A Brief Aside….

The Curator, ever attempting to cater to our multitudes of film hungry fans, has been collecting a list of keywords that have led various readers, starved for our knowledge of crappy films, to our website.

A list of what you have recently been looking for information and knowledge on, that is located on our site:

1. Just put your pickle on everyone's plate college boy

2. Why do they call doc holiday “lunger” in Tombstone

3. Cop busts guy with lawn mowers video

4. Brad Pitt’s Torso

5. Strange death

6. Dollar heart video

7. Fatalities on film

8. Video movie "2 guys" shake the head & "wake up"

9. "Jude Law" + "the most handsome man in the universe"

10. "Special places" + "sexual games"

Awesomely:

11. Redneck threesome

And our own personal favorite:

12. Private pee video

Thank you for your patronage. Now that we are aware of what our readers are sincerely interested in, we will try to respond accordingly in our subsequent postings.

The Massively Underused Allison Janney

Are you aware that Allison Janney rules the skool? Possibly not, cause she’s seldom seen. She’s in a couple of upcomings, but has been spending an awful lot of time on TV lately, (Whatever, West Wing) rarely gracing the Curator’s shelves with her co-starring phenomenon, a gushing, bubbly waterfall of reddish hair and sharp knifed laughter. Her parts may be sparse but she packs a punch.

We will look at: 10 Things I Hate About You, The Ice Storm, American Beauty

10 Things I Hate About You

Our Ms. Janney clocks a total of 4 minutes in this teeny-flick as guidance councilor “Ms. Perky,” but manages to do more in those couple minutes than the rest of the cast does in 97. Combined. Her accomplishments include writing a romance novel on the company dime whilst brushing the kiddies and their nonsense problems aside, and putting dopey little shits Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger in their places faster than you can say “I hope I get to play a gay cowboy someday to add some weight to my miserably fluffy resume.” Go Allison, Go!

The Ice Storm

Allison co-stars awesomely as Dot Halford, otherwise known as “the lady who has the key party.” Her part may be small, but she plays an ever important role: that of the woman who has the party. The party that forces everyone to confront their morality, sexuality, comfort zones, the ever valuable tool of peer pressure, and the limitations of screwing in an early-70’s model family sedan.

American Beauty

Here Janney darkens up the screen as Barbara Fitts, mother to our diamond-in-the-rough, filmmaker-in-training, non-traditional beauty loving Ricky Fitts, and wife to “shocking” homophobe/homosexual Col. Frank Fitts. She starkly sits in a room devoid of dust and soul, as if pushed to the corner of casting room of life, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

Summary:

Short concise post, short concise woman. You are never invisible in our eye. Rock on Ms. Janney.

Edit This - Academy Award Winning Editorial Blunders of the 1930's

(Special to the Dollar Video Curator! - Back by popular demand, the scrutinizing, anally retentive stylings of the Master of Editing Errors, Guy Fawkes)

With the Academy Awards fast approaching, your omniscient curator thought it would be enlightening to look at some of the films whose editors got the award. This award started in 1934 but not all the movies are available for scrutiny.

This round of films: Lost Horizon (1937 – Ralph Dawson), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938 – Ralph Dawson, again) and Gone with the Wind (1939 – Hal Kern).

Lost Horizon

Lost Horizon is where we get “Shangri-La”, the mythical utopia which is all summed up at the beginning of the movie. Here, we are told that all most of us are looking for in life is to retire to that “little chicken farm”. You can tell where this is going before we even meet our hero – Robert Conway.

We start with wardrobe problems when Thomas Mitchell (who you remember as Uncle Billy, the drunken goof who enriches Henry Potter by eight G’s in It’s a Wonderful Life) has his handkerchief move around in his pocket. Next, it disappears and reappears. (7:08 – 14:21 – 14:52).

Then there’s the airplane. The film uses a Douglas DC-2 that had seven windows on each side in the passenger compartment. This is an airplane that we all want to come back. It carried 14 people, seven on each side – each with a window/aisle seat and tables and lamps. But, this airplane crashes in the movie, and after the crash when our hero is wandering around outside in the snow, we can clearly see there are now eight windows in the passenger compartment. Then, as the scene switches back to the interior of the plane, there are only five windows which return to seven when the scene goes back to the exterior (6:35 to 6:45).

Then there’s the tableware. Ralph Dawson seems to have difficulty with food and dishes. We find mistakes regarding tableware in this film and in Robin Hood. We have a scene at the dinner table where Conway has dishes in front of him. These dishes disappear at 40:06, reappear at 40:40 and vanish at 40:19. The dish problem rears its head again when Uncle Billy is at the table – his wine cup is there at 1:00:34, gone at 1:00:56, back at 1:01:15, gone at 1:01:39 and this continues for a while until the scene changes.

The High Lama needs a crutch since he amputated his own leg years ago when he first arrived at Shangri-La. This was before the natives told him that his leg would heal itself in this magical place. LESSON: Always consult the natives before cutting off any body parts. The High Lama has no crutch at 1:06:57 but one appears seven seconds later.

Finally, there’s the chess game where we can see three pawns that have been captured standing on the side of the chessboard. When we first see them, they are separated (1:35:50), then they are together (1:36:35) but separated again (1:37:52).

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Let me get Dawson’s tableware/food problems out of the way first. We see a table with no pitcher (1:53), then a pitcher (1:55) then no pitcher (2:01). We have difficulty with gold wine cups at 42:36 when we see the cups next to a green pitcher, then they are gone at 42:27 only to return at 43:14. This is the same scene where people suddenly appear behind Robin – I thought they might be responsible for the gold disappearing but then I remembered this is Robin Hood who stole from the rich to give to the poor so presumably the folks who hung around him wouldn’t need to be stealing. At 42:04 Robin is munching on a HUGE leg of mutton which is completely devoured in seven seconds. I recently saw a hot dog eating contest on cable and not even those guys could polish off this leg of mutton in seven seconds.

Other miscues:

Little John completely misses Robin’s foot with his staff but Robin reacts anyway (22:34);

Robin leaps from the gallows to a horse with his hands tied behind his back but his hands are free only to tied again (1:07:15, 1:07:15, 1:07:16);

As Robin is escaping there is no sword on the right side of his horse but a sword and scabbard appear out of nowhere so he can cut the rope to drop the gate (1:08:06 and 1:08:15).

The best error of the film starts at 14:27 and goes through 17:12 when Robin fires off at least ten arrows when he had only five in his quiver to begin with. Then, at 19:06 his quiver is full. This reminded me of George Bush’s approach to the federal deficit.

Gone With The Wind

This movie comes on two disks with an intermission (labeled “Entr’ Acte” to show that the producers knew how cosmopolitan the audience would be). So, this is broken down to disk 1 and disk 2 to show how un-cosmopolitan Guy Fawkes is.

Disk 1.

Magic Dogs. Dogs suddenly appear behind Scarlet on the porch (7:53-7:54).

Magic Globe. Initially the world globe has the West Coast of the US showing (30:43) but has Asia and India facing outward at 31:37.

Magic Cigar. Just where did Rhett put that thing? (46:40)

Magic Shadowbox. The shadows do not correspond to the movement of the actors (59:15).

Magic Chair. The chair moves slightly to the left (1:11:41 and 1:12:44). But, wait’ll you see the magic chair on disk 2!

Disk 2.

Magic Hat 1. Watch the tie to Sue Ellen’s red hat disengage from the hat and go around her neck.

Magic Hat 2. Scarlet loses her hat in the struggle in her buggy but it gets back on her head at 43:30 to be lost again at 43:35 only to return to her head at 43:53.

Magic Former Slave. After saving Scarlet, Sam drives her buggy away (with Scarlet in it) but Sam disappears four seconds later.

Magic David Copperfield (all the pun intended that I can get away with). We have a scene where the women are knitting and there is no book on the table (44:40). It appears at 44:44 and is gone at 47:39. We eventually learn that the book is David Copperfield.

Magic Chair reprise. There is a chair by the front door when Rhett arrives (46:00) and it is still there when he leaves at 46:33. When the Yankees come in at 47:28, the chair has disappeared.

Well, your favorite anarchist is worn out but I will return (by leave of your curator) with films of the ‘40’s including Sergeant York, The Pride of the Yankees and National Velvet.

Special Places

Everybody knows that Keanu Reeves was robbed of an Oscar nomination for his performance in the film, “The Devil’s Advocate.” It should have been sealed by his delivery of a single question which he asks of Heather Matarazzo in a completely un-cliché court room scene, “Have you ever played a game called “Special Places?”

Reach into your memory. Everyone’s got that Special Place, be it a place where you and your friends can always go, where everybody knows your name, where the promise of a high school boy getting laid is high, or a surreal or magical world of beasts, death and the greatest World’s Fair ever is nigh.

Let us play a game called Special Places. We will explore but a few, as depicted from a selection of the Curator’s permanent collection.

Porky’s – The holy grail of Special Places, where a fat-ass redneck holds the key to unlocking your loathsome virginity. The journey to, from, and back to Porky’s is a laugh riot of raunchy sexual escapades. If you grew up in the ‘50s. Porky’s may get destroyed in the end, but it will always hold a special, hick-ified place our hearts, what with the apropos naming of students based on their junk size (“Meat” and “Peewee”), Kim Cattrell’s totally unfunny, long-lasting collie-howling orgasm, and of course Ms. Ballbricker yanking the unsuspecting penis out by it’s roots, through the infamous shower hole.

Pleasantville – a lovely little special place, where you can live in a dream world of non -confrontation, non-conformity and non-sexual climax. Until Reese Witherspoon has her way with you anyway, blasting you out of black and white celluloid into full blown Technicolor. Is your perceived reality a false one? Are you closing your eyes to the glory of the world, for all its good AND bad qualities, around you? Are the subtle color references first introduced through the discovery of a single rose a meaningful, eye-opening, life-changing experience, or are these as vapid and meaningless as a sixteen-year-old photography student discovering the “art” of the hand-colored photograph? The Curator leaves it to you to decide, as you tinker with the limits of your own “special places.”

Meet Me in St. Louis – The comfort food of the Special Places film world, “Meet Me…” offers up a retreat to a simpler time, when one’s deepest, darkest fear could simply be the ripping of oneself from the awesomeness that is St. Louis and being supplanted into the terrible world of a booming New York City. How dare Daddy try to move us right when the World Fair is threatening to make St. Louis “the center of the entire Universe!” And we can’t move Grandpa or the Chickens. Jesus Christ, Pop! Moreover, the singular lesson the film is that one should not leave their hometown, the specialist of all places, because the grass may be greener, but it certainly couldn’t be Special-er.

Threesome – Due to a University computer system mishap, the dorm room of “3S” is a paradise of sexual exploration waiting to happen. Never mind that the un-sexy adventurers are the skeletal Lara Flynn Boyle, evangelical convert Stephen Baldwin, and absolute nobody Josh Charles. Alex loves Eddy, Eddy loves Stewart, Stewart loves Alex. What to do, what to do. The only obvious answer is of course, Threesome!! 3S temporarily offers asylum to our trio, but as always, the Outside World (a decidedly “Un-special” Place) creeps in, in the forms of jealousy, uncomfortable social interaction and the gratuitous pregnancy scare. Well shit, dudes. It was fun while it lasted.

Jurassic Park – Somewhere off the coast of Costa Rica lay a very secret and Special Place. Lush, green, subject to sudden and unexpected tropical storms, it is far enough away from the prying eyes of the world to become a rich man’s playground in DNA experimentation while he plays God. Only the truly evil, well, the truly conflicted, characters bite it here on the island, while the righteous are besotted with notions of man versus nature, natural selection, various expounded upon scientific theories involving, but not limited to, greed and fear. Phew. If that ain’t special, what is?

St. Elmo’s Fire – For those of you who may have blocked this little gem from your saturated minds, St. Elmo’s is the Special Place of note that our young Brat Pack attend throughout the film. We meet them on the day of their college graduation, where they emerge at age 22, and with great careers in place. They are awfully willing to become grown-ups, as demonstrated by the fact that by the end of the film, at said age of 22, they are all so immersed in adulthood responsibilities, they simultaneously forever give-up attendance and binge drinking at St. Elmo’s. This must be the result of living in a time when a college education actually afforded one a career, rather than a one way ticket back to one’s parents’ basement, to live out a life of staggering credit card and financial debt repayment. Or maybe St. Elmo’s wasn’t so Special after all.

The Abyss – despite what you might think from your memory, if any, of this movie, the Abyss is indeed a very Special Place. It is not too scary, too deep, too cold or too dramatic. Those who have ventured into the Abyss and not lived to tell the tale just did not understand the Abyss. One has to be a truly Special person, to enter into, understand, and learn from, the truly Special Place that is the Abyss. Someone just like you.

Conclusion:

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, "The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity." Clearly. But forget not, take not for granted, and give not up, your Special Place. If a place is security and space is freedom, we can only be attached to the one, but long for the other. That is, if longing represents itself in the form of loathing.