Profile: Tommy Morgan, video store clerk
For six years, Tommy Morgan has worked at Videodrome, an independent video-rental store on North Highland Avenue specializing in titles movies buffs can’t find at chains.
“Not like Blockbuster” is how Morgan describes the store.
“If there’s a movie I think we should have, we get it. The store is like a film archive. I’m almost a librarian.”
“Business definitely picks up over the holidays. When it’s nice out, our business drops significantly.”
“If there’s an ice storm, that’s the best rental day of the year ... if the power isn’t out.”
“Recommending comedies is the hardest thing to do. What you think is funny isn’t always funny to other people.”
A popular misconception, Morgan says, is that working at Videodrome is like Clerks, referring to the 1994 cult hit film.
Store employees do not judge customers by their taste in movies, Morgan says. “I don’t think about it. You give me a tag for a movie, I get the movie. Everybody watches good movies and bad movies.”
He says his friends wrongly assume he’s snobbish about the movies he’ll watch. “People assume I wouldn’t want to watch what they’d consider a dumb movie.”
Morgan’s holiday film tradition: “I watch Planet of the Vampires every Thanksgiving in the store.”
On the movies they watch in the store: “Even if it’s PG, the most offensive part of the film always comes on when someone walks in the store.”
Asked how intown gentrification has altered the store’s stock over the years, Morgan says simply, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.”