Business
The return of Vidiots could alter L.A.’s moviegoing map for good

When the Santa Monica video store Vidiots, which had become a local cultural institution, closed in February 2017, founders Patty Polinger and Cathy Tauber had their doubts as to whether the store would ever rebound. Opened in 1985, the beloved rental shop had a collection of more than 50,000 titles on various media formats that was put into storage, potentially never to be publicly available again.
“I didn’t really think it would,” said Tauber, reflecting on whether the store could bounce back after years of financial struggle with the rise of emerging streaming services. “I know that was the plan from the beginning, but I think by the time we shut down, I was so worn out and exhausted from trying to keep the business going and all the negativity and struggle. It was really hard to imagine this was really going to happen. Of course I hoped it would, but we were just way burnt out by the time we were closing down.”
Tauber sat recently with Polinger in the comfy and inviting theater space of the revived Vidiots, which just reopened. Besides a video store, the newly renovated complex at the Eagle Theatre in Eagle Rock includes a 271-seat movie theater, a beer and wine bar, and a smaller micro-cinema space that can also be used for community and educational programs.
“It has been such a transformation and such a huge endeavor, with so many obstacles along the way,” said Polinger. “It’s really a miracle that we’re here.”
Both Tauber and Polinger acknowledge that the new beginning would not be possible without Maggie Mackay, executive director of the Vidiots Foundation since 2016 and main initiator of the reopening plan. For two years after the Santa Monica store‘s closure, Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures paid for storage of the collection and supported the foundation while new plans were put in place. Mackay has led an ongoing capital campaign that has raised more than $2 million, much of the fundraising done during the pandemic.
The ambitious new Vidiots space, with programming planned for seven days a week, is looking to insert itself into the already lively repertory screening scene around Los Angeles, serving audiences in a radius around Eagle Rock that includes Highland Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Pasadena and other nearby neighborhoods that have a deficit of screening options.
The Eagle Theatre and Vidiots video store opened in Eagle Rock this month.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
With the combined theater space and video store — now with over 60,000 titles thanks to the acquisition of other collections — Vidiots is hoping to become a hub for a community that it is both newly rejoining and in a sense creating on its own.
“We want to cross cultures and cross age ranges and get butts back in seats,” Mackay said. “And there’s a way to do it and make it affordable and equitable and not just for one small segment of a community.”
“This is a space to build the next generation of people who will love movies,” she added. “And they shouldn’t just come from households where movies are a thing. They should come from the households where people don’t think about movies. That’s how you get the next generation. It can’t just be handed down. It has to be something that’s open. It has to be a party that everybody’s invited to.”
Vidiots’ reopening coincides with a moment when audiences for repertory screenings around the city have been trending younger, belying doubts about the future of theatrical moviegoing in the era of streaming. And a number of venues have already been pulling audiences eastward, away from the Westside and Hollywood.
The American Cinematheque has been programming at the Los Feliz 3 while the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood undergoes renovations. Screenings at the 2220 Arts + Archives space have been drawing sellout crowds. There is much anticipation as to when the Vista Theater, now owned by Quentin Tarantino, will reopen.
Each local venue — including the Cinematheque, the Academy Museum, the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the New Beverly Cinema, as well as the Laemmle art-house chain and independent theaters such as the Lumiere Cinema — draws unique audiences. Vidiots is looking to slip into a slot of its own, a family-friendly, teen-and-tween-welcoming environment for movie lovers of all stripes.
The first day of programming began with Disney’s 1973 animated “Robin Hood,” at which some young attendees were seeing their first movie in a theater. An afternoon event with filmmaker Fox Maxy was presented in conjunction with a UCLA Film and Television Archive program celebrating Indigenous cinema. The day wrapped up with a sold-out show of the L.A.-set, cautionary AI classic “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
Other films screening in June include “Selena,” “The Harder They Come,” “RRR,” “Love & Basketball,” “The Slumber Party Massacre,” “In the Mood for Love,” “The Last Dragon” and “Desperately Seeking Susan,” as well as an evening of the unedited concert footage of punk bands the Cramps and the Mutants playing at a California psychiatric facility in 1978 along with a documentary short on the notorious show. A celebration of June weddings will feature a cheeky range of nuptial fare, including “Monsoon Wedding,” “The Wedding Banquet” and “Bride of Frankenstein.” A July program presented by the Museum of Home Video will feature an eerie selection of doorbell-cam footage. Other screenings in July include the documentary “Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)” with subjects They Might Be Giants in attendance, the documentary “Crumb” with director Terry Zwigoff and the Sun Ra documentary “Space Is the Place,” part of a series on Afrofuturism presented with Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
Among those supporting the Vidiots project as founding members are a number of local creative couples, including actor-directors Katie Aselton and Mark Duplass, producer Mette-Marie Kongsved and Elijah Wood, and podcaster Karina Longworth and filmmaker Rian Johnson.
Individual supporters include actor and director Lake Bell, Oscar-winning animators Phil Lord and Chris Miller, producer Nate Moore, “White Lotus” star Aubrey Plaza and musician Sharon Van Etten.

Nick Morano and Sofia Ciraulo study rentals available at Vidiots.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
A few weeks before the opening of the new Vidiots complex, things were still coming together. A small crew was shooting an introduction video that will play before every screening and will be periodically swapped out. This first one will feature founding members Ify Nwadiwe and Noah Segan, as well as one of Mackay’s children and a few young friends.
In between shots, Nwadiwe, a comedian, actor and writer, spoke about how he became involved with Vidiots. He has helped in putting together a program for this month to celebrate Juneteenth.
“What is very important to me is the fact that it’s a community,” said Nwadiwe, who lives nearby and is looking forward to bringing his 7-year-old daughter. “I could have thrown a check and let them do their thing. But one of the beautiful things about a space like this is being involved and really making this a hub for not only movie lovers but also filmmakers and creators where we can also meet and commune. Who knows what can come out of just having so many great minds in one place?”
An actor and filmmaker who recently made his feature directing debut with “Blood Relatives,” Segan lives with his wife, writer and producer Allison Bennett, and their two young children in the neighborhood. Segan was among those who first noticed when the for-lease sign appeared on the Eagle, which opened in 1929 as the Yosemite Theater and has been through many incarnations through the years, including phases as an adult theater and a church (not at the same time).
“We moved to Eagle Rock because we loved that this is a historic and diverse and artistic and friendly place in Los Angeles,” said Segan, who regularly went to the original Vidiots when he lived in Venice. “And it represents a lot of the things that we love about the city as a whole.”
The ethos of bold curiosity and discovery at the original video store has been transferred to the new store and theater space, engendering what Segan called “a safe place to figure it out.”
“It really does feel like this total misfit thing has grown into an incredibly wholesome, positive, productive space,” said Segan. “That’s I think what everybody kind of wants. And if that’s what the legacy is, we’re all going to feel really good at the end of the day.”

Whimsical signage is featured throughout the Eagle Theater, reopened with the Vidiots video store.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
More than anyone, Mackay has held the flame for Vidiots during the long process of finding, renovating and opening the new space. She had a long career in various film jobs around Los Angeles, including programming for the Los Angeles Film Festival and working behind-the-scenes on the Spirit Awards. But she had no prior experience with fundraising before signing on with Vidiots, driven by a commitment to the mission behind the old store.
“I will be truthful and say I’m not sure that I would or could have any inclination to raise money for something other than Vidiots,” Mackay said. “It’s the thing that I can believe in so much that I can ask people to go down that rabbit hole with me. And it’s not just about asking for money, it’s about asking for hours and time and expertise and artwork and help and emotional support, especially through the pandemic.”
She added, “I’m not really this ambitious. I mostly want to go to the beach.”
Though Polinger and Tauber won’t be pulling shifts in the video store like in the old days, they are on the board of the Vidiots Foundation and remain involved in the project. Mackay said they provided an essential beacon as the project to open the new space moved along.
“I wouldn’t have kept going had Patty and Cathy not been really involved,” Mackay said. “Their involvement is as much emotional as it is anything else. Every time I started to totally lose faith in this and just think, like, ‘What have I done?’ I call Patty and Cathy and am instantly reminded why we’re doing this and instantly reminded of who I was as a kid when I needed a space like Vidiots. And so every time I start to lose hope, they are my center.”

Eagle Rock, CA, Monday, May 22, 2023 – The Eagle Theater and Vidiots video store re-opened in June. Executive director Maggie Mackay, right, and Vidiots founders Patty Polinger, left, and Cathy Tauber, center, photographed at Vidiots.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
As Tauber and Polinger walked through the new video store shortly before opening, Mackay pulled out a portfolio full of ads from the original store, highlighting the availability of films such as “El Topo,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” “The Long Good Friday” and “Picnic at Hanging Rock.” One ad read, “If you have called your video store looking for Fellini and their reply was ‘the Italian restaurant moved,’ then Vidiots is for you.”
Technical director Boris Ibañez was upstairs in the theater’s projection booth overseeing installation of the digital projection system. An old-school 35-millimeter system, provided by filmmaker Jason Reitman, is also being installed, with a goal of being up and running by August.
Ibañez left a job as a technician and operations analyst with AMC Theatres to work for Vidiots and, like many involved in the project, felt himself drawn to it by the sense of commitment, community and legacy.
“Am I really going to leave my corporate 10-year job for this?” Ibañez recalled asking himself. “I believe in the vision, so I decided to do it.
Ever since Vidiots signed the lease for the Eagle Rock space in late 2019 — their new landlords happen to be former Vidiots customers — there has been a growing sense that the old space in Santa Monica was more than just a video store. The ambitious new project looks to further fulfill on the promise of bringing people together via a shared love of the movies.
“It feels really good that our previous goodwill somehow created this. It’s amazing seeing our legacy propelled forward,” Polinger said. “The collection is so important and the mission is so important.
“I want access to films that people can’t see via streaming,” said Polinger. “And I want conversation around film, and I want young people to be excited about film and be able to converse and discuss and turn other people onto it.”
“We had this community in Santa Monica, and that’s what I miss most,” Tauber said. “And that this is just on a way larger scale is really overwhelming.”
For the revitalized Vidiots, anything seems possible.

Business
Epic Games says Apple blocked 'Fortnite' in U.S. app store
Epic Games on Friday said that its popular game “Fortnite” will be offline on Apple devices because the iPhone maker blocked its recent app update.
The dispute comes just weeks after Epic Games and other app developers cheered a judge’s ruling that limited the commissions that Apple makes through third party apps distributed through its app store.
Apple received a scathing rebuke from U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who sided with Epic Games, which alleged that the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant ran afoul of an order she issued in 2021 after finding the company engaged in anticompetitive behavior.
Under the ruling, Apple can’t collect commissions on purchases U.S. customers make through links inside iPhone apps that direct them to outside websites. Developers, which make money by selling digital goods and services via their apps and games, want to avoid giving Apple a cut of their revenue by sending customers to other websites.
“That [Apple] thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation,” the judge wrote in her ruling.
Many developers applauded the court’s ruling, which limits what they call the Apple tax, and said they would pass on the savings to customers.
Epic Games’ Chief Executive Tim Sweeney earlier this month said “Fornite” would return to the App Store in the U.S. and possibly worldwide if Apple extends “the court’s friction free, Apple tax-free framework” globally. But on Friday, the “Fortnite” X account said that Apple blocked its submission.
“Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it,” the account posted. Epic Games did not return requests for further comment.
Apple said on Friday that it asked that “Epic Sweden resubmit the app update without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.”
“We did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces,” Apple said in a statement.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with advisory services firm Enderle Group, said the recent ruling applies to the U.S. and Apple wants to retain the rest of its control worldwide. Apple makes significant money through apps.
“Apple is using their … strength to prevent ‘Fortnite’ from benefiting globally from their core win,” Enderle said.
Epic Games filed its lawsuit against Apple in 2020. “Fornite” generates revenue by letting people buy digital goods, such as “skins,” in the game, and Epic wanted to let users buy items outside the Apple system to avoid the company’s commission.
While the judge ruled that Apple did not have a monopoly in the mobile gaming market, the court ordered Apple to let app developers put links in its apps so customers could make outside purchases and bypass the company’s commission fee. Apple, however, defied the order, the court said.
Apple limited the ways that developers could communicate with its customers about out-of-app purchases and used wording that discouraged users from clicking on those links, the judge wrote. Apple would charge a commission fee for any goods or services purchased within seven days of a consumer clicking on a link that took them out of the app, the ruling said.
Apple is appealing the ruling and has said it strongly disagreed with the judge’s decision.
Business
Consumers Show Signs of Strain Amid Trump's Tariff Rollout

The U.S. consumer has seemed unstoppable in recent years, spending throughout soaring inflation and the highest borrowing costs in decades. That resilience helped to keep at bay a recession that many thought inevitable after the pandemic.
Consumer spending has fueled the economy
Year-over-year percentage change in retail and food service sales
President Trump’s tariffs and their scattershot rollout have once again raised concerns that the United States may soon face an economic downturn. While the odds of an outright recession have fallen as the highest levies have been paused, there are reasons to be worried about the ability of consumers to continue to prop up growth.
Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, meaning a sharp enough pullback could cause significant damage.
For now, consumers are still spending, although more slowly than in the past. Their attitudes about the economic outlook have soured in recent months in anticipation of elevated prices, slower growth and higher unemployment. Americans have also become choosier about how they spend their money. Leisure and business travel has declined. People are buying fewer snacks and eating out less as they look to cut costs. They are even doing fewer loads of laundry to save money.
“The economy is really vulnerable to anything that could go wrong, and clearly there’s a lot that could go wrong,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.
It is not yet clear if the slowdown simply reflects distortions related to stockpiling before Mr. Trump’s trade war starts to really bite, or if it is an early sign of a full-blown retreat.
Part of what has enabled consumers to spend so freely up until this point is a stockpile of savings that they accrued as a result of government stimulus during the pandemic and a booming stock market. Those savings have now largely been tapped out.
“The cushion that was there during the pandemic to weather the storm of higher prices is not there now,” Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG, said. The highest-earning 10 percent of Americans, who drive the bulk of consumer spending, are still in good shape, but it’s the bottom 90 percent that worry her most.
Those households are under increased financial stress.
The share of outstanding credit card debt that is 90 days or more past due started increasing in 2023 and has continued to rise across geographies and income levels, according to data through the first quarter of this year released Tuesday by the New York Fed and research by the St. Louis Fed. The trend has become particularly pronounced for poorer households.
Credit card delinquency is high
Percentage of credit card debt that is 90 days or more past due
And real-time credit reports from Experian, one of the three major U.S. credit rating firms, suggest the pace accelerated in April.
Americans are struggling with other kinds of payments, too. The overall delinquency rate, which includes all loan types, reached its highest level since 2020 in the first quarter of this year, according to the Fed data. This was driven by student loan delinquencies, as past-due student loans once again were included in credit reports after a pandemic-era pause on federal student loan repayments.
Because they now have to pay down those balances after a five-year reprieve, consumers may increasingly have trouble servicing other kinds of loans, another strain.
What matters most, however, is the labor market. “If American consumers have money, they’re going to spend it, and the primary place they get money is through their jobs,” said Eric Winograd, an economist at the investment firm AllianceBernstein.
Businesses are still hiring, layoffs are low and the unemployment rate has stabilized at a historically low level of around 4 percent. But the labor market is noticeably less robust than it was in the aftermath of the pandemic, a period that was marked by booming hiring, soaring wages and acute worker shortages.
“Nothing emboldens consumers quite like a strong labor market, and we don’t have that anymore,” said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at PGIM Fixed Income.
Companies are posting far fewer job openings and positions are no longer much more plentiful than the number of people looking for work as businesses reassess their staffing needs in an environment of slowing growth.
Jobs are no longer much more plentiful than available workers
Job openings vs. unemployment
Spending is now consistently increasing faster than income, once adjusted for inflation. This imbalance cannot last, said Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro. Either incomes will need to accelerate or consumption must slow over time. “Given what we know about the job market and wage growth, it’s more likely that consumer spending slows than incomes rise,” he said.
Spending is growing faster than income
Year-over-year percentage change in real consumption vs. real income
Pay is no longer soaring for workers in the lowest-paid industries, such as leisure and hospitality, who saw their earnings increase the fastest in the initial recovery period when the job market was strong and demand for their services was high. Now, pay is rising faster in high-wage industries — as pay for lower- and mid-wage jobs stagnate.
Wage growth has slowed, particularly for workers in low-wage industries
Median year-over-year percentage change in industry-level earnings for nonmanagers
It is too early to say if the lessons of the post-pandemic period will prove applicable this time around. Consumers are clearly under heightened pressure, but it will take time to know whether they are buckling under that weight or once again muscling through.
So far, policymakers at the Federal Reserve do not appear too worried just yet and are taking their time to assess the economic impact of Mr. Trump’s policies before restarting interest rate cuts.
“The U.S. consumer never lets us down,” John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in a recent interview.
Business
Retail theft surge in Inland Empire store prompts new policy: Leave shopping bags with the cashier
A locally owned grocery store fed up with a rise in theft in its Inland Empire community is trying to crack down on the problem by restricting the use of large personal shopping bags in the store.
On a Facebook post in April, Matthew and Allison Whitlow announced their ownership of the Grocery Outlet on East Florida Avenue in Hemet. Less than a month later, the owners noted on social media that a personal bag policy will be strictly enforced citing “an influx of theft.”
In the post, the Whitlows asked that customers leave their reusable shopping and personal bags — including anything larger than a small handbag — in the front of the grocery store with a cashier.
“While this has always been posted on our front door, we have had some take advantage and walk out of store without stopping by the register,” according to a Facebook post.
The Whitlows declined to speak with The Times about the incidents that led to their decision.
But asking customers to leave their reusable bags at the front of the store could create confusion for shoppers who are trying to follow state law and help the environment.
Since 2014, California has worked to eliminate single-use plastic bags from grocery stores and have recently taken a step further by passing legislation that would do away with the thicker plastic bags made of high-density polyethylene, or HDPE. Grocery stores have been offering the thicker HDPE bags to shoppers instead of the banned thin plastic bags.
In response, shoppers across the state have stocked up on reusuable grocery bags, made of canvas or cloth.
The new bag policy is in response to an uptick in retail theft across the state, an issue so problematic that state officials have dispatched California Highway Patrol officers to help local police get a handle on retail crime and car theft and help bolster traffic enforcement.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has sent officers to Oakland and Bakersfield, cities that have had immense issues with smash-and-grab retail crime.
Customers who leave their large bags at the front are allowed to take out and carry their smartphones and wallets while they shop.
The Whitlows are encouraging their customers to use store-provided hand baskets instead.
“With us being locally/independently owned, when theft occurs, it not only hurts us, but the community,” the post stated. “We know this is inconvenient for everyone, but we want to ensure that we have products for you all as well as not lose any so we can keep pricing affordable.”
Rather than resort to theft, the owners suggested in the post that shoppers who are struggling to make ends meet ask for help.
“Please ask for one of the owners, Matt or Allison, and we will see what we can do to help,” the post stated.
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