nofi

well, some of you were either confused or put-off by my clip from Eraserhead. but if you haven't seen it and were even mildly intrigued, go check it out. it's easily the weirdest film i've ever seen and it's quite beautiful to look at really, yes, beautiful industrial landscapes and dark apartments. the film was really hard to find for many years, but in 2000, david lynch finally released it on DVD through his website. but he never really delivers on the extras. i don't think he's ever done commentary for a DVD. he seems to prefer that you figure everything out for yourself, and that's impossible. i actually saw Eraserhead in a theater a few years back. the new beverly theater, probably the best movie theater in los angeles, had a double feature of Eraserhead with The Elephant Man. it was around halloween and they did this a few years in a row. it was certainly quite an experience. i once read a review of Eraserhead that described it as sitting down to a movie in an empty theater. as the film goes along, you start to move closer to the front of the theater, until the end when your nose is touching the screen. yep. that about sums up the experience. then put john hurt saying, "i am not an animal!!" on top of that and you have a fun filled night at the movies.

i forgot where i was going with this. i guess i just wanted to talk about a film that means something to me. i first saw it in high school on a very used VHS copy. it was probably the only copy in the entire south bay at the time. i rented Eraserhead and A Clockwork Orange the same weekend. let me tell you, i was never the same after. i searched for weird, underground cult films like a fiend. this is how i found Bad Taste. a peter jackson film made back when the Lord of the Rings film was just a Ralph Bakshi animated film. this fiendish search lead me to find Bakshi's adaptation of Robert Crumb's comic Fritz the Cat. it was also around this time when i started going to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show and also discovered the amazing soundtrack of the "sequel" Shock Treatment.

i guess what i am trying to say is that these films, and films in general, have helped make me who i am today. i am so thankful that i didn't just stop at Crocodile Dundee at age 10 and go, "wow, that's the greatest film ever made." i think it's always more interesting and more fun to have to go out and look for the good films to see. the same goes for music, but that's a whole other journal entry. i refuse to put down hollywood, because sometimes they get it right. most of my favorite films have had huge budgets and made tons of money. but when you discover that gem that noone else knows about, it makes you feel like you have a secret. but for me, i want to find those gems and share them with everyone i know.