What do "Gummo" and "Imitation of Life" have in common?

December 25, 2010 2:45 PM

My brother works at a record/DVD chain in Louisville. He's mentioned that the two most popular movie purchases (not just at the specific store he works at, but at others in the chain too) are Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life and Gummo. Why those two films in particular? Do they have something in common I'm missing?
posted by hr120 to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Best answer: I don't think they have anything in common, other than each having a definite cult following. I know that Imitation of Life has been experiencing something of a revival lately (I recently attended a screening of it in NYC, and have heard it mentioned by other people here and there, in real life and online). I think TCM may have been screening it this fall, though I can't find a schedule that confirms this.

I think it's probably confirmation bias. Maybe once he started noticing a couple of purchases, they began to stand out to him, giving him the impression that they're super popular. Sort of like Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" album, which continues to sell steadily to this day regardless of how relevant it may be to the times. (According to wikipedia, it still sells 200,000 copies a year.)

Other ideas: either of them may have been written about recently, or included in a roundup of notable titles.
posted by hermitosis at 3:44 PM on December 25, 2010

How did he learn that these were the two most popular purchases? How big of a chain is it?
posted by box at 3:52 PM on December 25, 2010

Response by poster: Whoops....didn't mean to write "most popular." The stores have a lot of catalog merchandise (1000s of titles of DVDs) that sits on the shelf, but those two films always seem to sell. It's a national chain and there are 3 stores in the Louisville area.
posted by hr120 at 7:26 PM on December 25, 2010

Best answer: Are they on the curriculum at a nearby university? They sound like movies that people would be required to watch for various liberal arts or sociology subjects.
posted by w0mbat at 9:44 PM on December 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

...not to barge in too late, but have you by chance SEEN 'Gummo'!? The director/writer was also the same who did the film 'Kids'.....'Gummo' is the film 'Kids' on a ton of Acid and some Quay Brothers thrown in...and the occasional cat violence...wow...weird post, interesting post - I too would like to know.
posted by TeachTheDead at 2:14 AM on January 7, 2011