B E B E R E

Why only scan through films?

Because we're old and we're feeling our mortality. Hal used to be able to sit through all manner of dreck for Great God of Kitsch Irony. Nowadays, we'd rather be doing other things. Actually, I think that sitting through India Song might have affected him, might have lifted the scales off his eyes, so to speak. So, what caught our attention for a moment or two but then drove us away?

An experimental work by a friend of Hal's. Not bad, but rather repetitious. He's more of a short film kind of guy, I think. Way too influenced by Homestarrunner, maybe, and Spike and Mike.

My Uncle Dave's a great star of the cutting room floor. He's been lopped out of so many famous films, it makes the mind reel. One where he actually had a part that made it into the can and onto the screen was this gem that we found for $2 at a discount store in Maine. It was well acted (as Dave put it: I got to kiss Paula Prentiss. She was very professional about it, too.). Just not very good.

Oh Yes. The UN got into making films, too. (To quote Putney Swope: "No sh!t!") This film, also called "The Opium Connection," in addition to being a really bad Bond rip off, plays fast and loose with the information it's passing off to us (being made ostensibly as a Public Service Announcement). It's worth it, though, to sit through the first few minutes and see Princess Grace (yes, Princess Grace) as the host, informing us of the 'devil flower' being used to make Heroin, Cocaine, and Beer. (I made up the beer part, actually. Well, no. Hal did.) It was soooo hard, let me tell you, keeping the wisecracks about UN filmmaking in relation to other UN initiatives of late to a minimum. So funny, so sad, so presagieux.