With the advent of Netflix (and the interim stage, Redbox), the neighborhood video store has been rapidly disappearing. But right at the beginning of Bedford Avenue in Greenpoint is the Film Noir Video Store, a small one-room shop that’s been in business for nine years. Owner Will Malitek says that Film Noir is “dedicated to classic and obscure music and movies” and on our recent visit, it was abundantly clear he is equally versed in both. The narrator of this short video on Film Noir describes the shop as a “Definite destination. You can come in and have a conversation about good film and music,” which is exactly what we experienced.
We asked Malitek about his favorite film and he brought out the Japanese film, Pale Flower, a Yakuza crime thriller by Masahiro Shinoda. But the shop has a great mix of carefully selected films on the popular end (World War Z, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Cabin in the Woods) to cult favorites and classics like The Long Good Friday and To Catch a Thief. The section closest to the checkout counter features collections of Catherine Deneuve and books on Hitchcock and Robert Mitchum. Of course, “video” is slightly misleading–Film Noir has mostly DVDs, records and books. Maybe the trick to the rental business is simply to specialize, and specialize well.
Scroll for more photos of the store below.
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