Hello!

Lets proceed with optimism, even if the global forecast is — well, it changes every 45 minutes.

We found some cute stuff for this weekend’s Column. Michael McQuarrie directed me to the Film Board of Canada’s latest website, to see a movie about Buster Keaton. Unfortunately, the Canadians were blocking it, along with other content, with placards reading ‘Not available to view in your current location.’

In truth, I am grateful that Canadians are still having anything to do with us. That goes for pretty much the world right now.

But there are so many super, hilarious Canadian animated films. I looked up an old favorite short animated film, which thankfully was viewable. We caught up with this particular mini-masterpiece on early DVDs, 25 years ago. It is To Be by John Weldon, and features the great voices of Kim Handysides and Howard Ryshpan. It’s a science fiction fable, and as such was written up with great enthusiasm for my old  DVD Savant Sci Fi Reader (gee, anybody interested in a follow-up book?).

It’s hilarious, insightful and genuinely profound … and has a cute song, too. If you haven’t seen it, do — it’s not long and the online copy is flawless.

And once again we’ve been graced with a fave disc list from Kyu Hyun Kim, whose opinions have always impressed me, along with his knack for communicating the special appeal of a picture in fewer words than I thought was possible.

We reviewed several of these titles —  Unknown World,  Winchester ’73,  Yojimbo / Sanjuro,  World Noir No. 3 — and note that Kyu draws from a couple of UK & European companies that stay mostly inaccessible to CineSavant.

He once again he comes up with releases that never crossed my radar and as such now draw my interest. Interesting that his ‘top fave’ is a Kino Lorber Jean Belmondo costume picture!

Kyu’s comments go the extra step — he names the companies that he think are overtaking Criterion in the effort to bring forth more treasures from the hidden corners of cinematic history.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Here’s a sidebar subject that I know will interest more than a few CineSavant readers.

Many of us have more than one uncompleted ‘project’ going at home. I won’t list mine, but I’m well into a new project that’s pretty important — resolving the glut of discs that threaten to take over the house. As kids moved out, mountains of discs moved in, and I’ve got parts of two rooms tied up with the blessing / curse of video discs. It’s a helluva collection. I give a few away but I don’t toss many: no hoarders here, but we don’t casually throw things away.

Off and on I’ve posed the question, what do other collectors do with their collections?  How many are just in a big mess, like me?  I have imagined driving to Cincinnatti, ringing the doorbell at the house of Timmy Lucas, and saying,  ‘Gee Tim, sorry to interrupt your recording session. Show me how you organize things, okay?’  Something tells me that Mr. Lucas has a system nobody but he could decipher.

The top picture of long shelves, 2 discs deep, is what I sometimes put up at CineSavant. Well, only now am I showing the pictures of random discs stacked on any available surface, and boxes of discs stashed in every available space. It wouldn’t stress a fire marshall, but it ain’t pretty. Some of these boxes are indexed but most not. When Gary Teetzel or Allan Peach asks to see something, I either (a) know exactly where it is, (b) get lucky because it’s where my failing memory says it will be, or (c) a search must commence to track it down. Sometimes I have to give up. Sometimes I’ll come across the desired disc a year later, happy that I didn’t accidentally throw it away.

I’m impressed by collectors’ endless custom shelving, but know that’s not the solution for me. The house isn’t that big. The idea is to make the discs accessible, find-able. And not let them inundate the place, like videodisc Kudzu.

Just the same, I can no longer pretend that I’m amassing a fabulous cinema resource for the ages. Who knows what happened to the fabled contents of The Ackermansion, or to the vast holdings of film collector David Bradley?  And who says that hard media will survive as a movie viewing format?  The corporations seem to want hard media video to become extinct. I’ve chosen to make collecting these movies a big part of my life, but I don’t want to stick my grown children with a disorganized mess … my influence in their informative years was enough.

Meanwhile, a lot of space here is decorated with lovely stacks of boxes.

I’ve finally decided how to make ‘a project’ out of resolving this mess. The strategy comes from friend Craig Reardon. He collects discs, but doesn’t retain their packaging. He has a system in which he places each disc in a paper envelope. His couple-of-thousand discs are filed alphabetically in a handsome heavy-duty cabinet. They take up one-twentieth the space of keep cases.

Craig’s system ought to work for me … my problem is that I didn’t choose all of the discs I have here. I have no idea how many there are, really — I’ve reviewed 7,500 but have received many, many more. I am presently archiving discs in envelopes, like Craig, but giving them random numbers and keeping a digital index for them (on more than one computer). But unlike Craig I’m keeping the cover sleeves and the insert pamphlets, all numbered as well. You can see them bundled in the close-up photo of the drawer. I’m saving some keep cases, but tossing the rest. At the moment I’m preserving special packaging.

The idea is that my disc shelves will hold fewer, but more cherished discs. The visible collection might better reflect my personality.

Right now, with about 900 discs ‘enveloped,’ the big surprise is how much they weigh. I’m putting them in an ordinary chest of drawers, but they’re so heavy that no drawer is more than a third full — it feels like more strain would break something. So what’s the solution to that?  Do I invest in archival cabinets?  Do I put the discs in expensive, sealable plastic bins?  Is there a cardboard solution?  We’ll see what happens.

So far I’ve not been discouraged by spending hours numbering and stuffing envelopes, because I like seeing the boxes start to disappear. I should eventually free up this place for something great, like receiving family vistors!

This has been yet another personal CineSavant sidebar, but it’s at least related to disc collecting. My impractical advice to film fans is: (a) move down the block from me here in L.A. (b) Show up a my door with cookies or brownies. (c) Borrow whatever you want to see.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Thanks for dropping by. It seemed wrong to post normally today. Thanks for reading, kind thoughts to all.

Hello!

Dick Dinman is back with another DVD Classics Corner on the Air podcast, this time with a vintage audio interview with star Jane Russell. The occasion is the Warner Archive double release of the Clark Gable pictures Mogambo and  Red Dust. Russell discusses her memories of Gable, Howard Hughes and Marilyn Monroe.

This is interesting … a couple of years back, David Gregory of Severin Films talked online a bit about perhaps remastering the English battle epic Zulu Dawn for video. Now he’s announced that his company will be releasing a combo 4K Blu-ray in the mear future. That’s really great news.

They’re going to premiere the restoration at a theater screening just tomorrow, February 25 … in Southhampton, UK. Wish I could show up at the ‘Harbor Lights’ cinema for that. Maybe Severin will do a similar theatrical showing before its video premiere here. The movie didn’t really receive an American release.

It looks like they’ve come up with new poster art, which certainly improves on the old paper for the film.

And friend Chris Howard forwarded something crazy … several pages of a vintage French Photo-novel — a ‘ciné-roman’ — for a certain movie we tend to obsess over. It’s an issue of ‘Star-Cine Adventure: Revue Mensuelle,’ from September of 1965. It appears to have text articles as well.

The images are pretty ugly — they are frame grabs from the movie, and they are very contrasty. Since most are cropped from the Panavision images, the photo-novel reminds me of my old pan-scanned 16mm print, which couldn’t find a decent composition anywhere. (the images enlarge)

The French movie censors of 1965 made several deletions of dialogue they judged disrespectful to the French military — so I wonder if the foto-comic keeps the bits where French officers are humiliated, etc..

I scoured the French-language text for ‘missing material’ or secret messages but found none. The digest work is pretty extreme. Thanks Chris !

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

CineSavant is back in the groove today, with a lineup of fun links from Michael McQuarrie and Trailers from Hell’s Joe Dante.

First up is a fun McQuarrie find, a brief but cute interview with ’60s songstress Cilla Black. With her mention of ‘the outback’, I’m assuming her talk was a press stop on a trip to Australia. She is roped into talking about clothes, and ends up making an unguarded remark about Indian fashions ‘with cowbells and rubbish’ that she can’t wear in Liverpool. The interview is definite fun for fans of Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho.

Michael also sent a link to a music video-like performance by Ms. Black.  Thanks, Michael.

McQuarrie also forwards a full public service film from 1967, about civil defense preparations for an atom attack. Giving this one extra appeal is the presence of the young actor Gene Hackman as an ‘atom expert’ stuck in some pretty frustrating community meetings. Hackman’s perfect — he looks like an amateur actor but doesn’t perform like one, not even in this context.

Playing opposite Hackman is actor Arnold Moss (The 27th Day).

Joe Dante’s link is rewarding — it takes us to a video clip on a page for the Brit newspaper The Sun, showing a space probe’s POV as it purposely collides with an asteroid. Superb stuff.

The NASA mission involved is called DART, which is conducting ‘Asteroid Redirection Tests.’ The rest of the article is pretty spooky-sensational … it starts with a grim statement:  “Earth cannot defend itself against the thousands of ‘city killer’ asteroids that are zooming around space near our planet.”

The DART project successfully changed an asteroid’s orbit, but no effort is being made to ready a squadron of ‘Earth Defense Force’ anti-collision space rockets!

The article’s title is an attention-getter … straight from the ‘Chicken Little’ school of public announcements:

Second to last is a link to a controversial movie online, that has been available uncut only intermittently .. it’s Ken Russell’s 1971 The Devils. I saw an American release cut, which was rough enough for my tender sensibilities. But this post does rise to the status of Rare Opportunity. Long ago in college, Bob Epstein screened for us an earlier version of the same story, the Polish feature Joan of the Angels. It was just as fascinating, and a little less revolting. Note: 2.24.26: I probably shouldn’t have put up this link and was advised to drop it today … only to find that the site has been shut down. I’ll be more careful going forward!

And finally, in a spirit of payback for all the great reading he’s forwarded, here’s a ‘CBR’ article excited about the upcoming 4K disc release of Joe Dante’s comedy masterpiece Innerspace. Everything about this show works for me, so it’s easy to extend the plug. Martin Short is hilarious.

The disc is slated on release for April 28. The article makes the not-bad-at-all suggestion that Martin Short’s renewed popularity could motivate a sequel.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson