A glimpse into my movie-freaked mind

A quick thing that made me laugh this week: Clifford Irving, the man who inspired the new movie The Hoax, about his complete fabrication of the Autobiography of Howard Hughes back in the seventies, has been complaining in interviews about the filmmakers taking creative liberties with his story. Some people have no sense of irony.


I stopped off at Vintage Stock this week and got a hell of a deal on four DVDs. I got the firest two Spider-Man movies for $6 a pop...a bargain considering these were both the 2-disc special editions. I also picked up Tomorrow Never Dies and The Fisher King. Needless to say, Fiday night was one weird quadruple feature at Casa de Fritschie.

I saw each of the Spider-Man movies once in theaters, and I had forgotten how good those movies are. My fear is, from what I've seen of Spider-Man 3, that they may be trying to fit too much into one movie. Venom, Sandman AND Hobgoblin?!? Plus, trying to fit in Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy? I worry that this story will be all over the place.

However, it warms my geek-boy heart to see that they're finally getting the right people to bring comic books to the big screen. Bryan Singer worked great for X-Men and Superman. Robert Rodriguez could make nothing but Sin City movies for the rest of his career and I'd be more than happy. Zack Snider did a great job with 300, and I hear he's doing Watchmen next.

Don't get me wrong, I thought Tim Burton did a pretty good job with Batman, but it really didn't do the stories much justice. Chistopher Nolan did the backstory right with Batman Begins, and I look forward to seeing The Dark Knight next year to see how well they do the Joker (Heath Ledger) and set up the story of Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart).


Tomorrow Never Dies was one of the most underappreciated Bond films. It had all of the elements that make a good Bond film, and proved that Pierce Brosnan was still a great choice to play Bond...Goldeneye was not just a fluke. Plus, it did pretty well considering the weekend it opened it was up against a little film called Titanic. I remember seeing four movies that week. The first was Titanic, simply by virtue of being outvoted by all those I went to the theater with. The second was Tomorrow Never Dies. The third was Titanic again, because my girlfriend at the time loved it so much. The fourth was Scream 2, because Titanic was sold out when we got there.

And, my girlfriend dragged me to see Titanic another seven times before it left theaters. Yes, I spent the equivalent of a day and a half sitting in a theater watching that movie. By the sixth time, I found myself cheering when Leo sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic.


The Fisher King was the first R-rated film I paid to see in theaters on my own. Before that time, I had snuck in to see them, or had my folks with me. Although, The Fisher King took two tries to get in. I was 15 at the time, and this hardass working the box office refused to sell me a ticket the first time. I tried to talk him into giving me the ticket, but he not only refused, but also had an usher keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't sneak in after buying a ticket to Neccessary Roughness instead.

I've been on a real Terry Gilliam kick lately. I bought 12 Monkeys a few months ago out of the bargain rack at Target. I saw Brazil at the midnight movie at the Circle Cinema last month. Now, I've made it my quest in life to own all of his movies. However, I'm having a hell of a time finding them. Brazil, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are nowhere to be found. Brazil and Fear and Loathing each came out in Criterion Editions a few years ago, and that makes any bare-bones DVD versions out there not worth having. That's like having a craving for fine vintage wine and settling for Mad Dog 20/20 instead.


With these movies, I'm one step closer to completing what I call "the co-star connection". It's a variation of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which I try to connect all of the DVDs in my collection through co-stars. Tomorrow Never Dies helps me tie in my Mystery Science Theater DVDs through Joe Don Baker, who was in my favorite all-time episode of MST3K, Mitchell. Plus, it ties in Casino Royale via Judi Dench.

Likewise, I've been having some trouble tying in the 40-Year-Old Virgin. But now, the freaky chick from the bookstore also played Jameson's Secretary in both Spider-Man movies. The Fisher King settles in nicely thanks to Pulp Fiction (Amanda Plummer) and Mystery Men (Tom Waits).

The only two movies I'm having zero luck with are Jaws and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Jaws is easy...All I need is American Graffiti (ties in through Harrison Ford in Star Wars), The Rainmaker (Matt Damon in Dogma, or Mickey Rourke in Sin City) or the Sting (Paul Newman in Road to Perdition). I just need to decide if I wanna go the Dreyfuss, Scheider or Shaw routes. The Day The Earth Stood Still is gonna be more difficult. None of the actors in that film did anything else I wanna see, much less own. On the other hand, a clip from that movie is in Independence Day, but when am I ever gonna watch that piece of shit again...If I find a copy for fifty cents at a garage sale, I might consider it.


...I just realized that that last segment might be used as evidence against me if I'm ever committed to an asylum. But, as Jonathon Pryce said in Tomorrow Never Dies, "The difference between madness and genius is success."