'Airplane!' & 'The Naked Gun'

The reason why American entertainment -- no matter how ridiculous it gets -- works is because we're perpetually making fun of it. One thing is counteracted by something coming from the other direction.

I don't immerse myself in the media and entertainment of other countries, but, for many, they don't have the resources or desire to be as ridiculous because they have nothing coming from the other direction, knocking it on its ass.

Filmmakers like the David Zucker-Jim Abrahams-Jerry Zucker triumvirate helped put American media and entertainment in its place. Along with the likes of Mel Brooks and spawning the Farrelly Brothers, the "South Park" creators, Seth McFarlane, Seth Green and others, we're able to take the super-serious films, music and art and counter it with the surreal, with satire.

We probably don't realize it, but shows featuring Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and any of these talentless socialites are no different. We watch them because their manufactured lives are far more interesting than our everyday lives and because these people are jokes. They're lampooning themselves and Hollywood in general and we enjoy this.

However, the Zuckers invented it. Airplane! and The Naked Gun being their centerpieces. One pokes fun at every film noir and police show or film in the history of the moving picture.

The other presents the ridiculous notion of the disaster movie: From terrorists, natural disasters, aliens, mythical monsters and everything in between.

As long as directors, actors and producers keep taking themselves too seriously and fans keep taking it all too seriously, there will always be a place for the Zuckers and folks like them.

'Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould'

This is a collection of 32 short films about the eccentric pianist Glenn Gould.

How eccentric?

1. He was ridiculously picky about the temperature. No matter what, he always wore coats and gloves. He was arrested for alleged vagrancy because he was sitting on a bench in Florida with a coat and gloves. During recording sessions, he typically forced the crew to have the temperature unbearably hot.

2. Gould demanded his piano be at a certain height and that he use this specific kitchen table chair constructed by his father.

3. Gould always hummed while playing. It caused havoc while trying to record.

4. He was a hypochondriac and was prone to missing concerts.

The film is a series of performances and interviews of these people interacting with Gould. I can't imagine actually having to have a relationship with the guy. Such a weirdo. They actually think he was an undiagnosed autistic patient.

'Vidas Secas'

Portuguese for "Barren Lives," Vidas Secas is part of the Cinema Novo, the rebirth of Brazilian cinema that abided by the motto of "a camera in the hand and an idea in the head."

Vidas Secas is about a very poor family. The father is forced to work as a farmhand for meager wages.

Like a cow.

They shoot the dog. Life is unfair.

'Sunday At The Village Vanguard'

At a certain point, the rule defines a situation other than the exception.

With that said, most jazz musicians lead full-throttle lives that lead to ultimately tragic deaths.

Bill Evans, for example, was a super popular and well-respected jazz pianist reponsible for countless albums including Sunday at the Village Vanguard, culled from five different performances at the Village Vanguard in the early 1960s.

But, he was addicted to heroin for most of his life. By the 1970s, he was addicted to cocaine. In 1980, his body said, "fuck this." He had a perforated liver, hepatitus, a bleeding ulcer, cirrhosis of the living and bronchial pneumonia. Peter Pettinger called it "the longest suicide in history."

Bassist Scott LaFaro had it worse. Ten days after recording Sunday at the Village Vanguard, the renowned bassist was killed in an automobile accident.

Drummer Paul Motian is still alive. Bucking the trend.

'Moving Pictures'

One of the greatest phenomena of the past five years or so are older bands performing in concert the entirety of one of their foremost albums in order.

Rush did exactly this this year during their tour playing Moving Pictures from "Tom Sawyer" all the way to "Vital Signs" in front of thousands of 40-year-old socially awkward men.

It's interesting that a band generally has two identities: The guys in the studio, recording; and the guys on the roading, playing.

One is a circus of emotions and creativity. The other is a job. It pays the bills. Rarely do the two ever meet except if someone releases a live album.

Even then, would it be interesting for Rush to release Moving Pictures as a live album?

Probably not. The main reason is that the only people going to see Rush this year play the entire album of Moving Pictures were those 40-year-old losers we mentioned earlier.

Would all those dudes go to Best Buy and spent $16 on an album they already own except done in front of 5,000 other people?

Even if, is it worth a record company releasing an album that'll sell 100,000 copies, if that?

It only really works one way: From record to stage. People don't sound awesome live. Some are better than others. However, there's the power of the live show that takes so-so bands and turns them into experiences. It's not unlike watching the World Series on TV or live at the stadium. There's an electricity that'll you'll not find in the .mp3 file. Then again, it sounds like crap.

More and more bands are doing the "whole album" tour like Aerosmith. Others should adopt it. How many times can a person see Rush or Aerosmith? Why not change things up and give your diehard fans something different, unique?

'Fantasia'

I wish I knew who Walt Disney really was. It's kind of a joke nowadays to paint the guy as something entirely different from his company's product: A racist, an anti-semite, a guy with questionable Christian ethics and someone that would rat out his own people in the business during the Communist witchhunt of the 1950s.

I tend to think the truth always lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe he wasn't the sweetest man in the world, but he was by far nowhere near the worst.

However, in 1941, during the Academy Awards, he called Fantasia (having been released in 1940), Disney's third full-length animated feature, a "mistake."

Probably because it failed at the box office. In hindsight, he'd probably change his mind. Still, it makes me think that Disney was into making money more so than anything else. If he truly believed in the accomplishment of Fantasia, then he'd be able to seperate the commercial success with success as an artist.

With no doubt is Fantasia an unadulterated success, a masterpiece of modern storytelling, animation and the fusion of film and music.

It was a box-office failure (as were many of Disney's early ventures) because it's more than two hours long, includes a ton of talking from a music critic explaining the ins and outs of some classical pieces and, finally, it is a lot of classical music. You won't entertain adults (more or less children) with two hours of boring talking and classical music.

Still, it doesn't mean it's not important. It was released at a time when animation was all done by hand. Again, the intro piece alone probably took countless hours, tedious work of thousands of animators and employees to almost do something much harder than seven dwarfs: Animate music. Give the sounds a shape, color and form.

There's a lot of detail and color that make Fantasia special and the amount of effort (and faith) that went into making it along makes it worthwhile.

It's one thing to think Disney as a racist or bad person. But what disappoints me the most (because a lot of people in 1940 were bad people) is that he didn't always put as much faith and love into his work as much as his work made him a legend.

'Torrents Of Spring'

Ivan Turgenev published Torrents of Spring in 1872, just 11 year before he would pass away in 1883 having been a contemporary of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

It's significant because its considered at least partially autobiographical and it speaks to the frustrations of the female and love that Turgenev toiled under for this entire life.

Torrents of Spring revolves around that of Sanin, a young Russian landowner. Not too rich. Not too poor. He's staying in Frankfurt when he saves the life of a 14-year-old shopowner's son. At this time, he meets the boy's sister, the 16-year-old Gemma and falls madly in love. They eventually get engaged and in order to procure some money in order to get married, Sanin, by happenstance, runs into an old schoolmate, and decides to go to another city to sell his property in Russia to the schoolmate's wife.

Well, after much foreboding from Gemma, he leaves and immediately falls in love with the schoolmate's wife, they have an affair and he breaks off the engagement to follow this woman around.

The book ends with Sanin at the end of his wife and he looks up Gemma, who's moved to New York, gotten married, had children and led a generally good life.

Turgenev never married. He was born to a father who was a philanderer (when he was alive_ and a mother who was an abusive heiress. These characters really not unlike that of Sanin's schoolmate and his wife.

Much like Sanin living in Frankfurt, travelling in the West and learning the different languages, Turgenev, too, had an affinity to the West. He studied in Germany and England and lived for a time in Western Europe. This further strained his relations with Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. The former he had a duel with until Tolstoy called it off and apologized, not unlike the duel in Torrents of Spring.

In Torrents of Spring, we don't find a love-lost cad, but instead a writer, who didn't know how to handle women or was simply extremely unlucky and found himself in his twilight years in search of absolution.

'The Shop On Main Street'

First, I wanted to point out my new favorite person: Wiktor Gorka. He designed the film poster above in addition to countless other posters, film or no. He did some breathtaking work. I highly suggest you spend the next two hours taking a good, long look.

In the 1960s, under the iron fist of Communist Russia, Eastern European filmmakers tried to come to grips with World War II and the Nazis.

I don't know, but I would imagine there are several layers of doubt, shame, regret, anger and rage that floods the soul of the individual that lived in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Albania, Italy, Yugoslavia or wherever.

There's the shame of being conquered. The regret of watching your neighbors and friends shot or put in a train car, never to return. Anger in being thought of as a lesser group of people.

All of this boils into some kind of emotion. Like rage or regret.

The Shop on Main Street focuses on a fumbling, unambitious handyman, who is given the keys to a local store that sells sewing paraphernalia like buttons or thread by a family member who is a member of the Nazi-instituted police force.

The kicker is that the store is already owned by a beloved, elderly Jewish woman and our man's acquisition is part of the Aryanization of this small hamlet and based upon the woman's short timeline left on Earth.

The film -- as all were -- was funded by the Communist government. However, even they couldn't be so stupid to believe that The Shop on Main Street was just about Nazis and facsism, right?

Of all the films from this era and genre, this might be my favorite. I think the acting is far superior than that of its contemporaries and there's something endearing to our hero, Tono.

'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo'

One of my all time, top 10 favorite records. Of all time. Ever.

And it was important. Firstly, it featured the debut of Gram Parsons, who would go on to rewrite country music, and Sweetheart of the Rodeo was his first attack.

Secondly, it's mostly considered the first country-rock record in the history of the genre.

The band itself, it was a seachange in their careers and style. For the most part, they're known for their psychedelic, hippy rock and Roger McGuinn and his 12-string Rickenbacker and his half-moon glasses.

Suddenly, they go country. Parsons is brought in and they bend the rules of rock music along with breaking the rules of jumping genres and showing that bands can redefine themselves. Now, despite being a departure for their career, Sweetheart... is their highest-regarded record.

The history of the album suggests a pinch of divine intervention. Parsons was hired as a piano player after The Byrds were stripped down to a two-piece. After joining, Parsons switched to guitar and forever altered the direction of the band. McGuinn's vision of doing an overview of 20th century music was scrapped for a bunch of honky-tonk love songs and mountain ballads.

Later in the year, Bob Dylan would release his seminal country album Nashville Skyline and The Band would release Music from Big Pink. And country and rock music would have different trajectories from then on.

Also includes a top 10 album cover.

'Exercises In Style'

OK. I've read the story 99 times. Surely I can recall it.

A man (the narrator) catches the "S" bus. On it, he sees a man with a long neck and a hat with an unusual hat band confronts a stranger for stepping on his toes as individuals get on and off the bus.

Later in the day, the narrator sees the same man with the long neck at another bus (forgot the stop!) where someone is telling him to add a button to his coat in order to achieve a certain style.

Let's see how I did.

(Checking)

Ah. It was the Gare St-Lazare stop.

'Watchmen'

I truly can't imagine there being a more worthy piece included in the 1,001 books I have to read before I die.

And I dare anyone to argue otherwise. You wouldn't find a more compelling story, set of characters and message if you combined the bulk of books of the past 2,000 years.

It's a comic book. A set of 12, actually. It starts with the murder of an aging superhero in his high-rise apart. Thus, a string of world-altering events unfold -- on two fronts.

There are the circumstances surrounding the history of the superheroes that functioned in the United States in the 1940s and 1960s as part of his alternate universe.

Also, there are the very real circumstances surrounding the Cold War and the Soviet Union's activities in southern Asia.

All of these events tie together as the moral obligations of these "heroes" are redefined. A group of anti-heroes are created as they weigh the cost that goes along with saving the world.

In these comics, the enemy are ourselves and there aren't these over-the-top contraptions that are created to undo the superheroes as they fight a clear-cut foe, someone evil.

No Bat signals or utility belts. It's raw human emotion, doubt and frailty balled up into a story as real as any piece of nonfiction or documentary. More important anything else you'd read.

'Amsterdam'

I can't get through Ian McEwan's books fast enough. By my count, I have one left after Amsterdam.

Amsterdam starts out at the funeral of Molly Lane, who is basically the most perfect woman in the world. She was apparently free and easy. Sleeping with New York City's hotshot beat writers in the 1960s, drinking and sleeping with her modern intellectuals during mind-blowing holidays in the English countryside, rubbing elbows and other body parts with famed politicians, rich guys, journalists and composers.

She slept with whoever, did whatever drugs, drank as much as she wanted and nobody cared because she was a hot piece of ass.

Following Molly's funeral, two of her former lovers -- and best friends -- Clive and Vernon find their lives starting to unravel as they grow apart surrounding a set of circumstances that seem so ... dumb.

If you had to judge someone based on their art, I would suppose that McEwan is a pretentious piece of shit. His characters are pretentious. Their problems are problems only pretentious people get into and they live lives that pretentious people live. They even die pretentiously.

That's why, inherently, I'll hate McEwan's books.

'Is This It'

When The Strokes released Is This It in 2001, it was really the first and only time I felt like I was standing on the ground floor of something big.

I almost felt like what teenagers in the early 1960s felt when The Beatles and The Rolling Stones hit. Almost. However, given some time, maybe 30 years, looking back at the early-2000s and rock music might mean a bit more than it does today.

It's been a decade. A full 10 years since I felt everything changed.

I remember exactly how it came down. I heard about The Strokes and the album from a friend, Lauryn, who had a British version of the record, with the provocative photo of the naked woman's hips and ass and the leather glove.

I don't know if it was the same day or the next, but I went to Hastings -- as I was a junior in college living in a university town -- and purchased the album.

I remember unwrapping it in the car, putting it in the CD player and having my rock aesthetic changed forever. I'd look at music completely different. I aged 10 years in the matter of an hour, listening to Is This It and driving to work. My juvenile tendencies and sophomoric taste in music was forever buried, six feet under.

At the time, I swore that Julian Casablancas' vocals reminded me of someone from the 1960s or 1970s. I still almost feel that way, but now I realize that I was wrong. It was a perfect homage to a wide swath of garage rock that had come down from those decades. Yet, for us 20-somethings on the brink of having our global perspectives completely wrecked on Sept. 11, 2001, it was new. We were baptized in the rhythms, the metronomic drum beat and the slipshod, raucous guitars.

After Sept. 11, 2001, as we graduated and entered the rest of our lives, we asked on some level, "Is this it?" It's sounds sanctimonious and dumb. But we did.

We knew we'd never be the same.

'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' & 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'

I don't typically pitch a fit or anything if a film version is significantly from the book. I understand that certain licenses are taken and that the events and characters in a 400-page book can't be translated to film without it being four hours long.

Sacrifices are made and I typically appreciate both as seperate beings.

However, it is disappointing watching the adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because so much is lost in the characters, in the literary devices (Bromden being the narrator), the plot and so much more.

Although it's an antiestablishment book and film, there's certain consequences that McMurphy faces in the book when Cheswick drowns and after Billy kills himself. Those are the costs of revolution or freedom that McMurphy had on his hand. Meanwhile, he was unable to understand why these people just couldn't will themselves to be normal as none were forced to stay in the hospital.

On the other hand, in the film, we don't see how much McMurphy helps them come to terms with their deficiencies as almost being completely in their brains. In the book, we learn that most of the patients check themselves out even before the lobotomy and Bromden's escape.

Also, so much is lost out of Bromden's exclusion from the film. His narration, insight (being considered deaf and dumb, he sees and hears everything because people don't worry about him telling) and his anarchist wisdom bring a bit of balance to the book. It also brings out Nurse Ratched's sadism that is lost in the film.

'Downfall'

When he was doing promotional work for Inglourious Basterds, director Quentin Tarantino noted that he find it distressing that there had never been a film done about World War II where the Germans actually spoke German.

Over the years, I too wondered why we couldn't do a film in which the Germans were not portrayed by Germans speaking English or just English actors. As if any accent would throw off Americans into thinking they were German.

Downfall is completely German. German or Austrian actors playing Germans or Austrians.

Bruno Ganz depicted Hitler, one of the few if not only time that the fascist dictator was portrayed as a central character by a German-speaking actor.

Ganz spent four months preparing for the role. He spent countless hours listening to Hitler's private recordings nailing down his accent and conversational voice as the orator that has made movie reel of his speeches famous is nowhere to be seen.

Because of this and because of Ganz' portrayal, a hubbub was brought about regarding a humanized portrayal of the man deemed a monster.

I disagree with these assessments. For one, Hitler did not hold German hostage. He didn't run some militaristic coup. The people overwhelming bought into the National Socialist campaign. Hitler won these people over and you don't win people over being impersonal or just this roaring monster all the time. You lull them into a trance. You appeal to their sensibilities and hopes. Hitler did this. The monster. Doesn't sound like a monster to me.

He also had deep relationships with his friends, with his niece, with Eva Braun and with all these other people he had personal relationships with.

We too quickly equate "monster" with being incapable of human traits. Ironically, Hitler was a vegetarian. He almost cared more for a cow or pig than he did a Jew or Pole.

In the end, what made Hitler so "successful" or "impactful" was his human side, his ability to appeal on a wide range of levels. Hitler was a human much like any of us. He just so happened to want to rule the world too.

The funny thing about the criticism of Hitler being made "human" (all of this just is a band-aid for everyone to believe that there's no way we'd be responsible for a guy like him), people have taken the noted scene where Hitler screams at his subordinates and instead puts in subtitles where Hitler is screaming about the Texas Longhorns or something menial or funny.

What's worse: Depicting Hitler as he was or making it a source of humor?

'The Rapture'

I grew up in the Assemblies of God church. If you don't know, the Assemblies (or A/G) are a charismatic denomination of the Christian or Protestant church that because that Jesus was the son of God and he lived and was crucified and died for the sins of the world.

He was the Messiah. He died, went to hell and wrestled away the keys to death making eternal salvation open to anyone willing to accept him as their personal savior.

We also believed that Jesus was a part of the Holy Trinity including God and the Holy Spirit. All being one and one being all. We also, famously, believed in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, infamously the ability to speak in tongues, the physical, audible manifestation of the Holy Spirit, of God.

This was a deep, rich part of my life until college. I can't deny it and I can't hide from it. It sort of makes me who I am because I've been prayed over in hopes of speaking in tongues. I've seen with my own eyes crowds of people fall in the seeming overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit.
I was taught to believe in the end of times. The rapture. The apocalypse. One day, we wouldn't know when, God was going to call to heaven his faithful. In the blink of an eye.

Then there would be 1,000 years of hell on Earth. The anti-Christ would emerge (supposedly Italian) and all Christians remaining would be beheaded whilst a great spiritual war waged on. Then Jesus and his troops would storm Earth and eradicate all that was bad and unholy and unrighteous.

Actually, the last bit -- The Revelations -- was also the sketchiest of our belief system. Nobody truly knew if the rapture would be pre- or post-trib (tribulation ... all the beheading and whatnot).

Back in 1998 whenever those kids stormed into that Colorado high school and started shooting, there was the apocryphal story of them coming into a classroom and asking all Christians to stand up. Apparently, some girl stood up and was shot, dead.

My dad (someone who never went to church) asked that if this should happen that I would keep my arm down and mouth shut.

I talk with a handful of other people my age that I experienced all this with. Most are cynics now either not believing in things altogether or seriously doubting all that had happened to them during this time.

I may not agree with them, but I completely understand where they are coming from.

Speaking in tongues for example, is something that I still believe is a gift from the Holy Spirit completely available to us today. Unfortunately, despite people telling me otherwise, I never experienced this gift nor any other gift from the Holy Spirit.

I tried. I used to pray and pray and people would pray and pray even more. I would pray and I think people misinterpreted this as speaking in tongues when it was just me praying so quickly that it sounded foreign. If it was even speaking in tongues, I never understood it nor did I gain some kind of understanding it from it. Above all, I don't think any of these gifts or religion in general is meant for window dressing or without some understanding.

I've known people like Mimi Rogers' character in The Rapture. I've known people that lived in the dregs and underbelly of the world and in a fit of frustration and confusion turned to God.

Most of the time, it didn't work out. The emergence of faith in people's lives come typically in tumultuous times in their lives. When they would accept a log as their savior if it could get them out of the predicament they were in. It's only when things are good, when you don't need God, is when salvation takes hold.

In the end, religion is its own worst enemy.

'Cria Cuervos'

This film's title refers to a proverb that states that if you raise ravens, they'll peck out your eyes. Of course, Carlos Saura -- along with about every other person in the country of Spain -- was an opponent of the fascist Francisco Franco. And you can imagine all of the allegorical comments being made ever so slightly to pass the censors.

Ana dealing with the death and betrayal of her military father. The dellusions of her dead mother. The title of the film: Make your bed. You lie in it.

The little girl that played Ana -- Ana Torrent -- debuted in The Spirit of the Beehive, another cinematic shot at the Franco regime at the age of 7. Before she was 10 years old, she had already starred in two of the foremost foreign films of the decade, both scathing indictments of the fascist regime in Spain and, in both, she was named "Ana" in the films.

The lasting memory from the film is the inclusion of a Spanish pop song that is played twice and obsessed about about the girls in the film. It's titled "Porque te vas" by Jeanette, who's actually English. It was her biggest hit. The song itself plays a role in that the young girl -- unable to cope with understanding death -- equates someone leaving, or absence, with death.

'Don't Look Now'

An interesting film that kept me going throughout.

However, it's kind of known for the sex scene. Extremely graphic, it's one of the few instances of cunnilingus in mainstream film. In terms of sex scenes, it's a doozy. In fact, it is heavily rumored that Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie had actual sex in the scene. Frankly, not a bad trade off for either. You've got to make a living.

Sutherland's done some crappy films in his career. Still, he had a hell of a run in the 1970s including Don't Look Now, Klute and MASH.

Despite the length and breadth of his career, Sutherland's never been nominated for an Academy Award, and has only had two Golden Globe award nominations, both for TV miniseries.

'Chicago'

I can't imagine someone repulsing me as much as Renee Zellweger repulses me.

In fact, no one that I have ever known puts me off near as much as Zellweger does. My initial exposure to Zellweger came in the theatres while watching Jerry MacGuire. She had a girl-next-girl quality about her that was cute, but not overwhelming.

Over time, it's gotten worse. The face that looks like she's been stung in the face by a hive of bees. The fluctuating weight and her obvious desire to be skinny despite all of that.

Plus, she's a shit actress. She's awful. The very thought that she is nominated for awards makes me ill.

Mostly, I just wanted to throw a series of shoes at the TV screen whenever she's on it. Talking or otherwise. She's thoroughly obnoxious, so much so I'll avoid a film if she's in it.

Overall, Chicago is pretty bad. The only definable quality to the film is that it has an ending and a lot of the music is extremely similiar to that of Cabaret.

'Trouble In Paradise'

Trouble in Paradise was released in 1932, before the Motion Picture Picture Code was put into effect in 1935. At that time, the film -- seemingly harmless today -- was forever taken out of production until 1968 due to supposed sexual innuendo (which is probably lost on me considering I'm desynthesized to everything) when the modern MPAA rating system was installed.

This, consequently, is utterly incomprehensible today. Imagine a film just disappearing due to its content in the Internet age. It could never, ever happen.

The other interesting note from this film is that star Herbert Marshall lost his leg in World War I as a member of the British army and was outfitted afterward with a wooden prosthetic. Of course, he had it his entire career and was not able to perform certain physical acts and had a very deliberate walk to help hide his loss.

Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed Trouble in Paradise. It was quick, witty and quite humorous. It reminded me a lot of the feel and chemistry of The Thin Man starring Myrna Loy and William Powell.

'Throne Of Blood'

Macbeth. With samurai.

This film stars Toshirō Mifune, who I had no real clue just how prolific he was as a Japanese actor. So prolific that he's not even Japanese as he was born in China (to Japanese parents) and never stepped foot on Japanese soil until he was 21, which oddly would've been in 1941 when he was drafted into the Japanese army. He would later star in the film 1941.

He was also considered for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars and for Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. Alas, he had to settled for his other 182 roles until his death at 77. One of which includes Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai, one of my favorite film characters ever.

Anyway, in Throne of Blood, he portrays the evil Washizu, or Macbeth.

In his final scene, he is killed by an army of archers who fired hundreds of arrows at him as he darts on the second-story of a building. A fun movie fact: Those were real arrows being fired in order to capture Mifune's real fear. In getting shot with a real arrow.

Also, the castle in the film was real. The director thought of making a fake castle, but determined it too impractical. So they built bits of a real one. Practical!

'Balthazar'

Robert Bresson is a fantastic filmmaker because he made me feel more for the donkey than he did any of the human characters.

Not because I like donkeys or animals. But in the same way animators made me connect with Wall-E or the characters in Up.

A good filmmaker forces a connection between his or her characters regardless of their form -- whether a person, donkey or a rock.

To give some historical (or Biblical) context, the name "Balthazar" was given to one of the three magi, or wise men, who sought the Messiah, or Jesus, at his birth. And Bresson was known for his religious imagery throughout his films.

Figure that one out.

'Rock 'N Soul'

My favorite effect of this 1,001 project is the amount of soul that I've subjected myself to the last several years. They've by far been the most anticipated and loved albums that I've discovered.

Therefore, I've been dying to listen to Solomon Burke's magnum opus Rock 'N Soul. Burke was known as the "King of Rock 'N Soul" which was derived from a quote from Burke, who stated "without soul, there'd be no rock, and without rock, there'd be no soul."

This of course opens the door for a discussion about the etymology of music and how all of this crap is related and often a mere instrument or genre-changing studio trick away from being something else. For example, how is "Honky Tonk Woman" not a country single? If Toby Keith reocrded it exactly as the Rolling Stones did, it would be.

Add a fiddle or steel guitar to a song, it's country. Add synthesized keyboard or process drums and its pop. Add an overly distorted guitar and its rock.

The bottom line is that all modern music outside of world and classical is connected and only seemingly separated by our own imaginations.

This was especially true in 1965 when Burke released Rock 'N Soul, just several years after The Beatles were covering Little Richard and Elvis Presley was making black music incredible popular.

Rock 'N Soul did not disappoint personally. It's a beautiful album with a ton of rock characteristics and is surprisingly un-soullike. It's not the same as Sam Cooke or Otis Redding, yet it highlights Burke's beautiful vocal styling. Often, it seems more like Nat King Cole than modern (at the time) soul singers. Fantastic album.

'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not'

The Artic Monkeys had so much potential for me personally. They burst on the scene at a time that I was diving headfirst into all kinds of new music.

Plus, the Monkeys were a British band with a supposed tackle box full of hooks and angles that made everyone want to sing along and dance.

I did not sing along or dance. I listened and I was not hooked. I think it's boring and boorish. Just four dudes banging on their instruments with little preciseness and care to truly bring out the beauty in their version of Brit-rock. There's little attention to detail to their music and their lyrics, which make no sense and when they do, it's about dancing. Only dance bands should write songs about dancing.

The Artic Monkeys are even a dumb name for a band. Essentially, they got together and tried to follow a formula, which has largely worked on a crapload of people. If you adopt some garage rock ethos with distorted guitars, a lead singer is slightly good looking and aloof, and pen some lyrics that are ambiguous, rhyme and end at each stanza with some clever wordplay, then you can get famous.

However, there's value in this album in terms of the entire history of music. The Artic Monkeys and their first album, Whatever People Say I Am ..., was recorded as demos without being signed by a record label.

Then they made the smartest, industry-rattling move ever: They gave it away.

They gave it away at shows and concerts. They put it on MySpace and gave it all away. Fans shared it with friends. Those friends shared it with more friends. It wasn't word of mouth. It was word of .mp3.

That move made them more famous than actually putting out good music. Really brilliant, and lucky, when you think about it.

'Specials'

Ska.

Think of it what you will, but I dare you not to want to dance, wiggle, bounce, bob your head or want to take up the bass guitar.

I dare you not to sing along, to shout or to learn those harmonies.

Back in the mid- to late-1990s, I was one of the many individuals swooped up in the third wave of ska and all music associated with ska.

See, there was the first wave that took place in the dancehalls of Jamaica in the 1950s and 1960s. The second wave included the likes of Madness and The Specials in the 1970s and 1980s.

I was a proud supporter of the third wave in the 1990s. It was my one genre that I never investigated the earlier forms, which is a shame because like all things it was by far more pure and, in a lot of ways, better.

I hadn't truly listened to a significant amount of ska before picking up The Specials' first album in about 10 years, if not longer.

Immediately, the beat and rhythym caught me. I started to bob and weave. I was enveloped with the drums and bass. I quickly learned the simplistic lyrics and the harmonies. I felt like a 16 year old kid again.

Ska is a two-headed monster. As you listen, it doesn't sound complicated. It seems pluralist. It's the soundtrack for the blue-collar, the teenager and for those that just wanted to dance.

However, there's so much more. It's also the music for Joe Strummer and The Clash, who were not shy in stating their political views. They weren't alone. The Specials and anyone living in England in the 1970s or 1980s were thrust in a highly political and controversial period. The lyrics reflect that.

Musically, although seemingly innocent, tunes like The Specials are always highly complicated and in need of players willing to exist within themselves. It's precise music. It's realizing that your part is just a cog in the bigger machine. Putting the vocals, guitar, bass, drums, horns and everything together makes this wall of music and of harmony. It's really beautiful music.

'Halloween'

Halloween was a film that I thought I might have once seen as a child, but I couldn't honestly tell you enough about that memory to be 100 percent for sure.

Chances are, I had never seen it up until this year. I remember watching slasher and horror movies growing up, especially when I was really young. I remember our local channel 11 used to not be a network station in Dallas-Fort Worth. Basically, they had syndicated sitcoms and movies. They'd play the same movies over and over like Batteries Not Included, Short Circuit, The Three Amigos, Spaceballs and horror films like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.

I watched these films as a young child. Like six or seven years old. Nowadays, I wouldn't let my kid anywhere near movies like these.

Even today, you don't see horror films shown on TV. Probably because they're a lot more hardcore and bloody. And the language has been taken up a notch.

You probably wonder why horror films are still made. Question back to you: When's the last time you went to the theaters to see a horror film? Depending on how old you are, possible 20 years. Horror films are for the young and dumb. Nothing wrong with them, but you're not targetting the mid-aged intellectual with these films.

Anyway, they're still made because they are incredibly cheap to make: Typically very short, never starring anyone of substance, no special effects, no promotion.

Halloween alone cost $320,000 and it made $47 million on its initial release. This doesn't include VHS and DVD sales and all the ancillary cash that rolls in over time. With profits like that, why wouldn't you keep making them?

'Archangel'

Guy Maddin is a super weird Canadian. His influences are most notably the early German silent filmmakers and the Soviet propaganda makers of the 1920s and 1930s.

And it shows. His distinctive black and white style create a certain influence and style that a billion different artists would kill for.

It took me forever to watch this film and when I finally watched it I thought it was incredibly boring. You can't win them all.

'Mulholland Drive'

Mulholland Drive was originally drafted and pitched as a TV series and a pilot was ordered. David Lynch picked Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Herring (very hot) based on their photographs.

A pilot was made, but TV execs balked at the idea and never called for any real work. The actresses were considered too old and the show too meandering and without focus. I would suggest that that was the whole point. Lynch then expanded the story and turned it into a feature film. Where it was long, meandering and without focus.

But that's Lynch. You don't expect him to made some picture-perfect sitcom like "Leave It To Beaver."

Thankfully with the expansion, the lesbian scene between Watts and Herring was added. I will admit this, although Herring is very foxy, Watts is almost perfect. She is absolutely gorgeous beyond reproach.

Certainly there should be talk about what happened in the film. Or what didn't help. It's a calvalcade of twists and the influence of some alternate reality. Or there is no reality. David Lynch apparently gave a bunch clues in a certain DVD set. Frankly, if you have to give clues, I would argue that it's not worth tipping your hand. It's the mysterious that makes it classic.

'Roger & Me'

I first heard about Roger & Me in a college class. Again, up until three years ago, I didn't really give two whits about film nor did I have a lot of opinions about film, what was good or bad or what was important.

Also, up until several years ago, I had zero interest in documentaries. Therefore, I'd never seen Roger & Me and I doubt I'd even heard about it at that point.

Naturally, I saddled up and went to my local Hastings and rented a VHS copy and watched it. It blew my mind. It's the first documentary I'd ever seen and it just blew my mind about what was going on.

Since, I've seen countless documentaries and I understand that these filmmakers tend to exaggerate and alter our projected reality in order to prove a point or create a sense of drama.

And I understand that no one is better at this than Michael Moore. Now, he kind of drives me nuts and I kind of thing he does more damage in molding certain practices or policies in the United States, although his intentions are (probably) good.

Roger & Me chronicles the heyday of automaking in Flint, Mich. up until the 1980s when General Motors closed the plant in Flint resulting in a loss of 30,000 jobs and the aftermath of that move.

It's jaw-droppingly mesmerizing watching Moore meet and talk to the local yahoos in Flint and then trying to talk to Roger Smith, the CEO of General Motors about why he was closing the plants.

The problem, as I see it now, is that this was very personal for Moore. He'd grown up in Flint and his family worked in the automobile making plants. It was his family, friends and the town he loved and grew up in that was taking the brunt of a move in order to make cars and trucks more cheaply.

At times, Moore looks petty and just mean. I have no love lost for GM or Roger Smith or other big-shot CEOs. But it's the people that had nothing to do with GM closing a plant. Like Miss Michigan, who was just waiving and smiling at a dumb parade and Moore confronts her with this very heavy line of questioning regarding the closing of a plant.

What's Miss Michigan supposed to do? What can she do? Why talk down to her or make her out like she doesn't care?

Why didn't Moore corner senators and representatives at the national and state level? Why'd he play softball with Michigan's governor?

Why make the locals look like idiots? It's exactly what he does. After you watch the film, you realize that Flint needed the auto plant because those uneducated, directionless people had no other choice than to work mindlessly in a production line. They couldn't do anything else. They couldn't even make tacos. On a certain level, you don't even feel sorry for the people.

Back to the taco thing, in the film, Moore looks sarcastically at a story in the local paper about how Taco Bell was hiring former auto workers and training them to work in fast food. As it turns out, the auto workers couldn't handle it and were fired. In his own way, Moore looks down at the fast-food world as menial work. All the while, he's championing auto workers, who perform work that they were teaching robots to do. To my knowledge, no robot can make a bean burrito.

Had the floor fallen out of the faux-Mexican fast food world, and all Taco Buenos and Taco Bells closed in Flint or any other city, is Moore making a documentary about them?

Hell no. Moore's a snobbish ex-journalist, who got jaded and angry because GM had the audacity to close a plant in order to be more cost efficient in Mexico and didn't provide an explanation or apology. He's angry at the American government because they "allow" companies to move and devastate towns.

Everyone absolutely loves a free market as long as it benefits them. And, more importantly, doesn't hurt them. Jobs come and go in this country and people like their stocks to go up, up, up. GM has every right to put their plants in any country or state that will have them. They have every right to squeeze as much profit as they can within the laws and bylaws of the United States or the country they deal in.

Again, companies and business move, close, go bankrupt or fall into ruin all the time. Yet, Moore isn't championing them all because his family lives in Flint. Moore is no different than the politicians he roasts in his films.

'Goodfellas'

GoodFellas was the first film I'd seen that really opened my eyes to the artistry of filmmaking. To put it another way, it was the first film I saw that I realized that films could be really good.

I had to be 11 or 12. A couple of years after it was released and then aired on HBO or Cinemax. Back then, I didn't know Martin Scorsese from Martin Short or Robert DeNiro from a hole in the wall. A film either kept my interest or it didn't.

The characters and performances in GoodFellas captivated my little brain. The images were forever etched on my frontal lobe. When Karen is dumping all the cocaine when the FBI busts in the door and she goes to her dresser and pulls out the gun and stuffs it in her panties. The look on Ray Liotta's face when he laughs super hard at Joe Pesci's Tommy. When Spider tells Tommy to "fuck off" and you sit there waiting for the volcano to erupt.

Over time (I probably haven't seen GoodFellas in 10 or so years) my perspective of the film's changed quite a bit. As a youngster, I enjoyed the early, good years of Henry Hill and, later, Karen Hill. I loved the 1950s and 1960s when Hill was dapper, Jimmy Conway still looked young and vibrant and Karen had a bit of chic to her.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Henry got strung out on drugs, the house got tacky, Karen looked stressed and ragged and Jimmy looked too old. In that scene when Henry is busted by the feds and he's rushing around with the guns, the drugs and cooking dinner for his brother, it turned me off. Now it's my favorite part. Liotta looks like he'd been on a 15-day coke bender. Karen's had better days. The editing and narration give it a different feel. As if a cokehead was telling us about his day.

What I don't get nowadays is that Henry Hill went into witness protection, and, yet, he's out and about. You can find this guy. Why aren't gangsters trying to kill him? Is it because the interested parties are all dead? Do they no longer care? Is the mob so gutted over time and atrophy that it doesn't matter? If you wanted to kill Henry Hill, there's plenty of opportunities to do it.

'Roman Holiday' & 'Breakfast At Tiffanys'

Audrey Hepburn won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Ann in Roman Holiday. Pretty remarkable considering it was her first starring role in a major motion picture. Cary Grant turned down Gregory Peck's role, thinking he was too old. Then he co-starred with her in Charade. It's amazing what an Oscar will do.

I'm pretty lukewarm on Hepburn myself. She comes off so cold and, often, disinterested. I know a lot of people like her and I can kind of imagine why and it's probably that she seemed aloof and too cool for school. The exact reason I could probably live without her.

Rewatching Breakfast at Tiffanys, I can't help feel a bit disappointed considering I've read the novella since and there's so much missing and changed, most importantly the over Hollywoodization of the story: The perfect ending and all the love mumbo jumbo.

Also, "Moon River" absolutely kills this movie. It's the worst fucking song and they jam it down our throats at every turn as if it was the greatest song ever. Like we should fall in love with it and they want us to fall in love with Hepburn's Holly Golightly, who is generally unloveable.

Hepburn would never win another Academy Award, although these films were just the start of her distinguished career. These two films probably capture her at her most distinct.

'Real Life'

See, the idea of making real life into art and/or entertainment was not an idea created by reality TV producers.

Actually Albert Brooks' film was a spoof onf the TV show, An American Family, the first reality TV. I've never heard of the show, but I find myself fascinated and Netflixing all I can about it.

The show simple filmed a "typical" American family, the Louds of Santa Barbara, Calif. during 1971. The 12-episode series was released on PBS in 1972.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), the Louds seperate and divorce during the filming. It also stars their eldest son, Lance, who was one of the first if not the first openly gay American TV character. Lance would die at the age of 50 due to liver failure -- a combo of hepatitus C and HIV. He also smoked crystal meth for 20 years. Full throttle.

There were several follow-up documentaries made since and HBO is apparently making a fictionalized series about the making of the show. I'm sure there's tons of fucked up background behind all of this.

My favorite part of Real Life is when Brooks is ranting to the camera man wearing the camera headpiece and he reasons to himself that the best move is to burn the family's house down.

'Song Of Solomon'

It took Toni Morrison about 200 pages, but she wound up writing a pretty compelling and fantastically fascinating novel about the identity of the black male in America.

Granted, I could not have done it in one million pages. Capture the essence of the wayfaring African American male, that is. It would have taken another million to write something as compelling.

The story twists and turns for more than the first half identifying this laundry list of otherworldly, Biblical characters, who work and interact like the gods and goddesses of Olympus. Mother Gaea (Pilate) and her lack of a belly button. Vengeful Zeus (Macon Dead). The mighty Hera (Hagar). Mars, the war god (Guitar). The wise Athena (Corinthians) and the hunter goddess Artemis (Lena).

Here, we get stories and facts in hearsay and this distorted gospel. Everything seems so unreal. Not because it's untrue, but because it's all so incomplete. It's as if this family's history book had had pages ripped from the binding.

Then there's Milkman. Part Hephaestus and part Hermes. Lost and lacking an identity. He lacks a connection with his family and grows dreadfully apart from his good friend, Guitar, who turns angry and misguided by hate. Milkman just wants to get away and find his own face and place in America.

As he travels to the south, the home of his ancestors, he further sticks out of place as he searches for the lost gold allegedly taken and hidden by his aunt, Pilate. This is when the story gets good. Here is when the pages are returned to their binding. Where we learn the history and lessons of these mysterious characters. It's also where Milkman learns how he fits with these misfits of a family. Like Odysseus, his misadventures teach him the value of family and home. All it took was a visit to ol' Circe and violent beginnings of his forefathers.