Stop Buying Dvds

... yeah, right!

The title of this post is a command I can't seem to obey. It's an never ending cycle of buying and buying and buying and then lamenting where I'll store these films. I have too many. Much too many. Family members want them and think I'll eventually "will" my library to them ... that's their deluded vision. What I've been trying to do is give movies away, that I have duplicates of (due to "upgrading" for special editions or remastered anamorphic versions) or just don't want anymore, to those souls I feel will appreciate them and love FILM. Some have been packed up and sent to a young man I know, in an indirect manner, in Michigan. He is studying film and tells me he watches about two a day ... he is trying to watch EVERY film listed in the 1001 MOVIES YOU MUST SEE BEFORE YOU DIE book. His knowledge of all genres is astounding and he reminds me of the young me at his age. I know if the older me could send musicals, film noir, westerns, Irwin Allen disaster movies, screwball comedies, Marx Bros. films, spaghetti westerns and foreign films to the young me at 20 yrs old, well, ... I would just love me.

The title of this post, also, is a play of words of sorts in reference to the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense directed by Jonathan Demme. This is the latest dvd I purchased (yesterday I "upgraded" to an anamorphic copy of Mel Brooks' The Twelve Chairs ... now, I have another duplicate!) and the latest addition to my huge library.

I purchased this film after seeing a YouTube clip of the film. I had seen this film years ago. It is the only concert film I've actually enjoyed. I loved its invention and visual aura of creativity. It was not only the music, but the presentation of the stage design, the band's appearance and the direction that enthralled me. And I had been on a Jonathan Demme kick at the time. So, I bought the movie as a memory piece. A token of a great experience that I would re-experience. I bought it, too, to watch on my dvd projector on an 80 inch screen with surround sound ... my own little thimble theatre ... a dream I've had since I was a little whippersnapper that saturated himself on cinema. I thought this musical and visual presentation would aid me in the re-experience.

Oh, the song I was searching for by Talking Heads was Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place). My quest originated in my desire to hear the song (which I did not realize I had heard before) that my good friend had attached as the title to his blog. This friend is another I have bestowed many a film upon. He, also, is studying film. His genre tastes are not as voracious and he not so much a maven as my contact in Michigan, but he loves film and loves talking about film and loves reading about film and ... learning about film. There are certain people who love motion pictures as much as me ... and I just want to share film with them and experience film with them and talk and talk and talk. My friend, Kazu, is such a person. And I enjoy just handing him a film he will cherish and not just covet. I love to tell him about some director or genre film he knows nothing about and it peaks his interest and then ... he wants to see it ... and it goes both ways. He has made me more conscious of Asian cinema ... Kurosawa and, especially, Ozu a director that I might never have experienced, if not for his encouragement. I so love the "learning" and the "watching". And so it goes.

And here is the song, the clip from the dvd (that made my wallet $25 lighter) and, also, the title of Kazu's blog*, which you (if you are one of the three people that peruse my blog) may want to read to experience his fine writing on his major passion (and mine) ... film.

Watch and Listen!



* the link to "this must be the place" is to the right of this page.