TERRORS FROM BEYOND ALL IMAGINING... Chapter One: I Need Some "M" Now!

"More movies! What am I going to do with more movies? I don't have time to watch the movies that I already have!"

Rik was flabbergasted at the simultaneous arrival of three separate cardboard-bound packages in his mailbox, or rather, first, the appearance of a seemingly normal key in his normal mailbox, which led to the opening of a large-package side mailbox in which the items where waiting ominously for their chance to hitchhike their way into Rik's abode. Or rather, a key of hidden hellish intent which led to a great deal of wrestling with the lock on the side mailbox, until such a point that Jen stepped in with her heretofore undiscovered knowledge regarding the trickiness of side-mailbox locks, and after a frustrating forty-six seconds of key-flipping and studied consternation, she managed to turn the lock over, and with it, unleashed the horror of newly acquired DVD insanity (which led instantly to the statement proffered at the top of this page).

"You're the one who ordered them," Jen said in her usual calm and understated manner. Rik was already off on a different tangent, flibberdigibbet that he happened to be.

"Hey! How come they used such a large box?!" Rik rattled a box nearly five inches high, in which one could have placed eight normal discs, but which was clearly only laced with three or four at the most. Columbia House was prone to doing things stupidly, like the automatic shipping of their inane "Director's Selections", which are almost never worthwhile nor within the realm of Rik's tastes, and which only lead to extra shipping costs on the part of both the company and the consumer who perhaps missed sending in his denial (or forgot to go online to do so) and now has to spend extra cash to return the damnable thing, such as, for example, a Nicolas Cage movie that isn't Raising Arizona (which he owns) or Moonstruck (which he doesn't). Here, risking both postal crushing (a service that our government provides, amazingly enough, for free...) by not packing anything around the movies, and also by choosing to ship in a box designed with an easy opening sidehatch tab, which, appropriately, was already popped open upon Rik's inspection, Columbia yet again proved that they were a company with their eyes clearly set on losing another customer.

Rik remembered he had ordered four movies from Columbia House, not just three, which was the actual total discovered within the box after Rik did a cursory flip through the inventory, sticking his finger down into the already torn-open sidehatch tab, through which one, even a postman, of unsavory attitude could have easily slipped a movie out on the sly. A quick glance at the invoice, however, proved his worst fears to be unwarranted, as the gigantic box was only meant to contain three loosely rattling movies; he did read, though, that he was still being charged for the aforementioned Nicolas Cage movie that isn't Raising Arizona (which he owns) or Moonstruck (which he doesn't), even though he had sent the film back in the mail to them three weeks previous to this shipment.

As Rik and Jen made their way back to their apartment, a path that proved waveringly inconstant due to the roving pattern of sniffage and stoppage adopted by their two sweet but rambunctious rat terriers, Rik sneakily slipped out each disc to survey his purchase under the late afternoon sun. What a joy to realize (for while he remembered how many movies he had ordered on this occasion, he had, outside of one major title, had quite misplaced the knowledge of the remainder of the purchase) that the first title was one of which he savagely desirous to view: Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, which premiered initially on Showtime, which did Rik not a lick of good since he was a steadfast HBO'er for many a moon (until Adelphia screwed him over). Owing to both a deep affection for the original tent-show sleazefest from 1936 (also included on the disc) to which this film supposedly pays affectionate though back-handed homage, and a steadily growing fascination and internal love affair with Kristen Bell (of the hopefully not-soon-to-be late, lamented Veronica Mars), and seeing the film on the list of musicals on Columbia House website, Rik wasted not even a half second to include it on his list. (The film has the versatile Alan Cumming, too, as the narrator/anti-drug lecturer, so that did weigh into the need for immediate purchase, not just Rik's Bell-lust.) Rik knew that if the film lived up to even a tenth of his own internal hype regarding it's promise, then it would be a grand time indeed, and seeing the leather-clad Bell on the back cover added unnecessary though appreciated impetus to its timely viewing.

When the original King Kong was finally released on DVD, two years too late for its 70th Anniversary and three too soon for its 75th, but with an awesome slew of extras that could only be provided due to the influence of one Mr. Peter Jackson, it came packaged with two other Merian C. Cooper productions of ponderous primate power: The Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young. Rik had hoped that they would go the extra step and include three other Cooper films which have ties to the Mighty Kong as well, though lacking the inclusion of a giant ape: The Most Dangerous Game (which Rik actually already possessed in a Criterion Collection version) and which was the immediate precursor (and sneaky cost-saving test film for sets and shots) to Kong; Dr. Cyclops, a 1940 Oscar-nominated special-effects laden film with a mad scientist tormenting an island of people he has diminished with his shrinking ray, released through Paramount (and currently owned by Universal, hence its exclusion) and directed by Cooper partner, Ernest B. Schoedsack; and the Cooper-Schoedsack-Willis O'Brien-Ruth Rose followup to the Kong films, The Last Days of Pompeii, detailing the famous story of the doomed Roman city due to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Pompeii did get released apart from the Kong set, and Rik was overjoyed to add another link in the Kong chain to his collection. He had last seen the film on Cinemax almost fifteen years earlier, and was eager for another go-around with human decadence brought to its knees by the fury of nature.
But what caused Rik to order these films in the first place? It was the rare occurence of a Director's Selection worth pursuing: Peter Jackson's new version of King Kong, the appearance of which was also the cause of Rik's searching for Pompeii in the Columbia database. Jen had tried previously to get Rik to purchase the film in K-Mart and Costco, for a far thriftier cost, but it was not the two-disc release (the release of which Rik was fully aware); rather, it was the version distinctly placed by the counters for the "impulse buy" crowd, and amazingly, he was able to stave off such an impulse buy himself for nearly two months before finally surrendering to his natural state of Kong freak. And there it was in the too-large shipping box, ready to unleash its fury in his own home. It was too much to handle, and Rik had to wait until he got inside the apartment to sit down and open the remaining two packages.
The second package was from Amazon, and in a smaller carboard enclosure, and thus, more tightly packed than the Columbia debacle. Rik, because he always has something on order from Amazon, whether movies, music or books, had no idea what could be inside the container, but the second he uncovered even the first letter on its side, he was pleased with the sight of Robert Altman's highly underrated musical version of Popeye, a film which Rik would defend to the ends of the earth. Perfectly cast, with a weirdly sublime mumbled-sung score by the late, great Harry Nilsson, the film (and set design) veer blazingly close to the spirit of E.C. Segar's Thimble Theatre, the comic strip from which Popeye was sprung as a character. Altman's style is well-suited to the characters, with all of them talking over each other, and hardly any of them hearing a word the other characters have to say, and when they do, the words get twisted from mouth to mouth. Sweet Sweethaven, how Rik loves it...

The final box proved, like the initial box, to be from Columbia House, though this time it was clearly a single disc packed in a tight container much like the Amazon one. Its opening revealed a disc that brought memories back to Rik's mind of the days when he would pack his tiny Alaskan apartment with anywhere from eight to twenty theatre friends and watch repeatedly the latest episode of South Park, then fresh, new and sparkingly savage. As a result, anything produced by the Trey Parker and Matt Stone team at that time was ripe for review, so when Orgazmo hit the cinemas at the old University Center, some of Rik's South Park entourage made the requisite trip to the theatre and lost their collective minds to Parker's wacky, sick but strangely moralistic (or not so strangely, given Parker's penchant for such things) tale of a Mormon missionary who becomes a porn star/superhero. Rik had seen the film a handful of times since, but had never taken the opportunity to add the film to his Parker/Stone shelf, so he leapt on it at last.

However, it was a glance at the invoice that gave Rik pause. Just informed that he would still have to pay for the Nicolas Cage movie that isn't Raising Arizona (which he owns) or Moonstruck (which he doesn't), here was another invoice saying that he had been given credit for the film's return, though he received both invoices on the same day. "I've almost had it with Columbia House, hon! They are damaging my fragile head with their bullshit!"

"Well, if you don't want to belong to it, cancel your membership," she answered, logically as ever.

"Yeah, I probably will. It's just too much crap to deal with. I'll think about it a bit." Rik stared at the invoice further for no reason whatsoever, while Jen wandered off to the kitchen to make some pasta. Rik called after her, "Oh, hon. Guess what I joined today?"

"Oh, now what?"

The Disney DVD Club..."

IT'S NOT A RERUN IF IT'S ON DVD Pt. 1

For years, I have been longing for a DVD set of Wild Wild West to come out. I loved this show so completely as a teenager, when I watched it in reruns every afternoon at 5:00pm for a number of years. Cheesy? Silly? Sure, on both counts. But also marvelous escapism, with stumpy little Western super-spy James West (Robert Conrad) getting outnumbered in each and every fight, and only sometimes coming out on top; the amazing Artemis Gordon (Ross Martin), Master of Disguise showing up in the most unexpected places to help his pal out; the 1860's version of the Aston Martin: a private train car complete with secret exits, trap doors, and various bits of hidden weaponry; and the supergadgets, mostly period appropriate, that would help the heroic duo both in and out of scrapes, including all of the swell devices hidden in West's bootheels. That a truly crappy movie version was chundered out a handful of years ago only pointed out how fun and special the original series was even more. And now, while not meaning to sound like a commercial for the release, a first season set is finally hitting the shelves in June, and I couldn't be more delighted. Combined with the recent release of the complete series of Darren McGavin's The Night Stalker, two of the favorite shows of my youth have finally arrived to help fill much needed gaps in my DVD collection.

But, there are a handful of other shows that I am shocked -- SHOCKED, I tell you! -- that have not seen the light of day as regards a DVD release yet. The first is Adam West's Batman, a show that still gets so much press, so many cultural and trivial mentions from nearly every corner, that it is simply astounding that I am not burning out my freeze-frame button on Julie Newmar's Catwoman as we speak. [Editor's note: the rest of this missive is being written a half hour later.] I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. She still makes it hard for me to breathe, even years past being an impressionable adolescent. So, where is Batman on DVD? Some sort of problem making batarangs meet on the part of Fox (who produced the series) and Warner (who own the characters). Which is a shame because I'm getting tired of scouring two weeks ahead on TV Land through endless repeats of What's Happening? and Night Court to see if maybe, just maybe, the channel will deign to allow Batman and Robin to walk down the side of building with their capes leaning towards the side of the building again...

Many years ago, I spent an entire week getting very little sleep as I meticulously taped the entire series of Get Smart during a grueling but delightful marathon on Nick at Nite. I have watched those tapes a lot over the years, and I, believing that the series just had to be released relatively soon on DVD, got rid of those tapes before my move to Anaheim. Hoo boy, was that a mistake. I'm going nuts without Maxwell Smart, 99, the Chief, Siegfried and Hymie the Robot at my beck and call, ready to be stupidly (thus, Smartly) wacky anytime that I need them to be. There is something wrong with the world where I can show someone an episode in the late 90's, and that young person says to me, straight-faced, "That guy sounds like Inspector Gadget!" It was then that I wished that I owned a Cone of Silence of my own. Don't know what the Cone of Silence is? That's why you need this set to come out...

As I was writing this very post, I was preparing to dig into a diatribe about the lack of three other series in my DVD collection, namely Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs, and, the first of two Bruce Campbell series that need to be put out on disc, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Turns out... they are all coming out in July! So, my work is done already... but what about Jack of All Trades? Paired with the infinitely inferior, though dripping with hot babes, Cleopatra 2525, Jack was a short-lived but dopily worthwhile show that deserved a much longer run than the partial single season it was allowed. Due to the hot babes, Cleopatra 2525 graduated to an hour-long series the next season, and is somehow out on DVD already, a crime which someone will pay for in some imagined hell somewhere. But Jack? Where are you? Surely, your Campbell cult fanbase has got to be larger than that for 2525? No?

We'll continue this discussion at a later date. There are still a few more series to consider...

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #15 & THE ARISTOCRATS

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I have watched The Aristocrats thrice over the past month. Now, most people would hear a statement like that, and with the barest knowledge of information regarding the film's subject matter: that is, the delineation, history and constant retelling of a very old, very worn-out joke of vaudevillian origins and disgusting comportment, one would guess that I found the movie amazingly hilarious. Well... no. Honestly, I didn't laugh a whole lot during the film, and especially not at the sections dealing with the telling of the joke, wherein a father goes to a talent agent, tells them that he has the most amazing family act, proceeds to outline to the agent the disgusting lengths that the family goes to impress the audience, all of it involving every form of bodily excretion, incestuous sexual combination and orifice prop insertion imaginable, and then tells the agent the name of the act, which, in most versions, turns out to be "The Aristocrats". Stunned silence? It's not that great a joke. On the surface.

The truth of the matter, while the film is so in your face with its outrageousness, most of the tellings of the joke by comedians both famous and infamous end up kind of flat, because the joke is really a sort of "you had to be there" experience. And the place you had to be is backstage at a comedy club, or the back room at Sardi's, or on the road with a group of riffing comedians taking a swing at stand-up's version of a jazz standard, blues jam, or tap dance challenge. It's an inside joke, or rather, a backstage joke, and whether comedians deny they know the joke or not, they all do, and with feigned reluctance on the part of some, they will then launch into a joke detailing the places where a crap-encrusted tampon should not go on a family member.

Now that I think about it, this film was hilarious; just not in the ways I expected, and not in the "laugh out loud" way. What is fascinating about the film is the way in which you get an idea of the true breadth of style in stand-up comedy. What is amazing is the sheer variety of ways that a person can tell the same joke, with each one adding their own unique personal style to the affair. The expectedly graphic and sadistic manner that you expect George Carlin to tell the joke is not the same as the rambling way Jake Johannsen tells it is not the same as the stuttering, almost apologetic way that Paul Reiser tells is not the same way that... well, you get it. And it's certainly not the same way that the street mime, in full view of an ignoring crowd, enacts every horrible act on a boardwalk. Or the way the ventriloquist keeps messing up the joke, so his dummy reprimands him with increasingly vulgar insults and tells the joke properly. Or the way Tim Conway tells the joke in a very clean fashion (his "old man" character falls asleep at the beginning after taking five minutes to walk towards the camera). Or the way... oh, see it for yourself.

Now, despite my reputation for saying the worst things at totally inappropriate times, on purpose and often for shock value (no sacred cows in my world, up to and including sacred cows), and despite the fact that I am the first and most unswervable proponent of the First Amendment, I need to make something clear here: just because you have the right to say unbelievably filthy words, doesn't mean that you should necessarily say those filthy words. Like many people, I can swear up a storm, but ideally, I like to pick and choose my moments. I like to say things when they are going to get the most impact. A few friends and colleagues are shocked by how "clean" my blogs have turned out to be (though some may have noticed that I did quote from Darkman yesterday, and that the quote describes something your father is saying to your mom right now. Yes, especially is she is dead...) This is out of choice, and the fact that I am writing for myself, and while decorum is not the standard here, it is just the way things are. Besides, I yell the "C-word" out loud between each and every paragraph...

Here in The Aristocrats, though, there is no valve that switches the blue language off and on, and if there is, it is obviously in need of some loving from some WD-40, because it's decidedly stuck in the on position. There are jokes that you share with everyone in your life: people at work by the water cooler, people at the bus stop, neighbors,whatever; and there are jokes that you share only with friends, people that you are secure enough with to be able to let loose and rip out whatever lame, filthy, disgusting joke and know that it is, most likely, given the circumstances, gonna kill. "The Aristocrats" is one of those jokes: a backstage between-the-comedians construct used to test the limits of other comedians, a jazz riff for the potty-mouthed. And in this film, we are given a look into that weird, backstage world; we are taken behind the scenes of bars, clubs, restaurants, and sometimes into the homes of the comedians themselves. Onstage, where the joke is perpertrated very rarely, it decidedly does not kill. But backstage? Half of them deny the power of this "awful" shaggy dog joke, but they all have a version of it lurking in the wings, ready to pounce, full of excretion, eager to burst upon the unsuspecting and willing alike.

Just be warned: if you are at all insulted by ANYTHING IN THE WORLD, you will find it in this movie. If you are sensitive to dead baby jokes, this movie is not for you. If you are even a smidgeon of what I like to call "a pussy", you will not be able to get through this film. Now, when I told this caveat to my co-workers, all of them very nice, seemingly normal people, the general reaction was "What? I've gotta see that!"

Which is precisely the reaction for which I hoped. My evil work continues unabated...

The List:
V for Vendetta (2006) - 7; The Aristocrats (2005) (DVD) - 7; Thank You For Smoking (2006) - 7; Mammoth (2005) (Sci-Fi Channel) - 4; The Invisible Boy (1957) (TCM) - 5; Mule Skinner Blues (2001) (Sundance) - 6; The Odyssey (1997) (Sci-Fi Channel) - 6; Jason and the Argonauts (2002) (Sci-Fi Channel) - 6; Shallow Grave (1994) (IFC) - 7.

FIVE DISCS OF DEATH #1

Martin (1977)
Dir: George A. Romero
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
The third Romero film that I ever saw, after the opening two Dead films, and while it is not on a par with those two classic walking-dead fests, it is certainly a most unique film of its own right. Look past the sometimes amateurish acting, a common factor of many of Romero's homegrown films, and get into the strange story of a young, very disturbed man who might or might not be a vampire: are his blood-drinking ways proof that he is a modern Dracula? If he is, why is he not susceptible to the things that normally spell a vampire's ruin: the sun, garlic, crosses, holy water? Is he really having this much difficulty acquiring blood, or is everything in his head? With an opening sequence that made me fall off the couch, literally, the first time I watched it; it's well-filmed, but that wasn't the reason, but rather the fact that I was still a relative neophyte in the world of the psychotronic, and really wasn't prepared for such a scene. And of course, acting, recognizable stuntwork and makeup effects by Tom Savini; a triple bonus. And is that a vibrator in the glove compartment?

Darkman (1990)
Dir: Sam Raimi
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
Some people say that this is Sam Raimi's first shot at the superhero genre, but then I ask: what the hell is Ash? Sure, he has no superpowers, but neither does Batman, the Punisher or a host of other "superheroes". He fights the Evil Dead -- sometimes becoming them, true -- but he always rallies to fight the threat of soul-swallowing evil off. He also uses gadgets to fight the evil, too, just like Batman, and you can't tell me that Ash hasn't taken on the iconic persona of a true superhero. Of course, it was the film after Darkman that truly sealed that deal, Army of Darkness. But, in Darkman, Raimi had all the moves of a comic book down already; a true fan obviously, and one who wasn't afraid to dabble in the silliness inherent in the genre, while still paying obeisance to its serious side, as well. Liam Neeson is fine as the obsessed and quite mad hero, though he seems to be mad already before his accident, but it is Larry Drake who makes the biggest impression as the evil Robert G. Durant, he of the finger-chopping cigar-cutter. Also: gratuitous Ted Raimi, cameos by Jenny Agutter, John Landis, and in a big surprise, that Ash guy... uh, Bruce something... "Take the fucking elephant!" Nuff said!

Dark City (1998)
Dir: Alex Proyas
Cinema 4 Rating: 8
I loved this movie so much when it came out. It became one of those films that I would drag more and more people to see just so I have an excuse to go again. (Most of my friends like to do the "40 people at a time" version of film-going; that has its moments, but I prefer my way, just in case I run into a film that I just have to share. Again and again, that is...) Strangely, I purchased the DVD when it was first released years ago, and after that initial home viewing, I haven't watched it since. Perhaps the time is ripe for a revisiting. Rufus Sewell is one of those guys that I just knew was going to become a huge movie star, and it never really happened, though he does get some ripe villainous work here and there. (He is English, after all...) And why Richard O'Brien doesn't work more is beyond me. Mr. Hand is so devilishly creepy, which O'Brien has specialized since he brought the beloved Riff-Raff into the world in Rocky Horror. It also affords the viewer one of the last decent looks at Jennifer Connelly before she got too freakishly thin (i.e., unattractive). Time for a fresh viewing...

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)
Dir: Larry Blamire
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
Sure, it's cheaply filmed, and seems to be one-take on many scenes... that's the point, people! How I wish that this film were around when I were young; it would probably be my favorite film by this point. Proof of its brilliance? Watch the American Cinematheque Q&A session with director/writer/star Larry Blamire and see him unblinkingly describe the plot to his now-in-production followup, Trail of the Screaming Forehead, in an almost deadpan fashion, as if a film about an invasion of crawling alien foreheads was such an obvious, natural choice for a film. Watch for the stultifyingly pitch-perfect faux 50's sci-fi dialogue; aliens who face a life-and-death struggle ascending a simple set of stairs; a peachy dance sequence with aliens Kro-bar and Lattis; the sultry four-animal mash-up Animala, who makes me have many illicit thoughts; the cutest killer monster in the last forty years of bad monster costumes; and the phoniest and funniest villainous laugh in eons. (Note: Still need to get Jen to watch this, even though we first saw the trailer together when we flew to Seattle from Anchorage to see Bubba Ho-Tep. That's right: we flew thousands of miles to see it...)

La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) (1946)
Dir: Jean Cocteau
Cinema 4 Rating: 9
THE CRITERION COLLECTION #006
If not the best, then one of the best film adaptations of a classic fairy tale, and certainly tops in the Beauty and the Beast race. (Sorry, Disney nuts. That film is fun, but this one is true art.) A painterly (unsurprising, given the background of groundbreaking artist Cocteau) vision of impossible romance, lush in design, cinematography, costuming, choreography, and film technique; and painfully enacted by leads Jean Marais and Josette Day in a love story for the ages. For the horror-minded: technically, a lycanthopy film, as are all versions, but the thrust in this story is on the romance and the magic in the Beast's castle, not on the supernatural aspect of Avenant's transformation into the Beast. (I've actually read people who counted this as a borderline werewolf film.) Every step of the way reveals more and more wonders, but a caveat: the transformed prince is a schlub. Garbo famously dismissed the ending as disappointing, and it is to a certain degree. But what a journey to that ending! Essential for anyone interested in film history, not just fairy tales. And if you like human-hand light fixtures...

THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON... #1

Over at the Cel Bloc, where I have all the fun to myself, the concentration for the last week or so has been on Max Fleischer's Color Classics, which I have been reviewing from the excellent Somewhere in Dreamland 2 -disc DVD set that I recently procured on the internet. I already owned several of these on some public domain discs of ill repute, so it was nice to locate some slightly finer and, in some cases, even terrific condition. Not that any of the original film elements are on display; those are vaulted away by an evil film studio of whom I wish a pox upon. There are several evil film studios which I wish a pox upon, but for now, I will settle with cursing the likes of Republic Entertainment for withholding important cultural artifacts. Shame...

It is far too common an occurrence these days, where series like the wonderful Fleischer Popeye cartoons are almost wholly unviewable (except for a handful of public domain Squinties that have sneaked through the cracks) because of a protracted dispute between Turner Entertainment, who are apparently preparing to release the films the instant everything clears up, and King Features Syndicate, who own the actual copyright to Popeye and cast. King Features should be forced by the courts to give up their rights for the desecration that they have made of Popeye over the last 50 years via bad television shows and a bland comic strip. I know there is no such law that can retract a character for corporate misuse, but if ever there were a case that could create such a law, this is it.

Now, I own many of these cartoons from taping The Popeye Show and Late Night Black and White for several years on that channel that used to show good cartoons, but now is blustery and whiny in its defense for switching slowly to execrable live-action fare like Saved By the Bell. (I keep waiting For such an animation fan, I watch very little of a station that still shows mostly cartoons. Why is that? Of the current schedule, the only shows that I watch with even middling frequency are Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Home Movies, Full Metal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo, and reruns of Futurama. Most of the rest is crap -- no hold barred -- crap, though occasionally some other decent anime series do get shown, and I still am interested in checking out Moral Orel. But on the whole, the station is, by my count, about 73% unwatchable. But, up until a couple years ago, they still showed the occasional Popeye short, albeit around 4 in the morning, but at least they showed them. But, where does find them now? Nowhere...

Three corporations: Republic Entertainment; King Features Syndicate; The Cartoon Network.
Three poxes wished upon them: 1; 2; 3.

Do right by animation fans, jerks. Your audience is there -- cater to them. In the case of the two studios, you'll make more money releasing Official DVD Editions of the cartoons than you will letting them languish on the shelf gathering more dust. Your profits may be smaller than if you released a huge blockbuster film, but there is a definite audience out there waiting to hop on a Complete Fleischer Popeye set. Check out what Rhino does with their Handmade series of short run CD soundtracks. You don't need to make a run of 836,000 copies; a small, finite run will do, but release something. The fans will appreciate a job well done, and believe me, the animation community will celebrate and, more important to you suity types, we will publicize such an event.

The past week on the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc:

• Sunday, April 16, 2006: Poor Cinderella (1934) Cel Bloc Rating: 7
• Monday, April 17, 2006: Little Dutch Mill (1934) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Tuesday, April 18, 2006: An Elephant Never Forgets (1934) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Wednesday, April 19, 2006: Song of the Birds (1935) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Thursday, April 20, 2006: Dancing on the Moon (1935) Cel Bloc Rating: 7
  
• Friday, April 21, 2006: Somewhere in Dreamland (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Saturday, April 22, 2006: The Little Stranger (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 5
  

PYLON: RESET, REFOCUSING AND RETUNING

"If you're gonna do something, do it! If you fall in the mud, maybe you'll come out a gorilla!" - Beanie Andrew, Mule Skinner Blues


It's been over a month since I posted on the Pylon. It's been almost six weeks since I zipped through my three-day Oscar weekend blurpost, catching up on all manner of Hollywood effluvia and star worship, racing to get my picks up in time for yet another semi-disappointing under-event. In the six weeks since then, I have only gotten to the movies twice, both with great success: V for Vendetta and Thank You For Smoking. I have only watched about five movies on DVD in that period, and one of them, The Aristocrats, I watched three times over a four-week period. Netflix must hate me for hanging onto films so long. I have three others sitting here in my apartment that I have had for over a week, and I have yet to work up the compulsion to watch them. That's the one problem with a program like N-Flix: you return one that you have watched, and a new one shows up a couple days later -- but what if you don't feel like watching a movie at that time? The movie sits there on your coffee table, nagging at you to watch it, day and night, and soon you just begin to resent its prescence in your home. So, you keep not watching it, and it sits there longer and longer -- until finally, you simply return the thing unseen. I, too, have done this in the last month.

So, what's up with the non-movie watching? Oh, I've been watching movies on TCM and Sci-Fi (no real way to watch any movie, this last one -- but, oh well...), and as said, I really zeroed in on The Aristocrats. No, it's not that I'm boycotting movies or anything of that ilk. I've just really only been attracted to really strange films lately; and by strange, I don't mean that they fall into the psychotronic range exclusively, which is the area where I normally prefer my films. No, by strange, I mean that I've only been checking out films lately that skew about 180 degrees from the place where my head is at that particular moment. It's my way of having cinematic adventures without keying into one genre. And this often means that I am incredibly selective about what I want to watch, though I am unable to plan ahead on what I watch.

But, I've been watching a lot of movies, actually -- it's just that they are short, little movies. Short, little animated movies. I've been concentrating on cartoons, people. And I've been writing about them -- a lot. I have been spending a large portion of my spare time working on posts for my other blogsite, Cinema 4: Cel Bloc. The thrust of the project is simply to engage myself in an exercise that keeps me writing each and every day, and thus far, I have been successful in that regard. Each day I post a review of a different cartoon: some famous, some not so, and I have tried to mix the varying studios so as to not get stuck in a rut with one character for too long. Sometimes, I have themes running, though: the last week plus has been a focus on the Max Fleischer Color Classics, and just before that, I posted several days of Bosko cartoons.

Which brings me to this blogsite. I am trying to rev up a few new regular columns within the Pylon, and one of them will be THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON, which will consist of a weekly recap of the previous week's Cel Bloc Reviews. Nothing much to it, but a transparent attempt to drive traffic to the other site.

Another new feature will be one called SLIPPED DISCS, where I will focus on a movie which has always been a particular favorite of mine, but which has fallen into the cracks in regards to my retaining a copy in my collection, either VHS or DVD. Sometimes, it will be a call for a favorite film to be released on DVD. But it will always shine a light on a movie near and dear to my heart, whether good or bad, whether neglected big studio picture or fringe obscurity.

Desert Island lists are always popular, but I can't choose just five films for such a list, no matter what I do. Yes, I have five films that I could name right off, but I would have an incredibly hard time stopping. Besides, my life now feels like I am on that desert island, so secluded from my friends and family, and once I departed with about 80% of my videotape collection, my DVD collection became my reservoir of cinematic happiness. Unlike the VHS collection, where I would tape just about anything that even mildly interested me, the DVD collection has been, for the most part, carefully selected most of the way, with only the films that I truly desire to rewatch and study making their way into my Hall of Fame. Perhaps "Hall of Fame" is a little too hyperbolic as a descriptive, because there are some pretty crappy films in the mix, too -- but, like anyone, I have bad movie favorites, too.

Thus, I am starting a non-chronological, non-alphabetical, non-ordered-in-any-way revisitation of the films in my DVD collection, and in honor of the Desert Island theory, I will call the feature, FIVE DISCS OF DEATH. Nothing grand; just quick-hit little paragraphs on each disc recounting exactly why and possibly how each disc found its way into the Canon. Of course, I said this same thing about the proposed brevity of the reviews on Cinema 4: Cel Bloc, and we all know what happened there.

Oh, you don't? Well, then... click here.

See you tomorrow...

MINYA (MISSES HIS DAD)