Archive for month: May, 2014

I’ve noticed that there seems to be lots of things on the internets. A lot of things that I’m not really familiar with. And no I’m not talking weird, unsettling stuff like creepyuncle.com balloon-animalsex.ca or vacuuming-nude-while-cooking-bacon.org. What am I talking about then? Well this past weekend, one of our esteemed, clever staff at Cambie St. wrote something witty on our sandwich board (you can check it out here). Someone photographed it and threw it up on a site called Reddit. Reddit claims to be the front page of the internet. Whatever that means. Less that a day and half later, there had been over 1.3 million views (over 1.5 million as of this writing!) of our sandwich board! And over 500 comments (although many were not about sandwich boards, video stores or ballon-animal sex). That is pretty awesome (the downside is that Black Dog isn’t mentioned on the board or anywhere 🙁 ) Its a strange world that we live in. Getting stranger all the time. Either that or I’m just getting older and less willing to adapt. But that’s a story for another time.

Fresh for Your Eyes

Cheap Thrills – Pretty fun descent into depravity finds a couple of down-and-out former buddies being the subject of torment by a creepy couple who offer them money in exchange for dares. Of course as the amount of dough increases, so do the nastiness of the things they are asked to do. How far would you go, how much would you eat, chop, inject, bludgeon, lick or strangle? I quite liked it but I wanted it to be more vicious and gross. And it was pretty out there. I should seek help. DVD.

Endless Love – Another film in the long line of remakes that nobody ever asked for finds a upscale privileged girl falling for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, and the fathers who try to keep them apart. Just go rent Valley Girl instead. DVD.

Grand Piano – Frodo is forced to play a piano without making a mistake or John Cusack will shoot him or the piano will explode or something like that. Sounds like Speed, but on a piano. Or Phone Booth but on a piano. Man, John Cusack is just pumping out the films this year. He was even in one called The Bag Man. Seems that John Cusack is becoming the new Nic Cage who was busy becoming the new Eric Roberts. That all said, I’ve heard that this is actually a pretty good little thriller. DVD and Blu Ray.

In Secret – Romantic costume drama finds a bummed out Olsen sister being forced into a marriage with her sickly cousin in 1860’s Paris (hence the bumming out) by her mean old aunt Jessica Lange – she plays mean old whatever really well. Then she meets Lleywn Davis and starts a hot affair. You can tell it’s a hot affair by the box art where she seems to be trying to devour the dude’s head. Maybe it’s a zombie film?

Journey to the West – Stephen Chow (Kung-Fu Hustle) returns with this amazingly crazy film about a Buddhist guy trying to protect a village from three demons while trying to protect his feelings from Miss Duan, a demon hunter giving him a helping hand. Expect tons of zany wackiness. DVD and Blu Ray.

Mobius – Crime and espionage are on the menu in this thriller starring The Artist and Tim Roth. Something about banking and spies and Russian Oligarchs or words to that affect. DVD and Blu Ray.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls – Excellent First Nations-Canadian effort finds an Aboriginal teenager, guided by the spirits of her departed mother and brother, plotting revenge against a sadistic Indian Agent. Heard great things about this flick.

Spinning Plates – Doc about 3 restaurant owners owning restaurants. For those of you addicted to the Food Network. Or those of you who like good docs. Or food.

Super Duper Alice Cooper – Fun-looking bio-pic documentary thing about, well, freaking Alice Cooper! Expect a combination of documentary archive footage, animation and rock opera to seduce you to the dark side of rock and roll. As Alex at Commercial notes: Gives the scoop on the Coop with gallows humour and guillotine precision, but where’s Michael Bruce?

In Your Eyes Next Week

Graceland Season 1
Stephen Hawking: The Grand Design
Lone Survivor
Robocop
Small Time
True Blood Season 6

This is What You Might Want to Watch

https://blackdogvideo.ca/2013/02/for-your-viewing-pleasure/

Our good friends at Bomber Brewing are throwing a hootenanny, a shindig, a wingding, a shebang if you will. Good times are to be had.

Black Dog Video

Copyright © 2014 Black Dog Video, All rights reserved.

Hello! Welcome back. Oh how I’ve missed you. I had planned on completely overhauling the old, dusty Newsletter but I ended up getting sidetracked working towards a solution as how to keep the stores open for now and for the Future. More on that later. But I did manage to change the name! That’s something, right? What do you think? Clever? Stupid? (There’s a fine line between clever and stupid, someone once said)

We’ve received a pile of suggestions from you lovely folks, our amazing staff, my brain (hah, good luck, brain!) and many friends on how to keep Black Dog from succumbing to the dirge known as the internets. Damn you World Wide Web, damn you all to hell! I guess it’s not the fad that I predicted last year. We fielded quite a few swell ideas and some, well, terrible ones. They range from selling items such as; dog food, used video games, comics, records, cigarettes, e-cigarettes, candy cigarettes, sex toys (new or slightly used), iPhone accessories, dating advice, pole-dancing lessons, ninja apparel and weapons (Black Dog nun-chucks and throwing stars!), a fight club, tanning booths, a petting zoo and muscle for hire. Other ideas range from creating a subscribed Black Dog membership, donation button on the website, doing movie viewings and hosting Eyes Wide Shut type parties. We’re currently putting something together so stay tuned.

Fresh on the Shelves!

After – Cool sounding mind-melt of a movie finds a couple of survivors of a bus crash discovering that they are the only ones left alive in their small town. “What gives?” they ask. Or I imagine that they do because that’s what I’d say. Kinda sounds like a neat-o Twilight Zonish, Triangley horror dealy. Sign me up!

Eastbound and Down Season 4 – Not my cup of tea but for those of you who do enjoy this cup of tea, drink up!

Escape From Tomorrow – This film looks bananas! Some guy made a creepy, trippy freak-out of a movie inside Disneyland without the sinister Disney folks knowing about it! Dad takes his family to Disneyland to mask the fact he’s lost his job. He starts to lose his marbles there (no kidding) as haunting, surreal images attack his feeble mind. Cannot wait to see this!

Genius on Hold – Very interesting sounding doc about this dude, we’ll call him Walter because that’s his name, who invented a pile of things like call forwarding, speakerphone, touchtone dialling and other phone related stuff. But of course the greedy powers that be ripped him off so he ended up working for the mafia (mental note – video store fails, work for mafia).

Her – My pick for best film of the year so far (haven’t seen Godzilla yet). Spike Jones’ tale of romance and relationships in the near-future finds Joaquin Phoenix falling in love with his new fancy, sexy computer (voiced by fancy, sexy Scarlett Johansson). THIS IS YOUR FUTURE, PEOPLE! It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s really smart.You must watch this. Because I say so. Also on the Blu Ray

I, Frankenstein – From the best to the worst (I shouldn’t really say that as I haven’t seen it) finds Dr. Frankenstein’s (that’s Fronkenshtein! Young Frankenstein – remember?!) monster is loose in the present day and, for some reason, he looks like Aaron Eckhart. He holds the key to humankind’s survival, or some horse-shit like that, and has to fight demons, flying gargoyles, squid-cats, gorilla-caterpillars and young nubile princesses. (I made some of that up). Also on the Blu Ray and even 3-D Blu Ray!

Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? – Michel Gondry sits down with Noam Chomsky and his big brain to talk about a bunch of stuff, like why Jay-Z and Beyonce’s sister are fighting. Lots of cool animation to entertain your eyes while old Noam prattles on about himself and the state of the world. I imagine that Noam doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about the current state of affairs. Just a guess.

Orange is the New Black Season 1 – Pretty good show from, shudder, Netflix about a woman doing some time for some crime. There she meets all kinds of zany characters. From the creator of Weeds. About the only thing that Netflix does right is their original programming. Other than that, it’s an ugly barren wasteland of nonsense, poor quality and broken dreams.

Stalingrad – Yet another retelling (this one is actually Russian) of the famous battle where a handful of brave Russians fought off a horde of angry Gerry’s (Germans for those not down with the vernacular). On Blu Ray and 3-D Blu Ray!

That Awkward Moment – Rom-com finds a bunch (well three is a bunch, right?) friends who vow to stay single until as long as they can. Wow, what a novel concept. Zac Efron and his crunchy abs falls for Imogen Poots (is there a better name than Imogen Poots? Sounds kinda dirty for some reason) which screws up the plans of the best bros. Yawn. Also on the Blu Ray because, well, did I mention Zac and his crunchy abs?

In Your Face Next Week

3 Days to Kill
About Last Night
Call the Midwife Season 3
Monuments Men
Pompeii
Vampire Academy

What We Like and What you Might Want to Watch

https://blackdogvideo.ca/category/reviews/

So there you have it, the new, pretty much same as the old, weekly Black Dog publication. I hope that you like it. We’re gonna try a few different things out in the following weeks, see what sticks. Have a fabulous week everyone. Hope to see you walk in the door soon.

Black Dog Video

Copyright © 2014 Black Dog Video, All rights reserved.