Why I'm not writing about SALO (17) just yet, and a drunken teaser of TASTE OF CHERRY (17).

This week, for a variety of reasons, has been stupidly exhausting. I've been bouncing back between trying to finish an application for a program to teach in China (if I get this position, this column will have to take a drastic drastic change in direction - CHINA QUEST?) and trying to bumble my way through copy writing for an upcoming Holiday Sale we're having at my record label job. Lump these tasks in with my general inability to motivate, my regular coffee shop job, and the advent of Netflix Instant for the Mac and, Jesus, I'm screwed.

Here's the rub though: thanks to Netflix Instant, I'm going, in the next few weeks, dedicate my physical Netflix queue only to Criterion for at least the next month or so. I'm going to line up the next ten flicks in the Criterion canon, and dedicate some serious time to just burning through them. If ya'll haven't figured it out yet, watching these movies is as enjoyable as just about anything to me (well, aside from those damn Olivier Shakespeare adaptations, those things are like stapling my sensitive parts to a piece of plywood) and the only reason I'm not always watching them is because I'm trying to stay up to date on real movies as well. After slumbering through the second half of Nacho Libre AGAIN, I'm okay with just sort of dropping the newer stuff off the map for a bit. There's a bunch of new flicks that Netflix Instant offers, so if I'm a little weary of the plodding nature of some of the Criterion films, I'll ease my mind with those. So, get ready people, it's about to get crazy in here.

With that said, I haven't actually seen Salo or 120 Days of Sodom (17) yet. I know, I know, I claimed I'd watched the first 43 films, buuuuuuut, this one is unfindable ... and to a certain degree, I've been sort of glad. From everything I've heard this is one painful, cluster-eff of a movie. The image above is the clip they chose for the Criterion page, and that, combined with the rumors that the film actually involves, uh, "poop eating" made me pretty glad that for years and years this film was out of print. But, sigh, now it's back, and because I love you, my readers so very much, I'm going to watch it. When I've actually received the movie and have dug in to it a little bit, I'll give you guys the pretty fascinating subtext for the film, as well as a more in depth discussion of the nasty bits it's sure to offer. I'm grimly excited, and you guys should be too.

Again, with the above statement about my upcoming full-on belly flop in to Criterion-World said, I can't really say that I got through much of Taste of Cherry (45) last night. As I polished off my third tall can of PBR at the King Khan and BBQ show, I continued to rally myself: "You will go home, and you will watch at least part of that movie!" On my 25-dollar taxi ride home with my recently-divorced, father of three, Kenyan Obama-lover taxi driver, I told myself, "You promised them! You will watch it!" And as I stumbled through my front door I was full of naive enthusiasm for a late evening full of Lebanon and suicide. I set myself in to my swivelly leather chair, hit play on the koomputer, watched maybe two and half minutes of a slightly old, slightly bedraggled man driving around the outskirts of Tehran and ... passed the hell out. I even repositioned myself in bed, with the covers pulled tight and my pillows in Criterion position, but alas, I was just too PBR-soaked. But, c'mon guys, I tried so hard, for you, YOU!

Jesus, in terms of actual Criterion, today is a big fat bust. My tears beg you for forgiveness.

Syke.

Have a good weekend. I know I will!

Monday: Taste of Cherry (45) and gulp, Salo (17)