DVD Boxed Set Summer

The school year is over and the summer is poised to start. As a personal note, I will be living and working in Raleigh. This time of year no longer has the eminently positive connotations that it used to have. Even under the seasonal-academic lifestyle, there is always work to be done. I am currently working on re-shaping an old essay on Alex Cox's Three Businessmen for an edited collection and continue to march forward on my edited collection of essays on Ken Russell. But, since I want to retain some semblance of my former (leisured) life, I will be doing some serious movie watching this summer. While I tend to do this even during the school year--I am, after all, a film studies student and need to stay on top of the game--the summer is usually a pretty ripe time for catching up on what one has missed, neglected, or avoided.

That said, I have a bad tendency to buy movies on "spec" when I don't have time to watch them, to sit on them until such a time as I am able to kick back and give them a watch. Unless I acquire something that I've had my sights on for a while, the gestation period usually lasts a few months, especially since I still cycle through my Netflix cue. I assure you, I do in fact have a life, but have always been proud of my ability to make the best use of my down time. I am not a YouTube browser (I mainly use it to put music videos on in the background of other work) and have cut back on the number of websites I check everyday. So, the saddest fact of this post is that all the titles that I am about to mention are actually things that I own.

The most cost-efficient way to acquire some movies is via boxed sets. These curated, thematic collections have really taken off since the infant days of VHS and laserdisc. In terms of film, I have recently (last several months) managed to get through The Richard Lester Collection (UK import featuring The Knack, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and How I Won the War), The British Horror Collection (four Pete Walker movies from the early 1970s, during one of the "golden ages" of British horror cinema), and Mario Bava Collection Vol. 1 (five classic Bava films, nicely produced by Anchor Bay Entertainment). Recent TV boxed set viewings include Arrested Development Season 1, Martin Tahse's After School Specials Set 1, and Mr. Show Season 3, not to mention my compulsive re-watching of Peep Show Seasons 1-4.

So, what's left for summer? On the TV front, Arrested Development Seasons 2 and 3 seem like sure bets. On the slightly more oddball side (though AD is no casual stroll in normal city) are Dune (the SCI-FI channel 2000 miniseries, though I don't see how this could possibly hold a candle to the misguided David Lynch film) and Blue Murder, a critically-lauded Australian cop drama from 1995 that was lovingly issued by Subversive Cinema. To bring some brevity to it all, I've been saving up Chappelle's Show Season 1 for a rainy or unbearably hot day. As for films, well, here goes.

Though I've had my film of British horror for the time being, there's Elite entertainment's old British Horror Collection which contains Tower of Evil, Inseminoid, Horror Hospital (a favorite from my late high school days) and Curse of the Voodoo. I have seen each of the films in Anchor Bay's The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, but not in several years, so it promises a few days of outre, warped entertainment. I have already taken a bite into (but have not finished) Optimum Entertainment's region 2 Julie Chrisite Collection, a nice set that contains bare bones editions of Billy Liar, Far from the Madding Crowd, Darling, and Joseph Losey's The Go-Between.

Classic "B" genres will certainly be a focus of my summer viewing. One of the first up will be Sam Katzman: Icons of Horror Collection, a group of four notorious stinkers from the height of the cold war. The paranoia is sure to continue with the inefficiently-titled The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, a nice Universal package with winners like The Mole People and Monster on the Campus.

One big undertaking will be the Mario Bava Collection Vol. 2, this time packed with 8 later Bava titles across several different genres. If it is anything like the first set, it will be rewarding, powerful viewing. Expert Tim Lucas is on board for many supplements, and since this is my first time watching each of these films, I am sure to learn a lot. My most recent purchase (for less than $15, to boot) has been MGM's Roger Corman Collection, an eight film release that spans from Bucket of Blood to GAS-S-S. I am especially interested in watching The Trip, which has been on my "to-watch" list for nearly 8 years.

I certainly won't watch all of these. I hope to get through many of them. But for now, courage.

Piece in FEEL THE WORD 'zine

Just wanted to drop a note and say that I have an essay on "after school specials" (and four Martin Tahse films in particular) in the April edition of Feel The Word.

Eulogies

I don't want to bring too much gravitas and sorrow to the internet (enough of that already), but it is worth pointing people toward a few recent death notices.

The popular urban myth is that celebrities die in "3s," but this recent wave, approximately over the last month, feels like a lot worse.

Goodbye to Anthony Minghella, Arthur C. Clarke, Jules Dassin (and an associated actor, Richard Widmark), "Frosty Freeze" (a pioneering B-Boy) and Buddy Miles, and a categorically special farewell to Charlton Heston. Ruminations of Heston, both loved and hated by many, can be found here, here, and here.

My favorite Heston roles were not the biggies, but rather his turn as Cardinal Richelieu in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974) and his masterful portrayal of Long John Silver in a made-for-TNT epic of Treasure Island (1990), to this day the best telling of that famous story.

Hopefully these artists will be appropriately examined, with remembrances, articles, DVD-reissues and general revivals of their often neglected talents.

edit - Ironically, I just learned about the recent death of another musical hero of mine. Martin Fierro was a reedsman (mainly sax and flute) who played with the Sir Douglas Quintet, The Grateful Dead, Zero, and some of the more recent wave of jam bands. He was a main member of one of my all-time favorite bands, the Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders Band, later known as Legion of Mary. His composition "La-La" is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. His contributions to that magic era of 1973-1974 pre-fusion/freejazzy/blues will not be forgotten. Obituary and link here to his brilliant interpretation of the music of Jodorowsky's El Topo.

THE HOUSE BETWEEN 2.7 - CAGED

In the grand tradition of life-changing stories that take place all in one night (The Warriors, Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse, even something like Escape from New York) comes Joseph Maddrey's "Caged." A dark episode from a dark season of a dark series, "Caged" plays with the usual condensations to time and space at the almost a-temporal "house at the end of the universe" in fascinating ways. See series creator John Muir's notes here.

THE HOUSE BETWEEN 2.6 - DISTRESSED

This episode of THB, a kind of late-game addition, is in the tradition of mid-season bonus episodes that are more interested in character development and alternative situations than with the story ark as a whole. You can read the sordid details of the production and why the thing came to be where it is here. Spirits and a different approach to the beyond pepper this episode, shot under extreme conditions and with a blistering efficiency that would make even Roger Corman proud!

THE HOUSE BETWEEN 2.5 - POPULATED

Normal blogging duties will resume once I finish posting this season of The House Between. This episode was conceived by Bobby Schweizer and features the closing thing that I can hope to have to a star turn (that is, a few lines). Enjoy this episode, fashioned lovingly in the memory of the eco-sci-fi films of the 1970s, re-vamped for today.

THE HOUSE BETWEEN 2.4 - ESTRANGED

Episode four of season two directly continues a story arc from the previous episode. The fragile ecosystem of the house is damaged by the obsessive vision quests of contemporary science and the military-industrial complex. More monsters! More fighting!