Past, Present, Future

Twenty-five years ago this morning, I was on my way to the Four Seasons in Toronto to interview David Lynch, Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring for the Mulholland Dr. junket. It was, as you may have heard, a perfect September morning. When I got to the hospitality suite, I found everyone clustered around the TV; apparently a small plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center? Maybe four minutes later we all saw the second jet hit the other building.

The junket was off. I spent the rest of the morning handing my still-working cell to American journalists so they could call home and check in with friends and family. At one point I glanced up and saw Naomi Watts being escorted to an elevator, looking like someone had punched her in the stomach. It’s been a quarter of a century and I still can’t really think of Mulholland Dr. without picturing that look on her face.

I’ve told you that story because this morning kind of brought me full circle. It’s another perfect September day and I have just toured the new Cinema Cellar brick-and-mortar store in downtown Toronto, which is opening with a Criterion takeover. David Lynch being one of the label’s tentpoles, their edition of Mulholland Dr. made several appearances.

Cinema Cellar is the Canadian online retailer company formerly known as Unobstructed View, which shrewdly spent better half of the last decade forging exclusive partnerships with American boutique labels like Criterion, Arrow Video, Shout Studios, MVD, Kino Lorber, the Warner Archive Collection – basically, all the labels I cover here. Unobstructed View made a point of mirroring US sales as best they could – Criterion’s 24-hour flash sales, Kino Lorber’s catalogue blowouts, even Barnes & Noble’s semi-annual 50% off sales – and once you factored in the duties inevitably slapped on Criterion shipments to Canada by DHL it was almost always cheaper to order domestically.

Since its acquisition by Blue Fox Entertainment a couple of years age, the company has been slowly and steadily establishing a physical presence for itself. It was Blue Fox that brought the mobile Criterion Closet to TIFF last year, and a year later their store is launching as the world’s most elegant Criterion pop-up, exclusively stocking the Collection’s discs and merchandise through TIFF 2026. After the festival, the store will reopen with discs from all of Blue Fox’ partners – and a dedicated Criterion section.

I got to drop in this morning, and it’s awfully nice. Occupying one level of a modest walk-up of offices, the Cinema Cellar has a boutique aesthetic that reflects the crispness of the Criterion brand, with Blu-rays and 4K discs shelved together and the larger DVDs off to the side. The Criterion Presents line and the Eclipse boxes are tucked away on lower shelves; I’d hoped to pick up Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron, which is joining the Presents line in October, but it wasn’t available yet.

Each section is stocked in alphabetical order rather than by catalogue, as they were in the Closet, which made my brain hurt. There are also breakout sections for directors with multiple titles in the Collection – Cronenberg, Fellini, Godard, Kurosawa, Lynch, Scorsese, and so forth. There’s even a preview set of next month’s Stanley Kubrick omnibus collection, if you want to admire its obsessive construction.

Incidentally, if you want to pre-order this monster it’s currently available at the Cinema Cellar website for nearly $200 off its Canadian retail price, part of the 30% off Criterion sale that’s also ongoing at the physical store.

Soothing and elegant, the shop strikes me as the opposite of the Toronto location Vinegar Syndrome opened three years ago, which is just well-organized but gloriously messy. (Cinema Cellar won’t be selling used discs or vinyl.) There are plans for salon-style events: Conversations with filmmakers, title launches, receptions after premieres at the nearby Scotiabank or the TIFF Lightbox.

I look forward to wandering over just to see what’s new, like we did in the old days when video stores were literally everywhere. That was nice. I’m starting to believe things can be nice again.

Up next: Ghost stories.