Issue 179

News: Explanations, and my newest guitar.
I really wish I had been keeping up with my resolution to make three posts a month for this blog, but there've been problems, and let me tell you, my tooth drama has long since been resolved. However, there have been some major problems with my laptop that have necessitated that it be sent to the manufacturer to have much of the hardware (except, apparently, for the hard drive) replaced. The problems have, among other things, included the touchpad being messed up so that, if I so much as pass over a hyperlink, the cursor clicks on it. In addition, when posting something like this, the bar keeps jumping around, making it impossible to post. Fortunately, I sent it before going on a two-week vacation. And now, I've got my old backup laptop to use, and it seems to be working normally, at least for now, and now that the cottages I'm staying in have managed to get Wi-Fi (even if it is especially spotty, particularly in the afternoons), I can write and even post my blog entries from my bedroom.
In addition, I'd like to talk to you about Feckslayer, a guitar from a dimension where all screamed for naught, wrought from the silver heart of heaven's false promise, laced with vessels that pulsed with angel's menstrual blood, hewn from the horns of Satan's generals. Seriously, it is a Gibson SG-style guitar from a kit manufactured by Saga. My dad suggested that, as a project for the summer, we should build a guitar, and, we eventually settled on the SG kit (we had a choice of Stratocaster, Les Paul, Telecaster, SG, and Flying V-style kits), and, as it turned out, it seems that the most difficult part of making the guitar was putting the paint on it. And, yes, between the need to let the paint cure before applying gloss, sanding out rough spots, having to refinish where we sanded too much, and finding out that, somehow, rubbing off the excess of wet paint where we oversprayed will also rub off every previous layer of paint, painting it was quite difficult so we decided to leave that job to the professionals at a car refinishing center, and they did a better job in a few hours than we did in a few weeks. And, surprisingly, putting the parts on, even the bigsby I used to replace the old tailpiece. After putting the finishing touches on a few days later (putting "F-slayer" and a rampant lion on the headstock), it was finished. It looks pretty badass and one imagines that it would be the sort of guitar that Daniel Plainview would play if they had electric guitars in the turn of the century.

Film Review of the Day: Toy Story 3. Well, all I can say about this movie is that it's pretty good, but astonishingly dramatic for a kid's movie. I must warn you that if you haven't seem Toy Story 1 and 2, you will most likely be lost, but if you have, you will cry. It is, in essence, a tale of growing up told from the perspective of Andy's toys. There are a few issues I have with the film, some of which involve the fact that it's amazingly dark for a G-rated film, particularly in the incinerator scene, although, to be fair, it seems mostly for those who saw the first two the first time they were in cinemas, and it's pretty strange when you consider that at the daycare center where they go, apart from the occasional adult at the beginning of the scenes, the bulk of the film implies that the adults have little control of the center, and there's one thing which bothered me about the series in general, but comes to the forefront in this film: that the toys don't even flinch when they're being torn apart by the kids in the Caterpillar Room, apparently only feeling it when the kids are out of the room. I wonder if, with all the thought that Pixar puts into their characters, they've ever explained how this works.

Quote/Link of the Day: Folks, I've read Thirty H's, I've read Maldoror, I've read Light and Dark: The adventures of Dark Yagami, I've read the Naked Lunch, and I've even read some excerpts of the 120 Days of Sodom. But somehow, it came to pass that this article by Pat Boone qualifies as one of the most deranged things I've read.

Issue 178

News: Cinema on Criterion: Crack is Cheaper.
In the past twelve months, I've managed to get my hands on a few Criterion DVDs that had just gone out of print. Most recently, five films from one of my favorite directors, Luis Bunuel, had just gotten out of circulation, and I managed to get two of them: The Milky Way and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. So far, this just leaves Belle de Jour as the only one of his later French works to remain in circulation. Just before that, I managed to get Ran, The Third Man, Grand Illusion, Tales of Hoffman, and Pierrot Le Fou while I could. Surpsisingly, a lot of this has been happening extremely recently: I managed to come across a list of OOP Criterion titles from October 2009, and there were only 24 titles on the list. With the latest two extinction events, as I call them, the total has become 59. Yes, suddenly, Criterion seems to be hemorrhaging titles, and who pays for it? The fans who were hoping for the right time to get the titles they wanted and give the copy they kept renting from the local video rental to somebody else for a change. And the fact that most, if not all, of these titles will be extremely expensive ($30 a pop) doesn't help. The thing that I think is a big middle finger to the cinephiles who would want to acquire them is that, while for most of the titles I mentioned, it appears that there are no plans to put them back on the market anytime soon, some of the titles are available, but only on Studiocanal Blu-Ray. I can certainly imagine that many of the titles would look good on Blu-ray, especially the scenery porn that is Ran, but the fact is that just because somebody is willing to pay upwards $30 for a single-disc DVD that may or may not have had any special features doesn't mean that they're going to be receptive to having to buy a whole new system just to be able to buy a new title. I personally am considering holding back on Blu-ray until I can buy a portable player at Costco so I can watch them on vacation. And it's not just art-house distributors who are doing this, by the way. Just to list one example, according to Amazon, Kevin Smith's Dogma is only available on Blu-ray now. Why? DVD is still going strong; making certain titles only available on Blu-Ray is not going to change that. It's just going to piss off the people who still prefer DVD.

Film Review: Bugsy Malone. I recently stumbled upon this movie, a gangster movie with only preteens in the cast, at Skokie Public Library, and I found that, while utterly bizarre (twelve-year old Jodie Foster in such a sexualized performance is unsettling even if you remember her as a child prostitute in Taxi Driver), many of the songs in the film are earworms; Even right now, I can hear the words "we're the very best at being bad" being sung in my head. It's certainly worth a look, but it's not available on DVD, only VHS. This problem really needs a once-over.

Quote of the Day: "The inquisitors were torturing Harry. First, Ignatius used the rock. Then Billy asked Harry if he wanted to read his BDSM blog. Harry was so surprised that his pants flew right off. He was wearing women's underpants. The inquisitors were wearing them, too. They realized that they were all men of the lord."

Link of the Day: A new reading of Thirty H's: The greatest Harry Potter Fanfic ever.

Tract Reviews: The Poor Revolutionist: I can only assume that this tract was re-released to capitalize on right-wing fears that Obama=Black Revolutionary Antichrist, and not Obama=milquetoast who can't even get Universal Health Care to pass yet. None of this stops the tract from feeling hopelessly dated.

Things to Come: Apparently, a Gypsy Catholic fortune teller decides to tell a Fundie what for, after she learns he can tell the future, but, surprise surprise, gets interested in getting saved, but in an unusual Gainax ending, the rapture occurs, and we're left hanging. Also features first person narration. Besides, everybody knows that only one man could see the future and his name was Oswald Spengler.