Recent Viewing

Chi-hwa-seon [Painted Fire] 2002 - Fascinating historical biography of a 19th century Korean painter. I would classify this as one of the great depictions of the Soul of the Artist. Beautifully produced and lovely to see, with many landscape shots lovelier than any painting. I was very interested by the depiction of a culture in which there was only one form of painting, with specific rules and standards, and the main character's tormented drunken idealism in attempting to transcend those standards and himself while surrounded, and constantly offended by, people who were impressed by work he considered failures. Seeing the amazing ink paintings actually being created is wonderful. Any genuine Tormented Artist will relish this. 10/10

Lights in the Dusk (2006) Directed by Aki Kaurismaaki, whose genius seems to be taking a story that could be a classic Film Noir, in this case a dour night watchman framed by a gangster's moll for a jewel heist, and presenting it with a calm passionlessness that borders on stasis without ever being dull or uninteresting. Harsh rectilinear Finnish Modern environments are brought to life with intensity of color, creating luscious compositions. Expressionless, nearly immobile characters seem somehow to seethe with resentment. Another one for those with an artist's eye and a love for a good story. 8/10

Butley (1974) An American Film Theatre production of Alan Bates' outstanding performance. One of those exercises in creating the most dreadful character possible and letting him destroy himself. There ought to be a name for this genre, which would include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Streetcar Named Desire (or any other Tennessee Williams story), and the under-appreciated Inserts (one of my secret favorites and not only because of Jessica Harper completely naked {which, if I had known about it at the time, I would have seen half a dozen times instead of Phantom of the Paradise}). There is always a certain satisfaction in seeing these fierce glib characters thinking that the behaviors which have alienated everyone who ever tried to love or even like them will somehow be their salvation. Makes me feel not so bad about myself. 8/10

Movies

Lundi matin [Monday Morning] 2002 - Directed by Otar Iosseliani, whose work most often causes people to draw comparisons with Tati for its mild deadpan humor and precise sight gags - though gag is a rather strong word for the calmly surreal juxtapositions that occur. A man gets off his bike to move a big square rock out of the path, just in time for another man to come along and sit down on it. That sort of thing. Less outright surrealism than his previous Farewell, Home Sweet Home!, this is a picaresque wandering meant to be slightly amusing. It is. 7/10

The Cheat (1931) Most of my experience of Tallulah Bankhead comes from the latter end of her career, as a Noted Personality with no real evidence of why she was noted. This is from the other end of her career, and having seen her in the pre-brassiere era wearing a sating evening gown in a cool lakeshore breeze I know a little about her that I didn't know before. It's a lurid melodrama ending with a courtroom scene - Bankhead's gambling on cards and the market put her in the power of an orientalist lothario, with startling results. I have yet to see the thing that makes me "get" what her deal was, but this was interesting to see. 6/10

It seems you can't get away with anything any more. I heard from Donald Sosin, the noted silent film composer whom I cursed below. He kindly let me know that, as I suspected, others assess his work less brutally. I acknowledge that my opinions are mine alone, and often result from meanderings down an obscure byway unknown to others. As an amateur of popular entertainments of bygone days I sometimes know more than is necessary for enjoyment. I not only recognize background music, but sometimes know the names of the composer and lyricist and the Broadway show it's from and who starred in the heavily rewritten film version. I could tell you that the snappy melody in the party scenes in both Merrily We Go To Hell and Hot Saturday is One Hour With You, from the Lubitsch film of the same name, Jeanette MacDonald's first movie. When I see recent period films, like the 2008 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, I can tell that the soundtrack's scholarship is more from common knowledge or from period films of the '70s when it was sufficient for a hippie in a rented tux with his hair greased back to sing Baby Face through a megaphone - whereas I would try to determine what was actually played and popular IN BRITAIN at the time if they asked me to score a film set in Britain in that period. A friend of mine used to describe this sort of thing according to his pet peeve - Nazis with blowdried hair. This is all just my own bag, and Sosin's thing is his own bag and I acknowledge that for him it's groovy. I would like my few rare readers to know of his gentlemanliness.

Movies

Le Gitan [The Gypsy] (1975) What seems at first to be a standard crime/action story develops surprising depth and intriguing characters. Alain Delon is an armed robber who turns out to have ideals - he only robs the state to use the money to better the condition of his fellow Gypsies. Paul Meurisse, a classic hound-dog faced Frenchman, is an aging safecracker whose life seems tied to The Gypsy's by repeated coincidence. The secondary characters, and they are numerous, are all well-developed personalities, and everything becomes quite captivating. It's easy to forget that the terrible crimes they commit are actually a bad thing, because they are such compelling and magnetic people. Delon is not his usual golden boy here, and is truly charismatic. The settings of the gypsy camps and the sunburned streets of southern France are fascinating as well. I liked it a lot is what I am trying to say. 9/10

Murder at the Vanities (1934) Creaky backstage murder mystery. The show must go on even when people start dropping dead. Exorbitant near-nude spectacles onstage, interrupted by backstage antics by Victor McLaglen and Jack Oakie. European import Carl Brisson's manic grin and reedy voice are not very attractive - though he is extremely good in Hitchcock's outstanding 1927 silent film The Ring, which I recommend. The only real acting in the whole movie is the stirring explanatory monologue by Dorothy Stickney as the much-abused maid who saw it all, but with all those half-naked dolls who needs acting. 6/10

Recent Viewing

I have a huge stack of movies from the library I am trying to get watched.

La veuve Couderc [The Widow Couderc] (1971) In rural 1920s France, widow Simone Signoret hires drifter Alain Delon as farm labor. Things get complicated. Mature themes. Interesting period piece, great acting, but nothing to really go nuts over. 6/10

Minato no nihon musume [Japanese Girls at the Harbor] (1933) Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu. Silent melodrama once again marred by the tinny piano noodling of "noted silent-film composer" Donald Sosin, cursed be he. The film itself, once the irritating racket is shut off, is a bit primitive in execution, with a few stylistic tricks overplayed. Presentation is strangely anti-Japanese, with no distinctly Japanese locales or settings, and only the Fallen Woman dresses in kimono. More educational than entertaining. 4/10

Au coeur du mensonge [The Color of Lies] (1999) Another Claude Chabrol story of bad things happening in a small town. The interest is not so much in the events as in the characters and their responses to them. Fascinating French-faced women, and a neurotic artist you, Jeffrey Meyer, would surely understand. An excellent movie for grown-ups. 8/10

Merrily We Go To Hell (1932) Directed by Dorothy Arzner, a melodrama of the "modern marriage." Meaning alcoholism, adultery, and lots of forced gaiety to hide broken hearts. Pretty strong stuff, with great work by Frederic March and Sylvia Sydney. And man was that little gal built. Snazzy modern style sets and luscious gowns galore. 9/10

Recent Viewing

The Thing from Another World (1951) Set the standard for monster movies for years to come - all they did was make the monsters bigger. Always entertaining, and a rare opportunity to see Paul Frees. It was interesting to me that a shot of the reporter tumbling backward over a cot appeared in the trailer but not in the film. 9/10

Classe tous risques (1960) Lino Ventura and Belmondo in the story of a hard guy at the end of the line, mopping up ex-pals who let him down. Ventura is always great, and this was an unusually sympathetic picture of a man with his back to the wall, interesting but never really exciting or compelling. 6/10

Grey Gardens (1975) Donna seemed to like this a lot more than I did. If I had never seen screwballs jabbering away amid their squalor before I guess I would have gone gaga over it like everybody else has, but for the past decades that sort of thing is a penny a gross. Anybody with a camera who knows a kook, crank or nut can just point the damn thing at them and it's some kind of social document. Maybe at the time nobody had ever done that. Anyway, I sat through it, mostly thinking about what it must have smelled like. 3/10

Recent Viewing

Congorama (2006) Complex interwoven story of an unsuccessful Belgian inventor who learns he was adopted in infancy and goes to Canada to find his origins. Becomes more and more interesting from a slow start, until it finally shows you all the loose ends without tying them together in a big explanatory scene with lots of hugging and stuff. A little more footage of people walking as the cameraman jogs alongside and in front of them than I like, but there are far too many ideas and details to the story for me to start describing it. I ended up really enjoying it. 8/10

Hot Saturday (1932) Small-town girl, the forgotten jazz baby Nancy Carroll, becomes the object of gossip after spending a quiet evening evening with scandalous rich kid Cary Grant. Not a great movie but rather surprising at times. Big role for Grady Sutton who appears as comedy relief throughout. 5.5/10

Diaboliquemont votre [Diabolically yours] (1967) Alain Delon wakes up from a car crash with a sexy wife, a fabulous chateau, lots of money and new name, and doesn't remember any of it. His wife won't kiss him, his dog wants to kill him, and his doctor keeps giving him these pills. It's an absurdly complex scheme, of course. Jazzy and well-presented, but slow to develop. 5/10

La piscine [The Swimming Pool] (1969) Alain Delon and Romy Schneider are a beautiful bronzed couple at a villa in the Riviera. When an old friend and his teenage daughter appear, tensions arise. Adult situations, not like porno but like seriously mature. I forgot to drink my coffee. 8/10

I tried to watch the highly acclaimed animated feature Persepolis but there wasn't sufficient narrative flow to hold my interest. It was like a series of one-pagers. Technically excellent, but I have never cared much for the artist's work as comics and this seemed like it should have been left as such.

Movies

Inspecteur Lavardin (1986) Jean Poiret returns in this follow-up to Poulet au vinaigre as the morally expedient Lavardin. There seem to be no good guys, nobody purely admirable in a Chabrol film. This is a complex and entertaining story of crime and detection, admirably executed. 9/10

I tried to watch The Boss of it All, knowing that a Lars von Trier film is a crapshoot but willing to give it a try since it professed to be a comedy. Apparently he thought it would be funny to shoot all the dialog three or four times with the camera in different locations, and then cut each line in from a different shot. After 11 minutes of being whacked on the head every few seconds with "Look how cute I can be," I said to hell with this crap and this is the last thing by that guy I will ever waste my time on. Instead I watched something that wasn't designed to continually distract you from the story:

The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) Douglas Fairbanks' last film, as a man who can no longer live up to his legend. Huge sets and absurdly elaborate costumes, just a lot of fluff. Nothing to write home about but I'd rather just have fun watching something kind of silly than be tortured by "art." 6/10

Movies

Margarette's Feast (2000) Brazilian social comedy in "silent movie" style. Like many silent features it gets tiresome, but there are some redeeming values. A nice try, and not the worst Brazilian movie I have ever seen. 5/10

Movies

Terror is a Man (1959) I stayed up til 1 a.m. watching this, allegedly the first Filipino monster movie. Scientist on lonely island is trying to evolve a panther into a human. Swathed in bandages, it is at one point set alight by the deranged lab assistant, providing the unique spectacle of a flaming man-cat-mummy. Plods along at a moderate pace, with the startling hourglass figure of the professor's blonde wife as punctuation. Worth seeing once just so you can say you did. 6/10

I tried to watch Bangrajan (2000), a Thai historical epic about an 18th century Burmese invasion of Siam, but sadly the filmmakers were so devoted to being stylish and arty that it was too difficult for me even to decipher what I was seeing. If you are trying to tell a story and to show people images of what is happening, it's better to let them actually see it, not make it all friggin chiarascuro and stuff ya artsy-assed bastards. Dammit!

Jaziereh ahani [Iron Island] (2005) Fascinating Iranian story of a community on a decaying, slowly sinking ship. Does not resemble my daily life or anything I ever saw or experienced, which is what I am looking for in a movie. Amazing to see. 9/10

Movies

Ariel (1988) Directed by Aki Kaurismaki. I've seen these Finnish movies on the library shelf occasionally and finally decided to give one a try. This is a rather bleak, yet strangely calm, look at life on the lower edge of society where Stoic Finns do what they have to do without worrying about ethics. Somewhere in Finland people may be happy and beautiful but not here. Can Finland really be this dismal? Not much dialog, and almost every detail was something I had never seen anything quite like before. This same story could have been made into a John Garfield movie and been a real thriller - yet this never gets exciting at all, not the half-assed crimes, the prison break, nothing. Kaurismaki is on my list of people to see more movies by. 9/10

Recent Viewing

Poulet au vinaigre (1985) Directed by Claude Chabrol. I strongly protest the attempt to carry over the food-related titling in the idiotic Cop au Vin by which it is known in USA. However, this is an interesting and entertaining tale of small-town misbehavior in which one murder leads to another. None of the characters is fully likeable, even the protagonists being rather despicable in some ways. I must learn more about Chabrol. 7/10

Elle est des notres [She's one of us] (2003) Directed by Siegrid Alnoy. One of those movies where people stand immobile and expressionless, staring off into space, and when someone walks out of the shot they just leave the camera going for a while so you look at what was behind them and go "hmmm..." Interesting in a way though, in that one may not fully realize that France too has strip malls, industrial parks, condo suburbs, and stores with names like Monsieur Meuble (Mr. Furniture). I liked the fact that it was almost always grey and rainy and, like me, the main character finds her attempts to communicate normally with those around her often fall flat and she seems least comfortable when people are trying to be friendly, most tormented when everyone around her is having their version of fun. 6/10

Dekigokoro [Passing Fancy] (1933) Directed by Ozu Yasujiro, my favorite director. Like his other silent films, far more sophisticated and accomplished than many sound films made years later anywhere in the world. The pacing on this was a bit more uneven and I kept thinking it was about to end and then it didn't. It's a small light drama of a handful of rather poverty-stricken and mostly uneducated people and their mutual interactions. Ozu is always great with child/parent interactions, and he chose his actors well. My one serious gripe with this release is with the modern musical track. If I were going to provide a score for a silent Japanese film I would at least try to find someone who knew something about music of that nation and period, or locate someone in Japan who still actually accompanies silent films - surely there must be someone in that nation who has preserved that skill. I wouldn't just find some joker who can do random jazzy noodling for an hour and a half, slap it onto the disc, and think I had done it justice. I eventually had to turn off the tinny clinking noises and watch it completely silent. Movie - 8/10 Music - 0/10

My wasted life.

Oh who the hell cares.

Movies

Trying to catch up on a big stack of movies from the library, so I watched two today.

Ornamental Hairpin (1941) Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu, part of the Criterion Collection's excellent Eclipse series. A very pleasant Summer Holiday story, nothing earthshaking, just a really nice story well presented. Perhaps a little extra poignance (if that is a word) is added by the knowledge that the lovely quiet world depicted here was just about to be literally blown to hell forever. 8/10

Ratatouille (2007) I went into this as a Cultural Duty, as I often do with Disney/Pixar's perpetual "masterpieces," expecting it to be a bit of a chore, or at least to feel at some point that I wasn't sure I could keep going, but I would force myself and sit through it to the end. After 20 minutes I stopped it, went downstairs to where Donna was working and said, "You have to come watch this movie. Just trust me on this." I started it over and we watched it, and really had a pleasant time. This is the finest thing they have ever done. The settings, characters, dialog, expressions and story are outstanding, and if you are a detail freak like me, every moment is a dream, every tile and cobblestone luscious. This Paris is more French than even Paris itself. Witty, charming and, yes, delightful. I swear, when the rat first started cooking, I wanted to cry, it was so brilliant. 10/10

Movies

Meet the Robinsons (2007) A very well constructed time travel cartoon. It drags the most in the middle section when it is supposed to be the most exciting - there are so many extraneous characters, irrelevant gags and meaningless events that amid all the pointless spectacle I almost quit watching. I'm glad I didn't though, because once they get back to actually telling the story they really pull it out of the fire and deliver some genuinely interesting, entertaining and touching stuff. I think the fact that it was based on someone else's story and not just cooked up in the Disney studio kept it from being 90% factory formula. I would just edit out most of the middle third and keep the parts that actually have plot. 6/10

A Conversation

This is a conversation, recorded as accurately as I can remember it, between me (K) and my wife (D) which took place this morning. It just shows how complicated things can be when two people have completely different styles of communication.

K: (watching D check her email) How many emails do you get per day?
D: Well, the spam all goes into the spam box, but regular emails I get maybe 20 or 30.
K: So how many is that total per day?
D: Oh, that's just in the morning. In the afternoon...
K: Total.
D: Oh. Spams I get about...
K: My question is, (very slowly and clearly) "How many EMAILS do you get PER DAY?" Hundreds?
D: Per day? Hundreds, yes.
K: Hundreds. Thank you.

Movies

Gemini (Soseiji) 1999 - A story by Edogawa Ranpo, from the director of Tetsuo the Iron Man. I keep hoping somone will translate more Ranpo into english before I die, but there seems to be more of a market for teen romance manga. Anyway, this is one of those movies somebody probably thinks is the greatest thing they have ever seen because everything is as weird and crazy as possible and nobody has eyebrows, and they create drama by jerking the camera around instead of actually having some kind of skill or intention. Lots of bright colors and moving objects in some parts, and some scenes are interesting to look at. Maybe I'm still just mad from earlier in the evening. 3/10

Dream

I won some sort of prize which required me to go onstage at a Rolling Stones Concert. Mick was singing, wearing a big white fake fur jacket. When he saw me he came toward me smiling and still singing, causing me to shout, "But I HATE the Rolling Stones! I hate them WORSE THAN ANYTHING!" Yet he came closer and closer, finally wrapping his arms around me in a big hug. In a panic of chagrin, the only thing I could think of to do was shout, "SEX PISTOLS RULE!!!"

Movies

War of the Planets (1977) Donna wanted to see a '70s SF movie and chose this from our collection. One of the better Al Bradley (Alberto Breschia) movies, which isn't saying a lot. This makes four times I have seen it and I still can't tell what's going on at some points. Unrateable.

The Gnome-mobile (1967) I was recently reminded that I had never seen this. My sister was friends with the daughter of the owner of our town's only theater (Skyline, Canon City Colorado), who believed that this film would destroy the theater's credibility and bring about its end. It doesn't seem to have done so, as it is still in business. There is some fairly entertaining stuff in this, and Walter Brennan's double role gives him the opportunity to do more screaming than he probably ever did outside The Real McCoys. Enjoyable obliteration of a Cadillac limousine with Richard Deacon aboard, and cameos by Alvy Moore, Sam Cady and Ellen Corby. Classifiable as "irritainment" for adults but I'm sure it's a lot of fun for kids, with all the chasing around and shouting. 6/10

Movies

Fox Legend (1991) Hong Kong magical fantasy pitting Hunt King against the Nine Tailed Fox Demon and her minions. Surprisingly little fighting, lots of floating draperies, much of the story focusing on the doomed romance between the daughter of the Fox Demon and the last scion of a family of fur traders. Very colorful and crazy from the first minute. Disc includes trailers for 29 other movies, which must be some kind of record. 7/10

POOP BERRY TRIAL OFFER

I have recently been enjoying a diverse crop of propaganda, amateur and professional, especially that dedicated to the Magic Poop Berry. I can hardly look at a commercial website or even check my mail without having my brain instantaneously invaded by a superbly crafted yet meaningless phrase referring to this wonder fruit. It seems to have been discovered by a single mom somewhere in the Amazon rain forest, who found a miraculous way to achieve that holy grail of weight loss, a flat stomach. I gained even more knowledge from a few minutes of a television infomercial which sent me zooming through a virtual bowel, taking, I presume, the magic poop berry's own belly-flattening viewpoint as it rips through your innards. Photos of big flabby guts and fat old people were juxtaposed with slim young women (never more than three pounds over in their lives) leaping joyfully on the beach and wrapping a tape measure around their perfect waists with inches to spare. I soon learned that my sluggish bowels, and yours too, may produce that hideous bulging gut by retaining up to several pounds of impacted waste matter. That's a quote - up to several pounds - and a masterstroke of the propagandist's art, a perfectly meaningless phrase which you probably zipped right past just now. How many is several? More than two? Less than eight? Anything less than several is "up to" several, so up to several means the same as "some or less." That is, it means nothing - yet it seems to mean something. "Up to" is one of the supreme triumphs of the art, and whenever you see it, look out. The perfect propaganda is a short simple phrase which seems to mean something but is meaningless if not outright false. The magic poop berry, it is never said outright, is a laxative. You take it and it makes you poop out the up to several pounds of poop that didn't get pooped out and, if the image association is to believed, transforms you from a grumpy old flab bag into a young slim leaping woman or muscle-bulging chest-hair-less young weightlifting man. Yet they never actually say that, the factual parts or the false parts.

Some infomercials never tell you how much the product actually costs. Never mind that trick where they double the offer if you order now, just pay separate shipping and handling of eight to ten dollars to get your FREE product that costs them a couple of bucks tops. I saw a new way yesterday of not saying how much the product actually costs, in an infomercial for an exciting new product that will save you so much money and is really fun and new! Set in a fake kitchen, an excited couple, who do not hesitate to tell you how excited they are, share their exciting new product discovery with a handful of low-grade actors pretending to be their friends. This great new money-saving device is available for a risk-free thirty-day trial offer for only $19.99! If not insanely delighted, just return it and you will not owe another dime! No, you don't get you twenty bucks back, or the ten bucks you pay them for shipping it to you, or your own shipping costs to send it back, they just don't make you pay the rest of whatever the thing would cost you. You get to rent it for a month.

I like propaganda so much because it can slip things like that right past us. Yes, we were told the terms of the deal but we didn't know it. We were told nothing at all but thought we were told something meaningful. We were given a short, exciting phrase we could repeat to others which excites their emotions just as ours are excited, but we never stopped to ask if what we were telling them is actually true. We will just repeat these exciting phrases, without knowing what they mean or whether they are true, and use them to deny or refute actual facts because they appeal to our prejudices and emotional reactions, our need to feel emotions about things. I had the fascinating experience just last week of being told that my own personal experience and knowledge of a subject, the result of years of genuine scholarship of the topic, was irrelevant or meaningless, that I was duped and fooled, because it conflicted with the exciting and easily repeatable phrases they read on the internet. It used to be a joke that "I read it on the internet so it must be true" but somehow it became a reality. I like propaganda so much because it can shut down rational thought in an instant and make us repeat things that are meaningless or outright false, and deny or refute any actual facts which can't be stated in such tight and thrilling terms. It makes us revel in prejudice and ignorance as if they were virtues.

Reason and emotion are two equally valid aspects of human thought. Like socks and hats, they are useful for their own purposes, but you don't want to use one in place of the other. Propaganda will make you wear a sock on your head and a hat on your foot, and declare other people evil or insane for not doing likewise.

Movies

Spring Cactus (1999) Drama of a young woman's dismal life of drugs, jail and prostitution in Taipei Taiwan, based on the real life of a real woman who died of heart failure at age 28. I would not have found this as interesting if it had been an American movie - in fact I wouldn't have watched it at all. I liked seeing the daily life, environment and circumstances in Taiwan, night clubs, karaoke hells, vomiting in fancy bathrooms, etc., not so much the actual story. Good acting and overall good production. 5/10

Movies

Office Space (1999) Mike Judge film, very popular with people who have worked in offices. Half a dozen really good laughs in the first half of the movie, when characters are being introduced and the protagonist learns the benefits of not worrying about his job, and then it becomes a heist film. You pretty much know where a heist film is going to go. 7/10

Movies

Revenge of the Zombies (1943) John Carradine is the ex-nazi zombie maker who experiments on his own beautiful dead wife, with Gale Storm and Mantan Moreland. Mantan is, as usual, the most interesting person in the movie. 6/10

Movies

The Taste of Others [Le gout des autres] (2000) A Donna movie, about people doing things like in real life. The main point seemed to me to be that the people who had formalistic systems of thought and action ended up unhappy and the people who changed ended up happy. Good if you like that sort of thing. 6/10

They haven't heard the end of this.

Although I have, with much help through forums and the bladecprepair manual, the heli working, they haven't heard the end of this issue. Anyway, they haven't heard the end of this angry parent. They haven't heard the end of this, Carter." Carter: "Oh, I think they have... "They haven't heard the end of this," I said. Now I took out my cell phone. And I called Bob's Market in Bridgehampton. They haven't heard the end of this, either. And they know, for sure, they haven't heard the end of this story. Luckily, they haven't heard the end of this. I have a feeling they haven't heard the end of this! But even if they do send him back to England, they haven't heard the end of this! Not by a long shot!" They haven't heard the end of this. They haven't heard the end of this yet. They haven't heard the end of this ...

The Worst I've Ever Seen It 2

This is the worst I've ever seen it. I've never seen (the problems) as deep or as wide. I've been with HP since 1987, this is the worst I've ever seen it. It's the worst I've ever seen it, said Tarter. I came back from my holiday up north to today being the worst I've ever seen it. Worst I've ever seen it,' Edgar says of problems seeing ball. I've been plowing snow for 35 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen it. "I've lived around here all my life and this is the worst I've ever seen it," he said. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said Scott Smith, a lodging professor in the University of Central Florida's Rosen College of Hospitality Management. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said Bill Woodfield, whose Galesville packing house opened in 1917. "I've been doing my ministry in Brandon for five years and this is the worst I've ever seen it." This is the worst I've ever seen it. We got 14 to 16 inches of rain (in the past few days), and around 20 inches in Searcy, he said. "It's the worst I've ever seen it since I've been here so far," a National Works Agency (NWA) employee, who asked not to be named, told the Observer. ... I've been logging 30 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen it. "[With] those unavoidable, or seemingly unavoidable injuries, it's the worst I've ever seen it." "In the 18 years I've been a lifeguard this last week is the worst I've ever seen it," said lifeguard Scott Zanville, 35, of Merrick. "It's the worst I've ever seen it," said Kenneth Cole, who farms in Uvalde and Zavala counties. This is the worst I've ever seen it, said Greg Harvell. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said one network research veteran who has been in the business 20 years. But this year, the snowpack `` is the worst I've ever seen it,'' said. Heinecke. 'This is the worst I've ever seen it,' local coach says. "This is the worst I've ever seen it in the valley," said John Harris, chairman and chief executive of Harris Farms in Coalinga, Calif. Robert Krause: I'm 51 and I think this is the worst I've ever seen it." I've been fishing the Susky for seven years now and it was by far the worst I've ever seen it," he reported. I was at the airport today and it was the worst I've ever seen it. "I've been in the business 22 years, and it's probably the worst I've ever seen it," Collins said. You can definitely quote me on this: 'The heavyweight scene is the worst I've ever seen it.' The slot gully was "the worst I've ever seen it" according to a climber I met later on the Vesper Peak slabs. I've been a trapper for 20 years in Georgia, and this is the worst I've ever seen it." "It's the worst I've ever seen it," she told JET before boarding a military chopper after she was holed up in her home for nearly a week. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said DiCarlo, who has been director of the food bank for four years. I've been in the business for 20 years, first on the retail side and now doing this, and it's about the worst I've ever seen it, he said. "It's the worst I've ever seen it," he told me. This is my 12th season, and I thought we had some bad times before, but this is the worst I've ever seen it, she said. This has got to be the worst I've ever seen it.

Movies

Plot Summary for
Os Trapalh?es na Guerra dos Planetas (1978) (Brazilian Star Wars Farce) Written by Silvio Ferreira Cosi.

Coming of the space, the prince Flick (Pedro Aguinaga) asks the Trapalh?es (The Dabblers) for help to free the planet where lives of the domain of evil Zuco. He offers a reward, it accepts for the four friends, that embark in a spaceship by a called hairy monster Bonzo. In the planet, they use tricks and they win Zuco, but they don't get to save Princess Myrna's life, that had been kidnapped by the thief. She should be substituted in the throne by Loya, exactly the girlfriend of Didi, that knew during the adventure in the strange planet. Already in the Earth, os Trapalh?es (The Dabblers) think that everything didn't pass of a dream, but they are convinced otherwise when they come across a jeep full of bars of gold.

Books

Bleak History by John Shirley. I admit not having read a whole lot of John's work because I don't always find the general tone resonates with me personally, and I tend not to seek out things which, like many of his recent books, are media product spin-offs. I was impressed by the quality of thought that went into Bleak History, the way in which people's inner lives and character are portrayed, and the fact that it isn't a simple jumble of cliches strung together in a formalistic plot. I was surprised by the direction the story went and the things that happened, not just leafing through a plot where things go the way you want them to. It's an action/adventure story and not so imbued with philosophy that it is a life-changer, but there is originality and hints of greatness in there. As a bespectacled scholarly middle-aged man I found little in the characters I could personally identify with, and wondered more than once (as I often do) why these things have to happen in New York City and not Topeka or Dubuque, but I found the matter-of-fact presentation of magical and occult events entertaining, and appreciated the way the ideas were not over-played. John Shirley hasn't written a book for me yet, but I got little bits of this one.

Movies

Battle Beyond the Sun [Nebo zovyot] (1960) I was mistaken in thinking this was made from bits of Planet of Storms like its companion films mentioned below. It's a streamlined version of the obviously ponderous other Russian film purchased by Corman, with a couple of obscene squawking monsters clumsily added. You get longer true-color shots of the monsters in the theatrical trailer - in the film they are only shown in quick high-saturation shots - but the shot of one actually eating the other is quite strong. All quite enjoyable for me, with extremely good model work and effects, many scenes resembling classic Space Art paintings come to life. 8/10

Movies

Thanks to R. Seth Friedman-Wolf for helping add great joy to my birthday celebrations. Most years I just ignore my birthday entirely but since we had a houseful of guests I made a point of it being my birthday and pretending to celebrate it. Seth had already given me a disc containing a Brazilian and a Turkish post-StarWars scifi atrocity which I watched in tandem on Saturday night. The premise of the former is that four Brazilian stooges are taken into space to help a prince find half a computer and basically create a feeble mockery of Star Wars. The Turkish movie just takes what looks like footage from a faded theatrical trailer of Star Wars and uses that for all the space stuff, then has the heroes be on a planet where they ride horses and use spears, and it makes the Brazilian one look fairly high budget. You can do a lot of SF in caves, or in Anatolian cave villages. The only ray gun type effects were actually hand drawn on the film. There is a karate expert guy who fights these guys in fake fur monster costumes and karate chops them in half and tears their heads off. The Brazilian one is called Tramps in the Space War or something like that and I don't know what the Turkish one is called.

Sunday morning, my birthday, we (Donna, me, Dr. Howl and the Stangs) went out for breakfast at Pig'n'Pancake and while waiting for our pancakes and pig fragments, part of the discussion involved two films (Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women) which had been made from parts of the Russian movie Planeta Burg (Planet of Storms) by proteges of Roger Corman. When Seth came over that evening he brought me some SF DVDs including Battle Beyond the Sun, the other movie made from the same source material. Even better, that disc contains Star Pilot, a.k.a. 2+5: Missione Hydra (1966). It seems to me to be a fixer-upper, that they just tacked together the best they could with what they had. There is some splendid Italian SciFi stuff with a sexy alien commander in tights and a sexy professor's daughter who soon shares the alien commander's wardrobe - including garments with a CLEAVAGE PORTHOLE in the chest. A round plastic window over the cleavage. The professor's daughter also spends some productive time in a full-body fishnet suit with scarlet feathers attached to the bikini zones, and much of the photography of her focuses on her very long legs, especially when she is stuck rolling around on the spacecraft ceiling in "zero gravity," exposing her black garter belt up to the hip. The scenes in general are beautifully composed and very pleasing to the eye. BUT!!! Suddenly the incoherent plot is made even more incoherent by the almost random inclusion of footage from the American micro-budget fixer-upper Doomsday Machine which includes space model footage from the superior Japanese film Gorath. There was also a notable lack of background music for most of the movie, and the "fighting" was unusually inept and unconvincing play-fighting. And then there were a WHOLE LOT of fake fur monster suits. More than I have ever seen on one crummy looking little star treky sound stage in my life, jumping around going ooga booga. It's just what the doctor ordered, a visually fascinating and conceptually head-poundingly screwed-up delight and really fun to watch with the founder of a UFO suicide cult and our wives. I can't even give stars to any of these movies because they are skewed at an angle to our reality and cannot be judged.

Movies

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) The title and the monster suit are the weak points of this archetypal space monster movie from Edward L. Cahn and actual SF writer Jerome Bixby. It's 1973 ; people still smoke unfiltered cigs in space and the female crewmembers, a doctor and a scientist, still clear away the dishes and pour the coffee. The action takes place in a well-realized multi-level spacecraft with that magical space gravity that requires no explanation. Low dark ceilings and lots of shadows add to the oppression of being trapped in a box with an impregnable thing with big claws that will rip you up and suck all the fluids out of your body. Nice scene of walking down the side of the ship as it zips past the stars, all-around adequate production. Never gets really exciting, but it's fun to see every thirty years or so. 7/10

Movies

Land of Doom (1986) Post-apocalyptic cheapie filmed in caves in Turkey so they didn't have to build any sets at all. Motorcycles crapped up with frameworks and jaggedy sheet metal, only two modified pickup trucks, some left-over gladiator costumes and gas masks, voila! It's the future! Problems with the most basic continuity like keeping people on the same motorcycle from one shot to the next. People go to sleep in one place and wake up somewhere entirely different. Lots of attempts to make shots of people driving seem exciting by playing cheap synthesizer chords over it. One of the crummiest of its genre. 2/10

Movies

Invisible Invaders (1959) Early "scientific" (non-occult) zombie movie from Edward L. Cahn - invisible aliens possess the bodies of the dead, but only dead MEN, not women. Donna came in after about fifteen minutes and immediately started laughing at everything, which really bothers me because I stupidly try to take everything seriously and imagine what if it really were possible and true, and it takes me a while to loosen up and try to get on her wavelength, and then she says "Oh, you can make fun of it but I can't." So I can't win. ANYWAY, there are some pretty weird ideas here that go beyond the level of what the average zombie movie has become - because ideas were pretty much all they had to work with and they didn't have a million bucks to spend. Funny how not having money forces you to be creative. Same music in this movie as in Angry Red Planet. Very competent use of stock footage. 7/10

MOVIES

I was going to watch the Buster Keaton movie Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) from the Buster Keaton Comedy Legend series from Passport Video - until I discovered that they had put a STUPID LOGO that says Buster Keaton Comedy Legend, in the corner of the screen THROUGH THE WHOLE MOVIE, the STUPID DAMN BASTARDS!!! I SPIT on you, Passport Video, you DESPICABLE VERMIN!!!!

Movies

Conspiracy Theory (1997) A nostalgic look back at fin-de-siecle kookery. Takes you back to the good old days of Art Bell Show nuts and their primitive nut-zines. Mel Gibson really was a good actor - I have known actual conspiracy kooks and twitchy oddballs and he really has it down. More chasing around and shooting than I really care for, but the story was complex enough to make it worth wading through all the guys yelling freeze and people crashing through windows or getting hit on the back of the head. Had some good twists on the basic concepts, like why certain nuts always seem to have a copy of Catcher in the Rye. 6/10

Movies

Damnation Alley (1977) There's this giant post-apocalyptic super-truck that people drive across the devastated planet looking for other people. They spent most of their money on the truck, and some on blowing up that gas station, so it makes the movie look like an extended pilot for a Damnation Alley TV show, not something that should be shown in theatres. I met Roger Zelazny, author of the novel on which this was "based," shortly after it was released and his feeling toward it was chagrin. Where lesser movies might fill the time with shots of people walking, this one does it with people driving. Some giant scorpions and killer cockroaches make terrible hissing sounds. 3/10

OH I FORGOT!!! The guys in the truck find this French woman in Las Vegas, and later on they stop at the gas station they later have to blow up because of the hillbillies with radioactive sores on their faces, but there is a piano in the cafe there and the French woman sits down at the piano and plays a tune from Mr. Hulot's Holiday.


I saw on the new spanish-language DTV station a few minutes of Noche de los mil gatos (Night of a Thousand Cats) which I would much rather have seen than Damnation Alley. A young millionaire in a helicopter picks up women, murders them, puts their heads in jars and throws their bodies into his cat pit full of a thousand cats. Utterly bizarre and incoherent.

IRRITATING!!!

I have the developed extremely irritating habit of unconsciously using an uncommon word twice in close succession - sometimes I go back and edit, sometimes I just say the hell with it.

Movies

Adanggaman (2000) Made in Africa by Africans, an excellently presented picture of life in the 17th century under continuous threat of captivity at the hands of the Amazon warriors of the titular chieftain. An excellent film in every way. 10/10

Movies

That Night in Rio (1941) Another episode in the U.S.'s war-era courtship of Latin America. Don Ameche plays identical strangers impersonating each other and themselves in the trivial plot to this intensely Technicolored musical. Alice Faye comes in a poor third to Ameche and Carmen Miranda, and it's the latter who has all the best musical numbers. Kudos to Travis Banton for the dozens of fabulous gowns (the feather skirts in the opening number are incredible), though Faye's form-fitting golden formal was a bit ill-advised. It always seems a bit pathetic to see these jokers acting like they can't resist Alice Faye's incredible charms - she was a cute kid once but never a great beauty - again it's Miranda who has all the pep here, despite her stereotypical jealous latina mood swings. 7/10

Movies

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) A movie about the fashion publishing industry, than which there is hardly a more alien thing to me in all the world. I chose this because it was very popular and I sometimes like to watch movies that normal people like. For the first half hour I was just seeing how much I could take, and how awful it would get. Then Stanley Tucci (one of the most reliable actors who ever lived) delivered his monologue which flipped everything over and it became slightly less intolerable. I then occupied myself with anticipating and analyzing formulaic plot developments. Then she runs into that guy again, then the boss shows she is human for two minutes, then she starts to wonder who she really is and what happened to the person she used to be as she walks alone in the night, then there is a big surprise, etc. Eventually, by the end of the movie, I guess it had killed enough of my brain cells that I actually started liking it. All the acting was good, even though it was just a cartoon with people instead of drawings. Strangely, I hardly saw any clothes I really liked. This would be a pretty demanding date movie, more of a ladies' night thing. Donna seemed to like it slightly less than I did. Lots of bright colors and moving shapes. 4.5/10

It should be noted for the record that I still do not know, or care, what "Prada" is.

Movies

Space Truckers (1996) Dennis Hopper is a trucker, but in space, stuck with a cargo of biomechanical super-soldiers. Creditable effort to consistently depict technological compensations for, and effects of, zero gravity. Extremely imaginative ideas and production design - they did not scrimp on props and sets. The plot, however, is an empty framework on which to hang fights and explosions, which I ultimately found rather tiresome. A tongue-in-cheek sci-fi action pic in the grand tradition of Ice Pirates and Galaxina, all form and no content, leaving little residue. 6/10

Movies

Camille (1921 & 1936) The Greta Garbo/Robert Taylor rendition of this story includes in an offhand manner the silent version starring Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino, and I found it to be by far the more enjoyable of the two. It is short, spare and clean, in a modern setting with a small cast, mostly on modernistic sets which could have been designed by Jim Woodring. The styles of the day are unfamiliar enough to me that I thought they might as well have set it on Mars rather than Paris. Valentino is not at his best here, rather antic, but his function is to make Nazimova look good. Clad in metallic gowns, with a huge head of curly hair, she sometimes resembles a splendid chrome radiator ornament. She was certainly up to the demands of silent film acting, with a vibrant and active countenance. I don't know how the original story goes, but her lonely demise with only her memories of love to comfort her was genuinely touching, and I wiped away more than one tear. Compared to the serpentine Nazimova, Garbo is a bit of a stick and half of her scenes are stolen by some secondary comedy relief character. I have not yet seen anything which helps me understand her popularity. Her version is a big money costume melodrama, full of tufted satin and gilt rococo woodwork which I have always found rather sickening, and plenty of expensive scenes and set-pieces which do nothing to advance the plot or dimensionalize the flat characters. Robert Taylor emotes manfully, but the finale with its formulaic reconciliation and gabby impassioned monologues only prompted the very slightest choking-up for just a moment. I was surprised they didn't figure out some way to let her live at the last moment. 1921 - 8/10; 1936 - 5/10

PROOF THAT I AM RIGHT

I got this message today from a friend who seems to have found the perfect way to prepare himself to watch one of my all-time favorite movies:

I finally had the time and energy to watch "The Second Coming of Suzanne." I did so after three intense days of helping a "friend" avoid eviction after he was cited by the Department of Health for extreme filthiness. I spent 12-hour days literally crawling through his piles of old newspapers and garbage, roaches running over my hands and feet. I was exhausted, had only gotten 4 hours of sleep on the last day, and it was midnight. So it was the PERFECT situation to watch a wacked-out 60s "3-in-the-morning-on-UHF" badfilm. It was, in a word, divine. From its first completely eerie but totally confused montages down to the no-bizarre casting to the dubious nature of the production (Gene Barry bankrolled his kid's pretentious art film?) I was thoroughly enchanted. BEST MOVIE EVER. Or at least within a long time. Thank you so much for this one!


I encourage you all to try this

Movies

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) I always enjoy an afterlife story. In this one, suicides get an afterlife that's pretty much like this one, but just the crummy, worn-out broken-down bits. Everything is dingy and slightly unpleasant, no-one can smile, and there are no stars in the sky. I feel like I'm already there. Appealing actors and good presentation make this a better than average Quirky Independent Film. I'm not totally thrilled with where the story went - the last quarter seems sort of pulled out of a hat, but there's plenty of interest to look at all through. 8/10

The House Where Evil Dwells (1982) This showed up late in the evening on broadcast TV. B-minus actors Doug McClure, Edward Albert and Susan George in a Japanese Haunted House story, filmed in Japan. Former inhabitants compel the living to act out their fatal drama. There are some unfrightening superimposed ghostly figures, a couple of tumbling severed heads, and an inexplicable crab attack. Selective blurring technology renders the occasional toplesness safe for broadcast and thus of no possible interest. 5/10

COMMENTS

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Movies

Night Nurse (1931) Stanwyck, Blondell and Gable at their youngest. Joan Blondell is especially wide-eyed and full of pep - when I get my time machine working, I'm heading for 1931. There is a satisfactory amount of dress-removal and capering around in scanties, and Gable is an uncharacteristic violent lout. Of note is the forgotten Ben Lyon as Stanwyck's bootlegger pal. Not the greatest story ever, ending with a weird note of moral dubiousness, and there is one strange overlong scene in which an actress seems to be ad-libbing her excessive drunkenness (badly) while Stanwyck just stands there looking angry and impatient. Keeps your interest all the way through and lets you forget what a disaster everything is now. 8/10

Movies

Last night:
The Apple (1980) Written and directed by Menahem Golan. I really have to hand it to the guy, and his partner in Cannon Film Group, Yoram Globus - they didn't seem to know their limits. I don't know what Golan was thinking when he made this crazy futuristic pop musical. I only saw part of it on TV once long ago and have been wanting to see it in its entirety ever since. Definitely not so bad it's good, but not just bad either, it falls into an in-between category of semi-bulldada, a mistake but not a huge one. Ridiculous, irritating, colorful, with bad songs and dance numbers and a genuine Deus ex Machina. On the other hand, it confirms that in the future of 1994, people drive cars with plastic domes stuck on top, wear silver fabric and spray-on hair color, and never drink out of normally shaped glasses. 4/10

The night before:
Logan's Run (1976) I didn't like this much when it came out, but ended up seeing four or five times because they kept doubling it up with other movies I wanted to see. An "escape from the domed city" story. In the 23rd century there is nothing to do but wander around a mall, dressed in a toga, and drink from abnormally shaped glasses. Then it turns out that the utopia is a DYStopia! Donna had never seen this, or The Apple, and she seemed to enjoy this. Peter Ustinov is good, nice model city. 6/10

Comics

You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! By Fletcher Hanks, edited by Paul Karasik. While many of the comic books of the period were being created by assembly-line studio processes, for a couple of years (1939 - 1942) Fletcher Hanks single-handedly created some of the damnedest stories ever drawn. His science-fantasy stories in particular are loaded with bizarre creations unique in all literature. His gelatinous semi-primitive style and unique conceptions, along with the brutal and garish coloring techniques of the time, make this the most artistically inspiring thing I have seen in ages. If I felt I could spare the few dollars, I would certainly buy a copy of my own. I am only reading one or two stories a day so I can keep this library copy as long as possible. The fact that he was personally a truly despicable character only adds to the mystique.

The Discworld Graphic Novels, based on the works of Terry Pratchett. Because his books are so popular I have made a couple of attempts to read one, but never got more than a few pages in before giving up. They seem to me to be Douglas Adams for Lord of the Rings Fans, only lamer. I might have liked it when I was fourteen, or maybe not. In contrast to the book just mentioned, this one was a real chore to get through - originally published in the mid-1990s, the art is slightly above mediocre at times, with lots of those "leering grin with a raised eyebrow" expressions inexplicably popular with young independent cartoonists. The stories and plot elements are a lot of cutesy tripe and "ain't I somethin?" wordplay that makes me want to kick the hell out of that Pratchett guy. I only read this out of a sense of social obligation so I could get some idea of what it is that so many people think is so darn great. It only confirms my feeling of not belonging in this world.

Movies

Last night:
Subway (1985) Directed by Luc Besson. A sort of a romantic comedy, mostly taking place in the subway. Numerous specific points of similarity to the later, and more adequately conceived, Czech subway movie Kontroll. This was moderately entertaining as subway movies go, but don't cross the street to see it. 6/10

This afternoon while taking occasional breaks from book repair and watercolor painting:
Female (1933) An examination of the role of the Modern Woman - meaning a high-powered corporate CEO learns she is "just a woman" after all. The term "new freedom" is used in the male lead's contemptuous monolog. Sociologically interesting role reversal with the protagonist (Ruth Chatterton - new to me and frankly lacking oomph) playing what would otherwise be called a "rake," seducing her employees and transferring them to Montreal if they become troublesome. Lots of big sets, especially the insanely gigantic foyer with a pipe organ on the wall and the ridiculously huge swimming-pool set. A couple of short location shots use Wright's Ennis-Brown house (House on Haunted Hill), and the molded concrete block motif is duplicated for the "exterior" of the house on the pool set. The interiors are pure Hollywood Millionaire Modern. Gee, it seems the sets were the most interesting part for me. That and the old fashioned uppah clahss accents you don't get much any more. 6/10

Movies

Le deuxieme souffle [Second Wind] (1966) Directed by Jean Pierre Melville. Calm, methodical and masterly crime story. Rather long at nearly 2.5 hours, but well-paced and presented. Classic French hard guys with hound dog faces who gun each other down without batting an eyelid. Probably less dialogue in this than any other talkie of its length - Melville was a master of just showing you what is happening without a lot of flash and fuss, or even background music, to try to make it "interesting." Step by step you follow the story to its inevitable end. 9/10

Movies

The Divorcee (1930) Flawless melodrama of marriage and morality. Norma Shearer's smooth soft face and lithe figure can fill a man's heart with yearning, especially when limp and clouded with overwhelming sorrow. Takes place in that crisp monochrome fantasy land where everyone is young and rich; nightclubs are filled with riotous revelry, streamers, and balloons; men are so sharply clad you could cut yourself on their edges; doors are huge, fireplaces white and empty, armchairs and bookshelves streamlined, ceilings nonexistent; every woman's overcoat is splendid, every gown spectacular, every hat absolutely darling, and the lounging attire and negligee... well! And love, at last, conquers all. 10/10

Movies

The Magic Sword and Jack the Giant Killer (both 1962) I didn't do a damn thing today, just sat on my butt and watched a fairy tale double feature on TV. Both quite colorful, and fairly enjoyable as such things go. Not Gorky Film Studio, but pretty good for American fairy tale films. The Magic Sword was more poverty-stricken, created by Bert I. Gordon, famous for other cheap movies featuring superimposed giant things and people. The second movie was more mainstream, budgetwise, with imaginative combinations of animated effects, camera tricks, and stop-motion characters. I immediately spotted props common to both movies - gargoyles, a distinctive door, and the titular sword of the first was used early on in the second to confer knighthood on Jack. I guess there are worse things to do with an afternoon. 6/10

And then I watched ANOTHER movie!

Freeway (1996) Reese Witherspoon gives the greatest performance of her career as an illiterate, conscienceless 16 year old with a history of theft, arson and prostitution who shoots Kiefer Sutherland multiple times, leaving him for dead, and mercilessly taunts him in court for being deformed and crippled as a result. And she's the good guy, who turns out to be quite admirable. A really twisted movie with lots of profanity (most of it screamed by Witherspoon while holding a gun to someone's head), violence and blood; kind of horrible and kind of brilliant. A feel-good movie in spite of its dreadfulness. 8.5/10

Movies

The Time Guardian (1987) Ambitious low-budget Australian Sci Fi action, pitting a time-traveling domed city of the future against red-eyed devil-robot suits with gurgling blobmen inside. The film is greatly enhanced early on by a bra-less blonde geologist, and Carrie Fisher in an anatomically correct molded breastplate that looks more like body paint. Fisher doesn't have much else to do in the film after that - most of the acting duties are handled by untalented amateurs. The soundtrack is a classic '80s one-man synth job, and a good piece of the budget must have gone into blowing up that gas station. I am puzzled that they gave the editor first credit after the four lead actors, since the editing was noticeably unskillful. Directed by the guy who wrote the second Mad Max film. 4/10

Movies

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959) Highly satisfactory B movie about an ancient Jivaro Indian shrunken head curse, with plenty of offbeat scenes and ideas. They didn't shy away from showing multiple severed heads, floating ghostly skulls, and the pouring of hot sand into the skin peeled off a skull. I am so happy to be able to enjoy something this crazy on broadcast TV once again - it's like old times. 8/10

Addendum - Research shows that director Edward L. Cahn has an impressive history, including numerous lurid crime, gang, teen and monster films such as The She Creature and Creature with the Atom Brain. He is also responsible for one of Kathleen Freeman's earliest appearances, and her only starring role, the short subject Annie was a Wonder, and the Our Gang weeper All About Hash, showcasing young Bobby Blake. Mr. Cahn has muddled his fingers in my brain for a good part of my life without my knowing it.

That same evening....
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) I chose this as a follow-up to Fallen Angel (see below) to compare a later Preminger film. A young mother's child is missing and she can't prove she even had a child in the first place. As I expected, it becomes progressively more deranged as the story becomes more and more absurd. The locations and cinematography are bizarre and interesting, and every secondary character has some weird kink to them. Donna said, "Somebody probably thinks it's a really great movie." It was kind of fun, but left us sighing and exclaiming in dismay for some time afterward over the nutty finale. 6/10

Movies

Les Enfants Terribles (1950) Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and written by Jean Cocteau. I have the benefit of seeing classic high-art films like this from a viewpoint of complete ignorance of the half-century of critical dissection they have enjoyed. Depicts two young people with no goals or standards, but unlimited resources, in a parasitic and self-destructive relationship. It really captured the closed world of the self-involved, which makes trivial events into huge dramas, and dramatic events trivial. If I had seen this when I was 19, I might have made it into some sort of twisted model for my life, but seeing it now it seems more a tragedy of a childhood excessively prolonged. Symbolic rather than realistic, an opera without the singing. Not the sort of thing you see for fun, but it seems to do one a certain amount of good. 9/10 for style and intellectualism.

Movies

Fallen Angel (1945) Alice Faye and Dana Andrews in a turgid noir melodrama that becomes more and more ridiculous as it nears its emotional climax, until we were just about busting a gut laughing. An incoherent story made worse by bad studio decisions that ended Faye's film career. I didn't expect it to be very good but never thought it would be as hilariously awful as it was. Poor Percy Kilbride delivers the biggest, albeit unintended, laugh of his career. 3/10

Addendum: Being in more of a mood to elaborate on this, I shall. Though the story itself is pretty incoherent, and it was obviously made more so by deleting anything that would show Faye's motivation for marrying a rather rude and peevish acquaintance of a few days, much of the basic atrociousness of it comes from being directed by Otto Preminger. He was at his best when directing pure melodrama like Laura, where people can suddenly go off into hysteria and neurosis with little cause, but he was occasionally brilliant with more gritty material, such as the outstanding Dana Andrews vehicle Where the Sidewalk Ends. Fallen Angel is a good example of the sort of badness at which Preminger was so good, never better/worse than in his two astounding treatments of the Nelson Algren novels The Man with the Golden Arm and A Walk on the Wild Side.

Movies

Le Corbeau (1943) Entertaining French who-dunnit with a unique premise; small-town life is brought to chaos by hundreds of vile poison-pen letters signed by The Raven. The mark of a good mystery story is that it keeps you distracted enough that you don't ask all the why and how questions which would show the plot to be absurd and impossible, and this is a fairly good mystery story. Interesting characters and settings, well-presented. 8/10

Movies

My Man Godfrey (1936) A classic, and beyond criticism. Set a standard to which many aspired, and which has rarely been attained. Makes that Capra crap look like a pail of puke. Watch every three or four years, until death. 10/10

Movies

The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) Doris Day in an idiotic espionage farce. In hindsight, it is clear that American culture was on the brink of revolution and this is a perfect example of the type of decadence that spurred it on. There is hardly a scene which is not irritating or stupid in some way. Worse, the eponymous boat barely appears and is irrelevant to the plot so if you are a big glass bottom boat fan and are looking forward to seeing a movie about one, this is not it. You are going to be saying for the rest of the night, "I thought there would be more of the boat." There are only two redeeming features to this film: First, Day's next-door neighbors are played by George Tobias and Alice Pearce, who appeared as Gladys and Abner Kravitz on Bewitched, providing a sort of TV Land merging of universes effect. Second, Paul Lynde in drag. Ellen Corby also appears, but not significantly. 2/10

Comics

These are some of the comics I have recently enjoyed.

Worst by Hiroshi Takahashi (vol 1-3) A weird fantasy world of male posturing, inspiration for the even weirder satire Cromartie High School. In an all-boys' high school in Japan, every student is a huge hulking lout, and there is nothing else in the world but a baroque feudalism based on who is tougher than whom. The emphasis is on facial expression, poses, hairdos and clothing - a true Boys' Romance comic - romance meaning fighting. In three volumes there only appears one female figure, in a street scene and partially obscured by a speech balloon. In fact there is hardly anyone in this universe except the characters in the story.

Jet Lag, five stories written by Etgar Keret and drawn by members of the Actus group, including Rutu Modan, one of my favorites and an inspiration to me in cleaning up and simplifying my recent drawing style. A good example of some of the superior work being done in Israel. Anything by any of these people is worth looking up.

Golgo 13 by Takao Saito. 13 volumes of these intensely detailed and contrived stories are available in English. Golgo 13, a.k.a. Duke Togo, is the ultimate hit man, doing the impossible in every story, traveling to exotic locales to shoot people. I might call this a guilty pleasure, if I could ever feel guilty about reading comics.

Aqua, vol. 1 & 2, and Aria, by Kozue Amano. Pretty much the opposite of Golgo 13. The attempt to terraform Mars melted its polar cap and left the planet covered with water, and the planet's name has been changed to Aqua. Tourists in the city of Neo Venezia are transported by gondolas rowed by teenage girls known as Undines, and these stories are about the trials and trivias of a novice Undine. All very cute, sweet, inspiring and heartwarming.

Melvin Monster by John Stanley. Stories of a monster kid who can't help being good instead of bad, written and drawn by the genius behind Little Lulu, originally published in 1963. Splendidly revived by Drawn & Quarterly in hardback with foilstamped cover. Fun to read and full of eccentric invention.

Run, Bong-Gu, Run! by Byun Byung-Jun. A quiet Korean story of a little boy and his mother in search of the father who went to make money in the city. Beautifully drawn and painted in a way that made me stop reading and just sit looking at the picture. Expressive and a genuine work of art.

Movies

The Fire Within (1963) Directed by Louis Malle. After four months in rehab, an aimless and alienated man looks up his old pals one last time before killing himself. This is the first Louis Malle film I have seen. It kept my interest but I was glad when it was over. 6/10

Movies

Time [Shi gan] - 2006 Written and directed by Kim Ki-duk. An uncontrollably jealous woman leaves her boyfriend, has cosmetic surgery and reappears in his life only to find she is competing with her former self - and that's only the first half of it. Then it gets complicated. I have only seen a half dozen Korean movies and they have all been very well made and very twisted. I'm sure there must be banal and vapid Korean movies which are never made available to American viewers, and I am trying not to be afraid of Koreans. Not a feel-good movie but very interesting. 8/10

Movies

Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) I seem to watch this once a year, and I just don't get tired of it. I think if it were in French, or if people had the idea that it was done for some high artistic sociocinematic-critical purpose, it might be considered a genuine art film. The fact is, though, it is an atrociously misconceived monster movie which fails hugely in a surprising number of ways. It is so uniformly catastrophic, from the first moment to the last, that it seems like an artifact from another dimension in which such a thing might be considered normal, which slipped somehow into our own world. I would have to put this in my list of all-time favorite movies. N/10

Movies

Speak Easily (1932) Buster Keaton is a professor of the greek classics under the mistaken impression he has inherited a fortune, who naturally becomes connected with a broken-down vaudeville troupe, the most prominent member of which is Jimmy Durante. A winning combination, providing a few songs, a few laughs. Good Clean Fun. 8/10

I've been enjoying some bits of cinematic history plucked from the library shelves. "Discovering Cinema: Learning to Talk & Movies Dream in Color" is a two-disc pair of 50-minute documentaries with an excellent assortment of supplementary original materials. The shows are very well produced and the extras are educational at least, and often wonderful. Any of the Treasures from American Film Archives sets is worth digging around in, and I have been mining the first of the series for a week or so, having already been through a couple of other ones. I enjoyed the surreal 1916 silent western Hell's Hinges, starring William S. Hart the other day.

I am at present making my way through Permanence, the 2002 SF novel by Karl Schroeder, who has become a favorite. An impressive array of subjects are considered; political, social, economic and philosophical, jammed into a headlong Hard SF techno-adventure. 9 times out of 10 when I give a recent SF novel the first sentence test and find the protagonist is female, I put it back on the shelf. Not because I am a Male Chauvinist Pig, but because the gal is handed to you on a plate as a display of gender/ethnic equity, a fake Politically Correct mask to pep up a flat crime or adventure novel arbitrarily stuck in the future. Schroeder's books are full of ideas, not a lot of juvenile back-patting for having come up with a mulatto princess/private eye.

For over a month now I have been reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I only pick it up every three days or so, and then try to read only one chapter, for the simple reason that I just want to keep enjoying it. I have read half a dozen of Dickens' novels, and made a point of reading lesser-known ones like Dombey and Son and Our Mutual Friend. I agree with Dickens' assessment that David Copperfield is his finest work and will go even farther. First please understand that I think people who talk about things as the "greatest ever" or "world's best" of "best of all time" are IDIOTS. It is just a stupid thing to do, and only exposes their ignorance when they are going ga-ga over some dumbass piece of crap like a halfwit chump. That said, it is my opinion, based on my four decades of reading literally thousands of novels, that Charles Dickens is the greatest writer in the English language, the king of all languages; that David Copperfield is simply and clearly the best novel ever written, and very probably will remain unchallenged for the remainder of human history.

BEEN BUSY

http://kennethjdevries.com

Unicorn Vampire Mermaid In Space

YEE HAW! That's MY foreign policy!

Freebie Month Continues, and Cleaning Dilemmas

This book press, shown sitting on a dolly in Barron's back yard because it weighs 80 pounds (I didn't believe it until he actually put it on a scale to prove it) was free. I knew I would eventually get a free book press if I just waited long enough, but it was about ten years. I hope I don't have to wait that long for the free canoe (small enough for one person to carry, not ine of those giant family-size ones). The press is home-made but well-built, with a cast metal platform that shows signs of having been some sort of electrically heated griddle long ago, with some welded parts. It will clamp the hell out of anything. Hauling it upstairs was not that tough because I am physically fit. Clearing a spot on my book repair table provoked a fit of actual cleaning, moving. re-organizing and throwing away of things. It is astounding what kind of crap I have filled my studio with because I thought I would use it some day. Why do I have a tin of brown shoe polish and a can of Huberd's Shoe Grease - and why am I still keeping them? What was I meaning to do with a pink hi-liter? Why didn't I get rid of dozens of things long long ago? The nice thing was finding a pretty little chopstick box with a sliding lid, containing a couple of good paint brushes and yet another X-acto knife, and a box of watercolor supplies I got at a yard sale when I wasn't painting watercolors yet. But what did I think I would do with ancient sample containers of dry tempera paint? Why can't I dispose of the last of my oil painting supplies? Life is a puzzle and a muddle.

HAW HAW HAW

It's funny because it is like a satire.

Movies - June 7

Rose of Washington Square (1939) I guess I am looking for a movie which utilizes the talents of Alice Faye as ably as Hello Frisco, Hello - with little success. As usual, a few good musical numbers in a welter of melodrama, somewhat enlivened by Bill Frawley and Joyce Compton. Al Jolson gets more songs than Faye does - I like a little Jolson occasionally but this is too much for me. I have been trying for years to truly enjoy him, but though I do not lack the knowledge I lack the comprehension. Anyway, 6.5/10 and I am ending this course of inquiry for a while.

Movies - June 5

The Stork Club (1945) Hat check girl Betty Hutton is beneficiary of millionaire's anonymous generosity - romantic complications follow. Hutton's tendency to comedic overacting is greatly restrained here, except in one ghastly musical number. The rendition of her Hoagy Carmichael hit The Doctor, the Lawyer and the Indian Chief is right on the money though, and a high point of the film. Wisecracking chum Iris Adrian always adds value to any movie, and the fashions, hats and hairdos fall just short of outrageous. Also evident is the mid/late 40s decorative style of isolated classical motifs inflated into huge white replicas. Generally entertaining. 7/10

Movies - Recent Viewing

Zis Boom Bah (1941) B-movie vehicle for forgotten Vaudeville star Grace Hayes, who helps save her son's college by opening a student-staffed night club. More educational than entertaining, but some adequate musical performances. 6/10

The Dance of Life (1929) Donna tracked this down because she is experiencing an Oscar Levant craze and this is his first film appearance, as well as one of the earliest screen musicals. Sadly, he only gets about thirty seconds total screen time, the remaining two hours being a dreary backstage melodrama. I am quite tolerant of creaky archaic cinema but this one had me weary after half an hour, though the deadly pace was greatly relieved in the middle by a spectacular Ziegfeld Follies sequence with insanely huge stage set and costumes. Your chances of ever encountering this film are extremely slim. 4.5/10

El bolero de Raquel (1957) A Cantinflas movie - lots of humor, a little pathos, a couple of dance numbers, and wedding bells at the end. Unfortunately the subtitles were not well translated so a lot of the impact of his humor was obviously lost. The first 20 minutes is a sequence related to the death of his friend and the resulting funeral - Cantinflas ultimately arrives at the cemetery drunk, goes to the wrong funeral and kisses all the ladies, delivers a bizarre eulogy and falls into the grave. While everyone else grieves, his remarks are sardonic, self-serving and not a little lustful. Not at all what you would see in an American film of that day. The title is a pun - he is a bootblack (bolero) with a girlfriend named Raquel; as the result of a misunderstanding he ends up dancing on a nightclub stage to the Bolero of Ravel. Funny. Sorta. He also accidentally dives off the cliff at Acapulco. It's always something with that guy. 7/10

Strange and Stranger - The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell

This is as fine a book as anyone could ever expect on the life and work of a highly influential figure in recent popular culture, as well as a complex and baffling man. Filled with excellent examples of his startling and innovative artistic style, and ably describing his rise and self-orchestrated fall. As a kookologist of long standing, having spent decades in the study of people who dedicate their lives to the promulgation of a personal ideal or philosophy, Ditko appears to me to be a classic example of the self-disabler. Rarely has such a talented, respected and admired artist more completely destroyed his career and even crippled his own artistic skill in the service of an unreachable idealism. First by making reasonable demands of his dishonest employers, then progressively unreasonable demands of people whose sincere desire was to help him achieve any goal he wished to attain, he ultimately made it impossible to do the one thing he most wanted to do - communicate his ideas through the skills to which he had dedicated his entire life. I believe he discovered and enacted this principle: the only way to always be right is to always make everyone else be wrong. His idealism was a form of perfectionism impossible of existence in this world, a philosophy of pure black and white which can only be enacted in fantasy - since in this world dichotomies and true "black and white" are manufactured by the mind and have no natural existence. His Objectivist idealism compelled him to literally deny reality, a direct contradiction of its fundamental principle that reality is what IS, and not what we wish it to be. Most telling is the complete absence from this book of the slightest mention of his having any personal, emotional, or romantic relationship with another person - not even to say that such a thing was absent from his life. If, as I write this, Steve Ditko still lives, he lives in a world of his own creation - poverty and obscurity, unable to afford even to self-publish, surrounded by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars worth of his own work which his principles will not permit him to sell, and looked on from a distance by dedicated admirers who are willing and able to publish anything for him, if he would only let them. What an opera it would make.

Movies - June 2

Burn After Reading (2008) Coen brothers' comedy of errors, all-around good entertainment. Donna's choice, watched with her last night. 8/10

The Great American Broadcast (1941) Ostensibly portraying the epic development of radio from its infancy to coast-to-coast networks; the framework upon which is hung a weak plot and some mediocre songs. I love Alice Faye but it just isn't believable that John Payne, Jack Oakie, and Cesar Romero should all go gaga over her like they do here. Jack Oakie, yes. Two numbers by the Ink Spots, one with the Nicholas Brothers, are really all that's worth seeing here. 5.5/10

Oneirogenic Foods

A KDV Klassik - my 2007 essay on dream-producing foods.

This is about food that makes you dream. I first began paying attention to the effect food has on my dreams in the early 1990s when I lived in Boston Massachusetts. It was the custom of the future Mrs. Nenslo and me to make Christmas Day festive by going to Haim's Deli in Brookline to nosh on knishes. Everything was closed except jewish delicatessens, and neither of us celebrated the season any other way. I was not yet a vegetarian but quite reasonably never ate liver in any form except the chopped liver at Haim's Deli once a year. My response to the burlesque query, "What am I, chopped liver?" would be I WISH. It made the most unpleasant of meats 90 percent delicious. I noticed the first year that my dreams that night were very busy, detailed and intense, and attributed it to the succulent chopped liver. Everything else we had was pretty much potato and cabbage. Every year I had chopped liver and wild dreams. I also discovered around the same time a similar effect from dried turkish figs, the fat yellow ones packed nose to tail in a tidy circular package.

My dreams are usually pretty detailed, busy and colorful, with lots of bicycle and trolley rides through hilly old-world cityscapes or wanderings through cramped twisting hallways that contract into an inaccessible staircase with a light at the end. Occasionally I spend time crawling down the sidewalk using every crack and crevice to drag myself along against incredible pressure, as other people walk normally past. Other times, much more rarely these days, I simply lift my feet forwards and up, and scoot along above the ground, guiding myself with my body weight as if on an invisible skateboard. I made a practice of keeping a dream diary for a few years, but found that reading one's own dreams is almost as boring as reading someone else's.

Last fall I kept bicycling past a tree with huge lumpy pears on it. One day I saw an old guy doing yard work there and asked him about it, learning that it was a quince tree. He gave me a couple and explained in far too much detail exactly how to cut it up without cutting my own finger off, and how to boil it in a little water with lots of sugar. The quince is a woody, resinous and aromatic fruit. That is, it was the vilest fruit I have ever tasted and it smelled exactly like it tasted - like a bucket of rotting lemon rinds. That night I had amazingly happy dreams. I was flying around a pastel landscape like something out of a Barbie in Fairytopia animation, singing joyous songs. I tried it again the next day and it was the same. I decided, however, to forego the heavenly dreams in favor of not having to eat that nasty stuff again, though I came to wish I had stuck a little in the freezer for later. I later tried a mexican style quince jelly, not as nasty tasting but a rather repellent texture, and found it gave a kind of "dirty" variety of the flying dream - not porno, but being swung around in circles at the end of a rope in the middle of a junkyard. I tried this two days in a row also, with the same results.

I found a few months ago that I could relieve minor allergy/sinus/migraine pain by drinking a tea of ground bay leaves, or by chewing one of the fresh leaves from a bay laurel I have in the back yard. I also found that, if taken in the evening, it makes my dreams so busy and detailed that I tend to wake up as tired as I was the night before. This year I also tried quince again, having nabbed a couple of small ones from a tree overhanging the sidewalk on one of my recent perambulations. I chopped them up fine and cooked them with sugar into jam. These were not as powerfully aromatic as the ones I got last year, and the jam is merely sweet, tart and fruity, not vile and resinous. The only effect I seem to get from eating it on bread in the evening is that it keeps me awake most of the night. Two nights in a row I have lain waiting to wake in dreamland flapping my arms and going la la laaaa.... but I don't.

The only other material I can recall which had a noticeable effect on my dreams is marijuana, which damps them down entirely - I would sleep the night through and wake without recalling a thing. A good reason for me not to do it.

Work In Progress

I thought someone might enjoy seeing what my table looks like while I am painting. This is the second in a series of watercolors of pots at local garden centers. It's been quite a while since I painted in watercolor, and I picked this complex image to do because it would give me the most practice. I have been at it for a couple of days, which is a long time for me - I'd rather get a picture done in fifteen minutes and be done with it. As you see, I work from left to right since I am right handed. I just work up a piece at a time, and stop when I get to the end.

Movies - May 30

The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) Directed by Takashi Miike, who gets talked about a lot by film geeks, so I figured I ought to see something by him. Bad choice. This seems to be nothing but an exercise in silliness - family opens a guest house in the country but all their guests die, there are musical numbers and claymation sequences, but it looks like they just made it up as they went along. Judging by the trailers included on the disc there appears to be an entire genre of this sort of half-assed amateurish crap, movies made up entirely of cliches. I don't need to see any more movies that are all cliches, but unfortunately it seems to be an established artform now. And it's so much easier to do. 3/10

Freebie Month

This month I got a surprising number of things for free, spotting them while on my way home on my bike. Here is what I got:

Two heavy duty pruners (kind of like scissors with a hooked blade and two-foot-long handles - for cutting tree branches up to a couple of inches diameter) - one old one in good shape, one newer super-heavy one with a geared-action blade. The latter had a handle that wouldn't stay on any more because, after much consideration and careful thought, the previous owner decided not to take 30 seconds to sharpen the blade but instead to force the dull thick metal edge through the wood until they wrecked the tool. It had formed what is called a "wire edge" on the end of the blade about a millimeter thick instead of coming to a sharp edge like you need on any cutting tool. I sharpened the blade and fixed the handle on with a nut and bolt and a couple of washers.

Three big packages of fiberglass insulation, too big to carry even one on a bike so I dashed home and zipped back with the car, expecting to arrive in time to see someone tossing them into a van. 24" wide R11 insulation, maybe $40 each.

Concrete bird bath. This was the only thing that didn't have a "free" sign next to it but it was by a bag of pop cans on the curb, and you don't put a broken concrete bird bath out by the curb unless you are trying to get rid of it. It's a pretty fancy one, with a motif of two standing herons on the pedestal and cattail pattern on the bowl, like they are standing under a bunch of cattails that spread out over their heads. It's broken at the bottom where it bells out to form a base - they made it hollow underneath, but so hollow that at some points the concrete is less than a half inch thick. It broke the whole bottom section off pretty cleanly, and it will be easy to put it back together with mortar, and fill in the hollow bottom with mortar as well, so it won't have any reason to break again. Again, impossible to carry on a bike but I didn't think there was as big a rush getting back to it with the car, and I was right.

Movies - May 29

El laberinto del fauno [Pan's Labyrinth] (2006) Excellent acting and overall well-made. I was apprehensive about all the rave reviews it got from people who usually like exploding robot movies, but it is an intellectual cut above the usual action fantasy. Very Spanish, full of blood and sorrow, interesting to see but not the sort of thing I really go for. 8.5/10

Movies - Recent Viewing

Something to Sing About (1937) Watched with Donna. Jimmy Cagney is a rising Hollywood star who must keep his marriage a secret. Produced, co-written, directed and music by Victor Schertzinger and, as often in similar cases, there is something just a bit off about it all. There are a few fairly good musical numbers, an occasional bit of snappy dialogue or amusing conception. Moderately entertaining, for the most part. 6/10

Random Harvest (1942) Ronald Colman marries Greer Garson while he has amnesia, then gets his memory back and forgets her. A full-blown classic melodrama which makes you forget the absurdity of the premise with a well-structured plot and appealing characters. There's nothing wrong with this at all, though it is a bit thick for modern tastes. Deserves greater recognition as a fine example of the genre. 9.5/10

Annals of Klepsis by R. A. Lafferty

I try to re-read a Lafferty novel once a year. I doubt that I shall live to see the day he is fully appreciated as one of the great writers of the 20th century, inventor of a unique literary style, a sort of doggerel prose. His books aren't the sort of book that you can say what they are about; they contain more ideas, more characters, and more things happening than a dozen normal stories, but only the uncertain things are certain. It doesn't really convey much about the book to say that Klepsis is a pirate planet without a history which provides free transportation to all one-legged irishmen, that all its kings still live as ghosts each in his own tower of the castle, that the residents of Klepsis celebrate an Old Fashioned Slave Sale by barbecuing a whale whole, or that most plants and animals but only one type of short-tailed human have the ability to jump spontaneously from one planet to another. Lafferty creates a sort of simultaneous duality in many of his books - some things or people or worlds there are actually two of, which are often impossible to tell apart although they are opposites and one may be invisible. Slaves own their purchasers. it may be the end of the world or the beginning, and everything may be just an image in the mind of a hunchbacked dwarf who has been asleep for two hundred years or in the mind of the one-legged ghost of the planet's pirate founder. Depending on which Lafferty novel I read, I sometimes only read a page every few days just because there is so much in it. I have quit recommending R. A. Lafferty since I don't believe he is a taste which can be acquired. If you are supposed to read something by him, you probably will.

Movies - May 24

Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) Excellent cast fights its way through a rather contrived, maudlin plot which serves as the framework for an outstanding Irving Berlin retrospective. Alice Faye is always enjoyable to hear and sometimes amazing - it's just incredible the voice that comes out of that little gal. I have never really enjoyed Ethel Merman, but it seems she was once quite a cutie and she really swings it here, putting across some hot numbers - including one in a scanty spangled devil costume a far cry from her monolithic "Mame" period. For my money they could have dropped the plot entirely and done a straight revue but still 8/10.

Last night I finally got to see The Great Rupert (1950) after some 20 years since I first heard of it. Produced by George Pal, featuring a stop-motion animated squirrel, starring Jimmy Durante and ingenue Terry Moore before she got creepy. Not as squirrel-centric as I had hoped, with just a few short sequences, but it's an entertainingly eccentric novelty/christmas movie. You can't go wrong with Durante, and there is a surprise appearance by Frank Cady as an IRS inspector. 6.5/10

I got to see The Great Rupert because the price of the Comedy Classics 12 disc DVD set is now down to $4.95 on Amazon, and I finally felt I could justify getting it. There are a number of good things on it, many I haven't seen, but way too many East Side Kids movies. I just didn't feel like I could pay nearly $20 with shipping, but for under $8 I no longer had any qualms. I am looking forward to the inevitable decline of the DVD to push the set of 50 Sword and Sandal movies down to a reasonable level in the near future.

Movies - May 22

Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964) My all-time favorite Hercules movie - I think this is the third time I've seen it. Oiled-up hero must defeat eight foot tall rockmen to rescue princess from the Mountain of Death before her blood is used to awaken the Moon Queen who fell to Earth in a meteor 300 years earlier. ?/10 - not really rateable.

Movies - May 21

On the Avenue (1937) Watched with Donna. It's pretty tough to find anything that can follow the amazing opening number, with Alice Faye in what appears to be an astounding BLACK RUBBER DRESS!!!! but the Irving Berlin tunes, splendid gowns, and gigantic moving sets are excellent all the way through. The trivial plot could be sleep-walked through even then, and the Ritz Bros antics usually irritate rather than amuse, but I find anything sung by Faye or Dick Powell highly listenable. Proceedings are enlivened by numerous characters including my birthday twin Sig Rumann as, of all things, a professor of the trapeze. 7/10

Movies - May 20

Ten Canoes (2006) Watched with Donna. Engrossing, beautifully presented tale of ancient life in Australia. Highly satisfactory. 10/10

Movies - Recent Viewing

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) Slight "find the magical object" plot interrupted by irrelevant musical numbers and a pointless soccer match between cartoon animals. Seems to lack any unifying viewpoint or direction. This is the extra-long restored edition and was a bit of a chore to sit through. 4/10

Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) Peter Lorre the action hero, dashing around backlot chinatowns after archfiend Sig Rumann, my birthday twin. Pretty entertaining, its twisty plot enhanced by the short appearance of Moto's compatriot played by the attractive Lotus Long. Mr. Moto movies are much more watchable and exciting than Mr. Wong or Charlie Chan. 7/10

Happy Feet (2006) "Oddball becomes savior" story consisting entirely of "recognizable" situations and characters - i.e. one long string of cliches punctuated by roller coaster rides. This is almost made up for by magnificently spectacular animation and absolutely brilliant musical numbers. There are moments of pure genius - entirely unconnected with the story. Plot 4/10, music and presentation 10/10

Movies - May 13

Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1954) Starring Romy Schneider, a romantic fantasy about young Queen Victoria which preceded and inspired the Sissi films which made her famous. Very pleasant and nice, not at all challenging. 7/10

Wisconsin Death Trip (1999) I bailed out after 20 minutes of this entirely unnecessary film. A series of re-enactments based on the well-known book, which I feel should have been left at the "You know what would be cool to do..." stage. Donna is still watching it as I write.

Movies - May 12

Troy (2004) A very good movie could be made with these production values and an entirely different script. A post-LOTR take on someone's phoned-in description of the Iliad. Good actors in secondary roles, lots of swooping shots of vast armies, and dismal soap opera dialogue that makes you want to see more killing. Even the promised nudity was only Brad Pitt's butt. After an hour I asked myself "How long IS this thing anyway?" and was sorry to learn I had another hour and a half to go. One thing you can always count on, the Ancients speak with a British accent, because it's so classical. 3/10