The Brief

Would you be surprised to know there’s a new film getting a VHS release this year?

The People’s Joker, a DIY parody about a closeted trans girl “Joker the Harlequin” trying to make it in comedy, has had an unconventional path to release, and has now found a home on several formats, including on a beautiful purple VHS.

The poster for Vera Drew's "fair use film."

(

The People's Joker / Altered Innocence

)

Vera Drew, the film’s co-writer, director, editor and star, says the retro format was always crucial to the movie. “The movie really is supposed to feel like you're watching an otherworldly VHS tape, or something somebody’s personality transposed through this glitchy analog dream,” Drew said of her film, which she describes as a “queer comic book coming of age story.”

The ‘physical’ media community

After months of secret screenings, People’s Joker publicly played at OutFest in 2023 and, this summer, has screened in more than 100 U.S. theaters. But Drew is so happy with the VHS release, adding, “I think that will end up being the definitive version.”

Frank Jaffe, head of film distribution company Altered Innocence, saw it at Outfest and knew he was the right person to release the film. Jaffe wanted to “connect with cool queer cinephiles,” and to make sure the film had what’s called a “physical” release — something tangible that viewers can touch, hold and feel. Basically, something that won’t disappear if your streaming subscription of choice loses or sells the film rights.

“One small reason why people are into physical media is the community that you can build through it,” Jaffe said, imagining friends lending their DVD or VHS copies to each other. (For the Gen Xers out there who swapped mixtapes, you know what we’re talking about here).

And that kind of community is what’s been driving this renewed interest in VHS, especially right here in Los Angeles.

Listen 17:50

Apple

Spotify

#299: 

VCRs are buzzing again in the city...that's right! Watching a movie on VHS is back! But in 2024, with streaming and Blu-Ray, why watch something on tape? HTLA producer Victoria Alejandro spoke with VHS vendors, collectors, and other tape aficionados around the city (including filmmaker Vera Drew of "The People's Joker") to understand the subculture, the community, and let YOU know why tapes are back, baby!

Guests: Filmmaker Vera Drew, head of Altered Innocence Frank Jaffe, Michelle Halac and Alex Gootter of Hollywood Entertainment, Erik Varho and Jessica Gonzales from Whammy!, Eliana Oropeza from Aztec Pickers, Jackie Forsythe from AMIA

Hit pause and rewind! VHS is making a comeback

#299: 

VCRs are buzzing again in the city...that's right! Watching a movie on VHS is back! But in 2024, with streaming and Blu-Ray, why watch something on tape? HTLA producer Victoria Alejandro spoke with VHS vendors, collectors, and other tape aficionados around the city (including filmmaker Vera Drew of "The People's Joker") to understand the subculture, the community, and let YOU know why tapes are back, baby!

Guests: Filmmaker Vera Drew, head of Altered Innocence Frank Jaffe, Michelle Halac and Alex Gootter of Hollywood Entertainment, Erik Varho and Jessica Gonzales from Whammy!, Eliana Oropeza from Aztec Pickers, Jackie Forsythe from AMIA

Subscribe

• Apple
• Spotify

Treasures at the tape swap

At the end of June, the Gardena Cinema, L.A.’s last family owned movie theater, hosted a VHS tape swap in partnership with the video store Whammy! It drew in all sorts of fans and curiosity seekers from New Beverly Cinema projectionists Danielle Wakin and David Chien (who grew up just down the street from The Gardena Cinema) to volunteers like VHS aficionado Conor Holt.

Theater owner Judy Kim speaking to New Beverly Cinema projectionist David Chien at the Gardena Cinema tape swap.

(

Victoria Alejandro

)

Over a dozen vendors tabled inside the 800-seat theater with crates of tapes. Every possible genre and niche was on display, from mainstream 90s horror to Mexican films from the 60s to punk concerts from the 80s.

Eliana Oropeza, who sources and sells tapes with her husband under the name “Aztec Pickers,” drove all the way down to Gardena from Fresno. She said they found out about the event through a tape collectors Facebook group that has over 100,000 members.

Oropeza's husband at the Aztec Pickers' VHS table.

(

Victoria Alejandro

)

Oropeza said Aztec Pickers gets their tapes mostly from estate sales or other long-time collectors, which often means there’s a lot of storytelling that goes into each tape.

“That sharing of knowledge, it’s like old times, right? We're coming here, of course, to sell, and also to learn,” Oropeza said about the culture surrounding tape swaps. “And when we talk to each other, it brings the community together, you know?”

How did I not know that existed?

Community and a love of film is what drives the folks behind Hollywood Entertainment, a featured vendor at the tape swap, and a nonprofit that boasts adventurous and underseen programming for film events. The three founders, Alex Gootter, Michelle Halac and Mike Perry, care about sharing things that never made it off of tape onto Blu-Ray or DVD, or got wide distribution.

Michelle Halac, Alex Gootter, and Mike Perry of Hollywood Entertainment selling VHS at the Gardena Cinema.

(

Victoria Alejandro

)

The three film lovers got together in April 2020, streaming rare, unavailable and unrentable films online under the name “Moviepassed,” raising money for community and art spaces during the worst of the pandemic lockdown. They’ve since changed their name and moved their screenings into brick and mortar spaces around the city — and across the nation — including 2220 Arts + Archives, Whammy! and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

“The best compliment we can get after something is ‘How did I not know that existed?’” Gootter said.

It’s not hard for a film to fall through the cracks.

For example, movies like The Wrong Guy, a 1997 Canadian comedy starring Dave Foley and Jennifer Tilly, are impossible to stream due to a snafu with the film rights.

“You were lucky to see it if you happened to catch a Tuesday afternoon rerun on Comedy Central in like, 2000,” said Michelle Halac. So, the trio at Hollywood Entertainment managed to hold a screening of it in 2023. 

“The three of us have spent our lives digging for treasures like this,” Halac said.

Don’t throw away those tapes

The name on everyone’s lips when discussing the state of tapes in L.A. today is Whammy!

It’s an actual video store on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake run by husband and wife team Erik Varho and Jessica Gonzales, who opened the space in 2022.

Erik Varho and Jessica Gonzales prepare to open Whammy! for the day.

(

Victoria Alejandro

)

“We love being literally underground,” Gonzales said of their basement space with an alley entrance. The shop is covered wall to wall in VHS tapes for sale, with a microcinema in the back that seats around 50 people.

Varho and Gonzales also care about featuring films that were only created for the direct to video market, or giving directors who never thought they’d get to see their work with a crowd the chance to do so. “For people to come out and celebrate works that maybe they hadn't been asked to celebrate in a long time, I think that does speak to the core of what's magical about VHS,” Gonzales said.

And celebrating movies that are “stuck on tape” can help plastic waste from entering landfills. “I think about all the tapes being thrown away every single day…they're not particularly recyclable,” Varho said. “If you can adopt a few into your home, that just helps so much.”

The Whammy! membership troll beckons you to join.

(

Victoria Alejandro

)

Now, if you’ve thrown out your VCR in the past few decades, which is likely, you might be wondering how to adopt a tape into your own home. Whammy! has a sister nonprofit to help with that. Gonzales started TAPE — that’s Teach, Archive, Preserve, Exhibit — in September of last year. The nonprofit offers VCR rentals, analog camera rentals, digitizing services for tapes and general workshops for all things film related.

Gonzales hopes TAPE can fill a little bit of the gap left by the Echo Park Film Center, which offered similar services until its closure two years ago. The collective shuttered their physical location after 20 years in business.

What about our home movies?

Jackie Forsythe, Whammy!’s technical director, says this work is also crucial for preserving people’s memories. Forsythe is a recent graduate of UCLA’s Master of Library Sciences program and while there she was part of a student chapter of AMIA, the Association for Moving Image Archive.

The AMIA zine stands out among free media preservation zines at Whammy!

(

Victoria Alejandro

)

Forsythe’s passion is home movies. “They're meant to be seen by people who love you and who you love. And so when we lose access to them, it's devastating,” she said.

On Aug. 24, Forsythe will be part of the team behind Home Movie Day at Whammy!, an event where people can make an appointment to have their tapes looked at, digitized, and even learn how to clean and maintain their VCRs. And, if participants want, they can have their home movies screened in the microcinema.

While those hard plastic tape shells might not break down in a landfill, the tape itself has a ticking clock before it starts to degrade. VHS has an estimated 30 year lifespan, so helping people digitize and preserve is key in the case of precious memories.

The act of screening is crucial to preservation, Forsythe said. “I think the key to getting people to care about things is to have a culture around viewing it.”

California voters will advance two candidates for governor to the November election in the most unsettled gubernatorial race in recent memory, concluding a long and winding primary campaign in which Democrats struggled to pick a new leader for the nation’s most populous blue state.

The decision comes at a particularly consequential time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, nation-topping gas prices made worse by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of state, an unstable state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s expansive health system and an economy dampened by immigration enforcement.

Democratic former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who has promised to fight Trump and freeze insurance and utility rates, is the leading Democrat in opinion polls and is favored by much of the state’s Democratic establishment. He appeared in contention to secure one of the top two spots for November heading into Election Day.

Republican Steve Hilton, a Donald Trump-endorsed former Fox News host who has vowed to cut income taxes and slash environmental regulations, was polling in second place ahead of Election Day, having consolidated support from many of the state’s conservatives.

But billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, a progressive Democrat who has self-funded his campaign to the tune of $213 million, was still fighting for one of the top spots. A series of polls released in the final days of the race showed Becerra in the lead with roughly a quarter of likely voters’ support, and Steyer and Hilton locked in a tight battle for second.

Votes could take days or weeks to tally. Pollsters and strategists noted that lingering Democratic uncertainty led some voters to wait so they could back whoever appears to be ahead.

“Those polls could become self-fulfilling,” said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic strategist whose company tracks ballot return data.

The race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will leave office at the end of the year due to term limits, is the marquee contest on the ballot Tuesday. The seat is considered a shoo-in in November for Democrats, who have nearly twice as many registered voters as Republicans, and holds national importance for the Democratic Party’s pushback to the Trump administration.

It’s also been one of the most unusually open races in recent state history.

No Democratic stars in the race

In contrast to decades of California politics dominated by movie stars, family dynasties and larger-than-life personalities, none of the most recognizable Democratic names jumped into the race.

That led to a crowded field on the left, briefly causing liberals to panic that Hilton and a fellow Republican, the bombastic Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, could each garner more votes than any Democrat, locking the party out of the general election. The state Democratic Party began a public pressure campaign asking lower-polling candidates to drop out. Nearly all stayed in the race.

But when Democratic then-Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out over multiple sexual assault allegations, Becerra was the clear beneficiary, raking in many of Swalwell’s donors and supporters. He’s been surging ever since, successfully dodging criticism of his record. Steyer, who spent $200 million boosting his name recognition through campaign ads, consolidated much of the party’s left flank. Former Rep. Katie Porter, a progressive dogged by allegations about her temperament, fell behind. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a moderate backed by Silicon Valley billionaires, rose from single digits in the polls, but not enough.

Trump’s endorsement of Hilton quickly helped him pull away from Bianco, making it unlikely both Republicans would come in first and second. If Hilton advances to the November election, he faces long odds of being elected against a Democrat.

Both he and Steyer have spent the final weeks of the campaign portraying Becerra as a symbol of the status quo and themselves as agents of systemic change amid multiple state crises, with affordability dominating the race.

For Hilton, that would mean ending 16 years of “one-party rule” under Democrats, slashing spending and reversing many liberal policies such as greenhouse gas reduction mandates, the progressive tax system and parts of the social safety net.

“After 16 years of everything being in one direction, that’s left a lot of people dissatisfied,” he said last week. “Anybody who wants change or balance in our politics, the only choice is for me.”

His name recognition as a former Fox host helped him start the race with a fan base. Nancy LeVesque, a retired salesperson from Roseville, already admired him and said he was an easy choice as she dropped off her ballot at a Placer County vote center on Monday. She liked that he would bring an outsider’s perspective to the governor’s office and a change for those leaving California because of its liberal politics.

“We have lost so many good people,” to other states, she said.

Steyer styled himself as a populist “class traitor” who would force lower costs for Californians by taking on monied special interests like investor-owned utilities, the real estate industry and health insurance corporations. He made a litany of progressive promises on climate change, single-payer health care and raising taxes on the wealthy.

Undecided voter Tina Varnado attended a rally last week for Steyer hosted by her union, which represents home health aides. The South Sacramento resident is a full-time caretaker for her elderly mother and her adult daughter who had open-heart surgery. Between her mother’s social security checks and her pay as her daughter’s health aide, “we do have to spend everything we have every single month” to stay afloat, she said.

“Everything he touched on really touched home for me,” she said after hearing Steyer speak. “If we can lower prices, maybe we can start putting money down on a home for my future.”

Becerra has emphasized his long experience in government, including his lawsuits against the first Trump administration and his time as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary during the pandemic.

That appealed to Evan Cragin, of the California Young Democrats, which endorsed Becerra weeks before his sudden surge. Cragin said he wants the next governor to have government experience to push back on federal “abuses” from the Trump administration.

“Secretary Becerra has done that before,” Cragin said.

Surrounded by supporters at the offices of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California on Monday, Becerra dismissed his opponents’ promises, pointing to past accomplishments including passing the Affordable Care Act and defending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program.

“You can have all these great inflated promises,” he said. “Getting things done is not easy.”

Ryan Sabalow contributed reporting.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

May gray has come and gone, and now it's time for June gloom.

Overcast skies will be present this morning, especially along the beaches and valleys closest to the coast. Otherwise, we're in for a partly cloudy afternoon.

Today's temperatures at L.A. County beaches will stay around 66 to 71 degrees, and reach 76 to 80 degrees for places more inland.

In Orange County, expect similar temperatures with highs from 67 to 74 degrees for Huntington Beach and surrounding areas. More inland areas like Anaheim and Garden Grove will see temperatures of up to 79 degrees.

Moving on to L.A. County valleys, expect high temperatures in the low to mid 80s.

In the Inland Empire, temperatures will range 80 to 89 degrees.

Election Day is here, but now comes the waiting.

Do you have something to watch on Netflix? Maybe you've been meaning to pick up a hobby — how about crochet? Whatever you do, take a deep breath and keep busy because it could be days (or weeks) before we get some California election results.

The state is often knocked by the rest of the country as being "slow" to count votes. But here's the deal: that's a feature, not a bug, of the election system.

The backstory

Things take a while here largely because California works so hard to expand the ways people can vote. For example:

• Californians in recent years overwhelmingly vote by mail — nearly 90% of votes cast in the 2024 presidential election were mail-in ballots. In that same year's primary the percentage was just as high. Those ballots can be postmarked up to and including Election Day. They're counted as long as the ballot arrives within seven days (for the June primary, that's June 9).
• California offers same-day voter registration at any voting center. These new voters must cast a provisional ballot, which is counted once election officials confirm their eligibility (they are overwhelmingly accepted — for example, Los Angeles County reports that historically between 85% to 90% have been counted.
• Voters also have the right to cast provisional ballots if there's any problem on election day — like if poll workers aren't able to void an outstanding mail-in ballot, or if there’s any issue calling up voter information from e-pollbooks. Again (see above), provisionals take longer to process because eligibility has to be confirmed.
• Vote-by-mail ballots require signature matching. When the one received doesn't match the one on file, county registrars must contact that voter to let them know — and give them the chance to correct it.
• And, with more than 23 million registered voters, we're really, really big. In the 2024 general election more than 16 million Californians voted (down from nearly 18 million in the 2020 presidential election). Either way, that’s more people than the total populations of all but three other states.

Why things have sped up, some

But things have sped up considerably in the 30 counties that have adopted a 2016 law called the Voter's Choice Act, including L.A., Orange and Riverside counties. In recent elections, the changes associated with that law — like voters not being locked into a designated polling location — drastically cut down the number of provisional ballots cast, which helped move things along faster than they had before.

A closer look at ballot counting times in California where an increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots has slowed ballot counts.

(

Courtesy California Voter Foundation

)

Still, accuracy and a commitment to "expanding the franchise" — translation: allowing more people to vote — means the process is not designed to produce instantaneous results.

Why you should take a deep breath Election Night

You'll have to get that endorphin hit elsewhere on June 2.

A few things to keep in mind: You may recall that during the 2024 primary, it took about a week to call the results for L.A. City Council races in District 4, where incumbent Nithya Raman was fighting to avoid a runoff election, and District 14, where challenger Ysabel Jurado wound up overtaking incumbent Kevin de León by just a few hundred votes.

It took an even longer 15 days to call the results of Prop. 1, during which opponents conceded, walked back that concession, and conceded again when the measure won by a razor-thin 0.4% margin. And it took 23 days to call the second-place winner for Orange County's 45th congressional district — it ultimately went to Democrat Derek Tran who went on to beat Republican Michelle Steel in the general election. Tran is now up for reelection and rematch with Steel is considered likely in November.

Depending on how close some of these races end up being, we may face similar waits this election cycle.

TL;DR: Officially, county and state election officials have until July 10 to certify election results — including a mandatory audit that requires hand-counting all of the ballots at 1% of precincts. Nevertheless, you're going to see a lot of national media headlines about California's relative "slowness." Brush it off. We have sunshine, beaches, and a highly enfranchised population.