When you think of a film buff's possessions, a commando-size mailbox certainly isn't the first thing that leaps to mind.
Unless, of course, you're a card-carrying member of the Home Film Festival club.Home Film Festival, a mail-order version of your favorite video-rental store, specializes in high-quality and hard-to-find films.
Whether you want one of Akira Kurosawa's early masterpieces or the latest masterwork from independent wunderkind John Sayles, Home Film Fest stocks it. And you can get these titles shipped directly to your home by simply calling an 800 number.
The timing for a business like this might seem a little off. After all, mega-video giants such as Blockbuster boast a fairly competent foreign film and classic movie section, while cable channels show an impressive range of movies.
But Dan Jury, the founder of the company, doesn't seem too worried. After all, the company has been going strong and growing stronger for 12 years.
When the biz, based in Scranton, Pa., formed in 1984, the video library had the look of Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard, with 50 films making up the collection. Today, Home Film Fest stocks more than 2,800 titles.
Jury came up with the idea of a mail-order rental service after noticing that many of the most lavishly praised art-house films were conspicuously absent in the average video store.
"Everybody writes about these movies," Jury says. "Time and Newsweek still regularly write reviews of theatrical releases that might play in only 10 or 20 percent of theaters."
For movie buffs living in small towns, reading these reviews and then trying to find a video store that stocks them can be particularly frustrating. Due to economic reasons - meaning these films cost video retailers more than your big-budget Hollywood gushers like "Waterworld" - it's easier to find a terrible flick like "Showgirls" than, say, the brilliant documentary "Crumb."
If you want to become a member of the club, all you do is fork over $15, which gets you a membership as well as a nicely conceived 224-page catalogue that details each video. You can purchase the videos, too. Warning: If you open this attractively packaged volume, you'll be sucked in for at least an hour. It's as addictive as any of the many video guidebooks on the market.
You do have a limit of how many films you can rent at a time - three tops, and two-tape sets count as two rentals.
Each movie rental costs $4.50 to $6, plus shipping and handling. Orders arrive in one to four days, depending on your location. They're due back three days after you receive them, and all you do is reuse the shipping box and plunk it into the mail. (Labels and tape pro-vided.)
A simple process. If you'd like to become a member or receive more information, call 1-800-258-3456.
Here are some of the videos you might be able to discover by using this service:
- "IKIRU" - * * * * : One of the best films I've ever seen. Director Akira Kurosawa, who is best-known for his lavish samurai epics, creates a personal and moving tale about a man's attempt to validate his life after he discovers he has an untreatable cancer. Kurosawa's powerful film never stoops to the maudlin or melodramatic, quite a feat considering the subject. (1952).
- "HIGH & LOW" - * * * * : Kurosawa is a big fan of author Ed McBain, the master of the police procedural novel. Here he pays the underrated writer the ultimate compliment by adapting "King's Ransom" into a film that easily stands up to the best work of Hitchcock. A bungled kidnapping leaves a shoe executive with the choice of paying the ransom that kidnappers are demanding for the return of his chauffeur's son, thereby making himself destitute, or refusing and thereby signing the boy's death sentence. (1962).
- "WOMAN IN THE DUNES" - * * * * : This stunningly photographed parable deals with an entomologist who, through some very odd circumstances, discovers that his life is similar to the insects he studies. During one of his bug-getting excursions, he gets stranded in a house built at the bottom of a sand dune. An odd woman lives there, and the majority of the film delves into their antagonistic relationship. Disturbing, compelling and intelligent. (1964).
- "JOHNNY STECCHINO" - * * * : If you like farce, you'll love Roberto Benigni's wild comedy, which derives much of its humor through the classic mistaken identity ploy. Benigni, one of Italy's most popular actors, is wonderfully endearing and irritating. Here, he's mistaken for a mafioso who's been tattling on his cronies. Some jokes fall flat, but most are howlingly funny. (1992).
- "HOUSEHOLD SAINTS" - * * * : Funny, touching and unsettling, "Household Saints" comes from the talented lens of director Nancy Savoca, who previously helmed the wonderful, little-seen "True Love." In "Saints," Savoca has the difficult task of melding a straightforward narrative with elements from a fable as three generations of women grapple with their spirituality as well as their individuality. A nicely realized film. (1993).
- "THE BLACK SWAN" - * * * : About as politically incorrect as Bob Packwood, this swashbuckler features a virile Tyrone Power swept up in some fanciful pirate intrigue. There's a spectacular ship fight, sumptuous cinematography and a sassy lead actress (Maureen O'Hara). You gotta love a movie where pirates chug some beers at a tavern named Ye Porker's Sterne. Power plays a Neanderthal who sets the women's movement back a couple of centuries. It's formulaic, but "CutThroat Island" could have learned a thing or two from it. (1942).