Pop Culture Petri Dish

Vince Keenan.com opened up this fun movie nerd meme ( look it up ). I normally resist these damn things like a vampire sidestepping garlic, but I can't turn down this quick-and-dirty movie-nerd fix...Feel free to play along. 1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times. Casablanca, Suspiria, Star Wars . 2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater. Raiders of the Lost Ark , Star Wars , John Carpenter's The Thing , Aliens 3. Name an actor who would make you more inclined to see a movie. Peter Cushing, Humphrey Bogart, Marjoe Gortner, Emma Thompson, Pam Grier, Russell Crowe, Clint Howard, Johnny Depp. 4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to see a movie. Kevin Costner. 5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 . As I've said before, as quotable as Casablanca or Pulp Fiction. "Lick my plate, you dog dick!" 6. Name a movie musical from which you know all the lyrics to all the songs. None, but ...

From this corner, The passing of Kurt Vonnegut doesn't just feel like a literary loss of epic proportions. More than any other author, Vonnegut felt like a friend to me, or more accurately, like my favorite uncle: The one with the crotchety-but-compassionate voice of wry, offhanded wit that managed to expand your mind massively even while you laughed your ass off. Like his role model in letters Samuel Clemens , Vonnegut was a master at calling bullsh%t on the greedheads, warriors, paper-pushers, and hypocrites who all-too-frequently run this world. He did so without ever letting his own--or his readers'--foibles and frailties skate by, and he wasn't above interspersing intense insights with the occasional fart joke or flight of science fiction fancy. Kurt Vonnegut's work forever changed the way I look at the world. His writing provided a big source of bonding between my girlfriend (now wife) and me back in the day. In high school I'd read--and like any rational hum...

Freddie Francis, one of the twentieth century's finest lensmen and director of some of the most enjoyable efforts of the British horror film boom of the 1960's and '70's, passed away on St. Patrick's Day at age 89. The man's incredible (and for this movie nerd, indispensible) body of work has merited volumes of scholarly study and more than a few tributes. Rather than wax too verbose myself, do yourself an enormous favor and check out this brief but excellent reflection by Tim Lucas . I can only point at Lucas's fine work and say, um, "What he said." Directors like Martin Scorsese and David Lynch hired him to shoot their films, but if you'd like to see what all the hubbub is all about for yourself, here's an on-the-fly list of Freddie Francis's most essential efforts--both behind the camera lens and in the Director's Chair--from this cramped quadrant. That many of these films have already merited mention in this here Blog over the ...

...I wonder where my patience is? Excuse me while I rant in the corner like a really crabby old man for a bit about movies (and a concert) that I'll never see. People of America, why for the love of God's white silk knickers have you made Wild Hogs an across-the-board hit ? Are you so utterly starved for escapism, so bereft of functioning grey matter that you're willing to pack theaters--at 11 bucks a head, no less--and waste 90 minutes of your lives on high-concept product that'd be laughed out of a King of Queens script powwow? Can you not see straight from the trailers that the star chemistry is more forced than the grin on Katie Couric's face? Am I the only human being in the U.S. of A who wants with all my heart and soul for Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence to go the hell AWAY?! And while we're at it, is anyone taking a collection to pay the wonderful William H. Macy NOT to do numbingly-dumb crap like this? If so, count me in. You'd think that serious ...

Venerable record chain Tower Records filed for bankruptcy late last year, and its demise bummed me out in a big way. I hadn't shopped with frequency at Tower in ages--put bluntly, their steep prices of late alienated me big-time--but back in the eighties the chain's size and diversity did a lot to open my ears. I remember every purchase I made at Tower Records' Tacoma store from my first at age 14 (for the record, a cassette of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and a vinyl copy of Sparks' Angst in My Pants ), all the way to just before I moved to Seattle at age 21 ( Invisible Lantern by the Screaming Trees --and yes, I AM a big ol' dork for remembering). Rampant sentimentality, however, did bupkis to keep me from picking at the chain's dying carcass late last year like any good bargain-hunter. Right before the Tower Records on 5th Avenue in Seattle breathed its last in December, it bestowed one last parting gift in its final week: a 90%-off sale that drew...

So here it is, the week before the Academy Awards . You'd think I'd be analyzing some of the members of this year's filmic Winner's Circle in acknowledgement. But no. Instead, I'm watching The Devil's Sword for the third time. And with each successive minute of re-watching I become more convinced--in all sincerity--that it's a perfect moviegoing experience. Not in some staid conventional sense a la your typical Oscar bait , mind you, but by that most all-important film viewing standard: This 1983 Indonesian action/fantasy promises you the moon, then delivers that big glowing orb on a platter--with arterial sprays of blood, beheadings, crocodile men, kung fu and all-around dementia to spare. The Devil's Sword stars Barry Prima (Indonesia's greatest movie action hero) as Mandala, an ancient warrior who offers to rescue a beleaguered bride's candy-assed husband from the clutches of the Evil Crocodile Queen. The biggest thorn in Mandala's side...

Hard to believe that tonight marked my first look at a complete Federico Fellini film. Go figure. 1960's La Dolce Vita is less a straightforward narrative than a series of random episodes in the life of directionless Italian gossip reporter Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) as he drifts, loves, and observes (in abject detachment) his way through several surreal, uncomfortable, funny, and heady vignettes. It's a significant, and in some ways textbook, example of Italian neo-realistic cinema of the early sixties, and while it didn't rock my world the way it has so many others' , it's still a pretty spellbinding piece of work. This won't be the last time I take in a film by the Italian director. Forty-seven years of world cinema have somewhat blunted the profundity of Fellini's vision--a cynic could readily argue about how hammily heavy-handed so much of the structural and visual symbolism plays today. And I suppose some of the movie's characters could use a...