Premiere Video (2.3)

 Tucked into a strip mall in the industrial wasteland surrounding Dallas, the largest video rental library in Texas looks out onto the black tar of its parking lot. The blinking neon letters that spell out Premiere Video are written in a font reminiscent of an 80s arcade game. The brilliant halogen lights lining the ceiling inside shine through the dusty glass storefront and into the darkened street, surrounding the store with an electric halo. Behind its tired door, Premiere holds everything from Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou to MTV’s Jackass: The Movie. The never-ending shelves of DVDs and VHSs climb all the way up the 15 foot walls to the gray ceiling. The films I carried out of that store were my sacred texts: Sunset Boulevard, Network, Bonnie and Clyde, Sex, Lies and Videotape. I was working my way through the celluloid gospel, through A Streetcar Named Desire and the Deer Hunter, through Blue Velvet and The Royal Tenenbaums. I remember the brief and violent revelation I had after I saw old fragments of pop culture reborn, baptized in a new light by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction. I remember being on the verge of tears when I was struck by the desperate beauty of Jake LaMotta’s black and white ballet in Raging Bull. When I witnessed Brando read The Hollow Men in Apocalypse now, every syllable echoing in the hollowness of his soul, I was prostrate before true greatness. These moments of weakness, of awe, of faith were my religion. And Premiere, with its laminate shelves and dull carpeting, was my cinematic temple.