Farewell

Astro Video is going out of business. I urge anyone in the Western Mass area to visit before they close their doors for good (in December most likely). The store is located just into Holyoke by way of Northampton. The prices on are reduced: all VHS tapes are two dollars, all DVDs are discounted according to original price. I'm going to write a proper obituary for the next issue of Samurai Dreams, this is just a notification. I've already been two times since the sale began. I bought the critereon of ...And God Created Women for very cheap, as well as a lot of VHS tapes that were originally priced as high as forty dollars, files like Neon Maniacs, The Point, Steppenwolf, Deadly Impulse and Infra-Man. If you want to check out some slashers, spaghetti westerns, weird 70's thrillers, kung fu flicks, italian post-apoalypse films, Euro-fantasy, old school porn or weird animation, now's yer chance. Also, the rental half of the store, which I had never really looked at, has a lot of great DVDs and tapes, all marked way down. The owner did not want to close to store, but he can't pay the lease any longer. The business will go on, but only as an eBay seller. There's a real melancholy among employees and customers; it's almost like a funeral. There aren't many places like Astro left. The customers I've talked to and overheard all express the same disappointment about the store's demise. I've seen more than a dozen video stores go under in my short life time, and it's always a shame. Astro Video isn't run by cineasts, but the sheer diversity of selection is amazing. I've never seen a place like it. Half the inventory has already been sold, but there are still many gems in VHS and DVD(even if Kevin did clear out most of the Critereons). Go and empty your wallet. Twenty or thirty bux and you'll have months worth of movies to watch.