Vidiots

• Best Video and DVD in the Los Angeles area

• Vidiots
  302 Pico Blvd Santa Monica CA 90405
  Tel: (310) 392-8508

  Get directions

Some kids play "school" when they're little and others play "dress-up". When Patty Polinger and Cathy Tauber met at age 3, they played "video store". Okay, it's a myth, but like all myths, it has some truth. Vidiots owners Patty and Cathy really did meet when they were three. They really did have a love of movies. They wanted to open a video store that would carry films that they would like to see. Vidiots opened in 1985 with more square feet than titles (1000 sq. feet 800 videos). Patty and Cathy sought out rare foreign and independent titles as well as performance and video artists' videos. Within two years Vidiots grabbed a reputation among cinema enthusiasts, film students, and moviemakers as one of the most important alternative video stores in the country. The staff, as you might imagine, has always been made up of creative and knowledgeable people attracted by their love of film. At any given time you will find visual and performance artists, writers, directors, critics, teachers, stand-up comedians, DJ's and actors working behind the counter. The support and loyalty of great customers allowed Patty and Cathy to double and then triple the size of the space with over 40,000 titles. Along with rentals, Vidiots has become a place where filmmakers, activists, and artists could gather together. Over the last 20 years Vidiots has hosted in-store appearances by Anjelica Huston, Les Blank, Callie Khouri , Kenneth Anger, Russ Meyer, Todd Haynes, William Wegman, Nick Broomfield, Alan Rudolph and Wes Craven among others. Vidiots has presented fourteen years of experimental film with the annual PXL Festival as well as spoken word performances by such artists as Viggo Mortensen, Exene Cervenka, Liza Richardson and Ellen Maybe. With a rapidly growing DVD section (over 15,000) and a treasure trove of may-never-make-it-to DVD videos, Vidiots is the perfect alternative for people who passionately love movies.

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