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Movie Review: Not For Resale (2020)

February 10, 2020

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

Look, I’ll lay it on the line; physical media may soon go the way of the dinosaur, and that is kind of bullshit if you ask your’s cruelly. Anyway, I’m not alone in this… just take a gander at the number of boutique labels providing horror hounds with the titles they crave on Blu-ray these days. Well, ‘lo and behold video game fans have  the same fuckin’ desire which brings us to Not for Resale

Not for Resale, the new documentary from Kevin J. James, takes us on a tour of independent video game stores still keeping the lights on by wheeling n’ dealing in the relics of the golden age of physical cartridges and disks that transported us to the realms of our most fantastic dreams… and speaking of dreams, these shops may soon become obsolete thanks to the aging out of the customer base; but damn it if the folks behind these cultural meccas of geekdom won’t give up the ghost without a fight… or at least turning the next generation on to the glory of video adventures past.

As you can imagine, the scene contains it’s fair share of colorful characters… including such Youtube superstars as Pat “The NES Punk” Conti and James “The Angry Video Game Nerd” Rolfe, as well as less celebrated folk who love the hobby no less passionately… each presented as genuine, lovable folks in the screen time they are given, rather than going the dreaded “look at these freaks” as some docs of this type are prone to do.

Speaking of screen time, equal attention is given to those still developing games independent of major labels that are now able to reach the throngs of retro-flavored game enthusiasts thanks to the modern distro technique of digital downloads (though admittedly having your game available in a physical format ticks all of those nostalgia boxes hardcore, ya dig?)

Not for Resale works on a number of levels… it plays for those of us that grew up in the late ’70’s to the late ’90s  with a fuzzy sense of nostalgia, while focusing on the positives of the modern age to provide a platform of getting the end result of non-studio supported creators product into the hands of those that will dig it the most. It’s a fun, heartfelt watch, and comes with a hale n’ hearty recommendation from the game lovin’ ghoul!

 

 

 

  • In the interest of fair play, I know a few folks that did some work for this film… if you think that doesn’t make me even more critical of the final product you are indeed the dumbest of asses.

 

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