If It Ain't Broke, Netflix It...

We burn through nicknames at work the way that Phil Spector goes through crazy wigs and shotgun shells. Each one of us in our department has acquired some form of sobriquet which we generally only use within the group; my boss, for a variety of reasons, has taken to calling me "Chipper", though most often he only calls me "Chip". (In fact, it has been about a year since he has called me anything else but by that familiar term.) And it only took our new graphic designer about a week before he acquired the nickname of "Raw Meat", which is a mere play on his last name, but an alias with which I think he isn't particularly comfortable nor does he seem flattered by it.

Regardless, the sudden surge in the use of the term "Raw Meat" triggered a memory in my head of the old Gary Sherman-Donald Pleasance grindhouse flick from the early 70's of the same name, a film which I have not seen since the early 80's. [Note: it is known as Death Line in the United Kingdom, its country of production.] Due to the fact that I am rather impulsive, I jumped onto the Netflix site and ordered the film. When it arrived a few days later (it was not at the Santa Ana hub and had to be sent from Phoenix), I already knew from the feel of the envelope that I would not be watching the film that evening, as there was a noticeable bump in the package meaning that some disrepair had occurred in shipping. Sure enough, the opening of the Netflix mailer found several sharp little shards of Raw Meat falling into my open hand. Talk about your "ground round"...

I must state right now that I have been completely happy with Netflix -- except for on this issue: I have been hit recently with what I feel is an abnormally large percentage of broken discs. I have ended up having to report a dozen broken discs since the tail end of January until this very day, when I reported the damage to Raw Meat. I have noticed that the vast majority of damage -- actually, the total amount of damage until this particular title showed up -- has been to films released by video companies of a decidedly low-budget approach. I don't know if they are using a much lower quality recording disc (they likely are), but since I embarked on my "Psychotronic Ketchup" project to see every film in the Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, I have had to request several films over and over again just to find a copy that wasn't snapped in half or cracked. And the total of damaged discs this year is more than triple the amount I received since I started my membership in May of 2005 up through the end of 2006.

The fact that I am forced to order films put out by fly-by-night companies really could be the problem: while I really wasn't in the mood to watch a cheapie Paul Naschy Mexican werewolf film, as part of the project I had sort of mandated that I watch it, and as a result of this obsessiveness, I went through four different copies of Frankenstein's Bloody Terror before I finally realized that it would go on that way forever. Disc after disc of the same title would inevitably show up damaged, and so I gave up on ordering it. This was all much to Jen's dismay, because with each succeeding failure, she would laugh more and more at the slow burn I was putting myself through each time I opened the mailbox. While I am not normally one to shy away from a comedically successful situation, I really wanted to actually watch a DVD! And so I passed on replacing the Naschy film yet again, and moved on to the next movie on my list.

Are the Netflix "padded" mailers perhaps not quite padded enough? Are the order fulfillment drones not paying attention when they grab a film and prepare it for shipping. Is there someone slamming stacks of readied mailers into the mailbox, thus cracking the one at the bottom of the stack when it hits the bottom of whatever receptacle into which it has been dropped? I have also toyed with the idea that there is a conspiracy amongst mailmen out there against Netflix. Perhaps they are paid shemps for Blockbuster, but perhaps not. I had also heard before that Netflix had been caught at some point slowing up their order fulfillment process so that customers would not get films as quickly, thus saving their company money along the way, but I can't see how intentionally sending out screwy discs (accruing more postage and expense) would achieve that same end. Whatever is going on, it is Raw Meat, a film put out by MGM, that got me wondering. For the first time in my rental activity history, it is the damage brought upon a disc released by the one of the top one or two video companies in the world that has me pondering what exactly is up with these broken in twain discs. If Netflix doesn't want somebody to rent four movies at a time, then why do they offer it as an option? And if they can't seem to get films to their customers without breaking them, then how long do they plan to stay in business? And if I am paying for four discs at a time, why am I when I am usually stuck with one of those four broken far beyond repair?

All I know is that this particular weekend, I am not so "Chipper"...

Recently Rated Movies #43

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Ass the Crow Plies...

I generally consider myself to be on the side of environmental thoughtfulness (but not necessarily on the side of the "-ists"). I recycle and try to implore others to do so; I don't drive a car at all (though, with no other choice, I will ride in them) and try to get others to try mass transit; I am against the clearing of the rainforests and all that rot. And I believe that celebrities, when thought is reasoned and cool, can be a boon to bringing the environmental message overall to the masses.

And then, musician Sheryl Crow, in conjunction with the White House Correspondent's Dinner where she and her cohort Laurie David found themselves squared off against Grandmaster Weasel Karl Rove over environmental concerns, let fly with this maxim regarding the use of toilet paper: "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two or three could be required."

One square per restroom visit?!! Is Crow aware of what comes out of the backside of people? If she is, does she live in some sort of Neverland, where she never -- ever, ever! -- has to wipe back there because she has a personal assistant who takes care of this for her, and when Sheryl asks/suggests/orders, "I sure hope you didn't use more than one square?", her toady bows low, kisses Sheryl's sexy, sexy feet and, because he/she doesn't want to lose their job, says "Why, no, of course not! Only one square was required, my lady!" It's also likely that Ms. Crow has a series of bidets at her disposal, so the toady would then whisk her off for a generous sprinkling of the well-traveled Crow estate, and all would end up most beauteous and spring fresh in the Land of Sheryl Crow's Anus.

Of course, Sheryl is, no pun intended, filthy rich, so maybe when she says "one square", she's not telling us that the "one square" of toilet paper that she is using is as thick as a flying chunk of asphalt off the 57. Maybe she means "one square foot" or "yard". I don't know if she has ever bought toilet paper in a store, but it's expensive, especially if you want any sort that doesn't fall apart on you like a Bush excuse for going to war. For "poor people's" toilet paper to even approach the consistency of the toilet paper in the Golden Dream of Sheryl Crow, you have to wind the stuff around your hand like a cozy mitten, and even then, there is the very real chance of breakage mid-wipe.

As recently as, say, a couple years ago, I myself wrestled with the notion that it must be awful nice to spend a leisurely afternoon stroll through Crow's backyard. I really don't listen to her music, but like Mariah Carey back in the day, I have spent some time watching her videos with the "Mute" button on, and expended many an idle moment ruminating on the subject. But then this struck me: since Sheryl is a Hollywood-ite, she is likely on some sort of health regimen, which by definition is front-loaded with nutrients and herbs and vitamins and, most importantly, fiber. Lots and lots of fiber. And I am guessing that this regimen keeps her amazingly regular. Keeping regular like that often comes with a price, and if Sheryl is indeed using "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two or three could be required", the question begs itself to be asked: What hellish Stygian mass is clinging viselike to Sheryl Crow's undercarriage? What fiendish Lovecraftian monstrosity has slunk out of the depths to spell mankind's doom back there? Does it slowly eat its way through groupie after groupie until eventually all will be consumed? Will this bring new meaning to the term "ass-eating"?

Of course, as of this morning, Crow maintains that her toilet paper comments were nothing but a joke, and not a mindless celebrity rampage at all. Perhaps they were, perhaps they weren't... in a world under the constant maintenance of spin patrols, it's hard to tell anymore. And it really doesn't matter; the initial statement is out there, and much of the FoxNewsNation already believes she's a Fruit Loop, and the rest of us believes she's an overrated musically but hot Fruit Loop. And what it truly obscures is the fact that Crow really didn't get the job done at that White House Dinner. Since she was already getting involved in a confrontation with Karl Rove, she should have taken her toilet paper maxim and applied it to him, only shoving a guitar up the proto-Goebbels' rubbery butt instead. And since it appears it was one of those "pesky situations", two or three could have been required, as well...

If One Sees Rodriguez & Tarantino's Latest At A Drive-In, Does That Make It A "Grind-Outhouse"?

I know, I know, I know! I promised that I would put up a post about Grindhouse a couple of weeks ago when it came out, but I have been delinquent in writing about it. OK, actually, not in writing about it, because I have been doing just that -- I just haven't posted anything about it yet. Why? The story keeps changing, you see...

Originally, I felt that a normal report on my reaction to my initial visit would be fine, but then before I had time to write it, I was interrupted by Jen's family thing, and then I ended up seeing the film again a couple days later. Then it seemed like I would spend my off-time at the think tank last week scratching it out in longhand (I do not possess a laptop and I was up at Big Bear), but my legal pad ended up empty as the think tank brainstorm sessions not only sapped every viable thought in my brain, but all of my extant energy as well.

Returning home, I thought "Well, now is the time to write about Grindhouse, but then I received an invitation from my friends Bostin and Jeff to attend a showing at a drive-in theatre this past Friday. Jen had to work, however, and Bostin and Jeff are in L.A., and I do not drive. As in, AT ALL. I suppose I could have MetroLinked and met them at the theatre somehow, but that would have met training and busing home after midnight, and this is something I am not yet comfortable with down here. So, I thanked them kindly but had to skip, but I did take the time to check out other drive-in showings, and it turns out that the Mission Tiki Drive-In (with 4, count 'em, 4 screens) in Montclair has 9:45pm showings through this week, so I talked Jen into going on either Wednesday or Thursday. It will mean coming home and napping after work, but I am cool with this. After all, I haven't been to a drive-in movie since I was about, oh, six or seven years old (and in Alaska, no less -- yes, we had drive-in theatres back in the day)!

So, if you are one of the minor few who are wondering what the hell I thought about the film, well, you shall just have to assume that since I am going for the third time in three weeks that I must have enjoyed it to some degree. And if you are one of those people who just don't get what all the fuss is about, or don't get the joke and complain about the scratches in the film or the missing reels, or stupidly walk out after Planet Terror not understanding that the film is supposed to be a double feature -- well, you are lost causes anyway, and the world can do without you just fine. Go rent Stepmom or RV again, and suck on the box.

Meanwhile, I will hopefully be going to the drive-in...

Meet the New News, Same As the Old News...

Monday afternoon, after reaching the midway point of the second day of our marketing think tank retreat, we took lunch and decided to relax for a few minutes. One of our party got online and ran across the news about the Virginia Tech shootings. At that moment, only 32 students and professors were counted as being dead, but it was enough to send us up to the rec room television to check out CNN for the full story. Shocking, yes; terrible, without any semblance of doubt. But we still had an agenda to fulfill, and a great many details left to hash out. So, after we finished our midday noshing, it was back to work as usual. The rest of the nation and CNN had stopped, but we hurtled onward.

Monday evening, after sitting in marketing meetings for the second straight, very long, extremely exhausting day, we decided to retire upstairs and watch a movie: Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. Complete nonsense; not all that great -- a bit of a disappointment, really -- but funny enough for me to have purchased the DVD (I am loyal to the D), and sufficient enough as escapism to let one's mind relax from the day's efforts and brain strain. Turning on the TV again reminded us immediately of the day's national tragedy, for it was still on CNN, and CNN, quite expectantly, had decided there was nothing else in the world going on of such import (like other Americans and Iraqis dying in Iraq), and the station had turned into the 24-hour Virginia Tech Tragedy Channel.

A vision popped into my head of millions of Americans trapped on their couches, despondent over a sudden and savage jolt of insanity and violence and investigatory bungling that will never be fully understood even after years of analysis, and all staring at the screen as if there was some way they could turn the clock back and stop the vile little shit who caused all of this damage. And, because I am primarily a cynic, I also had a vision of a certain sick percentage of the rubbernecking audience who were waiting for the body count to rise (which, sadly, it did, if only slightly). And then, my boss, co-worker and I all watched the Tenacious D movie, and we laughed and laughed and laughed. And then we went to our respective bedrooms for the evening.

Did I feel bad that in the wake of such horrid tragedy that I chose to no longer engage in the awful news and watch a slapstick musical stoner comedy? I can't speak for my co-workers, but for me -- no, not particularly. I had gotten the story straight off, and didn't need to watch an endless repeat of the same details to make it resonate any deeper than it already did for me. I feel sorry for the families of the victims, but as far as I know, I don't know any of them, so the story doesn't hit me on a personal level. And I have to say this honestly, I don't believe that my sitting there in front of the television for 72 straight hours watching the slow-dripping of a single news story is going to make any difference, good or bad, for what occurred Monday morning. You are just watching television, and you are doing it with the mistaken belief that if you keep watching it, it will mean something. And in two, four, ten, maybe seventeen months, there will be a new national tragedy, and you will watch that, too.

When the World Trade Center went down on 9/11, I watched in horror like the rest of the nation as it crashed to the earth on live television, and watched the updates of the rescue efforts and death toll with my co-workers throughout the day. And that evening? Well, since it was my birthday, and I didn't feel much like celebrating on a day when the rest of the nation was crying, I canceled my dinner plans, and Jen and I stayed home. But we didn't watch the news. On television, it was nearly inescapable (even more so than with this story), so I flipped on the DVD player and watched Blazing Saddles and Caddyshack, back to back. Silly, stupid, awesomely hilarious movies. And I laughed... and I laughed... and I... well, I laughed some more, but I never forgot what I had witnessed on a black-and-white 19-inch television on a table in our receiving department that morning. I was purposefully engaged in escapism that evening after a full day of jaw-dropping disbelief, but the horror of the World Trade Center tragedy was still resonating in my head, and never left it. As it never will.

And now, with this fresh sickness looming on our airwaves unceasingly this week, and with the terror that this stupid fucking little shit has now unleashed across our nation (almost immediately, there were copycat threats being reported at other schools), I am avoiding the news like the fucking plague. Mind you, it's not that I don't keep up on the latest developments in the story; I have been, such as the details involving the package received by NBC today. It's just, unlike many people that I know or have witnessed, I don't feel the need to keep glued to a single, monotonous broadcast in order to feel something about what happened. I don't need a reporter loop-feeding the same information over and over to me in order for me to understand why someone would do something like this, because no matter what, it won't reverse what happened. I don't feel the need to shut down the rest of my thought processes in order to tell myself that what I feel about it matters. Because, in the end, it really doesn't.

And it really doesn't matter that I choose to soothe my shocked nerves and frazzled brain with a stupid slapstick musical stoner comedy. Really, it doesn't...

After all, the last news story that CNN and most of its sister outlets treated with the same passion and devotion involved a big-boned Texas model drug fiend who died and touched off a court battle over her remains and her baby between a bunch of money-grubbing nincompoops. And many of the same people who are glued to their televisions over this actually tragic event did the same for this last insanely frivolous one.

Now, that's a true National Tragedy...

Cel Bloc: In Which Everything Is Revealed to Be Nothing But Laziness on the Author's Part... Mostly...

Oi! What's that moving about in the corner? Could it be...? It is!

It's been months since the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc has betrayed any signs of life, and now, apparently the time is ripe for a return, albeit in a greatly reduced fashion. Though I am not picking up the cartoon-reviewing trail yet (though I would like to sooner than later), I wanted to pop in here briefly and perform a pair of rather important tasks.

I first want to state that while most of my actual friends -- none of them real cartoon buffs, mind you -- tend to not post on here (they save that for my other main blog, The Cinema 4 Pylon), I have received a good number of comments over the past year or so, and all from people that I have never met or even heard of before (except for a notable pair of rather well-known animation archivists -- well-known in animation circles, that is). Even a couple weeks ago, I found recent comments for posts that I wrote 7 months ago, which is part of what I love about the blog experience. And, except for a couple of dicey exchanges, the response to my essays -- not reviews, for the most part -- have been overwhelmingly positive. I have met some very nice people through these comments, and I thank them for taking part in this journey. The main trend that I have noticed whilst doing this, however, is that most of these people (not counting the animation nuts) are just people looking up a particular favorite cartoon and running smack into my blogpost regarding said cartoon. While this was not the purpose of writing these posts, it is a welcome side effect. I am first pleased that people found and read what I wrote; I am then pleased greatly that these people saw fit to respond to me, either positively or negatively.

I am not here to set the world on fire. Some days, I wouldn't mind if the entire planet, at least the human portions of it, did burst into flames, but on my personal end of things, that is not the objective blog-wise. I am merely doing this as an outlet to write. That some of you are able to obtain needed information from my random scribblings makes me most happy indeed; that some of you feel I am doing it well is merely a bonus. I am not a historian, nor do I wish to be (nothing against historians -- Jen's mother is one). I just love cartoons, and like the movies I write about on the Pylon, I am not reviewing movies because I want you to know my opinion about them. My opinion, like anybody's after all, doesn't really matter. My opinion may be voiced in whatever I am writing, but what I really want you to garner from my writing is my passion for the simple act of watching cartoons and movies. And also my anger when they are done incompetently, especially by those who have the potential and resources to do them well. Or my joy when they are done in an purposefully incompetent manner but are still excellent. Or when they are done... (Oh, you know... it's a slippery slope, this criticism thing... so many angles to consider...)

Right now, I am pissing off people who are animation nuts just because I am referring to animation as a whole as "cartoons", just as it has become politically correct to say "graphic novels" instead of "comics". Ultimately, to me, the battle between "cartoon" and "animated film" is the same as the battle between "film" and "movie". I understand that you can divide them into different categories, one more arty than the other to please the aesthetes, but in the end, it is all semantics, and I just don't give a fuck.

And this is why I stopped writing on the Cel Bloc for a while: the animation nuts. I must state, they did not do anything to me -- in fact, except for Stephen at the Animation Archive, those few who have run across this blog have been very kind and polite overall -- this is merely an observation from a sideline observer of their antics. I frequent many of their sites, and by and large these places, even when they purport to be as such, are not for the casual consumer of animation. The enthusiasts who run them tend to be, and I say this with tough love, "exclusivists". They might give you a glimpse into the world that breeds their passion -- but don't get too close, mister! You are not one of them. You might think you like Bugs Bunny cartoons, but if you are not an animator, then you couldn't possibly truly understand them. Even if you have seen What's Opera, Doc?, let's say, a thousand times since childhood, if you are not a member of their animation fraternity, within whatever invisible permutations that surround their exclusive little clique, then what you have to say really doesn't matter. At least, that's the impression I get from their comment lists and boards. Because I don't play these silly games, I have never engaged them in this; it is only what I have gathered from spying on numerous sites.

One site that I visit several times a week is Cartoon Brew, run by animation historians Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi. It is probably more immediately accessible than most of these places of which I am speaking, but even though I love it as a source of news and information, it is also part of the problem: running roughshod over films that haven't been released yet, praising to the heavens other films that are miles from coming into view, and then often paying a strange obeisance to certain artifacts of the past of dubious distinction or merit. (Nostalgia causes us to do strange, strange things...) So, it was with pleasure that I ran across an item on the Brew earlier this week where they were kind enough to tell their loyal readers of a Cartoon Brew spoof on the often amazing parody site SomethingAwful.com (home of the nauseatingly great Horrors of Porn series). Because Mr. Beck is a good sport, he is big enough to admit just how dead-on the skewering actually is -- and it smokes -- oh, does it ever! (Please make sure to get all the way to the second page and check out the "John K." commentary. I'm sure Mr. K won't like it... it was written by a writer, after all; it couldn't actually be funny...)

So, by all means, check it out...

[This item has been posted simultaneously on the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc.]

What Classic Film Am I?

I don't often take these things, mainly because I find the results a little too limiting. But I needed a quick space filler, and maybe, just maybe, I might be surprised by the outcome. So, I said, "What the hell..."

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

After all, so many of these things are done by people whose cultural timeline goes back to He-Man or Strawberry Shortcake. I might need to have other people report theirs to me, just so I can find out if it does indeed go deeper than 1979, the year of the film above. I was secretly hoping I would turn out to be Un Chien Andalou (and secretly fearing I would actually be Peeping Tom), but I am cool with the result. For now...

Recently Rated Movies #42: Psychotronic Ketchup in the B's

What with all my whining about getting to Grindhouse (which I did get to see on Saturday -- comments soon...), working on projects, and worrying about every other nagging little thing at work, it might seem that I have forgotten about the current main thread of this web log. This involves taking a long, alternately monotonous and thrilling trip through the pages of the Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film by Michael Weldon, watching all of the movies that I haven't seen before (and sometimes submitting myself to a fresh viewing of ones that I have previously viewed, whether I liked them or not...)

Suffice to say that the battle rages on, and that I am currently stuck in the "B" chapter, only I learned my lesson from the "A" section: jumping around is the only way to cure the monotony of getting stuck like I did when I hit a series of films beginning with "Angel", which meant, of course, a bunch of gang-raping beer-swilling biker flicks in a row. So, I've decided to hop around and mix things up a bit, though to make sure I hit everything in release within the book, I will continue to stick to one letter at a time instead of jumping about everywhere. A tiny bit of focus is nice sometimes.

The surprise this time was Bug, a 1975 insecto-thriller that wants to be Phase IV (a coldly weird favorite from my childhood, that was released a year earlier than this one -- where is this on DVD?) but doesn't quite make the grade, though it certainly doesn't go in any direction that you think it will. This definitely gives it style points, since judging from the cover art and from the beginning of the film, one would not be wrong in believing that, in the fashion of disaster films of that day, there would be a point late in this film where there would be millions of bugs all over the place, tearing off faces, eating the dead and causing general mayhem to the cities of America. And this film is almost defiant in not wanting to go in that direction, and is aided by a completely off-his-nut great/bad performance by Bradford Dillman, who just gets a little too up-close-and-personal with his subjects. (By this, I'm not saying he fucks 'em -- this is more of a mind-fuck than anything.) Plus, the film gets bonus cool by being directed by the man who made Jaws 2 not as bad as it could have been. Take from this what you will...

The List:
Gli Orrori del castello di Norimberga [Baron Blood] Dir: Mario Bava // 1972, Italian [DVD] - 5
Bug Dir: Jeannot Szwarc // 1975 [DVD] - 5
The Bat Whispers Dir: Roland West // 1930 [DVD] - 6
Reazione a catena [Bay of Blood] Dir: Mario Bava // 1971, Italian [DVD] - 6
The Baby Dir: Ted Post // 1973 [DVD] - 5
Battle Beyond the Stars Dir: Jimmy T. Murakami // 1980 [DVD] - 4
The Born Losers Dir: Tom Laughlin // 1967 [Showtime] - 4

Recently Rated Movies #41: The Steadily-Depressing Stuck-In-Disneyland Wanting-to-see-Grindhouse Blues

In between all of the Facebooking going on (the latest trend amongst Archie's Pals and Gals) and the deluge of Jen's relatives currently in Anaheim for a family reunion, it's going to be rather tight through the next week as far as posting on the ol' blog is concerned. Several days at Disneyland, three or four hours of Easter Mass (which I will fortunately not have to attend), Easter dinner, lengthy sits around a variety of bars and restaurants: that's the next few days for yours truly. That's all fine and well -- I like this family, and I really enjoy hanging out with Jen's mom and grandpa -- but how the hell am I going to work in a showing of Grindhouse?

Just like the Catholics have their silly rituals, I have mine. Only in my case, I prefer spending that four hours in the dark of a theatre, watching movies. And if there were a special holiday set aside for movie nuts, it would certainly include a double feature of films by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, where they go about wildly riffing on the 70's B movies that inspired their respective forms of cinematic madness. This is my type of holiday weekend, folks, and it has nothing to do with crosses or centurions or miracles or even resurrections, unless you count saving Kurt Russell's career such a thing, which I do. And unless Rose McGowan and Rosario Dawson show up in floppy ears and cottontails, it has nothing to do with goddamn bunnies, either (but, OH MAN, I hope they do...)

So, I am waiting for my opportunity. Jen and her mom say we should go to it Monday night, which would be great, but they just don't -- Don't -- DON'T!!!! -- understand. Because, ultimately, the type of films being celebrated in these movies are not their type of movies. They are mine. And I will grab the first chance I can to split from the group and hit a showing. "Fucking splitter!", they may cry, but I won't be back for three-plus hours.

The first irony? I would have to watch in the AMC Downtown Disney, in a scrubbed-over family friendly movie palace, sitting in an area where, speaking sociologically, these types of films would not have been shown in the old days. And the true irony? These types of cheesy, low-budget gorefests, shown in decrepit, smelly, dangerous movie houses in slum areas, hold more soul in them than anything Disney could ever hope to manufacture. (And I say all this as a card-carrying fan of the House of Mouse. I'm just saying it with a little tough love...)

Now, pardon me, I have to go ride Indiana Jones and plot my escape to the theatre...

The List:
Gwoemul [The Host] Dir: Joon-ho Bong // 2006, Korean [Edwards Brea Stadium West 10, Brea CA] - 7
Ghost Rider Dir: Mark Steven Johnson // 2007 [Century Stadium Promenade 25, Orange CA] - 4
Children of Men Dir: Alfonso Cuaron// 2006 [Bear Tooth TheatrePub, Anchorage AK] - 7
Zui hao de shi guang [Three Times] Dir: Hsiao-hsien Hou // 2005, Korean [DVD] - 5
The Invisible Avenger Dir: James Wong Howe, Ben Parker & John Sledge // 1958 [DVD] - 6
I Spit On Your Grave Dir: Meir Zarchi // 1978 [DVD] - 5
Where the Truth Lies Dir: Atom Egoyan // 2005 [IFC] - 5
Woman on Top Dir: Fina Torres // 2000 [IFC] - 5
Charley Chase silent short subjects:
April Fool Dir: Ralph Ceder // 1924 [TCM] - 6
Innocent Husbands Dir: Leo McCarey // 1925 [TCM] - 7
Long Fliv the King Dir: Leo McCarey // 1926 [TCM] - 6
Mighty Like A Moose Dir: Leo McCarey // 1926 [TCM] - 6
Bromo and Juliet Dir: Leo McCarey // 1926 [TCM] - 7

Dylan Goes Electric... Again... (Part 2)

Early on in the process, as I pumped disc after disc from my collection (all legally purchased) into iTunes, the thought occurred to me briefly that eventually I might run out of real estate. When one is told that one can place 20,000 songs onto an electronic device, the mind reels and cannot really discern whether one’s collection will fit onto that device. Or really, the mind doesn’t need to discern this, because for most people, 20,000 songs is far more than they actually possess in their collections. Filling up an 80gig iPod is not a concern, because it will take them eons to achieve it.

I know some people who breeze through life with the same 50 or 60 CDs in their collection (if that), and hit a record store once every six months or so to pick up something they read about in a review in People Magazine or the newspaper. (This is outside of the songs they must possess that they have heard over and over and over again on the noxious radio, hardly the best way to discover new music, and not a good way at all to discover listenable music. Brainwashing, and sadly, payola, work tremendously well...) Most people believe they are too busy to take the time and wander around a record store, perhaps checking out music in sections they might not normally be interested in; nor would they set about reading a brace of reviews on the same album in various publications to try and determine its overall worth or level of interest to them. These people, for the most part, are wrong: we all think we are too busy – we may even all be too busy for such nonsense – but there is not a person out there, no matter how actually busy, that doesn’t take the time for something that many people would consider foolish or nonsensical, but which that person considers necessary for their mental well-being. Everyone has something. So, when someone says to me that they “just don’t have the time” to expand their music collection, or the inclination, it says to me that music is not a priority to them. They may love music, and they may love the music that they have, but they have other priorities to which they must devote their time and effort and moolah. Or, taking the most negative course, they might be boring, unadventurous fucks…

I cannot live with only 50 or 60 CDs. This might prove to be a good starting point for my very favorite albums, but I can’t have only 50 or 60 CDs, to the same degree that I just can’t live with just two fistfuls of DVDs. I need new music in my life the same way that I need to see new movies on a consistent basis. I still listen to many of the artists that I listened to when I was a teenager, but instead of being stuck in a certain decade or loving only the music of my youth, I have to travel through musical history both fore and aft. I love to discover old weird things that I never heard before, and I love to find current artists that step out of the mind-numbing conformity of popular music and give a little pleasing twist to my earlobes. I need a wide variety of music in my life – not any type of music, but at least a variety of many styles – and all I require is that it is good.

So, over 30 years of record-buying, I have a collection of the aforementioned amount of almost 2000 CDs, and well over 3000 albums all told. I have more music than anyone could rightly listen to for the rest of their life. Even given the fact that there are several handfuls of albums that I purchased that turned out to well nigh unlistenable duds, or have many albums that were given to me in which I have no vested interest, this is still a lot of music. And now, with the purchase of an iPod, I will now give myself more opportunity than ever to listen to those albums that I do enjoy. But the question remains… what will I listen to? I have space for 20,000 songs, but as I have said previously, due to the extreme length of some tracks, this number is currently maxed out at around 16,300. What happens, as it did yesterday when I downloaded seven new albums from eMusic, when I get new music? Right now, I have no room to add these albums. What songs do I excise from my new precious baby?

And how will I listen to this music? I have always been an album guy. A song is not just a song; it is one of a connected series of tracks on an record, each one flowing, despite the silent gaps in between, into the next song, both on the disc and in my head. The closing line of one song on an album starts up the next track that follows. Part of my problem with radio is how when a song that I deeply care for ends, I long to hear the next song on the album, but then a song from a completely different artist, often in a different style or mood, will follow up, shattering my reverie from the previous song. The randomness of radio, which some see as a time-shrinking comfort, is darkly chilling to me. It speaks to me of an uncaring programmer who doesn’t see fit to this listener’s needs. “Just another record… just another record…”

With the iPod, I can now load all of these albums into one place, allowing myself to hear any of them at the slightest whim. Got a song from the Cars’ Candy-O stuck in your head? I did the other day, as I've Got A Lot on My Head (and Most of It Is You) went in a continuous loop around my cerebral cortex for about three hours at work, and while it used to be that the only way for me to dislodge it from the brain would be to go home and, because I am an album guy, play it straight through. Now, I sent out an iPod strike force at the song by taking a break and hitting the song right away. Best of all, by hooking my iPod up to my computer, I can also instantly find a large portion of my collection at once, without taking up precious space on my Mac. These are probably its ultimate gifts, to me, at least: providing major boosts in accessibility, convenience and storage conservation.

But can the iPod actually change the way that I listen to music? Despite my initially stubborn insistence to the contrary, it already has…

You Can Almost Go Home Again... Almost.

Damn, I missed the Bear Tooth TheatrePub in Anchorage. Since I moved to sunny Suntown, Sunnystate, USA, to an area as close to Movieland Ground Zero as I could wish to land without having to actually endure living there, I have been disappointed by the cinematic opportunities in the area. Yeah, there are some dollar houses about, but they are far enough away to make it a chore to get to them. There is a theatre that specializes in showing silent movies lurking about, but it is in LA, which is just a tad inconvenient for us to get to too often. There are also a great many movie chain theatres here, but for the most part, they are just extensions of the ol' Evil Empire, no matter how much the names change from year to year depending on which group has purchased or swapped about which batch of theatres yet again. On the plus side, I have had occasion to attend a couple of advance screenings for new films (for the record, they were the underfed Lucky You with the abhorrent Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore -- you may attach the adjective to either or both, as far as I am concerned -- and The Return with Sarah Michelle Gellar, who at least made the journey through the rather rote "it's not a horror film, it's a thriller" horror film pleasing to the eyes), and have also had to turn a couple of showings down due to scheduling conflicts (I am now on a recurring list).

And there is nothing here like the Bear Tooth. If there is, they are keeping it a damn good secret, and I have complained about this to practically every one I have met here, in the hopes that one of them will let slip with the secret if there is indeed something here even approaching the comforting atmosphere of the 'Tooth. And while I am careful about proclaiming such-and-such a place as having the best this-or-that at the drop of a hat, I have sorely missed the pizza at both the Bear Tooth and its mothership restaurant in Anchorage, The Moose's Tooth. I have only found two places here in California that have even halfway satisfied my craving for pizza -- Earth, Wind and Flour in LA with its Boston-style crusts (visited appropriately enough with my friend Bostin) and JoJo's in Brea, where I am reminded almost perfectly of the type of the homemade pies my mother used to serve us each and every Saturday night in our childhood. I certainly have a multitude of other places to test out here in Orange County and beyond, but nothing beats the now-ancient fact that I could just wander a mile down the road to the 'Tooth anytime I wanted to grab a slice and/or (usually "and") see a movie on the cheap in a perfectly plush setting. $3 a movie, a choice of booths if you get there early, beer and wine should you wish to down it, and such a grand selection of excellent food that I personally only know three people who have purchased popcorn in my presence in the place.

And I have been missing this immensely since I left Alaska. Since I save the ticket stubs from every movie that I see, it was an easy feat to discover that since the place opened in April of 2000 until I left in April of 2005 (almost exactly a five-year span), I had seen over 230 movies at the Bear Tooth TheatrePub. (This includes an amazing 22 in one week when the National Film Registry tour arrived in 2000.) When I found out I would be traveling to Alaska to see my mother in to the hospital for a rather serious operation, I knew that if there was anything that I needed to do on the outside of that time, it would be to see another movie at the 'Tooth. (I also had an immense craving to go to The Arctic Roadrunner, my favorite burger place, but that didn't quite work out for me.) Luckily, everything went fine for my mom, and so my late night carousing schedule opened up for my brother and myself. Able to hang out with a plethora of old pals, I made damn sure that my brother Mark got to finally see a film at the 'Tooth, no matter what it happened to be. As it turned out, it was Children of Men, a thrice Oscar-nominated film (one of the Mexican trio) that neither one of us had seen but of which we had great interest in catching.

And it was all too much for me. I needed more time in the place. It used to be that I would get there well over an hour before a show to make sure to grab one of the much fought-over booths. But the rules had changed since I moved. You now have to reserve a booth, and with it, you must purchase four tickets, and these go for $5 apiece instead of $3. Gone are the days where I could go to the first show by myself, and then hold the booth for my friends to arrive for the second. Because Elle reserved a pair of booths for our ever-growing horde (meaning that we still needed a few seats in the row in front of us to accommodate the lot), I didn't need to get in line, and so this freed me up to wander about and catch up on my old hangout. One of the countergirls beckoned me over so that I could order right away, talking to me as if I were a novice, so astounded was I to be in the place again. I explained that I saw a movie here on its opening night (not counting the hoity-toity ribbon-cutting junk) and had probably been here more nights watching movies than she had worked it yet. I was right: she had only worked there four months, and she allowed me to step back and swoon in my Bear Tooth reverie.

I stared at the menu for about ten minutes, hardly even putting the variety of items on the menu into any sort of legible language in my mind. All I could smell were the myriad of things that I had not tasted in two years, and my head was swimming with the combinations that I wished to purchase. My attention kept wandering because more friends, even ones like Mad Dog, Zieh and Cashby, none of whom I was expecting to see, arrived to surprise me, and in Cashby's case, to surprise them. I finally settled on a small spinach garlic chicken pizza and a Dr. Pepper, but because I was out of my first-in-line routine, I missed the new ritual where they seat the booth-holders first, and I ended up waiting for the peon line to enter. As a result, I really didn't get much of a chance to suck in the atmosphere inside my beloved hall (outside of its career as the Tooth, I had been seeing films here since I was a kid when it was the Denali Theatre, a discount dive but still cherished). The previews started just after I sat down, and the film kicked in just as my pizza arrived. The unfortunate part about the food arriving after the film starts is that it kind of takes you out of the early exposition, and Children of Men is definitely a film to which you need to pay deep attention, even though it is essentially one long chase scene.

Regardless of the situation, the film was fine and extremely intriguing, the pizza was exquisite, and the company was my old, wonderful gang. I was, for the first time in the trip, and for all intents and purposes, home. As much at home as one can get in a movie theatre. And it was terrific, despite the atrocities being committed onscreen, to get one's mind off one's personal distress for just a couple of hours. Isn't this what going to the movies is all about?

Long live the Bear Tooth...