PORTLAND, Ore. -- While video rental shops have all but disappeared, one Portland store remains open with over 80,000 titles. But its future is in doubt.
The store's owner, Mike Clark, opened Movie Madness in 1991 and now plans to retire. He has offered a chance for the Hollywood Theater to purchase his assets for $250,000.
The Hollywood Theater, itself the beneficiary of a fundraising campaign to remodel and stay open, has started a Kickstarter campaign to save Movie Madness.
The campaign site points out levels of contributions from pins, pennants and T-shirts on up to an evening with director Todd Haynes.
A $5,000 gift gets you a private screening of your favorite movie at the Hollywood Theater. A gift of $10,000 gets you a private 70 mm screening of '2001: A Space Odyssey,' 'West Side Story' or 'Lawrence of Arabia.'
The campaign website includes the following testimonials:
“Movie Madness is a place where a love of movies is completely and totally evident. An entire consummate encyclopedic collection of rare and obscure titles goes away if Movie Madness goes away. It would be not just the loss of an extraordinary collection, but a loss of a place that is a real, breathing tribute to the love of movies. It keeps you excited about the world to discover places like this.”
— Todd Haynes, Film Director & Hollywood Theatre Board Member
“The Movie Madness library that the Hollywood Theatre would like to absorb is one of the most amazing collections of cinema archaeology that I have ever seen and it is very important that it be saved. This is a very worthy endeavor - give money to this project!”
— Gus Van Sant, Film Director
Portlanders and Film Lovers: Please consider helping to save one of the greatest cinematic resources in this country. ...
Posted by Shawn Levy on Wednesday, October 11, 2017