Tape 62

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Horror / Thriller
R, 93 min
Directed by Ken Russell

So... apparently Bram Stoker wrote something other than Dracula, see?  And, well, Ken Russell filmed a version that is much like most Ken Russell movies: w/ weird dream sequences featuring bare breasted nuns and/or knights w/ gigantic metal codpieces, a peculiar absence of day players and a tone that suggests tongue in cheek... but whose cheek, y'know?  Essentially it's a story of two British sisters running a rooming house whose parents had mysteriously vanished some time earlier.  One current resident is an amateur archeologist excavating Roman ruins who discovers evidence of a snake worshipping cult.  There's a mishmash of stuff including Hugh Grant as a neighbouring upper class twit and Amanda Donohoe as Lady Sylvia March who has a predilection for Snakes and Ladders (and thigh high boots).  It's good goofy fun.

Replacement status: have VHS copy.  Might be a (cheap) DVD version.

Dead Ringers (1988)
Drama / Thriller
Rated R, 116 min
Directed by David Cronenberg

Jeremy Irons as identical twin gynecologists.  One is sensitive and bookish, one is gregarious and a bit of a hound... and both fall for Genevieve Bujold, who plays an actress with particularly intriguing reproductive junk under the hood.  The brothers' identities become a little confused, both purposefully and accidentally and things spiral waaaaay out of control.  It's Cronenberg so it's a paragon of body-conscious creepiness.

Replacement status: not replaced.  Will get DVD eventually.

Tape 49

Raising Arizona (1987)
Adventure/Comedy/Crime/Mystery
PG-13, 94 min
Directed by Joel Coen

After their nouveau noir debut, Blood Simple, the Coen Brothers lightened things up a little with the tale of a loveable loser (a Coen staple ever after), ex-con H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) who finds unlikely love with police officer Edwina "Ed" (Holly Hunter).  The wheels come off their idyllic mobile home lifestyle when they learn they can't have a child.  MEANWHILE local unpainted furniture bigwig Nathan Arizona and his wife are overly blessed with a litter of quintuplets and H.I. is prodded back into illegal action to kidnap one of the Arizonas to fill the hole in their happy home.  Best sequence: grocery store robbery for Pampers that turns into a slapstick masterpiece.

Replacement status: replaced on DVD

Magic (1978)
Drama/Horror/Romance/Thriller
Rated R, 108 min
Directed by Richard Attenborough

The central conceit of the story is that ventriloquist Corky Withers (Anthony Hopkins) has risen from the circles of nightclub hell up into burgeoning mainstream celebrity (I know alternate universe, right?)  On the eve of his big break, a network television development contract, he is asked to undergo some medical tests for insurance... a request he adamantly refuses and, when pushed by his manager (Burgess Meredith), flees to upstate New York.  There he secludes himself in one of the cabins in a failing resort run by his old high school flame Peggy Ann Snow (Ann Margaret) and her husband.  At the centre of this little whirlwind is Fats, Corky's "dummy," who seems to be more than a tool of the trade.  Interesting facts: (1)  It was the movie that Attneborough did between A Bridge Too Far and Gandhi.  (2)  The script was by William Golding (based on his novel), whose other screenplays include All the President's Men and The Princess Bride (3) Ann-Margaret is ditzy funtastic and Hopkins eat two or three walls worth of scenery... in the best way possible.

Replacement status: replaced on DVD.

Tape 56

Vampire's Kiss (1988)
Comedy/Fantasy/Horror
Rated R, 103 minutes
Directed by Robert Bierman

So Nicolas Cage plays a publishing exec who believes that a vampire, Flashdance star Jennifer Beals by the by, has bitten him and he is therefore on the path towards becoming a creature of the night. That's about it.... Notable for the fact that Mr. Nick at one point eats a cockroach and apparently chose to do it for real rather than substitute a prop one. This was before hundreds of meathead frat boys started doing it weekly on Fear Factor. Also notable... sorta... for featuring future Frasier co-star David Hyde Pierce as "Theatre Guy." At the time the movie was the first to get Cage some notice for being "brave with his choices." Which is Hollywood speak for "This guy will do some weird shit that may work in some movies, but the problem is he'll also do it in movies where it's wholly inappropriate and less seasoned directors won't know how to make him stop being a shithead... and he'll ruin their movies as a result."

Replacement status: not replaced, no intention to replace.

...All the Marbles (1981)
Action/Drama/Comedy/Romance
Rated R, 113 minutes
Directed by Robert Aldrich

Peter Falk manages a couple of female wrestlers in small markets, negotiating his/their way through sleazy promoters and questionable choices (mud wrestling in a county fair, for example) to get them a shot at brighter limelight. This was Aldrich's last movie (he did The Dirty Dozen and The Longest Yard most notably), and perhaps not a great career capper. That said it was a lot less exploitative and more realistic than you might think... partly because the whole WWF/E juggernaut hadn't begun it's ascension... and because you get the sense the studio was looking for a "female Rocky movie with a little jiggle." While it isn't exactly on a par with Aronofsky's The Wrestler, it holds its own.

Replacement status: not replaced, keeping an eye out for DVD, currently oop.

Tape 45

Rabid (1977)
Horror/Thriller
Rated R, 91 min
Directed by David Cronenberg

Shivers (1975)
Horror/Thriller
Rated R, 87 min
Directed by David Cronenberg

There were fairly common elements in all of Cronenberg's early films: contagion, sexual awakening, and an obvious undercurrent of mistrust in medical organizations, I'd say. Shivers, the earliest of the two, concerns a plague of parasites in an isolated Montreal apartment complex. One of the tenants, a mad scientist of sorts, is experimenting on parasites that could function as replacement for diseased organs. His parasites instead kick the libido of their hosts up a notch or ten and the apartment turns into a swingin' orgy of parasite passers-0n. Whereas Rabid's plot begins after a woman (played by porn actress Marilyn Chambers) is injured in a motorcycle accident and requires plastic surgery. Another experimental procedure is attempted using artificial skin and the woman ends up with an odd phallus-like growth in her armpit that requires regular infusions of human blood. The folks she drains become "rabid" and exhibit zombie-like tendencies to attack and pass along their ailment. Both films suffer a little from their low production budgets and uneven acting... but the ideas are so perverse and outlandish they easily carry the narrative.

Replacement status: have both on VHS... will uprgrade to DVD eventually.

Halloween (1978)
Horror Thriller
Rated R, 91min
Directed by John Carpenter

The little horror film that solidified the mold for the modern slasher flick. Carpenter is a master of tension and mood and the framework introducing Michael at the film's introduction is key in keeping his presence in the back of our minds throughout. Having recently seen the orginal Black Christmas for the first time, a Canadian film from 1974, there are admittedly many tricks borrowed for Halloween. Still Carpenter's film is leaner and cleaner and stands as a classic.

Replacement status: replaced on VHS, waiting to find a used anniversary reissue on DVD.

Tape (unnumbered)

Exotica (1994)
Drama
Rated R, 103 min
Directed by Atom Egoyan

I got off to a rocky start with Egoyan films. I caught Speaking Parts late night on cable and was hopelessly confused... mostly about whether the male and female leads were the same person or not. I was tired. Exotica is the one that broke big for him, and deservedly so. It's got all his best stuff... voyeurism, sexual confusion, past secrets, and sadness... and it's told in slow unspooling way that jumps around in time. This kind of temporal shiftiness has been employed lately (and wonderfully) by folks like Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams), but was risky at that time. Great performances by Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas and Mia Kirshner... and a story that's set around a high end strip club, but the broken heart of the story likes elsewhere in the characters' shared past.

Replacement status: I have Exotica on VHS... will eventually get DVD.

Spanking the Monkey (1994)
Comedy/Drama
Rated R, 100 min
Directed by David O. Russell

This little indie got David O. Russell started on his quirky road... leading eventually to things like Three Kings and I ♥ Huckabees. Essentially a three hander (no pun intended) about a father who tasks his son to stay home from college for a term to take care of his ailing mom. This is something the son is less than keen on doing. Sound simple? Well the mom, played by Alberta Watson, is ailing because of an attempted suicide (never really revealed... but hinted at very directly) due to her husband's infidelity. Son (played by Jeremy Davies who now stars on Lost) eventually gives in and stays home to take care of Mom. Things are a little tense, in a sort of quietly desperate way, until they come to an Oedipal head (pun mostly intended). I love black comedy.

Replacement status: Don't currently have Spanking the Monkey... but would pick it up on DVD either cheaply or if it had a Director's commentary (Russell's are among the best)

The Beta Tests

I started collecting movies the year I graduated high school and got my first VCR as a gift. It was a Beta machine. This was in a time where most people believed in the superiority of Beta over VHS. It was also a time where video stores would have deals to rent you a VCR (in a big silver industrial suitcase with a foam cutout inside) and two movies for $20/night. This was because not everyone had a VCR of their own, so renting just a movie was... obviously pointless.

So a typical summer weekend that year after graduation would be to shlep my Beta VCR over to a friend's house whose parents either had a VCR, or one who would be up for renting a machine and two movies on a Friday or Saturday night. A blank beta tape, on the slowest record speed, would hold 4 1/2 hours of video... enough for two movies and a television program. So that summer... and pretty much up until the beginning of the 1990s I made it a semi-regular practice of dubbing movies.

In clearing out storage this Fall I'm finally getting rid of all the Beta tapes (which isn't so long in coming, since up until 2-3 years ago I had a working Beta machine)... so I thought I'd make a photographic record of this fond farewell and discuss the movies I grabbed... which ones I replaced... and which ones I'm ok with letting drift away. If I get through this lot we'll turn our attention to the rest of the collection... post-Beta.

Note, the tapes are numbered, but weren't photographed in order... so I'm just taking them as they were stacked.