'A Streetcar Named Desire' & 'From Here To Eternity'

Around my junior year of college, me and the girl was overwhelmingly hooked up with at the time used to frequent Hastings.

I don't know how many Hastings there are in this country nor do I believe that everyone's had the pleasure.

Hastings are typically found (in Texas, anyways) in mid-sized college towns that don't have much else to do on random weeknights (or weekends) or a place to buy records or books.

Hastings has books, magazines, CDs, DVDs (sell or rent), video games and all the other junk you'll find in any Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Sam Goody and Blockbuster.

Around my junior year, Hastings (like others) started the stark transition from VHS and DVD to primarily DVD. So, they expanded. And they dumped all their old VHS tapes onto about 12 rows all hodgepodged together in no real rhyme or reason.

You could rent a VHS tape for 25 cents.

Being broke, we rented VHS tape after VHS tape. Initially just an attempt to burn time became an attempt to watch all of the "classics" of filmdom on a dying medium at the cheapest of cheap rates. Even bad movies are worth 25 cents.

We did not get very far in our mission. We knocked out about four or five films. Two of the five were A Streetcar Named Desire and From Here to Eternity.

Streetcar is pretty brilliant. It was before Marlon Brando got big (figuratively, literally), so he's still very raw, but very good. And extremely good looking. Ridiculously good looking. I'm sure they put him in ripped T-shirts, wife beaters and, often, sweaty and shirtless totally on accident.

Brando, of course, got second billing to Vivian Leigh, who was apparently as neurotic in real life as she was in the film. But you can't find a movie poster or DVD cover that doesn't have Brando alone.

Also, it features the wonderful Karl Malden, who died almost a year ago. A great character actor willing to take on a co-starring role and nail it. Malden is the initial inductee to the Thomas Mitchell Players, guys or gals that embraced their secondary role in filmdom.

Watching From Here ... you learn that its based in Hawaii and you think, "Aw shit, is this going to end on Dec. 8, 1941?"

Sure enough. It does. Thanks for the pick-me-up. Kill off Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine then bring on Pearl Harbor.

'Au Revoir Les Enfants'

I don't know how I would've taken living in Nazi-occupied Europe. Nevermind being a Jew. Clearly, they had it the worst of everyone, but here you are, some ordinary guy just trying to get by, and a war breaks out.

You get occupied and a bunch of gun-wielding, angry Germans are always up in your business telling you what to do and you never really know when one's going to snap and just shoot you in the head.

Considering the boys hiding in the Catholic school or even in The Pianist. Just resigned to the fact that one day the squeaking breaks of a gestapo truck are going to come to a stop outside your window ready to pick you up and terminate you. It'd be a shitty life.

The most haunting aspect of this film is that it's relatively true, or based on some basis of truth. Director Louis Malle, who'd been sent to a Catholic school during the occupation witnessed a gestapo search and arrest of three Jewish boys. They were gassed upon their arrival Auschwitz.

Kids, especially, have a hard enough time handling Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the idea that a mascot is just a guy or girl in a suit. How do they rationalize these deaths and their neighbors disappearing nad never coming back in their brains?

'In The Mood For Love'

This film is directed by Wong Kar-wai and chronicles the very boring affair of two good-looking neighbors, who bond over the idea that their oft-absent husband and wife are having affairs (potentially, with each other).

Wong stated that Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo was a huge influence for the film. As with Jimmy Stewart's character, we, as viewers consider that Chow and So are the good people: They're not having affairs, so their time together is not just OK, but it beats being alone and all that.

The same with Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo. We think he's the good guy. We love Stewart. Then it's a shock to the system when we come to a general conlusion that he's sick and needs help.

I think this is all a bit strong. So and Chow are odd, at worst. Lonely more than anything. Stewart was dangerously weird, neurotic and acting outside of the realm of correct human behavior. So and Chow just didn't want to eat their noodles alone.

'Happy Together'

The most potentially destructive force for any one individual is another person. Whilst we all continue to search and search for that "perfect" human being to be a companion to (in addition to the dozens and dozens of friends and acquaintances that propel us through life), the one component that can derail a life faster is another with destructive tendencies.

People are worse than any drug. Drugs get your hormones, synapses, glands and senses working on overdrive.

People do the same. Except they play at your emotions. Drugs don't. You kick heroin or pot or meth and you don't feel bad for the drugs. Although, you're body wants it more than anything.

People evoke sympathy, and that kills you every time. Even at our lowest, human beings aren't blood-thirsty savages, who relish in other's misery. Generally, we want to help our fellow man as long as it doesn't crap on our own intentions or plans.

Po-Wing is the self-destructive force in Happy Together willing to drag down anyone with him. Yiu-Fai can't seem to let go no matter how detached he becomes from Po-Wing. Even with the chemistry dead, there still exists the human element that remains a shackle on Yiu-Fai's ankle.

'Phrenology'

The Roots are currently the house band for the The Late Late Show with Jimmy Fallon.

When it was first announced, it seemed odd. Typically talk show bands are comprised of a "name" like Paul Schafer (Blues Brothers), Max Weinberg (E Street Band) or the black guitarist from Leno's show. Then there's a band of players and session guys that need a gig.

I would suspect The Roots could continue to record and tour with relative ease. Instead, they have a straight gig.

How much do house bands make? That show is in New York, so you assume the band lives in that area, but I assume it'd be in one of the outlying boroughs becase they're not making enough for Manhattan, are they? Is the guitar player from The Roots making $80,000? $40K? $100K?

Do they record and gig enough to make extra cash and still get to tour a little?

How much does the guitar player from the Dave Letterman show make, or the bald trumpet player from Conan make?

I guess they work a couple hours a day and get enough time to record and gig to make up whatever they're making from the TV show. Still, seems like a large commitment because it really reduces your amount of time on the road, or in the studio.

Then again, you have the perfect venue for rehearsing new material.

'Exile On Main St.'

I've always tended to like the 1960s Rolling Stones more than the 1970s Stones for no other reason than I just like the music better.

This still may or may not be entirely true because I've developed a really healthy admiration for albums such as Exile on Main St.

One big reason I like the early Stones is Brian Jones. He made that band. Once he died in 1969, a change took place and Mike Jagger really came into his own in several facets including being the coolest motherfucker on the planet. This is not easy to do.

However, once that transformation took place, the Stones were destined to continue recording and touring the next 40 years, otherwise, I could see them breaking up or calling it quits after Goat's Head Soup or later after Tattoo You or something.

It's that momentum that kept them going.

Given this fact, the best of those post-Jones albums is Exile on Main St. A classic without even having to say it or tell anyone else. All you need to do is listen.

It's rock music at its rawest. It probably hasn't been rawer since. It's simple guitar rock. There are no gigantic hits outside of "Tumbling Dice" (a great song) and a small hit in "Happy." No hits. No hype. Just rock music.

I'll still stand by my 196os Stones for posterity's sake, but I will say that the Stones did or have ever produced an album to this standard. It was tough to precede and impossible to follow up.

'Memento' & 'Irreversible'

Two very similar movies made two years apart in two different countries.

Their common thread is not the story, but how it's prevented.

Memento chronicles a day in the life of Leonard, a former insurance man, who was knocked unconcious by home invaders, who were in the process of raping and murdering his wife.

When he awoke, he was then unable to make new memories, which forced him to write notes constantly, take Polaroid pictures and tattoo "facts" on his bad. All the while, he's searching for the man (or men) responsible for his wife's death. All the while, others are manipulating him based on his supposed disability. Of course, we never learn what is real, what's manipulated or whether or not Leonard is just lying to himself.

Oh, and the entire film is presented in reverse. It goes backwards. Although the end of the story (the first scene) still works and the beginning of the story still works as an end. It's a cinematic palindrome -- it spells the same thing either way.

Irreversible is a French film that I first heard about when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. How do you hear about a French film going to college in East Texas?

Well, the film was so violent and violently filmed, that attendees left the screening.

Yes, the first fives minutes are the most nauseating five minutes in film history. It's the fiancee and friend of Alex hunting down her attackers. Of course, we don't know why they're doing this. In fact, we don't know Alex, how she was attacked or who these guys are.

They end up bashing someone's head in with a fire extinguisher in the most devastating 40 seconds in filmdom.

Like Memento, the film proceeds backwards. The difference is that Irreversible doesn't stand up like Memento. It's really just a film set to go backwards.

The hardest part of making these films is the decision, first, to make this film backwards. Then there's the storyboarding and maintaining the consistency throughout the film, especially Memento, a film where the story is continous and doesn't jump from once scene, one time and another. The scene melts directly into the next. Except backwards.