First things first: in a harsh dose of something, I consumed a can of Old Milwaukee's Best over Christmas weekend. The review is here.
Also, last night I saw one of the best-made documentaries I have ever seen. I rented The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr., about the man generally regarded as the worst commercial film director of all time. I believe that many of the amazing, interesting phenomena in this world are as the result of one kind or another of "perfect storms;" people and circumstances coming together in the only possible combination that would result in the unique event in question. This documentary is a perfect example of just one such phenomenon: the career and filmography of Wood. How did he get continued funding? How did he manage to assemble the players, some of them of some previous regard in the industry? The documentary is very obviously having fun with what, in reality, is a fairly tragic figure (Wood), through clever assembling of interview quotes from those who knew him, as well as scenes from his mind-blowingly bad films. But, somewhere in there, it manages to impart a touching sort of sentimentality (to me, anyway) with respect to all the people & projects involved.
Included on the disc is also the re-release of his first film ever: The Streets of Laredo. Definitely looking forward to that. Then, off to add Glen or Glenda? to the queue.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
I'm definitely on board with the beer/coffee phenomenon. Heard a statistic recently (can't seem to find it now) that coffee consumption is well below its peak in the 50's even with the proliferation of coffee shops. MAde sense to me as I have long remarked that the previous generation was one that drank only coffee, at every meal and to the nearly total exclusion of every other beverage. It was crappy coffee, but they loved it. (in this country anyway - I suspect the Europeans have remained a little more faithful to good coffee over the years to the extent that they eschewed much of America's love of processed foods generally). The concept of grinding your own beans would have blown my parents' mind. Just open the can and scoop.
The same holds true for beer, although as far as I know beer's decline in market share has a fair amount to do with alternative alcoholic beverages than the previous generation's excessive consumption. They did drink crappy beer, again, in this country. I feel reasonably certain that if you visited Germany in 1980 you would have found beer to blow your mind, but they have a particular affinity to beer.
Only know Ed Wood from general history, and a Tim Burton film with Johnnie Depp (of course) that portrayed him - based on your take on the documnetary - as the same sort of flawed figure with his heart in the right place.
Based on what I learned last night, and what I recall from the Burton film, I think the latter did a pretty spot-on job of capturing the man (though I don't recall their treatment of his condition as a transvestite, which was a major part of his being). Maybe it was Burton's feeling that the world still isn't ready for that.
It definitely dealt with that, though to what level of reality, I do not know.
He was pretty much a nut about it.
In the documentary, it was particularly funny to watch 70-80 year olds who had been his friends, associates, and war buddies try and speak about his tendency to wear womens' clothes.
Post a Comment