Also, I gave Beat Street a rewatch over the weekend (before it left the Criterion Channel).

Rock wrote:

Also, I gave Beat Street a rewatch over the weekend (before it left the Criterion Channel).

That juicy Beat Street Strut.

Good taste in music, here.

I tried to post my own link but I haven't reached my 10–post minimum, yet.

I'll make 'em count.

Rock wrote:

If it makes you feel better, the Channel does result in nervously sweating during the last few weeks of each month as one races to catch as many films as possible before they leave. Although that may be a side effect of me watching abject garbage for the first half of the month.

That sounds luxurious, actually, considering Amazon giveth and taketh away their Prime banner without any warning whatsoever. Oh the sting! Every visit to my Prime watchlist feels like a stroll through eggshells. 

The Criterion Channel has notorious compatibility issues apparently, I think mostly from strict anti-piracy measures, and not always of their own design. Roku users remain SOL, I'm pretty sure. 

Thank you for your gracious attempt at consolation, however. I take solace in the fact that somebody gets to enjoy Criterion's bounty. Have you watched the extras for Pink Flamingos?

Last edited by Rampop II (5/02/2022 9:58 pm)

Rampop II wrote:

Hrm. I'm trying to embed this but I dunno what I'm doing

It's working for me, but what I'd do is just write the name of the piece, highlight the name and hyperlink it by clicking that chain looking thing in the menu and pasting the address in the dropdown menu there.

Like this: Zeus Juice

Last edited by Jinnistan (5/02/2022 10:33 pm)

Rock wrote:

Looks like Multiple Maniacs is on the Channel though, so I suppose I should goad myself into watching it soon enough.

Multiple Maniacs would be a decent place to start for an introduction to the early Waters flicks. Pink Flamingos remains the quintessential, but I really liked Multiple Maniacs. There's a world of difference between early Waters films and later ones. The first several were beyond independent; they were unrepentantly amateurish, shot in–sequence on frayed shoestrings and probably without permits, and remain some of the most iconic and original displays of depraved humor in American cinema. Things were done in those films that to the best of my knowledge had not been seen before, nor have they been seen since. I think of early Waters being similar to underground 80s punk rock; no knowledge of convention, no regard for rules, total disdain for decency, and with no expectations of mainstream recognition of any kind. 

Later Waters films are great fun, but they're no primer for the early ones. Maybe nothing can prepare a person for those. The fact that Waters graduated to the mainstream is the kind of marvel that helps to keep me in awe of the universe. 

I won't post the link, because the article is posed as click bait garbage, but I came across some half-assed sputterings online about how Dylan is not a poet and his writing is overrated hackdom. Of course the writer qualified this by claiming that it's not like they don't 'get Dylan'. They totally totally do and they actually even like a couple of his songs. So, make note, clearly this person knows what they are talking about. But then they go out of their way to randomly grab at random lyrics they claim don't 'make sense' or are poorly constructed in order to force rhymes on the listener. And because of this, comes to the conclusion that he lacked 'the linguistic talent' needed to be considered a poet.

"Dylan revolutionised popular music with his use of spacious lyrical forms, full of long lines and rhyme opportunities. But the truth is that he lacked the linguistic talent to fill those spaces without frequently resorting to slapdash constructions and contorted verbiage"

See that guys, he used 'verbiage'. He really must know what he's talking about.

The fact that this doofus doesn't seem to understand how those seemingly awkward structured rhymes are a product of Dylan being playful with both form and the cadences of spoken language, he also seems to lack an awareness that pulling fragments out of verse which is based in a stream of consciousness process is totally bad faith horse shit. And it says even more when he almost exclusively sets his sights on a very specific period of Dylan's writing (mostly mid 60s, where he was as much thumbing his nose at expectations of profundity as he was living up to them), completely ignoring all the other phases of his approach to lyrics when he became much more succinct, personal, more beholden to narrative conventions and rhyme schemes.

Now, considering it's click bait, it's probably dumb of me to want to elbow this guy in the nose. But the fact that it then turns out that this guy is some high profile, literary critic, I think a nosebleed is the very least this pseudo-academic toad deserves. Especially when considering his bafflingly bad attempts at being funny in his own article...always a tell when critics who criticize something that is so deeply dependant on having a sense of humor show an absolute clubbed foot when they attempt to make people laugh.

So between the Roe V Wade situation, and this destined to be completely forgotten article, clearly the world is being run by monsters posing as experts in matters of the soul and personhood.

Now, excuse me while I get back to hating the world from my place hiding beneath blankets with twelve cats and a farting dog. Exactly where I belong.






 

Last edited by crumbsroom (5/05/2022 12:03 pm)