Toronto’s Top Indie Video Stores, Part 5: Name Says It All At The Film Buff

They stock the offbeat, the obscure, the seminal, and everything in between – and movie fans can’t get enough. In Part Five of CityNews.ca‘s five-part series profiling Toronto’s top indie video rental shops, we visit The Film Buff, which has one of the most impressive collections of rare, foreign, and critically lauded films in the GTA.

Scott Worsley may be the most knowledgeable film guy in the city.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that the owner of The Film Buff, respected by cinephiles and fellow indie video store owners alike for its extensive collection, opened his first store on Roncesvalles Ave. a decade ago by chance.

“This was our local video store and I made the joking comment one day, ‘If you ever want to sell the place…,’ and (the owner) said ‘Okay.’ Six months later we were in,” Worsley notes in an interview at the store with CityNews.ca, adding that it was always his plan to bring in classics and foreign titles.

“The name begets what we hoped it would be, a place that didn’t do entirely mainstream, although that’s what pays the bills.”

Over the years Worsley, who trained as an engineer, has compiled an exhaustive catalogue of 20,000 films, including the entire Criterion Collection (even out-of-print selections), and more than a few rarities. He admits there were a few bumps along the way.

“Two years after we started the DVD world unsettled everything and flipped us all on our heads. All the work we did to get everything on VHS, we had to get rid of and replace it all,” he explains.

Three years ago Worsley opened a second store on Queen St. in the east end, and he has devoted customers at both locations. He muses that there are interesting differences between what customers rent at the East store, where Brit-focused fare is tops, versus the West, where foreign and less mainstream titles fly out the door.

Visitors to the Film Buff website will find not only a list of all the titles they carry but a year-end compendium of everything cinema – from lists of the best documentaries and favourite guilty pleasures to mini reviews of just about every title released.

“It’s where I get to pontificate on my little stool, talk about films,” he says. “It’s changed over the years, it was a flyer we did quarterly, then bi-yearly, then last year it was one at the end of the year.”

It’s clear Worsley knows his cinema – one look at his top five picks (below) and you get the sense he’s happy to talk about films with his customers all day long.

“(Sometimes) you’re in the mood for Friday night braindead, escapist fare. Then Sunday you’re in more reflective mode so you pretend to rent a Bergman, but you don’t really,” he jokes.

“We were fortunate in the sense that the (Roncesvalles) neighbourhood went through this renaissance around the same time as we started. It wasn’t necessarily right out of the gates, but the neighbourhood changed and we ended up with a client base that by rights we shouldn’t have got. We were in the right place at the right time.”

The Film Buff’s Top 5 Essential Viewing*

*Scott Worsley and his staff discussed and debated their top five before coming up with their ‘best of’ selections for each decade from the 1930s through the 1970s. Here, Worsley explains what they came up with and why.

1930s

Trouble in Paradise

“Whimsical, jewel thief romance. Early sound film, had interesting sexual innuendo for 1932.”

1940s

The Third Man/The Lady From Shanghai, both directed by Orson Welles

“The Third Man is a bit of a cop-out choice. The other choice would be Lady From Shanghai – that’s the Welles no one ever talks about because Citizen Kane gets in the way and other films like Touch of Evil. Lady From Shanghai – way ahead of its time, weird camera angles, weird characters. The Third Man because it’s almost a perfect film.”

1950s

Rashomon/Kiss Me Deadly

“Kiss Me Deadly is the one I wanted to choose but Rashomon moved up the list from other staff people that wanted it higher.”

1960s

Le Samourai

“Jean-Pierre Melville’s updated noir-style, American noir from the ’50s and ’40s, with Alain Delon. Totally sort of still movie about a lone assassin. Terrific film, one that everyone should see for sure.”

1970s

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

“It would be hard-pressed to get through the ’60s and ’70s without picking a (Sam) Peckinpah film. I’m not going to pick The Wild Bunch because it’s the obvious and easy choice. I think, from the ’70s, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. Weird, off-the-wall, Peckinpah supposedly doesn’t remember doing the film – puts the drug use at the time in perspective.”

The Test

CityNews.ca picked ten hard-to-find films and asked each store if they stocked them. Here’s how The Film Buff measured up:

Harold and Maude – yes
Dog Day Afternoon – yes
The Doom Generation – yes
Big Night – yes
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys – yes
The House of Yes – yes
Cinema Paradiso – yes
Brazil – yes (standard and Criterion Collection version)
Five Easy Pieces – yes
City of God – yes

The Film Buff (two locations)

73 Roncesvalles Ave. (416) 534-7078
12pm – 10pm

1380 Queen St. E. (416) 465-4324
Mon-Fri 3pm – 10 pm
Sat-Sun 12pm – 10pm

http://www.thefilmbuff.com/

Rental cost
$4.50 for most films
$8.75 for multi-disc packages

Photos and video by Brian McKechnie

Toronto’s Top Video Stores

Part 1: Queen Video
Part 2: Suspect Video
Part 3:  Marquee Video
Part 4: Black Dog Video