Holiday lethargy, a new Criterion Quest, and YOJIMBO (52)

Lets get this straight: I am not a napper. Hell, I'm not even really a sleeper, but the concept of laying down in the middle of the day to recharge seems downright ridiculous. I'll pace in circles, drink coffee at late hours, stand naked in the cold, anything I can to avoid drifting off in the middle of the day. Yet, these last three weeks of my life, with friends visiting and family gathering and holidays erupting have sapped me down to my barest reserves. I am a zombie. A lurching, plodding zombie, and all of a sudden I find myself so wracked by sleepiness that not only do I have to lay down for a midday snooze, but I have to do it RIGHT THEN. I'm narcoleptic all of sudden, prone to collapse at the drop of a hat. I'm Mike Waters in My Own Private Idaho (277) (well sans all the gay sex with rich older men), but for you, my loyal readers, I'm struggling through. If you find me crumpled in an alley somewhere, maybe pull a piece of cardboard over me.

Briefly: I've exhausted all of the films in the Criterion Collection that I've already seen. This means two things: I've been writing this blog for a while now and I no longer have unseen movies to fall back on when I don't get a chance to peep a new flick. Thus, each day might not have me regaling you with opinions on new Criterion Films I've seen so much, but there will always be something here, movie related for your perusal. This I promise. Have I let you down before? No, did'na think so.

Finished Yojimbo (52) on Sunday in a sort of boozy, nodding-off haze and couldn't have been happier. Kurosawa fans always consider this two-part samurai series (the second being Sanjuro (53)) as the sort of lesser, tail-end work of his masterful run in the 1950s, but I beg to differ. Yes, the story of Yojimbo, the rogue samurai, and his pretty much carefully calculated destruction of two rival gangs doesn't have the epic scope of say Seven Samurai (2), but it still kicks ass. It's funny, it's bloody, it's full of Toshiro Mifune being as a bad ass as he can be. Kurosawa is always a selling point for me. His name is on it, I'm going to watch it and chances are enjoy it more than anything else I've seen all year. You should keep this in mind when you're perusing the video stores, trying to catch up with me on your own personal Criterion Quest. I couldn't be more excited to dig in to Sanjuro (53) this evening.

Tomorrow: At least part of Sanjuro (53)