Wow, that was a weird dream. THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (46) and SID & NANCY (20)

Whoa, whatever was coursing through my subconscious last night really left an indelible stamp on the old grey matter. I'm not one to put much thought in to dreams and their meanings, but seriously can someone sort of crack the code on this one:

My brother and I are attending this super popular all-day, super-secret like team, drinking, trivia, mini-golf, er, competition, that starts at a fantastically popular bar and ends, well lord knows where. We end up meeting up with my addled friend Monica Church and a cute girl that I totally feel like I know. We sit around and drink for a while, until the, shadowy bartenders start playing music and yelling "It's the pre-game trivia music round, guess what song this is!" It's sort of weirdly dark, and I recognize the song, but all of a sudden my chair lifts from the ground and I'm floating above the crowd in this sort of ecstatic flight. All of sudden I look down and realize everyone is writing down answers, and I'm barely listening to the song. I fly, yup fly, back to my seat and by this point the whole place is totally lit up and the bartender yells, "Now lets introduce our celebrity guests: first, do you like Boys II Men?" And every one goes crazy, so crazy that I can only see the back of one of the Boyz II Men guys heads, but you know, I know it's him. The bartender keeps yelling "And finally, Philadelphia's own: Roseanne Barr!" And the place just goes absolutely shit-house crazy. I turn to my brother and Monica, and go "Oh man, my Mom is going to be so jealous!" And Monica goes, "You don't even know." Boom, I'm awake.

Sigmund Freud I would love to hear your psychoanalysis on this obviously very important dream. Again, wow, that was a really weird dream.

I finished The Most Dangerous Game (46) last night, and was once again pleasantly surprised by an old American classic. I think, when it comes down to it, just because of my background in film studies, I'm always going to be more attached to these old U.S. film. What's cool about The Most Dangerous Game (46) is that it literally set the scene for one of the great films of all time. Directors Meriam C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack (yikes) would take the star of this film, Fay Wray and take her on to their next giant jungle adventure, a little spot called, King Kong. You can see all the makings for it here, the dense jungle sets, the awesome misty smoke, the great island setting. The film, not to ruin anything for you is about a creepy old "foreign" count who gets bored hunting animals and instead decides to start trapping sailors and well, hunting them. Unfortunately he grabs Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) and gets his ass handed to him. Again, it's old, and a little cheesy depending on what you're used to, but man oh man, if it isn't a short, sweet and enjoyable little flick.

I forgot to mention the other day that Shock Corridor (19) was the film in the series that kicked off my favorite string of films in the series. I watch these movies because I want to both be exposed to new films, but also enjoy these sometimes "famous" films I'm watching. And you know, there's quite a few of these films that are weird, foreign, clunkers and you should feel lucky that I'm dodging these boredom bombs for you. Sid & Nancy though, oh God, so good. Alex Cox is a goddamn genius and pairing Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb as the drug-addled rock 'n' rollers Sid Vicious (of The Sex Pistols for the dull in the audience) and the noxious Nancy Spungen (his girlfriend who he ended up stabbing to death) is amazing. The tale never pulls punches, and never lays blame, but just paints this ridiculous picture of two very fucked up individuals slowly being strangled by the death grips of addiction. A brilliant film and one of the best so far.

I'm going to climb back in to bed and see if I can catch the second half of that Roseanne Barr dream ...

Thursday: Truly, gulp, Salo (17) and Dead Ringers (21)

Streaming puppies, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (46) and SHOCK CORRIDOR (19)

Streaming video is a pretty gnarly thing if you ask me. Sure, I fell in to the Youtube trap when it first premiered, I watched "Ghetto Leprechaun" and "Drinking Out Of Cups" like three hundred times just like the rest of you. But as technology has improved, streaming video has turned in to this bizarre world where weirdos and those with excessive free time can just set up a camera and broadcast live, well, anything to the world. There's websites dedicated to just showing live streams of whatever people are doing (and let me tell you, they are not safe for work, and some of these images will haunt your dreams). I can't get in to it though, I don't want to just watch reality on a screen, I need narrative and characters, not just schlubby people interacting. So, I've sort of given up on the whole concept ... that is until a good friend showed me this:

Be warned it's adorable.

OH MY GOD! THOSE PUPPIES ARE SLEEPING AND FIGHTING AND PLAYING AND IF IT ISN'T THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS! Maybe I should just give up on Criterion Quest and start scouring the internet for streaming videos of puppies fighting. I could call it Puppy Quest or Cuteness Quest or, oh god, those all sound so disgusting, but you get the drift. Streaming video I had you pegged all wrong, this shit is amazing ...

Phew, I'm glad I got that out of my system. I literally spent like two bizarre hours late last night, giggling over those stupid dogs. I mean I'd get bored but then they'd get all wired and start fighting and it would totally draw me back in. Though I will say this: streaming video of living things is still ridiculous, sure this somehow grabbed my attention, but c'mon, are people actually wasting there time thinking that other people are going to be interested in what there puppies are doing? Yeah right.

The Most Dangerous Game (46) was a Criterion film I purchased in mad spree of money spending when I realized the shorter length films in the collection weren't actually that expensive. I ended up with a bunch of hour or less movies that I'd never heard of and have only watched once or so. I decided to dig back in to this 46-minute dinger, and though I've only got through fifteen minutes of it or so, I've got a few thoughts. Old movies are hilarious in their lack of needing emotional cohesion. Literally, in the first twelve minutes of this film the main character (as played by the awesome Joel McCrea) looses his self-described "best friends" in a horrendous ship wreck, and exactly two minutes later he's drinking scotch and flirting with another shipwreck survivor. I don't think a single tear is shed. Though maybe in the 1930s men weren't allowed to cry, especially actors, 'cause it would give the impression of, er, limp-wrists being had. This is a pretty entertaining film in general though, and after I finish it tonight I'll give a more learned write-up of the film and all of it's many influential tendencies.

Shock Corridor (19) is Sam Fuller's second film in The Criterion Collection and an infinitely better one than The Naked Kiss (18). It involves a reporter who fakes madness so he can sneak in to a mental asylum and find out the truth behind a murder mystery. Unfortunately, once within the walls he's bombarded with loonies and their loony propaganda and everything goes down the shitter pretty fast. I remember distinctly a black man who thinks he's in the clan and a horde of sort of shuffling mental patients lurching after the protagonist Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) as he screams and ... such. It's not the happiest of films, but oh man, does it get weird quickly. Highly recommended.

Wednesday: Gulp, Salo (17) and The Most Dangerous Game (46) cont.