Strange things I saw yesterday morning, and SALO (17), terrible terrible SALO (17).

I've been at times described as "overly observant" or "overly willing to talk to weirdos" and over the course of some strange situations over the last few years I've tried to change this. No longer do I make direct eye contact with the babbling bearded fellow sitting in the crazy seat (you know which one I'm talking about) on the bus. No longer do I say, "Excuse me?" when a random stranger mumbles something as he walks past me. Nope, done with giving the loonies of the world the opportunity to vent about their belief in a second universe where religion is based on talking vegetables, or to pin me in the corner of the bus shelter and make me touch the soft spot in their head where they lost a chunk of it to a bullet - oh no, no more of that for me. Yet, just yesterday I stumbled across two fascinating folk and at least had to write about them:

1. The large, dread-locked fellow passed out on the bus, holding his bus transfer in ... his mouth. Yup, just totally asleep, with the crumpled bus transfer shoved between his lips. Also, as if to punctuate how weird the whole image was, he was holding a pair of cheap binoculars in one hand and a bag full of head shaving supplies in the other. I was so tempted to ask what he was doing, but, jesus, that would've been a terrible idea.

2. The hooded man who "fixes" his facial hair ... for ten hours a day. Seriously, he sits around the corner from my work on this little bench with a small hand mirror and a pair of tweezers and just pretends to pull hairs out of his face. Even weirder I was buying tasty organic cereal in the grocery store yesterday and he was in line in front of me ... buying a Mr. Goodbar. I love myself a Mr. Goodbar (Halloween size only please) but this just came across as very strange.

I love writing these things up so, I'll try to keep you people in the know about what oddities I encounter in my daily life.

Salo or 120 Days of Sodom (17) has to be one of the most reprehensible films I've ever seen, and this is saying a lot. If you've been reading this blog, which I hope you have, you'll know that I've been dreading the rerelease of this film because of all the disgusting rumors I've heard about it. Rampant sodomy, youth sex, uh, poop eating - yeah, you get the picture. So when I turn the film on last night, my stomach is in knots, my door is closed and I'm wondering if this should be a "headphone movie", the type I know will be full of odd noises and screams, so I wear headphones to make sure my housemates don't think I'm a dirty weirdo. The "Menu" screen pops up and it's simple, the word "Salo" on a white background and sort of upbeat jazz playing in the background. For whatever reason this makes me even more nervous, and through the equally simple credits I swallow nervously and try to think of reasons why I can't watch this film at this very moment. And right now I know you weak-willed knobs are sitting at your computers thinking, "Why is Noah being such a puss? It's just a movie." But, I'm not fucking kidding here, this is one of the most disgusting films I've ever seen. It's based on a Marquis de Sade story, but moved to WWII Nazi Italy and involves the kidnapping of 18 youth and their subsequent, horrible, horrible torture. It's uncomfortable at first, a ton of youthful male and female nudity, perfectly well-casted evil people, and just a general ominous feel that bad things will happen. I think I really started feeling awful when in the "rules" section, they discuss "The Orgy Room". As soon as these children enter this horrible house ruled by a bunch of Fascist big-wigs, this film is just one horrible scene after scene - kids on leashes forced to eat food with nails in it, weird weird sex of all varieties, peeing (and not in your normal, "I've got to you use the john" way), and the list goes on and on. I'm halfway through the film right now - I had to stop last night when the next section of the film was called "Circles of Shit" - but just writing about it makes my stomach turn. I'll finish it tonight, but I'm telling you this, for your sake, if you've got a weak stomach, do not ever watch this film.

Friday: Salo (19) cont.

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)