Terrible Analogies

I first laid eyes upon the movie Naked Lunch while wandering through a video store late one night in Japan.  Why I was in Japan sporting two rows of stitches in my face isn’t important, but there I was looking for a video to watch whilst lost and stranded in a foreign land when I happened upon a bin of used VHS movies.  Casually pushing around the chaotic jumble of Japanese packaging looking for anything resembling an english film I spied an eerie alien face peeking through the suffocating pile of torn cellophane and crushed blunted corners of cardboard packaging.  Extracting it from its analog tomb I had in my grasp an english version of the movie Naked Lunch.  What this movie was doing in a nondescript store on a quiet street in Morioka I couldn’t say, but I held in my hands a cheap english movie in a strange land, and for that I was grateful.  It was something I could watch in my phone booth sized hotel room to help me pass the time while I figured out how the heck I was going to get back to America without a passport.

Man, what a mind frack this movie was to my then twenty-year-old mind.  Having read Junky I was familiar with William S. Burroughs, but I wasn’t familiar with David Cronenberg and how warped his imagination was.  I had to pause the movie and take a breather when the orgasmic talking insect typewriters began to verbally rape the protagonist of the film.  

Since then I’ve come to appreciate David Cronenberg and his version of Burroughs’ unfilmable novel Naked Lunch.  I can’t imagine anyone other than Robocop playing the bug poison addicted fugitive.  Peter Weller pulled off an amazing Bill Lee (Burroughs’ real-life alter ego)…and kudos go out to the lactating alien, without whom this movie would be but a shadow of its glorious self.  

I’ve since purchased three different versions of this film (and if it ever comes out on blu-ray it’ll be four), the last of which happens to be a Criterion release.  I’ve scanned a few pages from the included booklet for your amusement.  I would like to recommend this film, but that’s difficult to do because I know some people simply would not be able to handle the notorious weirdness that Croenberg is infamous for.  If you can handle Videodrome and the much tamer eXistenZ (both of which are amazing films), then I think you’re ready for a screening of the sublimely twisted Naked Lunch.

Again and as always, click the images to embiggen…

Books, DVD, Movies David Croenberg, DVD, Movies, Peter Weller, William S. Burroughs

The wife and I recently made the commitment and jumped from standard DVD over to Blu-ray.  This transition has had the unfortunate downside of turning me into a drooling, blithering idiot incapable of suppressing the involuntary tick in my left eye whenever I overhear the mere whisper of the word “blue” or “ray”, or any combination thereof.  

But I’ll be darned if I’m not completely in love with this technology.  The amazing picture that Blu-ray provides on our 1080p flat screen.  The uncompressed HD sound.  When you pop in a Blu-ray version of a movie like The Transformers it’s like seeing that movie for the first time.  You know that feeling of reeling in a twelve-foot hammerhead on a 50lb test line, or finally topping out on that 5.14 freeclimb in Joshua Tree that you’ve been working on all summer?  Well….if not, trust me, that’s how you’ll feel when watching your first demo-quality Blu-ray movie.  It’s like finding religion, obtaining nirvana, or discovering a really bitchin’ Chinese restaurant that doesn’t serve that crappy, rancid-tasting beef.  Your heart races, you tremble and sweat, and your pants suddenly seem to fit just a little bit tighter…

Seriously, if you haven’t made the jump to Blu-ray you only have yourself to blame.  It’s a huge leap from standard DVD, and once you experience Blu on a decent system you’ll be a slave to it just like me.

One of us…One of us…One of us…

Blu-ray, Movies Blu-ray, DVD

A friend at work knows I’m a huge DVD fanatic, and with a single e-mail sent me into a self destructive downward spiral of extreme wanting.  Ya see, the wife and I have been shopping around for a PS3 for its Blu-ray capability, wireless connection to the internet, and the automatic firmware updates it performs as they’re released.  We were unable to find one for less than $400.  The e-mail this particular friend sent me was for a 15% discounted price on a new 80Gig Playstation 3 being offered by Dell.  

This discount is still available, so if you want to take advantage of it, please act quickly.  After the 27th of December 2008 the offer disappears.  Click on this link, then input CTV2$2HX963145 into the coupon code.  I managed to snag an 80Gig PS3 for $350.  

Woot!  It’s shipped!  I’m finally diving into the world of Blu-ray, and I couldn’t be happier.  I’ve already ordered a few titles for Christmas, so Santa should be getting us started with upgrading our DVD collection to the Blu-ray format.  I *think* the big guy is hooking us up with copies of:

• The Ultimate Matrix Collection
• 300
• Batman Begins
• The Incredible Hulk (2008)
• Starship Troopers
• Hellboy 1 & 2
• Iron Man
• Wanted
• Pirates Of The Caribbean box set
• Hell Ride
• Transformers

DVD, Movies DVD, Movies

And so it begins anew…

We’re been contemplating upgrading to a Blu-ray player for Christmas, and this week we finally committed to the idea by purchasing a Play Station 3. Unfortunately by doing so, we’re setting ourselves up to be taken advantage of by the movie industry (yet again). Always trying to squeeze more money out of collectors, the typical DVD buying pattern goes something like this:

• First DVD release on Tuesday
• Special extended editions DVD
• Collected box sets with even more extras

…and now, it’s going to be Blu-ray that’s going to be getting my money.

For the record, here’s what our DVD collection looks like today:

I’ve been collecting DVDs since 1998. A couple DVDs every week for 10 years and this is what you end up with. We rarely watch television, opting instead to watch a movie just about every night. We’re running out of shelf space but the way I figure it, purchasing Blu-ray DVDs will free up room due to their slim packaging.

On the negative side, Blu-ray disks are more expensive than their conventional brethern, which means we’ll have to be more selective in our Blu-ray purchases.  Instead of buying our movies at Best Buy where new releases cost anywhere from $25 to $30 (who’s plunking down that much for a movie anyway?!), we’ll be ordering them online where they’re much cheaper, or waiting a few months for the new releases to go down in price.

Also, from what I hear, the older movies that are “remastered” for Blu-ray don’t look much better than their regular DVD counterparts.  For my money I’ll be sticking to newer movies on Blu-ray, especially if the newer releases take advantage of modern high definition film standards.  I can’t see Casablanca looking any better on Blu-ray than it does on DVD.

Movies DVD, Movies

After a couple weeks of sparce DVD offerings (not counting the recent release of Hell Ride), this week was a return to form with the release of several purchase-worthy titles. Along with Hellboy II and Kung-Fu Panda I gathered up the courage, ignored my better judgment, and picked up a copy of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I figured it was worth throwing down a few ducats to see what the fuss was about.

*Whoah!* You want how much for this? I know this is the “special” tin case version available only at Best Buy, but com’on, $51? And what’s with the .42 cents? Who come up with that figure?

Luckily the yellow pricing sticker on the shelf indicated that this DVD was on “sale” for $20. Hmmm…how can I turn down 61% off sticker price?

DVD, Movies DVD, movie