1) I haven't seen "Trance (2013)" yet either, but I've enjoyed every film Danny Boyle has made, it sounds great, and I got it for Xmas, so the odds on me watching the movie are, in fact, fairly high.
2) Which means I'll have to find "Trance 2001", which sounds like a good, long... hard as hell to find movie. Not gonna stop me, but hey.
3) I don't know your age, yojimboy, so I'm not sure what format(s) you may have seen "El Topo" on. I would DIE to see it on the big screen, and I almost killed the "head programmer" of our local film club when, in a discussion about Alejandro Jordowsky, Head King Shyte offhandedly said, "Yeah, we've shown his movies LOTS of times. Usually as a trilogy - uh, El Topo, followed by, um..." "Holy Mountain??!!" "Yeah, and then third one was..." But of course he couldn't remember it, and ET & HM were the only ones I'd read about to that point.
3.1) Fill In The Blanks!
- I apologize, many younger or foreign people reading this might be confused.
- BTW, most of this took place 15-20 years ago. I would not currently use violence to solve a minor dispute; I no longer have the time to go and watch 2-3 movies a day (unlike my hero, Roger Ebert - in describing one of his usual days, he said he had to go to see 2-3 movies that he would write reviews for, and then go home and watch 1-2 more, generally hard-to-find documentaries and what not. RIP, brotha - I know you're up there watching movies you love, in ways we can only dream of).
- A "film club" is something that is used in countries like Canada, Australia, and possibly Sweden. (Sorry - I'm not WikiRen here ). Anyway, they allow people over the age of 18 to join these film clubs, and since you've got an audience made up only of "consenting" adults [and if anybody is thinking about 1950's "Smoker Clubs", you are so wrong] who want to see things on the "fringes of cinema", you can show movies that would never, ever get shown in a mainstream movieplex. For instance, the movie "Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom" was never shown or made available in any way in Canada up to that point. I really don't think anybody went into that screening uninformed.
Good news is that the film club took over a much larger theatre, and they are still showing whatever they want. My friend, who owns one of the few video stores left in the universe, concentrates on "Alt and Cult" movies. So, he worked out with the film club that, once a month, they have a "Dedfest" screening, and my friend can show whatever he wants. In late September, they actually put on Dedfest, which is an ever growing film fest made up completely of - you guessed it - the most horrible, gruesome, blackly comedic movies they can find.
OK, hope that helped clarify things, and if anybody has any questions or comments, respond to my post or shoot me a private letter.
4) Just to clarify things, I LOVE CINEMA!! I was learning about the laws re: copyright violations about the same time I dived into, um, things that those guys with eye patches and long-azz beards used to do back in the day. It turned out (who knew?) that the Japanese used to straight up ignore copyright laws. Then, somebody with a brain copied El Topo, David Lynch's other TV show, On The Air, and so many other films unavailable on VHS, and sold them to some punter in the USA. Than this punter made 10,000 copies, sold them for $10 each, and life was good.
Well, as good as you could get. That's why I originally asked you, yojimboy, which platform you first saw El Topo on. Mine was through one of these punters, so I got to see the film with the "added bonuses" of a) all the pixelation and tracking problems (that couldn't be fixed) and all of the "my eyes hurt" screen "improvements" of getting an 8th generation tape; b) "burned on" (as in, you can't get rid of them) Japanese subtitles; c) all shots of genitals were blurred out... BUT I GOT TO FINALLY SEE EL TOPO!!
I'm dead serious - I almost cried the first time I saw a DVD. It was my birthday, and not a single person had remembered. So I said, *beep* it - I'm going to buy myself a gift." I went to a giant electronics warehouse store, bought a DVD player (which was 50 pounds, a foot tall, and *$800.00*), as well as every DVD they had (this is right after HD conceded to DVD), so there was like 6 or 8 or 10 DVDs available. And they cost me $400. I went into HMV yesterday, bought about 15 DVDs/BRs for under $150.
But if you need any clarification, read the first sentence after 4). No GF has ever made me as happy as getting home, hooking up the Dinosaur-made-out-of-gold it was so huge and expensive DVD player, syncing up my VHS & DVD of Permanent Midnight, and just flicking back and forth between "Input 1" and "Input 2". VHS, looks okay; DVD, HOLY SHYTE!! And if any of you remember, Permanent Midnight was a low budget, no explosions or sea-monster battles movie, but I was blown away. It's only happened a few times since...
5) - Seeing The Matrix on DVD, and losing my mind on scene 39 (I think) where Neo and Trinity take down a whole SWAT team to a techno-dub beat. Only got better when I finally (FINALLY!) got a Home Stereo System. I realize some of you believed the hype and bought those Beats By Dre headphones, or a Sony 17.1 HSS, but Bose has them all beat, they have my loyalty FOREVER!
- Hearing/Seeing the results of the 50-year ABKCO case. ABKCO was a company that somehow came to own such things as the Rolling Stones back catalouge, and El Topo/Holy Mountain. Things were fine for awhile - only Vinyl LPs and 16mm film existed when the classic Stones albums/2 movies. But then 8-Track & cassettes came out; Stones say to ABKCO, "These sound terrible! Can't you make it so the music sounds better on this new Hi-Fidelity sound?" "Only if you want to pay for it. And not a one time fee - a large percentage of your royalties!" "Yeah, sod off."
Then, VHS came out. Jordowsky had a similar conversation with ABKCO, except it apparently wasn't so family friendly. So, from the time the 2 films were made, all the way to 2002, things were at a stalemate. Jordowsky's only audience were college kids who saw ET/HM, so he had nothing to "springboard" off of. As for the Stones, I remember my dad playing their classic tunes on the record player; these memories were awakened when I started watching Martin Scorsese movies. So I went out and bought this big, clunky "double CD" called Hot Rocks:1964-1971. Got home, played it... and it sounded terrible! ABKCO was so intent on "winning this war" that they actually would crack down on punters selling 8th gen. copies of Jap. LDs of ET/HM.
But, around 2002, some deals were made. The Stones got their classic material Remastered on disc, and awhile later the Alejandro Jordowsky Box Set came out on DVD. When I first watched El Topo on a crystal clear, uncensored, Jap. subtitle free 36" screen... I swear, I almost started to understand what the Victorian Age poets were talking about.
- Seeing anything that I'd only ever seen on an 8th generation bootleg VHS on DVD or BR. Like David Lynch's short films. The man is a GOD, and praise Allah that he issued all of this stuff on DVD! Nine Inch Nails issued a "Christmas present" on DVD a few years ago. When Trent Reznor realized that "Broken" could never be commercially sold, he emailed the fans on his "email list" and told them they "Could have a DVD of my 'Broken Video' guilt free. Merry Christmas!". I had seen so many versions of that on 8th gen. VHS, it was like getting glasses or something. Seriously, this was one intensively edited project. And I know there's many that I am missing, but each and every one blew this cinephile away!
6) If you like REALLY strange stuff, Harmony Korine is your man! He had one with wide distribution this year called Spring Breakers, which apparently was put down as a "bait-and-switch" movie. My Dedfest friend said that the girls in the movie were apparently really big with tweeners (hey, I can't keep up with the ultra-obscure stuff that I like *AND* popular stuff I could give a F about!!), so the tweeners went to see the movie, but within 20 minutes the "Korine-ness" of the movie was made apparent, and they all ran out screaming.
Or maybe you've seen stuff he's wrote? He wrote/acted in a jail scene in Good Will Hunting that was really cut short, but Harmony's still in it. And he wrote the popular movie Kids, which Larry Clark directed. Anybody who says that movie isn't a day in the life of teens needs to wake the heck up. When it came out on video, my brother was right about that age, so I got him a copy and said, "You need to see this. It's a perfect picture of your life." He got back to me and said, "Pfft! What are you talking about? I wouldn't have sex with no sleeping girl!" That was it, and I knew it. Cuz the all day drinking, smoking blunts, 30 people beating one kid up, etc., etc. was 100% true, and we both knew it. Most people would say, "Why didn't you show that to your dad?" If my dad cared, I wouldn't have been removed from his custody, and put in the fun cycle of jails-institutions-group homes.
But who cares, right? Kids is a great movie to watch if you want to check out Harmony Korine's P.O.V.
"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys
-AK
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