Maelstrom of Movies

An anniversary passed quietly last month: 10 years ago, Warners Brothers released the first wave of DVDs in general retail stores. Some industry commentaries may pin the advent of home theater entertainment a bit earlier, but to the public at large, August 1997 was the month this new fangled technology first became available and the digital video disc (or digital versatile disc, depending on who you ask) entered the everyday conscience.

DVDs captured my interest the instant I saw them in Circuit City. Perhaps it’s hard to understand in the Information Age, but I never had heard of DVDs before, and that center display with the slim cardboard cases was their introduction.

Movie studios recently had begun releasing specific films in widescreen VHS, something I wished they did for all their tapes. Whether a movie boasts the epic screen or the old square Academy ratio, a director frames each shot like a photographer frames her stills. There’s a subtle language to film, one in which emotions and story are imparted not only with actors or script but with editing, camera movement, and shot selection. I never was cognizant of that art until Braveheart, which I saw three times in the theater. Mel Gibson used very inch of his frame in every shot, and when I saw the movie again on cable, I couldn’t believe how much the television screen butchered the picture. I finally realized why some movies seemed better in the theater than they were on cable.

While widescreen presentations still were rare for videos, every DVD Warners released in that first wave contained one, along with the film’s trailer and a “full-frame” version. I think I drooled.

Warners was the only major studio that fully believed in the new home video format—the others attempted to push something that was called DIVX, a disposable DVD that would be cheap but stop playing after a certain time. It lasted only a year. Obviously, people wanted their movies to last forever.

I’ve touched on it before—Hollywood’s initial disinterest turned into the film fringe’s gain. With the same vision as the Warners bosses, independent licensors soon gambled on the new technology and struck deals with the studios for their unwanted movies: the Army of Darknesses, the Portrait of Jennies, the Black Holes. They also acquired disused film libraries like the post-Corman New World, while negotiating agreements with European and Asian film companies to strengthening their new catalogues. Silents, serials, b-grade programmers, big turkeys, kung-fu adventures, Hammer horror, giallo… they all found a home on DVD, long before special editions became standard expectation.

By the time I bought my first and only player three years after that Circuit City find, the studios had taken note of the increasing sales and the success of the likes of Anchor Bay, Elite, Image, and Kino. They had quickly abandoned their DIVX obsession and slowly started playing catch-up. DVD was beginning to grow up, which only meant more movies for me.

Because of its initial concentration in indies and oddities, DVDs only fed my one obsession. I was the one in the video store seeking the goofy-looking box with the most dust; now, I had a hundred to choose from. For the first couple of years, I played my own game of catch-up, buying an average of 3 or 4 DVDs a month. Upon seeing my still-blooming collection for the first time, my friend Karen called me “a video store.” My sister was a bit more precise: “You have a lot of really strange movies.”

Yeah, I do. Ten years ago, thanks to circumstantial timing, the little cult films, the failures, the foreigners, the small ancients, the little-known but the loved—for a brief time, they took center stage, stealing the monologue and singing the lead. I was in the audience, and I’m still there, with the world’s guiltiest grin embracing my face.

Classy Cult Cinema

Lightning can do strange things. Strike places twice, stalk people, roast chickens, even cause annual conventions. And it can blow out phone lines. Specifically, my phone line. About a week ago, Frederick experienced two full days of lightning storms. While my neighbors and I sat (safely) under our porches to enjoy the night sky crackling, one apparently smacked my 30-year-old split and switch. For days, my phone fluttered between stone silence or laughing static, as if the lightning bolt still danced on the line. My Internet connection also suffered: After about 10 minutes online, the connection would sputter and fade out, leaving my browser grasping blindly.

But the phone guy just left, after installing a completely new line and adopting the burned-out switch for his display wall at work. The computer connection is finally healthy, and I jump online to see what's happening.

And at the prestigious AFI Silver Theatre, this greets me.

Big Trouble in Little China? Evil Dead 2? The Terminator? This is Spinal Tap? Repo Man? Porky's?

What, did lightning strike me, too? Am I really in heaven? Or did reality's axis just go all unhinged?

A few years ago, The American Film Institute helped Montgomery County restore the historical Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland, for the purpose of showing classic and world cinema. With two stadium-seating screening rooms, the theater usually shows older foreign and American art films, classic cinema, and even the occasional first-run indie feature. The line-ups usually feature the likes of Seven Samurai, Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, My Own Private Idaho, and The Lady Vanishes. In a week, a Sunday Buster Keaton retrospective ends after playing all spring. Recent pulp films, however, never really have been shown there. Sure, a few years ago, I got to see the original Japanese Godzilla at the Silver, but that movie is now regarded as a monster classic alongside the likes of Frankenstein and Dracula.

But that's really the point, isn't it? Many of the films we regard today as important classics were the entertainment of yesteryear. John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, Tod Browning...they all created timeless work that helped shape film history, but they all were storytellers first. Some filmmakers simply were more subtle than others.

The films the AFI Silver Theatre is showcasing as great 1980s cinema boast growing reputations: The Termintor is regarded as a contemporary time-travel classic, while Evil Dead 2 begatted Sam Raimi's career, hyperactive filmatic style, and comedy horror. Porky's, for better or worse, predated today's tasteless teen comedies; you can thank the late Bob Clark for the likes of American Pie. This Is Spinal Tap helped introduce the modern concept of the mockumentary, one that star Christopher Guest has continued to develop with Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. All these films from my teenhood influenced the makers of movies today; the cultural ascension to critical respect just seems odd to me, who still remembers them for the celluloid escape they originally gave us.

Of course, that still doesn't explain Jack Burton's appearance. But who cares?



Oh yeah, I have my tickets yesterday.