'A Girl Called Dusty'

This album -- a really good album -- is a perfect opportunity to consider a hypothetical:

What if The Beatles never existed?

A Girl Called Dusty was released in the United Kingdom in April 1964, just two months after The Beatles notched "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" as their first No. 1 in the United States and "invaded" the states in February through an East Coast tour and two appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I'd like to think that Springfield's record was being pressed at this time, packaged and being prepared for distribution. Dusty, herself, was probably playing some gigs or maybe getting ready for a tour of some kind to support the record. She'd be deported from South Africa in December for playing an integrated audience.

A Girl Called Dusty was never released in the United States. I don't know if that has anything to do with The Beatles or anything like that. I do wonder if record companies and artists held back projects to see if there was true staying power with the Fab Four. Months later, she would release a reworked album with a different name to the United States.

Had the Beatles broken up in Hamburg in 1960, things might have changed a lot. What would The Rolling Stones be without the Beatles? No yin to their yang. There are a dozen different groups -- like Gerry and the Pacemakers -- that could have used 10 percent of The Beatles' notoriety, even if another 10 bands got a piece of the popularity pie. Maybe Dusty Springfield's career goes in a different direction. Nobody will ever know.

'Shoah'

Aesthetically, Shoah is a bit of a misnomer. It seems like a peaceful, comforting Hebrew word. Like it would mean "blanket" or "soft."

Instead, it translates to "catastrophe" and is the word used for Holocaust.

Generally, people feel the Holocaust should never be forgotten. I remember a literature class in college and some nitwit girl said she didn't want to talk about the Holocaust because it "depressed" her. At that moment, I thought all I could possibly do is keep talking about it. Never letting the subject go.

The truth of the matter is that Schindler's List and The Pianist may be some of the least worthwhile films about Shoah in history. Especially compared to the sprawling epics of Claude Lanzmann, a French filmmaker and professor, who directed Shoah and who I thought directed The Sorrow and the Pity, but he didn't.

Lanzmann was a Jewish Frenchman and upon occupation went into hiding. At age 18, he joined the French Resistance.

Shoah is a nine-hour documentary, one of the foremost and comprehensive works documenting the Holocaust. He talked to survivors, Nazis and witnesses of the atrocities at Chelmo, the death camps at Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the Warsaw Ghetto.

The interviews are tremendous. The film itself needs chapters or some sort of organization. It seems to jump from one theme to another. There's no narrative direction or control. It's sort of thrown together. If there's nine hours of film, then there had to be 36 hours -- at least -- of footage.

Footage of SS officer Franz Suchomel -- I guess with hidden camera -- showing the details and intricacies of a gas chamber chills to the bone.

Interviews with "bystanders" tend to frustrate the most. At best, we knew Suchomel's intentions and prejudices. The witnesses carry on like nothing happen. At times, they seem aloof. They avoid questions, change the subject or answer one way and then contradict themselves in the next breath. Rarely do you get a straight answer and you are forced to assume that what they saw was stupefying and they did about it was equally disgusting.

It's a crazy watch and I highly encourage everyone to take on the film. Lanzmann asks the tough questions for all of us and tries to hold as many people as possible responsible for Shoah, the catastrophe.

'Chungking Express'

Directed by Wong Kar-wai, a member of the Hong Kong Second Wave, who was also responsible for Happy Together and In the Mood for Love.

Chungking Express was more of an escape for Kar-wai after filming Ashes of Time, a martial arts film that was delayed and extremely stressful. Chungking Express was a "light" project and it wound up being his most popular film.

Sorta getting over the Asian film thing. Although that's a pretty cool movie poster.

'Viy'

It only took 50 years, but Viy was Russia's first horror film. Congratulations.

Written by Nikolai Gogol, an adaptation of this 1967 film was set to be released recently, the 200th birthday celebration for ol' Nik. Oddly enough, I can't

Will admit, for their first time, the Russians did it right. Viy is an extremely creepy and skin-crawling horror film.

So, why didn't the Soviet Russians make horror films?

They saw film as a means of education and revolution, first and foremost. By the time Stalin got in power in the late-1920s, Western films were rarely seen and any films imitating that of Western art were looked down upon if not directly censored.

Generally, horror films are about the unknown, the supernatural and the irrational -- all opposite values of communism.

Once the Thaw started and Russian cinema got new life, filmmakers and filmgoers sought art that connected to their own lives. Any deviation tended to side with the allegories of science fiction. Also, the Russians didn't identify with the alienation of horror films as until 1968 it was a period of relative hope.

Horror films really never caught up in Russia until the 1980s.

'The Return Of The Native'

I think one of the most interesting things to do is read books or poets or watch movies that are mentioned in other books and movies.

Knowing what characters in a fictional (or even nonfictional) like to read or watch is a really underrated way of getting to know that character. I mean, isn't that how we judge our friends and coworkers? Why shouldn't we judge Holden Caulfield the same way?

In The Catcher in the Rye, Caulfield, the novel's protagonist/whiner, lays down some literary criticism, free of charge:

"You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maughham, though. I read it last summer. It's a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn't want to call Somerset Maugham up. I don't know, he just isn't the kind of guy I'd want to call up, that's all. I'd rather call old Thomas Hardy up. I like that Eustacia Vye."

I like that arguably the only reason that Holden Caulfield wants to talk to Thomas Hardy was because he created Eustacia Vye, the main protagonist of The Return of the Native, who winds up marrying Clym after leaving Wildeve. She becomes dissatisfied with Clym after he goes nearly blind and becomes a furze cutter. She winds up drowning herself.

Clearly, there's a common thread between Caulfield and Vye: Both are dissatisfied and looking for some sort of happiness that's eluding them and the people that could be providing that support and love (Sally Hayes, Mr. Antolini, Wildeve, Clym). In fact, these people are blatantly cast aside. Holden and Eustacia are just lost causes. Sinking ships. Of course, Holden liked Eustacia: They would have been brilliant self-destructive lovers.

Now, I really feel I need to read Of Human Bondage, just to see what Caulfield doesn't like.