit was hosted in the Harvest Pavilion: “Rewind: A VHS Revival”. Same as last year’s tribute to LP cover art, the curators started with a simple premise — in this case, “Remember movies on videotape? Those were awesome!” — and didn’t tailor everything to Indiana specifically, so much as it hearkened toward ye olde American entertainment monoculture. They assembled a collection of simulated video-rental store shelves, videotape boxes, movie posters, painted recreations of posters and iconic images, a few educational sections about filmmaking, and so on. Their contributors offered some offbeat choices, so it wasn’t all just Spielberg and Star Wars.
Sample video shelves, except nobody bothered to alphabetize them like any real, competent video store would’ve.
The Guinness World Record holder for tiniest Blockbuster Video horror section.
Star Trek‘s syndicated reruns were okay until you could start buying the ones you liked best and watch them again and again and again and again.
Remember when you could only see the most famous movies when cinemas or broadcast networks let you see them? The invention of home video was a revolution in consumer choice and convenience. It broadened access to films of all sizes, pedigrees, and countries of origin. It also contributed to the last few decades’ ongoing cultural fractionalization — now that everyone self-curates at their own paces and caters to their own particularly peculiar preferences, it’s much more challenging nowadays to persuade mainstream audiences to watch the same films at the same time (a few 2026 theatrical success stories notwithstanding).
Once upon a time, Gone With the Wind was an annual TV event that drew high ratings. Decades after it won awards and became one of the all-time highest-grossing films, its eventual scarcity created demand for years. Now that we can rent it online anytime, nobody cares anymore.
The Wizard of Oz was one of countless beloved films re-released to home video every so often and kept in print “for a limited time only” with a sense of fake urgency.
Remember when there were comedies? And some were for adults but some weren’t just for adults?
The largest poster collection on hand: the first six Star Wars films in the correct viewing order.
The German classic Wings of Desire gets its own corner with a poster and a painting homage. I have the Criterion 4K set.
Sidney Poitier and Whoopi Goldberg starred in some of the more topical examples on hand.
More Black Cinema of note: Denzel Washington in Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress and writer/director/star Keenan Ivory Wayans’ A Low Down Dirty Shame.
Other painted subjects included The Mask, whose director Chuck Russell passed away last month.
Chow Yun-fat IS the Two-Gun Kid IN Hard Boiled! I can’t remember if this or The Killer was my first John Woo film…
…but it definitely wasn’t my last. In his Hollywood years, Woo never topped Face/Off.
A large section about martial-arts flicks celebrates Bruce Lee with an entire diorama.
With this standee, you too can become The Crow! Hey, others have done worse than you.
I am Jack’s eye-rolls at Film Twitter.
Academy Award Winner Daniel Day-Lewis in In the Name of the Father.
This Godzilla, King of the Monsters poster repro was painted live on site, earlier during the fair.
I’ve never seen Tank Girl or listened to the soundtrack, but maybe I should, judging by some of the names here?
A nod to adults-only video in the way back (apropos!) failed to pay respects to the old Movie Gallery at Tibbs Avenue and Lafayette Road.
A section about matte backdrops in films included an example from Logan’s Run.
The largest screen in the pavilion played Field of Dreams, starring Academy Award Winners Amy Madigan from Weapons and Kevin Costner from Yellowstone.
Rest in peace, best studio ident ever.
…and there was more, more, more. Far as I noticed, they avoided references to Betamax, videodiscs, laserdiscs, DVDs, streaming, and all other high-def formats except for one HD TV looping a trailer for My Fair Lady‘s 2021 4K re-release, which had the most crystal-clear visuals in the whole pavilion.
To be continued!
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