Double Trouble

When it comes to my movie selections I try to make my choices as scatter shot as possible. For example, if I just finished watching a Western I'll try to find something for my next viewing that doesn't involve cowboy trappings. But even when I try to randomize my choices as much as possible I don't always succeed.

For instance, take two movies I watched recently. The first was An American in Paris. To refresh your memory that's the one where Gene Kelly is in Paris in order to... um, well, whatever it is, he ends up dancing a lot. Great stuff, either way. The second film was Tokyo Gore Police/Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu. That film opened with the heroine propelling herself through the air with a bazooka and then hacking a zombie to death with a chainsaw. This film was also not without merit.

After watching the third or fourth character blast themselves into the air in Tokyo Gore Police I realized that the two films had far more in common than what I had initially expected. Before the double feature I thought they had nothing in common so that's not saying much but nevertheless the movies were stylistically similar. Both movies were built around show-stopping moments. The bits of dialogue and character development were nice but those served as moments for the audience to catch its collective breath as much as anything. While watching both films I found myself marking time until the next dance or dismemberment number. The two movies served as wonderful examples of cinema as spectacle. I'm certain that the creators of An American in Paris would be horrified at the comparison -come to think of it, the people behind Tokyo Gore Police might not be thrilled with it either- but I found both films worked for me on the same level.

Sunrise, sunset

The other day I saw that a local video store was going out of business. If this had been some corporate chain store I would not have thought twice about it but instead it was a small mom 'n pop store.

The loss of this store struck me, but why? It certainly wasn't the advertising. This was one of those places that didn't bother with fancy marketing and simply had a sign saying VIDEO plastered over the door. Instead the ramshackle approach to distributing movies a small store like that had was, in its own way, charming. There's something to be said for a store that not only stocked VHS tapes well into the 21st century but would put bootleg VHS tapes out on the shelves for rent without a hint of shame.

I also always admired independent stores such as that one for their glut of pornography. Because they couldn't compete with the big stores directly locally owned video places often went for other, more specialized approaches. Sometimes this meant trying to build up a quality collection of movies for all the cinephiles in town to enjoy. The lazier approach was to stock porn. My heart breaks to think that a store can strive to bring a plethora of the pornographic arts to a community and still somehow go out of business... wait, what the heck am I talking about?

1 minute movie review

Recently I rewatched the move "Earthquake." The following clip tells you everything you need to know about the film.

Note to Self

Be judicious in the use of the "random" tag. Since there is no guiding principle behind this blog every useless piece of crap I post could fall under that category.

Now that I think about it, I should probably have a "useless piece of crap" tag as well.

F is for Food [part 1]

Recently I purchased a box of Kashi: Heart To Heart Cereal- Honey Toasted Oat. I should have known something was up when the cereal had that many subheadings. Seeing as how there are only so many things you can do with compressed grains I didn't expect too much from this or any other box of cereal. If anything, I figured the cereal would have an artfully drab taste to compliment Kashi's trendy foodie/health image.

Instead, it looks for all the world like a bowl of cat food.

I've never understood the need to be entertained by a bowl of cereal. Usually when you think of that bit of marketing malarkey you think of children's cereal that gurgles when you try to eat it or that turns the milk neon yellow or backed-up sewer brown. But this is the first time I've come across an adult cereal that was built around a gimmick. I don't know who is going to be enticed by the thrill of eating cat food but I guess there's a niche for everything.

Starting with a Bang

Thanks to the information age we live in your entertainment choices are almost limitless. Any creative endeavor created by the hands of man can be appreciated immediately. Normally I use this amazing power of choice to watch the most puerile crap imaginable day and night. Sometimes, however, I stumble across something that's actually decent. One of those found items is the show Peter Gunn.

Peter Gunn, for those not in the know, was a crime noir show that ran on American television from 1958-61. Not only did Gunn push all my buttons with it's two-fisted action and jazzy soundtrack, but I found it to be an amazing distillation of the television crime procedural that ran when the genre was just starting out. Unlike so many of its paunchy offspring, Gunn was only half an hour long. There were no sub-plots or scenes that went in circles just to kill some time. Instead, the episodes that worked were spot-on and direct in their approach.

While I wish modern crime dramas had that sort of brevity I am glad to see the concept of pre-title sequence violence that was featured in every single episode of Peter Gunn continues to this day. Most any show of this type starts out with a criminal act -usually a murder or a good, thorough beating- that has to be rectified during the course of the show. Even though it was an early practitioner of this formula Peter Gunn had these opening death sequences down to an art. Characters would appear on screen with no explanation for who they were, there would be a wanton act of physical harm and then Henry Mancini's score would start blaring away. People would get shot, fall off of buildings or get shot and then fall off buildings just to get the narrative ball rolling. I knew I was watching a great show when one show opening featured, without any sort of preamble or dialogue, a man getting mauled by a dog. Now that's entertainment.

Shakespeare knew you had to hook an audience right away in order to hold their interest. It's a lesson crime dramas continue with to this day. No matter what the quality of the show is most cannot resist the formula of starting out with a dead body sprawled on the floor or some chump getting hit by a hail of bullets. Probably the best current example of this practice is CSI: Miami. Since the show is about crime scene investigation it's not surprising that it has to open with a crime. But thanks to the absurd storylines and ridiculous editing the show thrives on most every opening is a camp classic. The best opening feature the main character Horatio Caine floating over this week's murder like an angel who just descended from heaven until he adjusts his sunglasses and makes a pun about someone's death right before the the theme song from The Who starts screaming.

Sadly, the creators of CSI: Miami seem to have realized how insane those openings were since they have started toning them down a bit. I feel this is a mistake. These crime drama openings are miniature plays in and of themselves. They feature both the creation of an entire fictional world and someone's death all within the space of a few moments. It's the entire fictional process telescoped into the briefest time possible. When done properly the openings are tiny works of art, like little faberge eggs built out of empty shell casings. Not only do they open the show in the best way possible using the worst sort of circumstances possible but they often are more entertaining than the remainder of the show. The meat of the show often feels like an unnecessary extension of such perfectly structured little openings.

C is for Cookie

The other day I received the following message in my post-meal fortune cookie:

:) You will soon be crossing the great waters. :)

Yes, the happy heads were included in the message.

So does this mean I will be booking a tour package on a cruise ship in the near future? Or will I soon be going to Hamlet's undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns? It will be a change of pace either way, I suppose.