I looked at LORD JIM again. O'Toole and Lavi look amazing and there is a lot more action in the film than Richard Brooks is known for. The values of the Conrad story belong to another time and place and I'm sure in the 60s they were just as perplexing as they are in 2005. Which isn't to say that Jim isn't an extraordinary guy but that only makes his no-win scenario even that more tragic even if it is presented as a kind of solution and release.

Watching some anime: READ OR DIE THE TV series with 3 women acting as bodyguard/roommates to a writer. The women are all at each others throats which can get a bit thick at times.

THE SONG OF CEYLON is equally low-key for a documentary. There is very soft-spoken narration, a concentration on scenes of worship, dance, and harvesting, an interesting approach to contrasting the economics of the Western world with this more primitive nation, and finally a great score by Walter Leigh.

AFRICA SPEAKS on the other hand suffers from the same casual White Supremacy that the Martin & Osa Johnson films suffer from. Not that it hasn't got a lot of interesting footage of 30s Africa but it can leave a bad taste in the mouth. Although SONG OF CEYLON contrasts this sleepy island in a positive way with the frenetic activities of the West, I would say that it tries to show East and West on equal terms. AFRICA SPEAKS, however, seems to say that the only value in Africa are its sights and animals, the human natives are worthless.

Nagisa Oshima's DIARY OF A SHINJUKU THIEF is intentionally odd and filled with quirky details. It lurches back and forth between scenes which work well and then others which experiment and fail or go on too long. Like a kind of Mondo film of Tokyo, Oshima left it all in good and weak regardless. He tries for a modern kind of energy and sexual violence like that of Immamura films but I'm not sure if he's as successful at it in THIEF as he is in some of his other films. Still, the main actress, who looks great in the nude, carries the film through as it weaves and bobs through all the rest.

SILENCE HAS NO WINGS was in a similar vein but vastly superior. It too was intentionally cryptic, symbolic, and against a linear narrative (it even has a musical number!) but it came off as much more effective in this approach than the Oshima film did. You have a caterpillar evolving and transforming into a butterfly but when it does so it's caught and dies. It's a metaphor for Japan transforming to democracy in the postwar period or maybe its more universal and represents the doomed struggle of the entire human race to reach a more beautiful state it cannot achieve. Along the way, the caterpillar is present in scenes of children acting cruelly or in turn being mistreated, and in scenes of casual sex, casual violence, gangsterism, corporate control, and atomic disease. The director called the 60s a bitter time. I'm not sure if he preferred the war and pre-war period to the postwar period as he offers no solution to the problems he shows us but he does make allusions to earlier time periods.

If SOPHIA LOREN IN ROME is remembered at all today it's for the score John Barry wrote for it which was on LP and then CD. The TV special's highlight isn't so much scenes of Rome as it is spending time with Sophia Loren in a more casual pose than you see her acting in films. Even if a lot of it was scripted, her personality comes through here in a way that you don't see as often in her fiction films. It's a strange documentary to be sure with a lot of added quirky humor on top of it (it actually comes off in spots too). But the result of watching it is that, Rome or no Rome, I want to see more Loren from the early 60s: what a fascinating, elegant, and spirited gal she was then!

STAR WARS: REVEALATIONS is a 40 minute Star Wars fan film posted on-line. The script, acting, and plot are just poor but the special effects are great and mimic the fast-moving fluid camera style of the latest Lucas-directed WARS films to a tee. If only they had done CGI for the actors too. A serious problem is that the characters just seem endlessly pissed at each other and at each other's throats. I get enough of this crap at work. I don't need it on my TV set. I mean it was an element of the WARS films to have pissy characters spar with each other, but this is all the short comes down to and it's a poor substitute for real conflict and drama. Also, I had problems with the basic ideas in the story: the idea of seers and seperated sisters and Vader having a rivalry with some bitchy domanatrix just seem so apocrophal to the WARS universe that I was rejecting them while watching it.

DAVID LYNCH ON HIS FILMS, MEDITATION, AND LIFE is a short interview with David Lynch sitting by a microphone in front of a red curtain like in the TWIN PEAKS finale. I guess Meditation is a big source of where he finds his ideas from. Who knew? He's as a odd and deadpan a guy on film as his own films are (he calls the peace he finds meditating "Money in the bank"). But meditation is very hard to accomplish and I'd rather sit and watch Lynch movies than try to sit and meditate.

I'm still watching OUTER LIMITS episodes (into Season 2 now) and JOE 90 episodes as well as getting in various anime series.

There's always something to watch and always will be.......

Legend has it that Loren wanted "the Englishman who wrote the music for Elizabeth?" (Elizabeth Taylor In London).

That's some fascinating viewing there Lou, how'd you get to see them, are they old tapes?...DVD's?

I'd even like to see those Africa, Ceylon films? They recently had an interesting documentary on TV about the Johnson's sensationalist/exploitive African films that made for very interesting if at times uncomfortable viewing.

If the Johnsons doc shows again on TV can you tape it? Are you in the UK? I can get PAL tapes transferred so it would still be no problem for me.

I love the Johnson's films and books (which you can get from the Martin & Osa Johnson Safari Musuem in Chanute, KS) but they had a very White Supremacist attitude about all the natives they encountered which makes those segments in their films hard to watch today.

If I ever see it on TV again I'll definitely record it for you though it does seem unlikely at the moment. I caught this doc on an obscure cable channel which had an 'African' themed night which also showed a doc about the Belgian Congo, an horrific account with rare footage of the Belgian occupation.

Not one of our 'civilised' countries is unaccountable. All of us have blood on our hands.

Anyway, enough of my soundbites, if anything comes up or indeed anything of similar interest, I'll let you know Lou.

Regarding The Outer Limits: Check out The Man Who Was Never Born by Dominic Frontiere. My favorite part is this up-&-down woodwinds thingy.

And, joy of joys, there's a few little added minutes of screen time compared to all the other viewings I've had -- mostly off broadcast TV. And there's a few changes like when the aliens shout "Retreat to the station," instead of "Retreat to Universe Station!"

The ending is a bit different, too. The images are the same, but the script has been changed to alter the ending. This has brand new dubbing with some really interesting accents coming out of the mouths of Japanese people.

One of the neatest features of the DVD is that it has an isolated score. I already have the CD, but anyone who wasn't able to locate one of these will be thrilled to hear the score without the screaming and ray gun sound effects.

And another personal gripe: the dubbing crew on any Japanese film can not seem to let a meaningful silence pass--you know, the sort that is always represented in Japanese comics by a word balloon with "..." in it. For some reason, these must always be filled with growls and grunts. Then there's the military officer who screams like a little girl the first time he sees the Giant Robot.

Meanwhile, since the topic is open again. Here are some of my more recent watches:

Well, all the Cinerama films I mentioned in another topic: Cinerama Holiday, Seven Wonders of the World, Windjammer & Cinerama's Russian Adventure.

I adored the restored YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT. It's completely artificial and I should have been completely turned off by it but because it tells you so often that it's fake, I wasn't. The Legrand songs are wonderful. The girls are all hot leggy babes. It has that Jacques Demy everything you long for works out in the end magic that was part of LOLA and kind of ironically turned in UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and for me it was a delight.

I watched the new Criterion DVD of MASCULIN-FEMININ. The film looked wonderful and all extras are great: Chantal Goya in 1966 emoting about what her parents thought of the film when they saw it and Jean-Pierre Gorin comparing her to Brittany Spears. And the film hasn't aged a second, opinion polls are just as Leaud describes them, life IS "work, eat, sleep, work", and all the things it's concerned about and the way it shows how people are, are just as relevant today as in 1965-66. There's even a wonderful scene where Leaud is talking facetiously with a US Army guy about Vietnam that could just as easily apply to Iraq: "Things are going great in Vietnam, eh? Killing lots of Commies. Covering the whole country in Napalm. Fantastic."

I looked in on a few other Godard films: NOTRE MUSIQUE is accessible. It's also interesting to compare. In 1966, Godard was interested in what youth was thinking & doing, and politics was part of it. In 2004, his concerns are the same but the young are much more serious, crying when thinking about Sarajevo or risking their lives for ideals. The conflict between the Serbs & Bosnians or between Israel & the PLO becomes central. There are no facetious jokes here. Godard raises serious doubts about the future. The opening is amazing: "They way they like to cut heads off it's amazing anyone's survived." Juxtaposed against images of warfare from different time periods, Godard sums up the history of our species in one line.

SOIGNE TA DROIT isn't as accessible. I found myself really puzzled and lost in its repeated images and texts. I kept trying to put it together but it's so abstract that it kept defying my attempts to do so. KING LEAR was equally abstract but I always felt I had a handle on what it was about. Here I was completely overwhelmed.

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE is an ok faux Bond-style film from the 60s scripted by Hammer-director Jimmy Sangster. Elke Sommer & Sylva Koscina are great to look at. Nigel Green and Leonard Rossiter give neat turns. Its ending is oddly blunt. But somehow it seems flat. The humor and action don't work as well as they should. You never get to like the main hero or the guy playing his nephew enough to care.

The new lbx DVD of ADVISE & CONSENT is wonderful. Preminger does such a good job with both the look and pace of this film. I doubt it's an accurate look at Washington, but it works so well dramatically that you say to hell with versimilitude. I don't know what gays will make of their depiction here. Preminger was daring enough to put a gay bar in the film (it's 1962) but they're not given a positive portrayal.

MANJI makes Fassbinder look comatose. Some films have body counts, this has a betrayal count. A betrays B with C. C betrays A with D. D betrays C with A. B betrays A with C. And around it goes. And I've never seen a quartet of people go through so much hyper-emotive responses in a film. It's too much, way over-the-top. Perhaps that's the point, that these people feel with violence & passion. Ok, but it wore me out. I have 3 other films by the same director: GIANTS & TOYS, AFRAID TO DIE, and BLIND BEAST but haven't looked at them yet.

Other recent Japanese views include FAREWELL TO THE ARK, a film about remembering the past and ECSTASY OF THE ANGELS, a film about the conflicts within a group of militant revolutionaries.

ET LA LUMIERE FUT is a wonderful but depressing fiction film about a Senegalese village whose magical way of life is destroyed by loggers.

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS looked great but the anthropomorphism, making the penguins take on "human" motivations and emotions was a real turn off.

I caught up to STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH. I liked the score, the sets, and the overall look of it. And even at 2 hours and 20 minutes it seemed trimmed to essentials and moved better than the previous two films. There are neat action sequences and it works to fit in a lot of narrative but the people and the human element are so dwarfed by it that (even with all that lava) it leaves you a little cold.

But it's a great film. Lon Chaney is the apparently 'armless (actually he's a complete bastard) Alonzo in a circus. He gets to throw knives at Joan Crawford (amazing looking) with his feet as part of the show. He really loves her, and he's got an advantage there over the sideshow strongman, because she's frigid and can't stand the touch of other men's hands. So the platonic love between her and Chaney blossoms, or so he deludes himself into thinking. The thing is, he really HAS arms, and is just concealing them because he's a murderer (with two thumbs on one hand!), and came up with the armless act to confuse the police. Anyway, believing that the only way to fully win the girl's attention (whilst putting the police off his trail forever) is to take his ploy to the extreme, so he GETS HIS ARMS SURGICALLY REMOVED! But the gal overcomes her frigidity and falls, literally, into the loving caress of the strongman, which sends Chaney completely round the bend.

What an amazing story! I'd really like you all to see this (see if you can get the complete version)and talk about it right here. Then we can talk about what may be THE BIGGEST MOVIE GOOF OF ALL TIME! I couldn't believe it myself, and had to watch the scene in slo-mo fifty times. I even checked the Movie Database for goofs, and they only mention a scene where a wine glass mysteriously fills up... so I must be wrong. Good God, I'm going out of my brains here, it simply can't be... But I swear that I saw Chaney, in the clamactic scenes, LOCK A DOOR WITH HIS HANDS! Surely I'm mistaken.

Great film anyway. Please try to see it (if you're interested, of course).

Whatever, I still think it's a great film. I'd love to see the lost footage (which includes Hercules being castrated and being exhibited as a singer with a very high voice), but I don't think it'll ever be found.

One neat find are episodes of JOHNNY STACCATO. I picked these up on Ebay years ago, put them in a box, and recently dug them out to watch (somewhere I have a complete or near complete run of MEN INTO SPACE I need to locate and watch as well).

I have 20 out of the 27 episodes and I'm enjoying them. Nothing special. They remind me of PETER GUNN only there's no cool humor and the main character is a little darker.

Like other late-50s TV shows there are lots of surprises, great actors doing guest bits, scores by Elmer Bernstein, episodes directed by John Cassevetes (who is also the star), etc. One real shock & surprise was that I just saw an episode where John Williams (!) played the piano player in the jazz club the main chacter frequents. Cassevetes is playing the piano while Williams watches, someone calls Cassevetes, who calls Williams over to take his place, Williams sits down, Cassevetes smiles at him and makes a kind of clawing gesture at him and moves on. And JW looked so young it was hard to tell it was him but he was listed in the credits, Johnny Williams...Piano, so there was no question about it.

Yes I too noticed much of what you mentioned in Freaks. And I agree with much of what you said there.

Then theres these really dumb cheaply made films in US long ago like 1. I Hate your Guts with Williams Shatner, 2. I Spit on your Grave 3. Poor White Trash with Peter Graves etc. we had a bunch of those in early 60s. Poor White Trash had some very shocking scenes in it. And oh yes that very racist and shocking film of 1982 Death Wish II, one of the most racist films I have ever seen and uncut this is quite shocking and graphic violence and sex, rape scenes. Very disturbing, exploitation film.