Resident expert Jacob Shelton knows just about everything about anything, and that’s why he’s the perfect person to review and consider the wide range of topics that are available in this strange, chaotic world.

VHS - 10/10

The home video market fucked up when they began producing DVDs. What do I want an animated menu for? Director or (even worse) cast commentary? Drop that shit in a bucket of radioactive waste. No one cares what happened at craft services on the day you filmed the climactic fight scene between Mickey Rourke and a tiger in the middle of the Vatican.

VHS offers all of the pleasure of the home video experience with none of the fat tacked on to convince buyers that it was a good idea to spend upwards of twenty dollars on a DVD (in 2003, today it’s probably something like four cents) or even more for a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD (I don’t recognize these forms of media and I refuse to look up their absurd price). Aside from the inarguable positives of the price difference (In 2004 a VHS rental fluctuated between fifty cents and one dollar while a DVD rental could go for anywhere between three, four, or even five dollars) the tangible nature of VHS makes it all the more important. Even if the physical tape becomes twisted into the gears of your (my, our, their) cassette players, that sudden destruction is better than watching a film in pristine digital quality off of a flat disc that looks more like fifty free hours of AOL than a piece of cinema.

The one drawback of VHS (if you want to consider this a drawback) is storage. You need a shelf, bunker, or library to hold your collection. This purchase of additional materials/home with a library will set you back anywhere between twenty dollars to ten million clams, but the price is worth it to show off the gorgeous collection of video cassettes that you snagged on ebay or found in a garbage bin behind an abandoned Blockbuster Video.

VHS, consider yourself reviewed.

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