'The Filth and the Fury' review, as well as some ranting

It's not often that I buy a movie, get home, and immediately watch it but that's what ended up happening last night with 'The Filth and the Fury'. I'd seen parts of it before but never had the opportunity to watch it all the way through until last night.

Wow.

It's the story of the Sex Pistols, one of the more important early punk bands. The documentary covers the reasons why the band formed, how the band formed, and what happened after that until they disintegrate about two years later. All four surviving band members (as of 1999 when the documentary was recorded) were interviewed. They come across as honest about the time and their actions.

The power of the documentary is that everything is in their own words. There is no narrator to tell us the story, what we should think of things, where the 'truth' lies. The guys tell us what they did and why both in the 'current' time as well as clips from interviews from the 70's. Sid Vicious is represented by archival footage. None of the band is shown on screen in the 'current' time. If they do appear, it's in shadows, as if keeping their identities secret.

Two things in particular struck me as very powerful.

One was the build-up to the formation of the band. Most documentaries I've previously seen about the band or punk in England have a narrator explaining how things were really bad in England at the time, they show a couple crummy looking tower blocks, and then the bands start forming as a protest. This film shows riots, violence, trash piled high while the band explains how rough things were. The context of the time is more understandable this way.

The other is Johnny Rotten's relationship with Sid Vicious. They were long-time friends before the band's creation. Sid became a fan and was drafted in when the band dumps Glen Matlock. Throughout the film Johnny explains how Sid was his mate and he tried to protect him but Johnny just wasn't smart enough at that age to fully keep Sid from the drugs that would take his life. Near the end of the film, Johnny finally breaks down over it, as he'd mentioned he does earlier in the film, and bewails his lost friend, cursing the media that he feels contributed to the situation. While in the shadows, you 'see' Johnny Rotten cry. I didn't think he could as he comes across as so cool and cutting as his on-stage character. It was affecting.

If you already can't stand the Sex Pistols' music, there's nothing for you here. There's too much of it and it'll drive you up the wall. Otherwise this is a fascinating look at a specific band at a specific time in history. It works to separate the truth from the myth surrounding the Pistols.

Also included is another documentary, 'Un-defining Punk', which focuses more on the American scene, but not totally. Again, it's just people that were involved in the scene in the 70's and 80's talking about what they did and why and what they think about it. Not as interesting but still interesting.

For what it's worth, I feel that Punk is not a particular sound of music or style, but was a message, a style of creating, of empowerment. It says 'Go out and do. I am doing it and you can too.' At the time of it's creation, the easiest thing to go out and do was music, be in a band. They were Punks because they wanted to do things their way. When the establishment said 'You must do things this way', they said 'No, we're doing it this way'. Upstarts, rebels, how dare they express themselves in the manner they want!

Technology has allowed the world to become Punk. Heck, even this blog in it's way is Punk. In the 70's, if I had opinions I wanted to share, I'd probably need a typewriter, make copies in a 'zine, and find a place to sell them from. Now, I can just type on my computer that I already had for other purposes. The standard form is provided by others.

Big media is afraid. They see bands offering their albums for online download and realize they're becoming unnecessary. Newspapers fade in importance to online reporting, both in the old style and in bloggers who have a journalistic bent. TV is even disintegrating under the influence of YouTube and similar things that let someone with a camcorder and some editing programmes make entertainment for others.

The Punks are winning. It feels good. I've known this but it hasn't felt as immediate, as truthful to me as it does right now. It's incentive, it's motivation, and heaven help me if I lose it.

I have things that need doing.

Archive work means dusty hands

I've been working on cleaning up the archive a lot these past couple weeks. It's my brain's way of getting out of working on my resume. Both need doing and as long as I'm accomplishing something, my brain can be happy about progress.

One of the problems with working in the archive is that I see the gaps more clearly. Most of the time I know where certain gaps in the collection are located but, since I'm not looking too closely, I can pretend that they're not there. When I'm storing away magazines and I'm in that box and I see what's missing, well, I tend to go looking online for the issues I'm missing.

...You can see where this is going can't you? Luckily I didn't find all THAT many gap fillers.

On the plus side, after I 'complained' about waiting yesterday, the truck came with my package, within fifteen minutes of the posting. I should have complained earlier I guess.

Waiting

According to the UPS tracking website, I've a package arriving today. It has yet to arrive.

There are things I'd like to be doing, such as taking my walk, but I know that if I leave for even a moment, that is when the truck will arrive and I'll miss my chance.

The website says something about them delivering between 7am and 5pm. In theory this means I could have another couple hours of waiting. At least I've enough to read.

I really must start carrying my notebook again

I keep coming up with things to say here when I'm walking around and then I forget what they are once I'm sitting in front of the keyboard.

Drat.

Vibes

As my subconscious is more clever than I'll ever be, I have learned to trust my gut reactions to situations, what one might call 'vibes'. It's not unlike playing a trivia based game: your first guess is probably the correct one and if you think about it too hard you'll just mess yourself up. My 'vibes' are like that. It's not that the first instinct is always correct, far from it, but they're more often than not accurate, or at least in the neighborhood of being accurate anyway.

I had a dream about William Hartnell's portrayal of the Doctor recently which has led me to wonder if that means more footage of him will soon be found. It could also mean that I was looking at the DVD of 'The Time Meddler' recently and that I should have bought it to watch. The details can be a bit vague at times.

I've also got a number of bad vibes regarding the health of the company that needed to part ways with me earlier this year. It's hard to trust these vibes because I can't be sure that there's no bitterness in them. It's not far to want them to fail just because they didn't want to 'play with me' anymore. It's hard to judge what I think in that regard.

Right now, it seems that I'm still better off outside than inside, just for my own sake and the sake of the writing I'm accomplishing. That I know is a good thing.

Olymp-yawn

Are the Olympics over yet? I'm getting tired of ignoring them.

In the interest of getting my interest, I recommend eliminating some of the gymnastic competitions where winning is subjective to someone's opinion anyway and adding paintball as an Olympic sport. Maybe playing at war every few years would help reduce the amount of actual war.

Or it might make better warriors, I dunno. These ideas do tend to back fire on me.

When Erics Collide!

I had a lunch appointment with one of my old co-workers today. After a certain amount of 'I don't wanna pick, you pick' via email, we settled on an establishment. I was to meet Eric at Noon.

Driving through the parking lot just before noon, I saw Eric and his family. Not the Eric I was there to meet, but another of the Erics I know. With a 'what are the odds' sort of amusement, I parked my car and laughed my way over to them. As I chit-chatted with them, the Eric I was there to meet pulled in and I dragged him into our brief conversation.

As we walked into the restaurant, Eric noted he was glad it happened to me. He noted that he would have second-guessed who he'd been emailing all this time.

I thought it was funny.

Working in the Archive

The archive is full of stuff.

Yesterday I found my CD soundtrack to 'Enter the Dragon', a newspaper clipping from 1987 regarding the live-action marriage of Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson in Shea Stadium, the Don Martin solo magazines from 1994, and a comic I drew (poorly) while in middle school.

And other stuff. There's always other stuff.

Meta Stooge

So I'm watching the Three Stooges the other day and they play 'Crash Goes the Hash'. If I'm not muddling this title with the other shorts they played that night, Moe, Larry, and Curly get mistaken for hot-shot reporters and are sent in to get a story about a royal wedding, with a bonus promised for a picture. They arrive at the house in time to hear that a cook and two butlers are required and fill those roles. Naturally as they accept the employment, there's a certain amount of misunderstanding and slapping to be had.

All this causes the head butler (Bud Jamison) to laugh. He notes that the boys remind him of the Three Stooges. At this point, the boys get very offended and tell him off.

A meta reference. In a Stooge short. In the 40's.

Awesome.

Gong Show Revisited

If I am to continue to watch the new Gong Show (I'm up to twice now that I've seen it), I think I shall have to record it. That way I can bypass the commercial breaks and watch the programme in about 12 minutes. More or less.

It just feels like I would be more efficient that way.

Going for a Walk

I'm not fond of exercise for the sake of exercise. Keeping fit solely for the sake of it, in some twisted belief that this will forestall death is foolishness to me. There's also the individuals that become as addicted to exercise as some do chocolates, beer or cigarettes. It's still an addiction.

Exercise for a goal I have no problem with encouraging. Trying out for a team, rehabbing after an injury, too fat are all good goals, all good reasons to exercise.

I am a bit too fat. While I believe the averages medical personnel have determined to be a bit on the thin side, I know I'm over by a good twenty pounds or so. I've been walking. With the extra time I currently have on my hands, it's been easier to be regular at this and I take a half-hour to an hour walk most every day. I vary the path a bit to keep things interesting. I plug myself into my iPod and off I go.

And I think. Playing with my 'toys' I work on the items I'm writing, trying to work out how the next bit should go. Some days the characters give me something, some days they don't. Some days my mind wanders a bit, despite my efforts to work while I walk. Some days I come up with a totally different idea and, try as I might to not get distracted by the new idea, I do.

Yesterday was a new idea day. Figuring out what to do with it while not slowing down work on the things that are almost done is the next trick. Maybe on today's walk I can figure that out.

It's been awhile

I may have gone a little eBay mad today. It's easier to do that now than when I first started eBaying. That involved a lot more going out and getting money orders. PayPal makes it so much easier to spend a lot of money on eBay that you hope you don't regret in a week.

Time will tell.

Me am a Sucker

I'm a sucker for 'drive-in' type movies (the sort of movie made inexpensively with the expectation that most patrons wouldn't be watching much of the movie anyway). I'm also a sucker for programmes that have been restored and/or remastered. I'm also a sucker for low priced DVDs.

These interests collided with a purchase I made yesterday: 'Drive-In Cult Classics Volume 2'. This 4 double-sided DVD collection boasts 8 movies and for which I paid the princely sum of $10. 6 of the 8 movies boast that they have been remastered, either from high quality film prints or the original negative. 2 are in widescreen. One movie boasts Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing!

So I bit.

I've scanned a couple of the movies to see what they look like. The transfer on 'Madman of Mandoras', the movie transferred from the negative, looks quite nice for the couple minutes I watched. There did appear to be a slight gatefloat type shudder to the transfer but I'm not sure if I was imagining it, if it was only for a reel or what. I'm going to try to talk myself into watching it soon and perhaps I'll figure it out then. The set also contains the extended for TV version of the film which bears the more colourful title 'They Saved Hitler's Brain'.

So far it looks like it was worth the $10. Hopefully more to follow on this one.

C'mon Brett

'I will always be a Packer.'

Really? You had to say that in your first press conference as a Jet? Really?

Dude, if you have a messy public breakup with one girl, you don't tell the next one that you'll always love that other girl. Even if it's true. I'm stupid and I know that much.

But you've always been honest, often stupidly so. I can relate to that.

Favrey and the Jets

I'll admit it; I've been far too wrapped up into the whole Favre soap opera during the last week. And why not? I've had the time available to it and I'm fascinated with the Packers and Mr. Favre so I might as well have been.

My short answer about the whole thing - It was a mess on both ends.

The downside to it was that I let it get to me a bit. It's like when friends fight and you're in the middle, understanding why everyone's upset but just wishing they'd all let it go so you can get back to watching the movie without all the tension.

Speaking of movies, I considered going to see 'The Dark Knight' during all this and then decided against it. It didn't seem fair to the movie. Either I'd go in extra grumpy and the movie would have no chance to succeed in my eyes or I'd go in extra grumpy and, in my need to be removed from that mindset, it would be the greatest thing ever. With the hype being as it is (although I am hearing more negative reviews of the movie now) I'm trying to be as neutral going into the movie as possible. Which isn't easy.

Now Brett Favre is a Jet. Good luck to him. I have my doubts as to how long he'll last but I hope he does well.

Not as well as the Packers though. Go Pack Go!

Where Did I Put Them?

Can't find my assessments for the past few years of my job. Basically they were 'this is what I did last year so that you should not only keep me employed but give me more money next year' documents. I thought I had them saved as files at home but maybe not. I might have paper copies of most of them, unless I tossed them out in a fit of 'will never need these again'. They'd come in handy in my attempts to generate a resume.

Even if I don't find them, it'll be okay. It was just a nice moment of panic when I went 'wait, where are they?' I don't remember last week very well, let alone two years ago, so they would be handy.

In the meantime, there's always more script to write.

Or

Or there's talk that Favre will be traded to the Vikings. So, rather than have his number retired on opening night of the season, Favre's starting streak could continue... for the Packers opponent that night?

That would pretty much suck.

Hooray?

And now it looks like Brett is back, possibly even returning to the Pack.

Weird. Not unpleasant at all! Just...weird after everything.

Curse Remains Intact

Why is there all this trouble between the Green Bay Packers and Brett Favre?

'Cause Brett's on the cover of this year's edition of the Madden video game.

Simple when you think about it.

Brief Lament

Sometimes all you can do is be there for the people left behind.

Hope we helped in this troubled time my friend.