Buffista Movies 4: Straight to Video
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Corwood -- Ah, yes, you're right; I don't think we actually disagree. Cool!
He has to prove to himself that being a bastard to the world is alright as long as you're not one to your compadres. I mean, he's wrong, but that's how I read that fucking incredible look on his face in those couple of seconds between shooting Mapache and shooting the German.
That. Yeah. It's as noble as he can get, but it's the self-awareness of it that makes it, for me.
Also:
Jonathan Lethem edited a lovely anthology of amnesia fiction called, uh (looking up on Amazon), the Vintage Book of Amnesia Fiction. Check it out. I especially love Dennis Potter's contribution.
Eep. I love Potter and Lethem. Need this now.
Also, Strega, do you know if TWOP is ever going to recap The Wire?
I don't know that we absolutely won't, but I'd be kind of shocked. We don't pick up shows that been on for a while anymore; it's way too hard to catch up and cover the episodes we missed if it's been on air for more than a season.
I just reread a story by Bester that definitely shows clinging to a memory as a bad thing, but it was more about neurosis than altering memories.
Plan 9 from Outer Space
has been released to the public domain and is available as a free download: [link]
Just in case someone doesn't know, this is an Ed Wood movie that's often been labeled "the worst movie of all time." And very fun too.
Which is worse:
Plan 9 from Outer Space
or
Manos, the Hands of Fate
?
Plan 9, definitely. The creators of Manos actually had some competence. (eta: not to say that Manos has anything good about it - but you can tell that the people involved have been around a movie camera before.)
Plan 9 is so amateurish that it's fun to watch. It is entertaining, even though it's not entertaining the way it was supposed to be. I've always found Manos unwatchably bad, even with the MiSTing. I dunno; it's not fun for me, it's just painful.
I don't think we actually disagree. Cool!
Sweet!
Need this now.
It's a lot of fun! I hope you and -t find it so, as well.
I don't know that we absolutely won't, but I'd be kind of shocked. We don't pick up shows that been on for a while anymore; it's way too hard to catch up and cover the episodes we missed if it's been on air for more than a season.
I was worried that might be the case, but I figured that a) it could only be good for The Wire, b) it could only be good for the reviewer, and c) it could only be good for the reader. But it might be better for Television With Lots Of Sympathy.
Which is worse: Plan 9 from Outer Space or Manos, the Hands of Fate ?
I think Tommy and Strega are dead-on correct: Plan 9 is goofy good fun. Manos is only painful.
OT: Although my free pass to Mission of Burma was rescinded mere hours before the show tonight (it's a long, boring story), I consoled myself with The Palm Beach Story. Did the Coen Brothers ever watch movies by anybody but Preston Sturges?
Haven't seen
Manos,
but
Plan 9
is sooooo remarkably bad that one's jaw just drops and one remains transfixed, wondering what on earth they can do next. It's by Ed Wood, whose cinematic output was so, ah, unique that they made a movie about it. Entitled, creatively enough,
Ed Wood.
Plan 9 is goofy good fun. Manos is only painful.
It's the difference between something so bad it's good, and something that's just bad.
My triple feature of so-bad-they're-good movies would be Plan 9, Zardoz, and The Apple. But with a hefty amount of fast-forwarding through Zardoz, 'cause it's really long.
A rep theatre near me shows Rocky Horror every Saturday night -- except just once, a month or so ago, when it showed
The Apple.
Even if I hadn't heard about it here, I'd have known it was pretty special just from that.
There was an amazing tiny movie theatre (which also served snacks and beer so it was like watching in someone's living room) in Cambridge called Off the Wall, which showed mostly short subjects. They had a GREAT programmer so the nights might be "Hygiene Films" or "Cartoons about Movies" or some evening devoted to a modern animator. They also showed longer films once in a while and did an entire Ed Wood retrospective. SO terrible, but so fun to watch.
"All those cars, all full of people, all...going somewhere."
