Dreaming Ant, located inside Crazy Mocha Coffee Co.
4525 Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield, PA, 412.68DREAM. (683-7326)
photo by Jae Ruberto

Dean Brandt, owner of Dreaming Ant DVD rental shop, likes when customers ask him to pick their evening rental. Once in a while, though, someone throws him a curveball. Someone once asked Brandt for a film appropriate for someone trying to choose a career path. He gave them Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester [as well as Billy Elliot, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Mon Oncle d'Amérique]. Another time, a woman couldn't get specific about her tastes. "I don't watch many movies, so when I do watch one, it has to be a good one," she said. "So find me a good movie." Brandt can't recall what he picked, but the customer didn't go home empty handed or disappointed.

Chances are Scooter, the clerk at the local big box DVDs rental store, would snicker at both customers and suggest the latest Hollywood blockbuster released this week. But Dreaming Ant, a three-year old business tucked away in the back of Bloomfield's Crazy Mocha coffee shop, welcomes these requests. "We try to get to know our customers," Brandt says. "That's one thing we have to offer rather than just going in and being a number and checking out. We try to help people."

When Brandt envisioned Dreaming Ant, he hoped to find his own brick and mortar location. That changed when Crazy Mocha owner Ken Zeff offered him the back area of his Liberty Avenue shop. Brandt only planned to stay for six months, but the day-to-day struggles of a small business preempted the search for his own space. And the area's cross section of artists, academics, students and activists - not to mention movie fanatics - continue to make it a worthwhile locale, even as inventory outgrows its modest surroundings.

Today Dreaming Ant's selection takes up almost the whole back section of the building. The store's website (www.dreamingant.com) offers a real time catalog, where customers can check out what films are in stock before making the trip. And be sure to check out the "Dean's List."

Limited space doesn't mean Brandt avoids the blockbusters or the classics either. Both can be found within his racks, along with television shows and anime. However Brandt proudly points out that he probably runs the only rental shop where the foreign film section outweighs his Hollywood section. "This whole [back] wall is foreign. Three sides of the new rack are all international films," he says. "Only one (side) is Holly wood."

It lives up to their motto: "DVDs. A little off center."

Dean Brandt (foreground) and Andrew McKeon (background)
photo by Jae Ruberto

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