THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609130097
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: PROFILE
SOURCE: BY BILL RUEHLMANN, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: 136 lines
BACK WHEN Tim Cooper was a screenstruck, movie-devouring kid in Norfolk, on summer Saturdays he would catch the children's matinee and the early afternoon show at the old Newport, then scuttle around the sun-baked block to the Rosna on 35th Street to see a complete double-bill there.
``It was,'' he remembers, ``particularly fertile ground.''
If things went according to schedule, the 8-year-old could rack up five films in a row and still get home before nightfall, and he wouldn't have to cross a single busy street to do it.
Plus cartoons, of course, and selected short subjects.
``The more the better,'' he says. ``I loved to plan my weekend and load up on them.''
But never let it be said Cooper's was a misspent youth. The movie maven, now 50, became a professional film critic. He married Linda McGreevy, an Old Dominion University art professor who shared his passion for celluloid, in 1988. They routinely attended two or three new releases weekly at Hampton Roads malls and movie houses, happily screening four to six more films on tape at home in Colonial Place.
``In a normal year,'' McGreevy admits, ``we would watch 360 movies.''
Normal is, in this case, relative. Even on vacation, they went to the movies. The couple saw ``Paris, Texas'' in Paris, France.
``We've spent most of our lives in the dark,'' concedes McGreevy, 51.
Now they own and operate Naro Expanded Video, the alternative rental store on Spotswood Avenue in Ghent that specializes in vintage and foreign films as well as providing a generous sampling of the current mainstream crop.
``The lunatics,'' confirms Cooper, ``are running the asylum.''
They took over the business, which has been in operation around the corner from the Naro Expanded Cinema on Colley Avenue for six years, a month ago. The continuously expanding stock of 3,700 films is theirs; 700 titles came from Cooper's personal collection.
What makes a good movie?
For Cooper, first and foremost, a good script. Then, a good eye. ``Not necessarily an elegant eye, but a sense of character.''
Also freshness.
``Always try for something new,'' he says. ``I hate formula, no matter what it does at the box office. What is the sense in remaking `Father of the Bride'?''
``Citizen Kane'' (1941) was, and in a real sense remains, new.
``Rocky V'' (1991) was old before it was released.
So all the Naro offerings do not necessarily merit the critic's unqualified applause.
``When you open a store like this,'' Cooper says, gesturing at the bright phantasmagoria of boxes that line the shelves, ``you can't cater to your own taste.''
He provides the inspired silent films of Buster Keaton, yes; and the very best of Chaplin, Huston and Hitchcock.
Francis Ford Coppola is spoken here.
But there is also something for everybody. Japanimation. ``Them!'' (1954), James Arness vs. giant ants, and ``Barb Wire'' (1996), a busty action heroine vs. everybody.
Here one can find spectacular outtakes from Oliver Stone's ``Natural Born Killers'' (1994). (``Over an hour of haunting bonus footage containing extra scenes and lost performances! Warden Jones' dismembered head!'')
``I don't need it,'' sighs Cooper, ``but some of my customers do.''
The critic looks like Buffalo Bill after a college education. Silver goatee and hair pulled back in a ponytail. Spectacles.
Most video store clerks, asked about a random title, resort immediately to the computer.
If Cooper is at the desk, where he displays an autographed photo of screen legend Mary Pickford, it will typically go something like this:
`` `The Mad Magician'? Interesting film; 1954, Vincent Price in his post-`House of Wax' period. Shot in 3-D. Patrick O'Neal was in that one, died not long ago, underrated in `The Kremlin Letter,' which came out in 1970 and featured a nifty departure for George Sanders. . . .''
Don't get him started.
``The more I talk to a customer,'' admits Cooper, ``the less likely I am to ask him for money.''
He forgets to make out the rental slips. But he knows whereof he speaks. Cooper has been supplying stylish film criticism to Port Folio magazine weekly since 1983. Typical recent observations:
On ``Independence Day'': ``Combining state-of-the-art digitalized visuals with just about every tried-and-true plot element, this sci-fi lollapalooza allows us to wallow in the unearthly satisfaction of seeing every manmade American landmark blown to bits by invading aliens, and then lets us cheer our native-born expertise for getting even.''
On ``Toy Story'': ``Balancing flip humor with soulfulness, it's a real masterpiece, the perfect post-modern answer to `Pinocchio.' ''
Says Port Folio editor Nancy Chapman, ``I read columnists from all over the country, and I think Tim is one if the most insightful film critics I've encountered. He's an excellent writer. And he knows his movies.
``He will make a great salesman.''
Cooper graduated from Norfolk Academy in the days when it was still an exclusively boys' school. He was an underachiever. Where was his mind in math class?
Ticking off camera angles in Fellini films.
``I loved getting into movies I wasn't supposed to see,'' he remembers. `` `Bonjour, Tristesse' at 11! `Lolita' at 16!''
Even the star of that one, Sue Lyon, was, at under-18, not officially qualified for admission to her own film.
Cooper went on to major in the Circle Theater at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Actually, his major was French, but the Circle was a small theater within walking distance of the campus that routinely showed double bills of the best of foreign and American films. He could have opened a checking account there.
Cooper studied in Switzerland for a year. What does he remember? That was where he saw Marcel Carne's ``Les Enfants du Paradis'' (1945).
After a graduate stint at the University of Virginia, Cooper came back to Norfolk, labored in retail - ``there's nothing like working in a pawn shop to help you come out of your shell'' - and encountered Linda McGreevy in 1978; they would both contribute to the now-defunct Bay Area Review. She wrote about art. He wrote about film.
``Tim said to me, `Who's your favorite artist?' '' McGreevy remembers. ``I said, `Marcel Duchamp.' He said, `Mine, too!'
``That did it.''
Today, Cooper grins at the memory.
``Actually,'' he says, ``I didn't give a bean about art.''
But they got together to form the Tidewater Film Society, housed variously at the ODU Art Gallery on Granby Street and the Chrysler Museum. The society brought classic, foreign and hard-to-find films to a discriminating Hampton Roads audience. In a sense, they are still performing that function together at Naro Expanded Video.
Says Thom Vourlas, co-owner of the nearby Naro Expanded Cinema and a silent partner, ``The business is made for them. They have a vast collection and are augmenting it. They know what's good, what's not, and can tell you why.''
From the front desk, Tim Cooper can see clearly out the entry window of his new enterprise with not only the aesthetic eye of a critic but also the calculating regard of a businessman.
``I'm always hoping,'' he says, ``for bad weather.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
LAWRENCE JACKSON
The Virginian-Pilot
"In a normal year, we would watch 360 movies," says Linda McGreevy
of life with fellow film buff (and husband) Tim Cooper. Together,
they run Naro Expanded Video. by CNB