Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Kurosawa May Be Cake, But Extra Geniuses Are the Icing

Well, I wasn't expecting this at all.

I knew that Jen's mom, Sande, was clued in on my deep admiration for the films of Akira Kurosawa when she gave me a copy of the Criterion Collection set for Drunken Angel last year for Xmas. But I really did not expect her to toss this set my way for the current holiday season:

The Great Directors, Volume 1

Five discs, five films from some of the greatest directors in film history: Chabrol, Tarkovsky, Antonioni and Schlöndorff! Oh yes... there's also that Kurosawa guy -- you may have heard of him -- represented here by Dersu Uzala, a film which not only fascinates for its incredible cinematography, but is also remarkable for letting Kurosawa film outside of Japan. Also, no samurai (or the Japanese, for that matter) to be seen at all. What you get is a vigorous though touching story set in the early 20th century of a Nanai hunter and guide who heroically leads a Soviet surveying team through the harsh Siberian wilderness, and how he comes to win the respect and admiration of his charges through his bravery and ingenuity, despite the fact that the Soviets seem him at first as a doddering old man. The film then continues years later through glimpses of the ongoing friendship between the Soviet captain and Dersu the hunter, even as Dersu's senses begin to fail him in his advancing age.

I have had a copy of Dersu Uzala for numerous years on VHS, but naturally, I was anticipating its release on DVD, as I do anytime I hear there is a video being released from one of those whom I, and many, many others, consider the Old Masters of Cinema. Recently, I did notice that Kino Video was finally doing just that -- releasing Dersu Uzala -- and I added the film to the (ahem...) short list of films I wanted to purchase in the near future. But then I noticed it was also coming out in The Great Directors, Volume 1 box set, and I suddenly became torn. Yes, it's true that I had only seen one of the other films in the set, Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes, an odd, kind of dirty little thriller from the early days of the French New Wave, but I saw it quite a long time ago, so I didn't have much in the way of memories of it. I had enjoyed it though, but the fact that I had not seen the remaining three films in the set made it somewhat of a longshot that I would actually go out and spend the $70-90 or so that it would cost me to get the set, especially given that there were other box sets out there for which I would instantly dish out such money, such as either of the Douglas Fairbanks sets still lagging around on my To Buy list. (Sorry, but the silents usually win out for me.)

But then wonderful Sande, of whom it must be said, were I actually legally married to her daughter, would make the greatest mother-in-law in history, made the decision for me. While I did miss Christmas with Jen's family this year due to my trip up to see my brother M'otis, waiting for me when I returned were a handful of presents, and amongst the lot was The Great Directors, Volume 1. I found out later from Jen that Sande had guessed that the recent vintage of the set's release made her pretty certain that I did not have it yet. And she was right. So far, DVD-wise, she has always been right, even with my slightly deserved reputation of being one for whom it is difficult to shop.

So, since I have now bypassed my own purchase of the single Kurosawa, what else do I get besides that and the Chabrol film? A 1974 film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, who most would know from the original version of Solaris (which is pretty much what I know him from, that and Stalker) called The Mirror, supposedly (from reading the description) a quite personal WWII drama based on his own experiences in his homeland at that time. From the acclaimed director of The Tin Drum, Volker Schlöndorff, comes a later film called Circle of Deceit (1981), starring Bruno Ganz (a personal favorite) in a story set in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.

And finally, in perfect timing with my own current run of Michelangelo Antonioni viewings over the past few months, there is his 1957 effort Il Grido. The description claims the film as the "missing link" in his career between his earlier "neorealist style" films and what they term his later "more subjectively stylized" films like L'Avventura and Red Desert, certainly two of his most famous films. Me, I'm a Blow-Up guy, and I guess I won't really know how it plays as a "missing link" until I have actually seen his films previous to this one, but I am definitely pleased to have it in the collection, if only because it affords me the chance to get acquainted with it at my leisure.

All told, a decent haul for a set: a couple with which I have history, and a trio waiting for me to discover their hidden secrets. It's nice for once to get a set where I haven't seen everything in it already. And that is how I am going to view it, watching the familiar first, and then taking advantage of what is basically a prepaid excuse to be cinematically adventurous. You should all be so lucky...

Does Fry's Come with That Flying Turtle?

In the past few months, Raw Meat and I have instituted a semi-regular special holiday at work. It only happens on the last day of the work week, and it usually coincides with a paycheck upon which the immediate rendering of the rent money for that month is not a major issue, i.e. it happens in the middle of the month.

We call these days "Fry's Days," because we take off for a slightly elongated lunchtime and go to Fry's Electronics down the road a piece.

I am going to avoid any controversial issues regarding their business practices, and just say this: if you are unlucky enough to not have a Fry's Electronics in your neck of the woods, I feel sorry for you. Fry's can be best described as a sloppier, less corporate-looking version of Best Buy. The place is not what you would call "well-scrubbed," many of the fixtures need serious repair, and the owners are prone to placing some ridiculously out-of-date promotional materials out on the floor, most likely just because they can. Also, if you are looking for a particular new title or even a regularly stocked one, good luck. Things are placed as haphazardly upon the shelves as possible, and even if they are in the right place at one point, it won't be for long.

But beyond that, Fry's is gorgeous. It's a geek paradise, especially for geeks who are constantly looking for out-of-the-blue deals on computer and audio/video software and hardware. And the place is constantly busy, almost a mini-city of its own right here in Anaheim. It's no wonder the place has its own deli right smack in the middle of its massive structure, and also no wonder the place is stocked to the brim with about a half-mile of refrigerated soda and energy drinks. And there are so many bags and packages of high-carb snacks, Fry's may actually have to create their own zombies to mine the extra salt. There is also an area with massage chairs, which is usually laden with at least a dozen customers at any given time. If you think the people checking them out are seriously considering purchasing one of those chairs, then there's a refurbished Commodore 64 in Aisle 12 I think you should slap some money down. It's the coming thing...

Me? I come for the video. Not the hardcore porno variety, which they do carry. The amazing thing is that the section is right next to the regular video software, each row shrouded by black cards, but still readily available for perusing. Fry's has a massive amount of videos, possibly tripling Best Buy's output (don't quote me on it; it's just a guess). Raw Meat and I show up, and he takes off for the computer peripherals and perhaps a demo game of Guitar Hero or this and that. Me? I hit the DVD racks.

For several months now, I have been eyeing on the shelves at Fry's, with the view of trying to slowly complete my kaiju collection, the box set of late '90s Gamera films. This set -- containing Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995), Gamera: Attack of Legion (1996) and Gamera: Revenge of Iris (1999) -- has constantly been hidden behind a copy of what I call the "fake "Gamera box set. This particular box set is the same case for the full set, but with only a copy of Guardian of the Universe inside, along with a chunk of styrofoam holding the place where the purchaser would eventually place the other two movies once they were bought. I don't know how long Fry's has had this particular "fake" set, since the other two movies came out long, long ago on DVD, but there it is.

Once upon a time -- and here's the twist, and the set-up for what some kaiju fan somewhere might call a miracle -- these two box sets did not sit, one in front of the other. Once, they sat slightly apart from each other, with a couple of public domain copies of other older Gamera films betwixt them. And then one day, a fair-haired former Alaskan blundered into the place and saw the full Gamera box set, and not having the means to purchase it at exactly that moment, hid the full Gamera box set behind the "fake" one. The Alaskan had seen the haphazard manner in which the movies where kept, and realized that, with just a wee bit of luck, he could possibly come back in the near future and still manage to get this item.

That "near future" time was supposed to be two weeks. It turned into three months. Other trips were taken to Fry's in that span, and though the Alaskan checked to make sure the full Gamera box set was still there on each trip, he somehow always managed to have his attention (and his pocket money) diverted by some other cause. Not the hardcore porno videos, but some other cause.

And then the Alaskan checked on Amazon a couple of weeks ago, thinking perhaps he would purchase the full Gamera box set that way, and discovered to his immediate shock that the full Gamera box set was now out-of-print. Even recently, it was still considered a "new" item on Amazon, but there it was, with the usual horde of out-of-print specialists offering up even the cheapest copies at a mere $49.99, where once it sold new at $35. Sensing that soon this price would go up ever higher to a point where it would be Bedlam-worthy ridiculous to pay $200 for a set of three great-to-OK films about a giant flying turtle, the Alaskan knew what he had to do: make one more attempt at a trip to Fry's, and see if the full Gamera box set was still hidden behind the "fake" one.

And thus came last "Fry's Day," where the attempt for what could perhaps be the final ascent was made, and caught between the burning hot sunlight of the day and the tempestuous moods of his fellows, the Alaskan managed to traverse the vast expanses of the Fry's show floor, clawed his way through hordes of incidental shoppers and brain-dead teenagers, and reach the "Science Fiction G" rack in the DVD section. The Alaskan reached out and struggled to move the "fake" Gamera set forward with a strenuous but simple flick of his forefinger. With a mighty crash, the imposter set fell slightly towards him, and there it was -- still shining slightly in the place where it was abandoned formerly, lo those many moons ago -- the full Gamera box set!

And now it is in the Alaskan's pale, sunlight-sensitive hands. He has defied the odds -- that someone would come along in those three months and simply move or buy the DVD set -- and he has at last completed his epic quest. [It is also possible that he vastly overrated the needs of the Anaheim public to purchase cheesy flying turtle videos.]

And now, at last, the Alaskan finally has time to peruse the hardcore porno videos at Fry's. No raincoat required, except possibly the customers surrounding him might be warned to wear theirs. Methinks there's a storm on the horizon...

Lewton Lascivious Behavior

Though I stated in an earlier post ("Recently Rated Movies #3") that I had been more than patient for most of this year in regards to the just-released Val Lewton Horror Collection and the still impending King Kong set, the real truth is that I have been less than patient about the situation for over the better part of the last decade, which would mean since I first read about the future of DVD's back around 1995. These releases would have been and were my first choices to appear on DVD, and I have reacted with supreme frustration over this time over the rumors and false starts that have afflicted me ever since.

I love the Lewton films of the 40's on an equal par with the initial spate of Universal classics in the 30's, and my weakness for these films is only superseded by the adoration with which I approach King Kong, the movie that I more than gladly offer up as my favorite film of all time. While possession of the Lewton and Cooper/Schoedsack libraries have been possible on VHS (and I have always had copies of them all except for The Ghost Ship, which I only saw for the first time and taped off of Turner late last year), it was ceaselessly vexing not to have gorgeous DVD prints in my collection while thousands of lesser films flooded the market.

The torture became unbearable once I got on the internet on a regular basis and the movie and video sites would regale me endlessly with hints and rumors of special editions, box sets, occasional "official" release dates and, worst of all, proposed cover art. Digital Bits has had the supposed Kong cover art on their site, without an official date, for the last couple of years it seems, dangling there carrot-like in the most taunting fashion. Due to my devotion to the cause, I would never fail to click on it only to have first DVD Planet and then Amazon.com tell me the sad ending to the tale. Though I have nothing against their wonderful site, Amazon is always the worst site to find out that something you crave is not coming out soon because of the January 2010 release date that is always plastered up there for something without a definitely set date. (The NewsRadio set drove me crazy last year after it was initially announced, then pulled, and then I stuck with that ambiguous 2010 date until it actually came out for good. Now if only DVD release dates could get married...)

Around the time that I first read about DVD's, I was definitely considering the jump over to LaserDisc. The chief reason for this switch in format? King Kong. Specifically, the Criterion Collection King Kong set that stared me down every time that I walked into the video store, screaming at me and beating its chest in a desperate bid to get me to purchase it, whether or not I owned a LD player. Without resorting to throwing his monstrously sized poop at me, the mighty Kong nearly convinced me to do it. I was saving up money for the nearly $100 disc and the even more expensive player, and it seemed than within a couple months I would do the deed and make the change for good. But then I began to read in the various video magazines of the coming future of video. I read about DVD, and I could sense that I needed to wait for this phenomenon to hit the ground.

So, I waited. And the instant DVD players hit the stores, I was in the market. But no Kong and Lewton. And I began rebuilding my collection of classic horror and sci-fi in the new DVD format, but there was still no Kong and Lewton. I read, in the waning days of LaserDisc popularity, of the release of the Val Lewton Horror Collection, and I held out hope that a similar thing would come out on DVD, and that this rush of RKO material would bring out the beast in a Kong release, but there was still no Kong and Lewton. The 65th and 70th anniversaries of Kong rushed by with hints of a Kong release, as did the 60th of Cat People, but there was still no Kong and Lewton. What would it take to get these out on disc?

Apparently, Peter Jackson.

I don't know the true how's-and-why's of Kong's delayed release. I don't really care to know. And I have no idea whether Peter Jackson's remake will climb or fall artistically, though I have great, great, great hope that he can pull it off (the early trailer was a terrific show of confidence, though the score problems scare me a bit and make me think there are even more problems with the production). I'm not even sure that Kong coming out has anything at all to do with the Val Lewton release, and that it is only the complete coincidence of their shared studio of RKO that bonds these different collections in my head.

I don't care. All that I know is that the Val Lewton Horror Collection is here and in my nervy little hands, and that Kong is on the way. I have watched gorgeous prints of Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie and The Seventh Victim in the last few days, and this weekend I am going to hole up with the other 6 movies for Halloween. (The films are relatively short, just over an hour in length each, so holing up with take a total of just over seven hours, so I will see daylight at some point in the weekend.) I have also watched a good, not great, documentary called Shadows in the Dark: The Legacy of Val Lewton, which goes into fairly decent detail about the Val Lewton's life and RKO years.

A small disappointment for me is that only 7 of the 9 films have commentaries on them, for I feel that Isle of the Dead is interesting enough for simply Karloff's unique performance in it to merit some sort of breakdown of the film, let alone for the distinct story itself, and that The Ghost Ship certainly warrants a commentary track, given the darkness of the subject matter and mainly for the fact that the film was suppressed in the vaults for 50 years due to a series of legal battles owing to copyright problems (a battle that is brought up in the documentary, but is not enough for me).

The other disappointment is the lack of the other two films that Lewton produced for RKO: Mademoiselle Fifi (with Cat People's appropriately kittenish Simone Simon) and Youth Runs Wild. Though they do not fit the horror definition of the collection, and while I have not seen these movies and cannot attest to their quality or worthiness, I still wish they could have given us a complete RKO Lewton collection. Perhaps they could have included them in as Easter Eggs (and perhaps they did and I have not located them yet).

All told, so far it is an awesome set as is, though I am hoping for even more from the upcoming Kong set in this, the Year of the Missing RKO.