'Protection' & 'Blue Lines'

My perception of Massive Attack was extremely off.

I found them -- at least on these two albums -- neither "massive" nor catgorized as an "attack." More like a "Marginal Affront."

I thought Massive Attack was aggressive and driving: A lot of songs assaulting the ear drums and pushing the limits of the human mind in accepting sonic ice cream headaches.

Instead it's a bunch of mellow electronica. Dance music for Generation X to drive their kids to soccer practice.

I can't imagine anyone listening to this. Moreso, if anyone did listen to it, I don't know where they'd do it. Possibly while doing heroin.

'Trafalgar' & 'Odessa'

I was very excited at one point to learn that the Bee Gees were not just the disco vocal group with the dead brother Andy and the relatively ugly looking twin brothers.

At one point, in the beginning, they were a band, with drummers and stuff. They wrote and released their own songs and were mild hits.

Somewhere beyond the falsetto vocals and danceable beats was a band of brothers that just wanted to be The Beatles.

With the highest and most interested of expectations, I was extremely disappointed to listen to these albums and be assaulted by a series of caterwauling. Geez Louise.

I though Barry Gibb's falsetto was obnoxious on those disco tunes, but the screeching that takes place in their early years is abhorent. It's cancer to the ears. It's simply one of the worst things ever.

I don't care if they did write "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"

'Stripped' & 'Back To Basics'

I have a friend is more than likely to extol the virtues of South Korean punk if you talk music. He's also sort of a dork when it comes to music.

He loves him some pop music. Bad pop music. Pop music is popular. Thus "pop" music. It is full of basic lyricism and insanely catchy hooks. Songs without either are not popular, typically.

I was shocked one day when my friend -- Mr. Punk Rock -- said that Christina Aguilera's albums were not as bad as you might think and that they have value.

"Pshaw," I retorted.

And I was right. I'm not right often (just ask my wife!) (please!), but I'm right here. Christina Aguilera sucks. Her songs suck. The albums suck.

Let me tell you something about good-looking singers: They are a dime a dozen. They are every where. Are they all necessarily as polished as Aguilera or do they sing as high? No. But what difference does it make whether she can hit a high "C" and someone else can hit an "A"?

Go into any church on a Sunday morning. Watch "American Idol" some time. Those kids that don't win are all good singers and a lot of them are good looking. Slap some double Ds on them, inject some botox, dye the hair and run those vocals through enough processing to stun a mastodon and you have Christina Aguilera.

'Metallica' & 'Master Of Puppets'

These two albums, I think, show the growth of a band and the mainstreaming of heavy metal.

Master of Puppets is raw and unforgiving. It's Metallica at its most angry, the most punk and the most hardcore. They punch you in the face only to get you on the ground and put their foot on your throat. It would have been a treat to be 17 and a Metallica fan.

As for the self-titled album, it launched this little metal band in the outermost stratosphere. It spanned from the metalheads to the preppy kids to the guitar nerds to the band geeks. It did more than rock. It was a production. Their first with Bob Rock -- Mr. Mega Rock Album Producer -- and it shows. It's slick and pretty. It's the opposite of Master of Puppets in some ways and yet completely better in quite a number of others.

Metallica is chockful of stuff. I'd forgotten just how jam packed it really is: "The Unforgiven," "Wherever I May Roam," "Enter Sandman," "Don't Tread On Me," "Nothing Else Matters" and "Sad But True." Insane songs all of them. It's thick and meaty. The manic punk urgency that is missing instead is exchanged for this heavy, pounding sounds of drum, bass and guitar.

The Metallica of Master of Puppets would never have foreseen the Metallica of Metallica. I don't know if the fans from 1986 could have imagined them in 1993 or the band that they would become: Spoiled, slick-haired old men still playing their electric guitars and making faux-scowling faces in the cameras. Suing kids illegally downloading their music.

The 1986 Metallica would've punched the 2011 Metallica.

'L.A. Woman'

L.A. Woman was the swan song for one of the worst, most overhyped and underwhelming bands in modern pop culture, The Doors.

The album itself actually isn't that bad. For The Doors it's pretty good. It's a bare bones project without a lot of production or over thinking things. Not all the lyrics are Jim Morrison's incoherent dribble.

The album was recorded between December 1970-January 1971. The album would be released in April 1971. In December 1970, The Doors began a tour in the south starting in Dallas. The next night was in New Orleans and that's when Morrison ahd his infamous freak out. He smashed the stage with a microphone stand and sat down refusing to perform.

The rest of the band agree to stop touring. Eight months later, Morrison would wind up dead in Paris. At least they went out not being total miserable assholes. Except for them actually all being assholes.

'American Pie'

I think the song, "American Pie" is just the greatest song ever. Or one of the greatest. It's really good no matter how you slice it.

I remember my young teenage years when I first heard it and I remember trying to figure out the lyrics, obviously some kind of ode to "The Day the Music Died" when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and everyone not Waylon Jennings died in that airplane crash.

However, it's a cryptic song. I asked my mother about it and she thought it was religious. Don McLean references "the devil's only friend," "Satan," "the father, son and Holy Ghost," "God," "Bible" and "soul."

She said that Satan was the choir leader (for lack of a better word) before he was cast down from heaven for getting all high and mighty. That would be the "day the music died."

It's flimsy. I tend to agree with the general consensus that it refers to McLean's discovery of the crash, the 1960s and the turmoil (assassinations, whatnot) that took place that killed the "innocence" (getting girls pregnant in the back of cars, smoking weed) of the era.

Some brilliant lyrics in here. Some of my favorites:

"Now for 10 years we’ve been on our own/And moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone/But that’s not how it used to be."

"Do you believe in rock ’n roll/Can music save your mortal soul/And can you teach me how to dance real slow?"

"Well, I know that you’re in love with him/`Cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym."

Later, Madonna would cover the song and Grand Rapids, Mich. would make a music video using the song as a way to promote their city.

As to what McLean said the song meant to him: " "It means I never have to work again."

Funny.

'Blood, Sweat And Tears'

Blood, Sweat and Tears are known for their horn-driven R&B blues rock and the fact that they've had about 130 different players in the band.

Horn sections will do that to you, but Chicago hasn't had the line-ups that BS&T has had over hte years. It also doesn't help being around for 40 years and keeping the band all together.

Eventually, you have to begin to wonder whether or not being in BS&T really means anything anymore. It's like attempting to fall in love with the town prostitute. Can you really fall for someone that everyone's had a go at?

As far as the music, I can take it or leave it. That lead singer's voice is obnoxiously gravelly. The tunes are mundane at best. At worst, they're forgettable. I don't know what is actually worse.

Another fun note about this album is that it won a Grammy over The Beatles' Abbey Road, which is one of the singular worse things ever.

'Mildred Pierce'

Mildred Pierce is a sweet mother of two, who finds herself lacking money after her husband leaves her and the kids.

With a little hard work and elbow grease, she breaks into the restaurant business is a flying success. There she meets the shadiest of all millionaire financiers, a partner and real estate agent who doesn't know the meaning of "no means no" and begins to lose control of her eldest daughter (the youngest dies), Veda.

Veda because carousing, drinking, smoking and being relatively disinterested in her mother. One minute she is sweet as sugar and the next there is all kinds of bile emitting from her pie hole. She quickly fell out of favor in this film-watcher's opinion.

Director Michael Curtiz apparently did not want to work with Joan Crawford, who had a reputation for being difficult. That wasn't the case. You could even tell how hard she was working on this film.

Curtiz, a guy that I'd never heard of, had a brilliant career. His career began in his mid-20s during the silent era. His titles included The Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels With Dirty Faces, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, White Christmas and King Creole.

How have I never heard of this guy?

'To Have And To Have Not'

An Ernest Hemingway novel adapted to the screen by William Faulkner. It's only the second time that two Nobel Prize winners were associated with the same film (interestingly, a lot of the dialogue was ad libbed by the cast).

A broke Faulkner was invited to Hollywood in the 1940s by director Howard Hawks (who directed To Have and to Have Not). It paid well and Faulkner needed the cash, so he went.

According to one story, Hawks took Faulkner and Clark Gable hunter. The actor and writer didn't know each other and conversation turned to writers. Gable asked Faulkner who his favorite writers were. He listed off some writers including himself.

Gable apparently responded, "Oh, do you write, Mr. Faulkner?" Faulkner replied, "Yes. And what do you do, Mr. Gable?"

Another story -- possibly apocryphal -- had Faulkner struggling with writer's block at the studio. Faulkner told Hawks he'd like to write at home.

Days passed with no communication, Hawks calls Faulkner's hotel and the writer is gone, left for Mississippi. He literally wanted to go home.

This film is Lauren Bacall's screen debut. She was 19 years old. This is also when she fell in love with her future husband, Humphrey Bogart. He was 45 and 12 years away from dying due to throat cancer.

Bogie had been married three other times. Bacall would marry once more, to Jason Robards.

'Point Blank'

I double-dog dare you to Google "Point Blank Movie Poster." Some brilliantly done posters. I decided to roll with two. I couldn't make up my mind.

Another example of Lee Marvin's genius. Stoic and communicates by leaving just about everything unsaid.

Point Blank is directed by John Boorman, a Brit who was first given the reins to Catch Us If You Can, campy film starring the pop-rock group The Dave Clark Five, as a sort of response to A Hard Day's Night.

His next film, naturally, is Point Blank, a large-budget film starring the noted Marvin, who apparently allowed Boorman to pretty much do what he wanted (they'd work again together in Hell in the Pacific a few years later).

Boorman's had a pretty so-so directorial career. He garnered three Oscar nominations from Deliverence and wound up directing post-Bond Sean Connery in the otherwordly awful Zardoz. Better to be infamous than unknown, I guess.

'W.R.: Mysteries Of The Organism'

An extremely odd, mind-bending Yugoslavian film that is a huge allegory for communism and the role of sex behind the Iron Curtain.

The film chronicles the theory of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. He felt the mental, physical or emotional problems people had stemmed from the back-up of sexual release.

He began eventually using touch during sessions with patients in their underwear as they simulated sex on their own in addition to screaming and convulsing. This untapped sexual energy he called "orgone." He actually began building and selling "orgone accumulators," which looked like incubators that people sat in side and, I guess, masturbated. All the orgones were collected and you felt better. Or whatever.

To call Reich bizarre is an understatement. To call this film bizarre is also an understatement.

'Hotel Terminus: The Life And Times Of Klaus Barbie'

A fascinating four-hour documentary about Klaus Barbie, the SS captain in Nazi Germany, better known as the Butcher of Lyon due to his tactics in torture and death in Vichy France.

He was known to torture men, women and children using insanely sadistic methods including sexual abuse with a dog. I don't know how that worked.

After the war, he fled to South America where he lived with little disruption despite most people knowing who he was and where he was until he was arrested 40 years after the fact and sentenced to life in prison, what little life he has left.

He spent eight years in prison for an untold amount of murders and atrocities.

The interesting parts of the film are the actual filmmaker, Marcel Ophüls. His father was the famed director Max that has a number of films on the 1,001 list himself. Max and his family fled Germany (they were Jews) and went to France and then were forced to the United States.

His son is an angry man. Marcel also directed The Sorrow and the Pity, a long documentary about the French resistance during the Nazi regime.

He takes his frustrations out on his interview subjects. He talks to former, unrepentant Nazis, French resistance, CIA operatives and people of France that survived Barbie's barbarism.

Marcel is quick to take Nazis to task for their actions and opinions about what was going on. Filmed are moments of frustration as interviewees attempt to escape the glare of the camera.

In another instance, a Holocaust survivor visits the Lyon home where she and her family were arrested. A grey-haired old lady sticks her head out of the window. She is a former neighbor of the girl and they proceed to ask her if she remembers the day of the arrest.

The survivor later notes that the old woman did nothing to hide her or her family nor did she do anything to stop her family from being arrest and eventually sent to a concentration camp.

Ophüls' documentaries are not great stories, in a sense. At least they are not presented in a very good narrative. They jump from anecdote to anecdote. Presented in chronological order, it's hodgepodge and confusing at times.

Still, right when the film starts to drag, another character pops out of the story and drags you right back in.

The most memorable is Jacques Vergès, Barbie's attorney once he was caught and brought to trial.

Vergès is a guy I'd never heard of, yet there's no one more notorious. He's a Vietnamese-French defense lawyer and a rabid anticolonialist communist. He's represented Algerian militant Djamila Bouhired, who he married, Carlos the Jackal (he's featured in the miniseries Carlos), a member of the Khmer Rouge and Barbie.

Vergès, ironically, went to England as a youth to join the French resistance against the Nazis. Also as a youngster, he met and befriended Pol Pot. Of course, he saw French colonialism in Algeria as being the same thing as the Nazis in France. Why he didn't see what Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge was doing in Cambodia as being the same of what the Nazis did in Europe is a mystery.

Also a mystery is what Vergès did between 1970-78. He left his wife and family. Disappeared. Nobody knows where he was at. Some say he was in Cambodia or in and around Europe and the Middle East among the Palestinian liberation movement groups.

Reportedly, he offered to Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein. Again, how he doesn't connect the dots between one genocide and another is a mystery. However he can stick it to the west is all that matters.

He's a real asshole.

'Fires Were Started'

Fires Were Started was released in 1943 under the title I Was a Fireman.

It is a documentary featuring reconstructions of what firefighters faced in England during the Nazi bombing during World War II. Yes, they reconstructed actual events.

Any argument that this isn't a "documentary" because it is essentially fake has some validity. Of course, we must first define "documentary." Is what Ken Burns does a documentary? Does he recreate the Civil War, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge or the history of baseball?

He uses archive footage, photos and interviews to tell his story not unlike Humphrey Jennings getting real firefighters to recreate real bombing scenarios.

Jennings, incidentally, was one of the original purveyors of the Mass Observation movement in England.

It was a social research organization created before the war. It basically chronicled everyday people's everyday lives. People kept diaries or they filled out questionnaires.

Other investigators were paid to anonymously account for people's behaviors at work, at parties, at religious and sporting events.

Mass Observation stemmed from King Edward VIII's abdication from the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson. The researchers -- including Jennings -- sought to capture the mood of the country as one king left under dubious circumstances and another king (the dude behind The King's Speech), George VI, took control. The mood of the country was captured by collecting anecdotes, man-on-the-street reaction and overhead commentary.

Jennings died at age 43 after falling off a Greek cliff. So it goes.

'The Phantom Carriage'

Victor Sjöström directed and starred in The Phantom Carriage. He directed 50-60 films a majority of which were released during the infant years of cinema and was instrumental in making the country a cornerstone for filmdom.

He was taken by his family at an early age to Brooklyn and moved back at age seven when his mother died. A decade later, he'd join a touring theater group. How different would his life have been had he stayed in the United States? He probably would have been poor. Would he have the time and money to act? Is going to Sweden, where his native tongue is spoken, the lynchpin in him making it in acting?

Sjöström undertook adapting a number of novels from Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf. In fact, there was an agreement between Lagerlöf and a production company to adapt a novel per year. That was a pretty sweet agreement, although at the time I don't know, financially, how that might have helped the writer.

The Phantom Carriage (and Sjöström) was a huge influence on the greatest Swedish director of all time, Ingmar Bergman. Clearly, the concept of visualizing death was a big influence as Bergman would do the same for Seventh Seal. He would also caste Sjöström as the grandfatherly professor in The Wild Strawberries.

'The Young Girls Of Rochefort'

Talk about whimsical. This takes the cake.

A pair of super cute, supremely talented sisters in Rochefort search for love and a way out of the provincial life in their seaside town. Bill and Etienne are the charming guys traveling with the fair that's in town.

The sisters' mother owns a little, quiant bar near the town square. There's the lovelorn man that owns the music store. There's the American song and dance man who falls in love with one of the sisters.

It's as vibrant, colorful and fun as the music. It's an insanely talented cast. Of course, the superb Gene Kelly plays the American. Catherine Deneuve plays one of the sisters. She'd later go to star in Repulsion, Belle Du Jour and The Last Metro. Her sister, Françoise Dorléac, portrays Deneuve's on-screen sister. Dorléac would die the real of this film's release in a car accident. She was 25.

Grover Dale played Snowboy in the original cast of The West Side Story. He also had an affair with Anthony Perkins. George Chakiris also appeared in The West Side Story as Riff in the stage and as Bernardo on the big screen.

It might not be the best film ever. However, it is probably by far one of the prettiest films on this list. It is candy for the eyes.

'Buena Vista Social Club'

The Buena Vista Social Club was an actual club in Havana, Cuba. It was a very popular place for Cuban musicians to come and jam during the 1940s and 1950s.

After the 1959 revolution, Cuban president and devout Christian Manuel Urrutia Lleó started to close down casinos, clubs and anything else that supported the supposed hedonistic lifestyle plaguing the little island country. The only real Cuban music left with support was that which backed up the new communist government.

By happenstance, not quite 40 years later, guitarist Ry Cooder went to Cuban to record with some African musicians. Due to visa issues, they didn't show so he recorded with some of the old Cuban musicians.

They recorded the album and it became Buena Vista Social Club, the album. Which would later become the film. It would all spawn a re-interest in Latin music.

'Tanto Tempo'

Tanto Tempo made Bebel Gilberto the biggest selling Brazilian artist since the 1960s. Chances are, she beat out her dad, João Gilberto.

It is technically electronic bossa nova, which I assume refers to the type of instrumentation used on the album, although it sounds pretty organic to me. Or as organic as you can get in modern music.

I've really taken a big interest in Latin music. Honestly, it stems from an article I read about the prog-rock band Mars Volta when they released the album Frances the Mute, which featured a number of notable Latin artists.

Since, I've become a slave to the beat.

'It's A Shame About Ray'

I wish there was a way to correlate guitar sales with what type of guitar rock music was popular at the time.

My point: It's my theory that easily attainable rock music spurs guitar sales. Young men (and women) hear the music, find that it's incredibly simple to pull off and thus a bunch of 14-year-old kids want guitars for Christmas.

In the 1990s, nothing got my mojo rishing like lush, crisp guitar power pop. I'm talking the Lemonheads, Matthew Sweet, Soul Asylum, Gin Blossoms, Teenage Fanclub, The Smithereens, The Posies, Redd Kross, Weezer and Sloan. Uhhhh. I lived and breathed on that stuff. Every album purchased when I could procure the cash.

These artists are who I cut my teeth on and between them and the The Beatles and the 1960s rock bands, I was dying for a guitar. I got one in the eighth grade and I found myself listening to these CDs over and over trying to figure them out. Or copying off buddies. Eventually, the Internet happened and finding tablature online was the easiest thing in the world.

My favorite Evan Dando, lead singer/turd of the Lemonheads, story is when the band first started with he and Ben Deily. Dando had left the band, but they had a good single out and a European tour to undertake. Dando re-joined the group. However, during the tour, Dando would apparently play the guitar riff from Guns 'n' Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine." And Deily left the band.

'Arular'

"Arular" is the code name for Mathangi "M.I.A." Arulpragasam's father, Arul Pragasam, who was a member of the Sri Lankan Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The Tamil were a minority ethnic group in Sri Lankan, mostly Hindu and Christian, which have fought the majority Sinhalese (mostly Buddhist) for 40 years. Due to restrictions on education and employment, the Tamil formed militant groups in order to establish their own sovereign country on the north side of Sri Lanka.

The fighting culminated during Black July, after 13 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed by Tamil militants during a raid. It resulted in a riot and systematic murder of between 400-3,000 Tamils and countless property being destroyed. The Tamil Tigers have fought ever since.

M.I.A. named the album "Arular" as a way of getting her father to contact her. It's unclear why her and her father were not talking outside of him fighting as a rebel in a civil war, although it seems that Arul has been high profile and not locked down in a jungle somewhere.

Good news is that he did contact his daughter. Yah.

'Justified'

It's tough to hate Justin Timberlake.

Has anyone turned into such a highly-regarded entertainer and such a cool guy that started out doing Mickey Mouse Club and making his name in a boy band?

These days, no matter what he does, it's golden. He wants to be an actor, he can hold his own. He wants to be funny and going on Saturday Night Live as Barry Gibb, the can do it with aplomb. He wants to record and release a Grammy-winning R&B record? Sure, why not?

Timberlake was a co-conspirator in the "Nipplegate" incident with Janet Jackson during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 (he was 24 at the time, FYI). Jackson took all the heat. Timberlake skated.

It's easy to think that the woman is always blamed, but I think there were bigger things going on. Timberlake continued to put himself out there. I don't know of one thing Janet Jackson's done since.

Timberlake is not only really talented, but he plays it all right in the media. He sleeps around with a bunch of hot women? OK. That's cool because he's cool. When he's cracking jokes on SNL, he's Everyman (despite being better at most thing than all of us). He's not unlike us with our buddies acting retarded and cracking our own jokes.

He screws up as much as any celebrity really (if Kim Kardashian slept with men like Timberlake sleeps with women -- and she does -- she'd be run through the coals -- and she is), but no one plays to the camera like Timberlake.

We are all smitten.

'Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd'

A few weeks ago, I lauded the debut album of Snoop Doggy Dogg as being an explosive entrance into popular music.

Maybe Snoop wasn't alone. Lynryd Skynyrd's first release was probably as good if not better than most debuts, including Snoop.

It's basically a greatest hits record. "I Ain't the One," "Gimme Three Steps," "Simple Man," "Tuesday's Gone" and "Free Bird. Gigantic, bulging and face-melting guitar rock anthems that are played a trillion times on classic rock radio.

Leon Wilkeson, bassist, left the band after laying down two tracks. The band brought in Ed King from the band Strawberry Alarm Clock to complete the album. Wilkeson returned to the band just in time to shoot the album cover and go on tour.

Wilkeson first joined Ronnie Van Zant's first band while in high school. Unfortunately, Wilkeson, in a very un-rock 'n' roll way, had to back out due to poor grades. Upon recording this album, Wilkeson quite because he felt he was too young and got cold feet about recording and touring. He left to stock shelves for an ice cream company.

Wilkeson was in the famed airplane crash that killed Van Zant and others. He severly broke his arm to the point that it was almost amputated. From then one, he played bass in a very upright position because he couldn't bend his arm. Maybe he should've stayed stocking ice cream.

He died at age 49 due to liver and lung disease. At 49, his body said "fuck it."

'Apocalypse Now'

The journey over water. A very popular theme in literature and film.

I guess maybe it started with Homer's The Odyssey. Apocalypse Now is based on Joe Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim and Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God. Herzog also directed the film Fitzcarraldo, a film about an eccentric charged with getting a river boat over a mountain in the Amazonian jungle.

There is something dark and mysterious behind the civilized party traveling down the wild and untamed river where they are unwelcome guests. The river, the jungle, the natives make their presence known.

The documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, is about the turmoil that surrounded the actual making of the film from Marlon Brando being severely overweight (and nutty), 39-year-old Martin Sheen having a heart attack and a vicious storm that destroyed a lot of the set.

This is one of the best war movies ever made and certainly one of, if not the best war about Vietnam ever made. Whereas the character in Conrad's novella goes crazy in the Congolese jungle, Coppola's Kurtz goes crazy amidst a war that many thought was the dumbest thing ever. Kurtz does have a "heart of darkness" and there's something that snapped there, something in his brain that doesn't see life the same way that everyone else does.

It's why the Americans wanted him dead. It was like Kurtz was quarantining himself, knowing he was sick and afraid that his god-like qualities and ideas would be too infectious. As Willard leaves and the villagers in Kurtz' compound drop their weapons and allow him to go, it's as if the voodoo doll was destroyed and they were allowed rational, independent thought.

In war, something I've never experienced, it's not like waking up in the morning, getting dressed and going to work. There are daily conundrums of life and death, of seeing your buddy or the stranger next to you get their insides shot out and knowing that any moment could be your time to bite it.

It'd send the straightest man over the edge.

'The Lion King'

I remember as a young teenager my friend's cousins watching The Lion King while we played Mortal Kombat. I remember like I'm there right now.

The Lion King was a gigantic triumph for Disney Animation. I strongly suggest watching Waking Sleeping Beauty, which chronicles the Animation division at Disney during the lean years of the late-1970s and the early-1980s up until The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and, then, The Lion King.

It was triumphant in ways that Disney animated films are not triumphant. It featured a who's who of voice actors (Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons) and a soundtrack that blew the doors of record sales (Elton John's songs). Then the film: A victory in animation and a victory in entertaining young children. It made $771 million, worldwide.

Frankly, it bores me stiff. If you don't know, it's Hamlet with African wild animals. I think the songs are overdramatic and uninteresting, Simba seems like a trouble maker, there's a fart joke and unlike most other Disney animated films, I don't come away really caring for those characters they're drawing.

For what it's worth, The Lion King is being re-released in theaters really soon and I will more than likely go see it. Go figure.

'3-Iron'

I like this film mostly for the first 30 minutes. It's about a young man, Tae-suk, who breaks into people's houses and lives in them.

He is not stealing. It's like he's a ghost, taking care of the house, mending appliances, doing the laundry and leaving things better than he found them.

He meets a girl in an unhealthy relationship and falls in love. The woman's husband is a very powerful, rich man, who has Tae-suk arrested.

At this point in the film, Tae-suk undertakes this role as an actual ghost: He torments the jail guards by defeating space and he gets out and becomes this shadow in the home of his loved one.

It's an interesting film about the idea of space and physicality. Where we are and where we are not. It reminds me of Gene Kelly dancing, how he can stand on a table or bar and do the things he does. Although space is limited, it doesn't seem like space is limited. It's like he could dance on air. Same with Tae-suk. He's like the wind. There but not.

'Silver Lode'

The plot: Dan Ballard, a well-liked member of a western town, is marrying his sweetheart Rose Evans when the ceremony is interrupted by Marshal Fred McCarty putting Ballard under arrest for supposedly killing his brother.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's eerily reminiscent of the plot of High Noon (see below). It also had the same allegorical themes of criticizing Joseph McCarthy's (McCarty ... McCarthy) witch hunt for "communist" Hollywood folks.

Silver Lode would be screenwriter Karen DeWolf's last movie. She was blacklisted.

'High Noon'

Old westerns have the best movie posters. Always colorful and there were typically a lot of different designs. One always seemed to have some artistic value and the other were just selling the film.

I especially like this one (above).

The story of High Noon is simple: The marshal of a western hamlet is about to quit his job after getting married when a criminal, who the marshal jailed, comes back into town where his gang is already set. There is going to be a gunfight at "high noon," to settle things.

Gary Cooper's Kane feels an obligation to see the thing through. His wife, Grace Kelly, is a Quaker and sees no reason to look back now.

He stays, she stays, kills a guy and the good guys win. However, there is so much more to this film.

It is considered an allegory for individuals not standing up to the House Un-American Activities Committee, which were baiting suspected communists in Hollywood. The film itself was called "un-American" by a number of sources, including John Wayne, who later apparently complained about not getting the role.

The screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted by the committee after the film was released. Foreman was almost tossed out of the production of the film until several people, including Cooper intervened and kept him on. Cooper also was instrumental in getting Lloyd Bridges a role, despite suspicion of his dealings with the communist party.

The film was a favorite of many presidents, mostly Bill Clinton and Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was also a marquee statement film for workers in Poland, who, after the film was released, plastered Cooper's likeness on posters carrying a ballot. All of this in the 1980s, 30 years after the film was released.

The film also runs in real time. It is set between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. That's 100 minutes and the film is 84 minutes long. However, there are a constant flow of clocks and watches throughout the film that shows the real time.

'The Untouchables' & 'Scarface'

One weekend, two Brian De Palma films.

I came out of this feeling ... empty.

I don't know how to comment on a film or films that I don't necessarily hate or anything, but there's something about them that leaves me feeling like they could have been more.

First, The Untouchables: the soundtrack is absolutely awful and single handedly kills the film for me.

Otherwise, isn't it a bunch of second- and third-tier actors (outside of Bobby DeNiro, whose presence is limited) half-assing a gangster period piece where we know the good guy is going to win.

The inherent problem with The Untouchables is that the story is moot. Prohibition in the United States lasted 14 years ending in its repeal in 1933. When did Eliot Ness' investigation start? 1929. Capone wasn't sent to prison until 1932, a year before Prohibition was repealed.

I'm supposed to invest in a story about the good guy standing up for what is right, law and order and all that jazz, meanwhile, the biggest way to combat Capone would have been to repeal Prohibition earlier and going after bootleggers didn't really matter in the first place.

Seems like a whole lot of work to get nothing done.

Also, it feels like De Palma tried to make Ness and Capone these two chess players, going mano y mano in this battle for the city of Chicago. Good versus evil. Unfortunately, he fails to complete this connection and there's an awkward last-ditch effort in the film when Ness fights in the courtroom to confront an irate Capone.

"Never stop, never stop fighting till the fight is done," Ness says. Capone, with his brow furrowed, looking confused doesn't understand. Maybe its too loud in the courtroom. Maybe he doesn't understand why some no-name fed is saying something with such conviction that Capone, himself, is supposed to understand.

As for Scarface, its my third time to watch it and I always come out of it feeling empty. I look at it like this: If someone from Somalia that has never seen Scarface and he or she asked me what it was about with no time limit, here's what I would say.

It's about a Cuban defector that becomes a drug kingpin and is shot.

It's a two-and-a-half hour film and I don't think three-quarters of it is important enough to really include in a potentially limitless summary. The sister and mother are not very important. The best friend is not very important. Tony's power play against Frank comes and goes. It's like there was no story arc, for lack of a better explanation.

There's two hours and 15 minutes of build up to Tony getting shot to death. That's not a movie, it's a short story.

'American Psycho'

I'm not psychotic, but I find the macabre and sickening nature of Patrick Bateman and his need to kill and torture oddly ... mesmerizing.

I don't know how to put this without sounding like a total psychopath.

I guess I'm fascinated with the limits of people. For Bateman, the limits were death. Even then, the darkness that took over his soul spread still. It was never enough to kill the girl. He had to torture and bring on as much pain and misery as humanly possible.

The only redeeming aspect of Bret Easton Ellis' book about the pitfalls of consumerism is the opening he leaves open where we can rationalize all of the murderers being fake, being part of Bateman's deeper conciousness and none of it ever happened.

Frankly, it's the best way to finish this book and feel good about it. There's some fucked up shit in this book. No denying. At the same time, I couldn't quit reading. Maybe Ellis is saying something about me, the consumer. Bastard.

'The Quiet American'

The United States first deployed combat troops in 1965 to Vietnam after years of escalation that eventually led to a thoughtless and unpopular war that lasted for another 10 years.

Graham Greene saw it coming in 1955. That's when The Quiet American was published.

The book is about a savvy British journalist, Fowler, who is covering the French war in Vietnam and the idealistic young Pyle, whose position in Vietnam is not quite confirmed. The pair jostle for the love of the young Vietnamese dancer Phuong, who becomes an allegory for the country itself.

It turns out that the "quiet American" Pyle is sneaking weapons into south Vietnam to help arm the French and Vietnamese in battling the communists.

Greene himself was covering the war from 1951-54 and had an actual conversation with an American aid worker that talked about "the third force" that might provide a solution in countires like Vietnam.

The novel was hated in the United States upon its publication. Partly because it paints Americans as flagrant murderers; also, it shows Pyle as being naive and having his skirt pulled over his head by the older, wiser British reporter.

In fact, as we'd learn in 1975, 1995 and 2005, Americans were incredibly naive to think that the solution to the Vietnam situation was war and that the machine would roll into the country without any resistance.

We were a country of Pyles, quiet Americans.

'The House Of The Seven Gables'

First thing I had to do is find out what a "gable" is. Turns out, it's the triangle formed when two parts of the roof meet. I think.

Anyway, this house had seven of them. The house itself was modeled after the real House of the Seven Gables owned by Nathaniel Hawthorne's cousin. The real house was built in 1668 and had all seven gables. By the time Hawthorne rolled around, it had only three gables.

The book itself is about history, family, ghosts and redemption. Clearly, this is Hawthorne's comment on his own family and the very real Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon. Hawthorne's ancestors being huge parts of the Salem Witch Trials (where the real house is located) and he clearly had a lot of issues stemming from that.

It's part of the reason that The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter have similiar themes that look unremarkably upon judgement, religion and how the sins of the fathers affect the sons.

One theme I would like to address is the assumption that, in the story, a Pyncheon relative is actually "bewitched" by a member of the Maule family, which were victims of a faulty claim of witchcraft years before by a Pyncheon. This witchcraft resulted in the Pyncheon family member dying.

This is significant because as much as Hawthorne was attempting to make up for his family's past, he still made the innocent victim an actual witch.

I think that Hawthorne was actually pointing out that what is perceived as "witchcraft" is simple persuasion or the power of suggestion. It's the idea that witchcraft is not real, but it is "real" in the brains of the weak or those that want witchcraft to be "real."

'Pan's Labyrinth'

I've essentially quit buying DVDs. Maybe it's because I'm concentrating so much on watching films I've never seen. Maybe I just don't need all this shit cluttering my life. Maybe because I'm tired of owning films that I really don't like all that much.

If I were to buy 10 DVDs, Pan's Labyrinth would probably be one of them. It has everything from the great acting (some brilliant Spanish actors and actresses), a really cool story set in a really interesting time in history (the Spanish Civil War). It's history set behind this fairy tale that attempts to create a myth that is cracked by this very real, very tragic reality. To me, that's horrifyingly sad.

Visually, it trumps most of what I've seen. Guillermo del Toro just simply does it for me here. I love the look and the colors. I love the violence and the uniforms.

It makes you wonder what Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Chronicles of Narnia and other recent fantasy films would have looked like and been had del Toro been put in charge.

I did want to make note that this film reminded me a lot of Cria Cuervos and The Spirit of the Beehive, two Spanish films released during Francisco Franco's regime, which both contained allegories criticizing the fascist regime, the same defeated 40 years before in Pan's Labyrinth. All three have a dark-haired young girl as the protagonist. But only one has a half-man, half-goat.

'The Golden Age'

This 1930 surrealist picture was written by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel; however, the former had a falling out with Bunuel and had nothing to do with the actual production.

The film is a scathing comment on the Catholic church's ideas on sex and the bourgeois society, as only Bunuel can do.

An interesting note: the film was financed by a member of that bourgeois society, Vicomte Charles de Noailles. He was actually a bisexual man that had little care or worry for sexual norms as he was married but often had homosexual affairs right in front of his wife.

He was also a patron of the arts and he would finance a different film for his wife's birthday. Another film included one by noted photographer Man Ray.

'Californication'

I don't know if I've ever given the Red Hot Chili Peppers' lyrics any real thought outside of figuring out "Under the Bridge." Listening to this album, one of their more recent efforts, and then thinking back, it's all a bunch of words put together to rhyme.

None of them make sense and -- not to belittle the Peppers' "message" -- they don't seem to mean anything. This is particularly true, I think, for the faster-pace rap/funk songs.

Songs like "Under the Bridge" clearly have some meaning and the average, ignorant listener can read them and form some sort of logical explanation for what the lyrics mean.

Californication doesn't have a lot of those songs. The songwriter -- Anthony Kiedis or whoever -- just smushes a bunch of lyrics into some cohesive tune that matches the song and rolls with it. The Beatles they are not.

Some other Peppers' thoughts:
1. Has anyone made an easier living than Chad Smith, the Peppers' longtime drummer? By all accounts, he's remained relatively drug free, he's had a pretty good gig for the past 20+ years, he's played with two of the foremost bass players of the past 30 years (Flea and Michael Anthony in Chickenfoot) and he's done a bunch of other records and is probably richer than we can ever imagine.

2. Of all the guys, Flea may be the most level headed. Again, you don't hear much about drugs with the guy unlike 90 percent of all the guys that have come through the group. He's crazy, perpetually naked and goes by the name "Flea," yet, he's really the glue of that group. You feel like they go as far as he wants to take them.

3. Californication is the first album with John Frusciante back in the fold. He left the group during their heyday due to crack and heroin use. After Dave Navarro left, the Peppers' almost split up until they invited a clean Frusciante back and they recorded this album.

4. More than a couple of times, the look of a musician or performer affects the way people evaluate the music. When Eddie Van Halen cut his hair into a flattop, it garnered a lot of criticism for him and Van Halen "softening." The same for Metallica when James Hetfield, Kirk Hammet and Lars Ulrich shorn their locks. For the record, Californication marked the moment when Kiedis cut his hair and got blonde highlights. Simultaneously, I discontinued caring about his band.

'Run Lola Run'

For me, Run Lola Run does in 80 minutes that I don't feel Titanic did in three hours.

And that is showing what one woman's love for her man will make her do. For Lola, it was running the same route over and over to help her boyfriend get back money he lost on a subway.
Every time Lola screams and the glass breaks and the eardrums crackle, there's this intense emotion that sweeps out of the television speaks and into your very bloodstream.

If Rose had screamed a couple of dozen times in Titanic, you might actually feel like she was in love with ol' Jack.

I typically don't find myself a fan of foreign actors or actresses. But if you watch enough of them, you get to know names and faces. Moritz Bleibtreu is one of those.

He's sort of an ugly guy, but a brilliant actor, who I've come to love. He's in The Baader Meinhoff Complex and Munich, both great films. He's also portrayed Goebbels, who is the opposite of poor Manni.

'Ran'

Would William Shakespeare like it that more artists write books and movies that mirror King Lear more than the play is actually performed?

It has to be -- along with Hamlet -- one of the most reconfigured of Shakespeare's plays. I'm not quite sure if it makes King Lear good or if it makes it bad. I guess it's the most sincere form of flattery, either way.

The Japanese, I think, especially love Shakespeare's plays. Akira Kurosawa also aped Hamlet (The Bad Sleep Well) and Macbeth (Throne of Blood).

There's something very ... Asian about Shakespeare's plays, which are all ripped off from the Greeks, so maybe one Greek guy went west and the other went east. I guess when I think of Japanese folklore and fables, they tend to be quite a bit like every other culture's folklore and fables. All Shakespeare does in his plays is show how shitty or underhanded people are. He was more Aesop than Eurypides.

If you want a good read, type "Akira Kurosawa" into Google. The guy was prolific, and I'm selling him short there. He directed films in six different decades starting in the 1940s and not ending until the 1990s. Ran was one of his later works, being released in 1985.

I mentioned a few days ago about Paradise Now getting snubbed by the Academy Awards due to his political nature, the state of Palestine and all the bullshit politics that go into movie awards. As I noted, a foreign film must be entered by the home country. Although about, filmed in Japan, it was financed by the French. The grey area resulted in Ran not getting nominated.

Instead, Sidney Lumet led a campaign to get Kurosawa nominated for Best Director, which he lost. The lone Academy Award came for Custome Design.

Note: Kurosawa's wife during the filming of Ran. He took off the for the funeral and then returned to finish it.

'Bad Day At Black Rock'

A smart film that has a number of different themes that I either found interesting or pretty poignant for the time.

First, it should be noted that Spencer Tracy almost backed out of the role. A severe alcoholic at the time, which exacerbated his diabetes, Tracy never committed to the role until the studio called him and told him that Alan Ladd had agreed to do the film. Tracy committed the next day. Of course, Ladd had never received a script or agreed to do the film.

The story is about a stranger (Tracy) who takes a train to a very small, remote and dying town supposedly in the west. There he is looking for a man named Komoko.

The town's citizenry is hostile and angry. They don't take kindly to strangers, they don't like Tracy, they're all a little stir crazy, drunk and completely under the thumb of super-villian Reno Smith.

They also don't like talking about Komoko. They want Tracy to leave as soon as possible until their patience runs dry and they pretty much want him dead.

To me, this is the scariest of all movie plots: The outsider trapped in the antagonist's environment. The villians control all the variables. they know what Tracy is going to do before he does it and there's the element of hopelessness that seeps into the viewer's brain.

Granted, I realized that Tracy was going to escape. The good guys always won in old films. However, I couldn't help but share in Tracy's character's frustration and fear. That's terrorizes me.

The second element is Komoko. As Tracy is playing his chess game against the villians, the character of Komoko and Tracy's presence in the town gets a little buried.

Komoko was a Japanese-American that leased land from Reno Smith. When the attack at Pearl Harbor happens, Smith is denied enlistment into the military. Frustrated at Komoko finding water on the leased land, his denial into military and just a bit of racism, the township sets fire to Komoko's house. He escapes the house on fire, but is shot by Smith and killed.

As it turns out, Tracy's character is attempting to find Komoko because his son died saving Tracy's character in Italy during World War II.

A year later, the adaptation of Edna Ferber's Giant would be released. Both films are similiar. They are both set in the southwest and both wind up addressing racial attitudes in the 1950s and set around World War II and sacrifice.

'The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith'

Cute!

A whimsical little tale of an aborigine as he toils in and around the Australian outback and suffers stoically against racism and bigotry ...

... until he murders an entire family -- kids and all -- with an ax.

Sorry I had to ruin the film for you. Feel good that it surprised the crap out of me.

'Bossanova' & 'Surfer Rosa' & 'Doolittle'

Shoot you straight here: These are three albums released in three consecutive years by a little indie rock band out of Boston.

They came. They conquered. Then they dissipated into the thin air.

The Pixies are a billion times bigger than they actually are. They have a greatest hits records without any hits. They can play medium-sized venues without being popular. They are rock stars despite the fact that most can't name the lead guitarist and drummer and the lead singer is an overweight guy with a bald head.

The Pixies defy all logic and expectations. They are probably the only group to have a hiatus at the peak of their popularity and break up for 11 years after opening for U2.

They can't get a song on the radio, they are unaccessible to a majority of people and they're grumpy as hell. Still, they are the Pixies and I dare anyone to listen to these three unremarkably remarkable records and not think that they don't have any value.

'Lupe Fiasco's Food And Liquor'

There's a lot I don't understand about hip-hop. To say the least.

I think the biggest aspect of the genre is how people are "discovered."

All the history of Lupe Fiasco that I've been able to find is that he was signed to Arista Records after starting to rap and produce songs at 17 and then forming a group (and having that group dissolve) at 19 which was signed to Epic Records and released a single.. How does this kid from Chicago get signed to a major record label from Los Angeles? Was he sending tapes out? Was her performing somewhere?

While at Arista, Fiasco met Jay Z, who helped him get a deal with Atlantic Records and two records in Fiasco is a rapper that's somehow avoided worldwide exposure despite releasing two highly-acclaimed records.

He's a skateboarding black kid that didn't like rap and hip-hop because of the way they treated and talked about women and used vulgarity. He's a kid who doesn't rhyme like the others or produce radio singles.

Still, I'm talking about him. There's no context or timeframe for Fiasco's quick rise to hip-hop royalty, as something that can march to the beat of his own drummer. He just does it.

Makes zero sense.

'Choke'

I've read one Chuck Palahnuik book and seen both of his film adaptations (Fight Club, Choke).

Both are very similiar. Both stories feature desperate, lonely protagonists as they invade self-help groups in order to put themselves on a pedestal, feed their own addictions or feed their own warped sense of worth.

Palahnuik tends to write about the emotionally damaged and deranged. The final part of the novel revolves around the protagonist's friend, Denny, who suddenly decides to begin constructing this edifice out of rocks.

This is a nod to Ferdinand Cheval, a French postman who decided to begin doing the same thing in southeast France. It was called the Ideal Palace and it still stands as a respected and renowned example of naive architecture.

He wanted to be buried there; however, it was against the law. So, he spent the final eight years of his life building his own mausoleum, which he completed a year before passing away at age 88.

'The Kid Brother'

The Kid Brother is Harold Lloyd's best film. It is about the town of Hickoryville and its sheriff, Jim Hickory, and his three sons, the youngest and weakest being Harold.

By far, the most interesting aspect of the film are the "gags," the bits that the writers and Lloyd would write into the film. For example, the chase scene of Lloyd as he's getting chased and the series of elaborate hiding opportutnies. Or how Lloyd washes the clothes, drying on the tail of a kite.

Lloyd was one of the most prolific actors of the silent era rivalling Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Lloyd made 12 films in the 1920s compared to Chaplin's three. Furthermore, Lloyd made about $15 million in his career, while Chaplin barely paid the cable bill at $10 million.

He know how to spend it, certainly. His Beverly Hills home -- Greenacres -- took four years to build and included 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardents and a nine-hole golf course.

A small price for stardom.

'Paradise Now'

Would like the Israeli-Palestinian struggle summed up in an anecdote regarding the awards season of Paradise Now.

When a film is submitted for an Academy for Best Foreign Film, the submission must be made by the home country. For Paradise Now, it is Palestine -- whatever that really is anymore. However, Palestine was not considered a sovereign nation and other Palestinian films had been not considered for the award due to this stipulation despite films from Taiwan, Puerto Rico and Hong Kong being considered.

Israeli officials attempted to not have the film labeled under the state of Palestine and they attempted to list it as "Palestinian Authority" and, then, "Palestinian Territories." Later, another writer pointed that "country of origin" is determined by who funded the film, and this case it was European. The director, Hany Abu-Assad is an Israeli-Arab.

Also, families of Palestinian bombings attempted to have the film not considered.

The Arabs and Israelis have been fighting for hundreds of years, and it will probably go on for another 1,000 years. Any more, it's not about land or sovereignty. It's about movie awards and hollow gestures. Good luck clearing that all up.

'Masculin Feminin' & 'Two Or Three Things I Know About Her'

Two of the eight Jean-Luc Godard films included on the list of 1,001 list. I've seen seven. I think.
I would ask how in the world Godard wound up getting all of these attractive young French women to be in his films, but I already know the answer. I would imagine it didn't take much for Godard to get just about any fashionable young woman to do just about anything. Which sort of makes me want to become a French filmmaker.

Two or Three Things I Know About Her is about a French housewife, who doubles as a prostitute on the side. There's little story and as intriguing as the plot may sound, it's only as sexy as your imagination can go eyeing all the gorgeous women Godard's camera tends to run into on the street, in stores or just hanging about.

Masculin Feminin is based on short stories by Guy de Maupassant and stars the breathtakingly beautiful Chantel Goya as a pop singer (a tough gig), who reluctantly dates this perturbed young man just out of his military service.

These two films have similiar themes and looks. They were also made within several years of each other and feature these beautiful women. I don't know if they're masterpieces, but you'd be increasingly hard pressed to find any better looking films.

'The Man From Laramie' & 'The Naked Spur'

I love that one of the notes for The Man From Laramie is that its considered a western version of King Lear. Nevermind that the only similarity is that it involves a crazy old man.

If a book or film has a crazy old man, then it's King Lear. Retarded.

These two films are just part of five western films directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart.

Made in the 1950s, these films are different. Stewart is menacing and angry. If you want the Stewart of It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, seek another film to watch. Stewart's Howard Kemp and Will Lockhart have histories too dark to differentiate between who they were and what they've become.

What they've become are hard-edged dusty cowboys unafraid with slightly askew values that balance between what's right and what pays their bills.

Mann's films show a west that is uncompromising and dangerous. Where life is as meaningless as the the dust on his characters' boots. It was the only realistic western films of the time and, without them, the modern western would never exist.