Retail Resistance

Sue Everybody!

It's true I was pissed about The Weinstein Company making an exclusive retail deal with Blockbuster. But once I cast aside my considerable narcissism I realized their dealmaking wasn't about using unfair business practices against Box Office Video. Instead Blockbuster is stepping up its war against Netflix.

Evidently what Blockbuster and TWC are planning is to digitally label the DVDs as not appropriate for rental from any retailer but Blockbuster. There is, however, something called the First Sale Doctrine, which says any rental store can buy any disc and use it as part of its rental inventory. Trevor Drinkwater, CEO of Genius, and a mastermind of this master stroke said,

"With the First Sale Doctrine, there's nothing we can do to prohibit someone from walking into Costco and buying the DVD and renting it. What we can do as a distributor is brand all Blockbuster DVDs with the Blockbuster logo, and all the DVDs that are out for sale will be clear to consumers as being for sale only. We'll encourage people to call us if they did rent [a DVD that is labeled for sale]."

This means you can expect BOV to gleefully buy, say, Emilio Estevez's "Bobby", and rent it to our customers whether there's a message to our customers telling them the discs are intended for sale only and shouldn't be rented. It won't make a bit of difference to us. But I can't imagine that Netflix will have the same attitude. Netflix probably won't think it's as funny as I do that they will have to go into Costco and buy tens of thousands of DVDs, then send them to their customers with a big message from Blockbuster saying they are committing a criminal act.

Top If Off

It took me 365 days, but I'm finally going to get something done before the deadline. Here's my top five of 2006 with a handful of asides besides. I'm not listing my present five in any particular order.

The Proposition
L'Enfant
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Brothers of the Head
Kekexixli: Mountain Patrol

I'm seriously considering The Descent. Maybe in place of Mountain Patrol. I can't believe I was actually scared for the first time in years. The problem is I watched the commentary afterwards - something I never do - and it clarified the ending. The ambiguity of the ending was one of the things I liked so much about the film and having the director explain it ruined the intellectual mystery of the movie. I'm still trying to get over the disappointment of that. I should have known better.

I also loved the new Bond, excepting the silly poker narration of Giancarlo Giannini. I'm just not sure I can put it in a best of list. Maybe best action movie? Borat was hilarious, but besides the Big Lebowski I'm not sure comedies can come close to greatness. Okay, dark comedies and satires maybe.

The best of list is always open to revision. Especially because I haven't seen all of the movies from this year, and I'm convinced I'll love Children of Men. I also haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth, History Boys, or Half Nelson. The new Chris Marker could also have made my list, but I doubt I'll ever get to see it.

Bleary Eyed Rummy

Not long ago when the length of the war in Iraq surpassed the length of American involvement in WWII Rumsfeld and others all took umbrage at the comparison. They all asserted the two weren't analogous. As if they had never made the comparisons themselves, i.e.. appeasement, Hitler, etc..

Now that Rumsfeld is on the way out he is continuing to not find the WWII/Iraq comparison intellectually honest. On a recent Fox News interview he again didn't use the comparison to talk about public support for the Iraq war, lamenting insufficient propaganda efforts on the part of Hollywood.

Furthermore, the movie industry was mobilized to support the war. They (filmmakers) wanted us to win, which was an important factor.

It's true you know. Hollywood's liberal elites want us to lose. People like Clint Eastwood are attempting to make movies that demythologize war because they hate America. If they would just make more movies on behalf of the Defense Department all of the administration's policy decisions would be winners.

More 70's Now

Putting together my 70's section I've begun to notice similarities worth taking note of. First there's the war. Another is the governmental corruption. (And who knows, possible impeachment?) But what I find so interesting is these kinds of similarities are being manifested cinematically by movies themselves similar to the movies of the 70's.

According to some, like Alex Cox, the 70's were responsible for killing the Western genre (at least commercially), because of the genre defying Anti-Westerns of people like Peckinpah and the Spaghetti Westerns with overpowering anti-heroes like Clint Eastwood or the Django series.

Along with this genre subversion of the Western you had the rise of a new genre, the Midnight Movies. The Midnight Movies were a subversion of the social acceptability of movies projected during the traditional operating hours of movie theaters. This trajectory of filmmaking is credited to filmmakers like Alejandro Jodorowsky, who set out to transgress the social and cinematic norms, by making explicit things on screen what before filmmakers at best only implied.

Well these same figures, and many more besides, are starting to reemerge with projects bringing to mind the very same cinematic developments of the 70's. Alejandro Jodorowsky is back in production with a "meta-physical spaghetti western" set to star Marilyn Manson and Nick Nolte. And today comes news that Takashi Miike starts shooting on an English-language spaghetti western. Quentin Tarantino - who's next movie will be titled "Grind House", another 70's genre creation, much like his entire oeuvre- is set to appear in Sukiyaki Western: Django, which is cult director Takashi Miike's first English-language film.

It will be interesting to see these movies. But perhaps more interesting will be to see how history repeating itself in a mere thirty year span will manifest socially and cinematically, with the dialectic of the now and the then moving us towards something hopefully better than the 80's.

The Brothers Miramax

Weinsteins sign groundbreaking exclusive US deal with Blockbuster
Rivals like Netflix blocked from handling TWC product until at least 2010

This was the headline of headlines in today's Screen Daily. I generally hate these kinds of "output" deals the studios make with Blockbuster or Hollywood or Netflix. However, I do on occasion like to see the big boys go to the mattresses like this. I'm hoping the Weinsteins don't count Box Office Video among Blockbuster's rivals making their TWC product, aka. movies, unavailable to us as well. We'll have to wait and see if we get caught in the corporate crossfire.

The Newest in Affrontery For Fall

I'm not sure why this is, but for some reason there is a type of person who feels obligated to justify why they don't rent at Box Office Video by telling me they do Netflix instead. I can't figure out why they think that this is information I need to know.

Two nights ago a very well heeled heel of a well meaning liberal type did this very thing. Unfortunately for him, intelligent though he may be, and know doubt thinks he is, I was hammered and instead of politically demurring, I chose to tell him what was wrong with him and his ilk.

It went a little something like this. Two years ago...A friend of mine...Told me to say some MC rhymes..So I said this rhyme I'm about to say...The rhyme was butter and it went this way. (Sorry, that reminscence was unavoidable):

Me: Well, where do you live? (I realize not everyone has a viable non-corporate alternative)
He: A block from the store.
Me: So despite all of your professed progressive politics, you can't even walk around the corner to support your neighborhood, your city, and a local business that helps to support both of those things.
He: It's not me, really, it's my wife who does it.
Me: I find it slightly misogynistic for you to scapegoat your wife who isn't here.
He: Well, she watches like 6 movies a month. I probably only watch 1. I haven't watched much of anything since my wife bought me "Six Moral Tales" my birthday.
Me: (This motherfucker thinks he can trump me by asserting some kind of cultural superiority with an Eric Rohmer reference. Fuck him.) Congratulations. You have six Rohmer films. How many films do you think he's made? Like 30? Do you ever think you might want to watch any of his other films? You can find them at the video store a block from your house.
He: He's probably made more like twenty films. (In point of fact, I count 34 if you don't include his TV productions.)
Me: Your the kind of person who is screwing this country. You vote for a Democrat once every two years, but your actions every other day do nothing to mirror your parlor politics.

Okay. I think you get the idea. I'm sure that berating potential customers isn't the greatest of business models. I doubt Netflix ever talks back to you, or calls you out on your politics. But sometimes, especially when drinking, I feel it is my civic duty to civilize the more civilized than myself by means of a confrontational tongue lashing.

If someone has a better idea, by all means feel free to share. I like to think I'm more open minded when sober.

Doing It For Us

Sometimes I feel privileged to order movies for Box Office Video. Case in point, "Kama Sutra: The Secrets of Making Love." The advertising print reads, "According to the Kama Sutra, amorous desire and sexual pleasures are prerequisites to world harmony." The add also says "that the goal of sexual union is not only pleasure, but also mutual evolution."

This is cosmic kismet, because we at Box Office Video share these very same goals of mutual evolution and world harmony. They are the very reasons we open the store every day. This is no mere petit bourgeois entrepreneurial enterprise on our part.

But what makes this Kama Sutra DVD different than all of the other cheap quasi-educational faux soft porn Kama Sutras? How will this DVD elevate our love making into new spiritual planes and achieve world peace? For one, the makers have winnowed out the less effective positions. I'm not sure how they decided what made the cut, trial and error I suppose, but "the 50 most representative positions from the Kama Sutra have been chosen to arouse and ignite sexual awakening." This is important I think, because judging by what I see around us, we don't have much time to waste.

However, this doesn't fully answer the question of why I have decided to chose this DVD over all the others. The key I believe is in the format. First off, like any movie, I would always opt for the widescreen version over the amputated fullscreen. How we receive this movie is crucial, and that is where this version has made the biggest of leaps. Because this DVD will be "graphically presented in 3-D."

Imagine the difference this could make. Watching people pretend to have sex in 3-D is the kind of evolutionary breakthrough I've been waiting my whole life for. They even include 2 pairs of 3D glasses. That doesn't mean you have a replacement if you lose one. It means you can bring a partner on board the voyage of self-discovery and world harmony creation that will happen every time you "insert disc and hit play."

The Finale is Fini/C'est la Vie

I've watched soccer games in every conceivable place, and all over the world. I've watched them in Marseille and Milan, New York and Chicago, at home alone, and at a friend's with a group. I've many times been to one sportsbar or another to watch a game with other fans (especially during the times of my life that I can't afford cable), but one place I've never watched a game, until today that is, is in a movie theatre.

I've never been the type to compartmentalize my passions - movies, soccer, politics. Why separate a holy trinity? So when I saw a movie theatre advertise the World Cup final it seemed like the most natural coupling in the world. Why not opt for the biggest screen possible to watch the biggest spectacle possible?

Gravitating thusly, I went to the Riverview Theatre in Minneapolis expecting, if nothing else, to see larger than life superstars like Zidane...well...larger than life. The theatre seats 700, and there were easily 750 strong in attendance.

One of the most overlooked components of the American soccer fan is that their love of the game usually doesn't come from cultural traditions or national identity. Soccer is beloved for soccer's sake. Soccer in Italy may be a passion, or even a religion, but it's played mostly without concern for the game's aesthetic possibilities. For all we know Machiavelli was the country's first soccer coach, because the Italian style generally never strays from an ends justifies the means negativity. Eurocentric as Americans can be, the American soccer fan believes in the ideal of soccer and will, therefore, root for whichever team comes closest to the ideals of that most cliched of phrases, the beautiful game. That said, the crowd was probably two-thirds for France.

But there's something about soccer, something intrinsic in its eleven a side design and fluid weave of movement with and without the ball, that creates community. I don't remember whether it was Godard or Chris Marker that said - and this is my best attempt at paraphrase - that communism only truly ever existed during the ninety minutes in 1953 when Hungary beat England 6-3. Many of the greatest moments of community I've experienced were on soccer fields. This time, however, I experienced a community while watching a soccer game.

Perhaps not coincidentally, I also for the first time in my life experienced the kind of communal experience that cinephiles speak of when they bemoan the lost collective experience of a theatre.
People clapped, cheered, and jeered, together. There was applause everytime the game restarted, and boos every time they showed golf during the stoppages. And just in case you think the standing room only crowd wasn't American, the place went wild when they showed Bill Clinton.

I'll probably go into a postpartum World Cup depression now. My only hope, besides Jurgen Klinsmann becoming our national team coach, is that I can go back to a movie theatre in the near future and see a film that will elicit the same feelings of shared experience that I had at the cinema today.

Germany v. Italy

I've undertaken a thought exercise. Based on the characteristics of each national team competing in the World Cup semis I will choose a movie from that country to represent it in a double feature. Originally I thought this wouldn't be hard; I know a little something about soccer, and I know my fair share of movies. Just a case of putting two and two together. The truth, alas, is my exercise has become more difficult than I expected.

First Germany. As a national team they are traditionally dour, disciplined, organized, and relentlessly driven until the final whistle (I can't tell you the number of times they have forced an overtime in the final seconds, and beaten the more attacking team in penalty kicks). This year's team, under Jurgen Klinsmann, however, has replaced the dour with fast paced offensive soccer. The entire country has gone from calling for his ousting before the tournament to unabashed pride and joy at his results as they overachieve into the semis.

Therefore, I'm choosing Run Lola Run. Before Klinsmann I could never have made this choice, but with his new style of soccer the door has opened and the team of Tykvwer and Potente have stepped through. For those who haven't seen it, the movie is organized to the minute, is relentlessly driven by its techno soundtrack, and is breathlessly paced. There's also a small matter of the film being literally kicked off with a philosophical soccer metaphor.

Now Italy. They are counter attacking, histrionic, religious, and believe in a tactic of tightly structured defensive imperviousness. Often they will have one of the best players in the world, i.e.. Baggio, but play through him begrudgingly, if at all, because they favor low scoring defensive soccer built around the counter attack (the cattenacio). To put it in political terms, their defensiveness is conservative, and their counter attack is reactionary. They have an anarchist streak of individaul creativity, but opt instead for the familial, non-individual, fascist numbers of the majority. The fist over the fingers.

For all of these reasons I am choosing The Best of Youth as Italy's filmic representative. The epic and historical 6 hour film essentially follows two brothers as they chose different paths through history after passing through the crucible of the 1968. It embodies the contradictions of the country's fascism and the resistance to it (for instance, at a magazine stand in Milan I once bought two calendars at the same time out of sheer irony; one of Che Guevera, the other of Mussolini). The one brother Matteo joins the riot police. The other, Nicola, eschews communism in favor of liberal humanism, while his wife choses militancy and the Red Brigade. And what becomes of Italy, the fascist leaning Burlesconi becomes Prime Minister, while virtually no one will admit to voting for him. Thus despite the country's sometimes violent Gramscian contradictions, family, religion, and national tradition, prevail. And that is why I pick The Best of Youth over, say a Nanni Moretti film, because Moretti's leftist fight is never won, and Italy will always revert to the cattenacio.

Overconvenient Journalism

I read this in the commentary section of my local paper, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, this morning:

"Albert Einstein once said, 'Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.' While the gods must consider 'An Inconvenient Truth' the ultimate comedy, real climate scientists are crying over Al Gore's new film ... "Gore's credibility is damaged early in the film when he tells the audience that, by simply looking at Antarctic ice cores with the naked eye, one can see when the American Clean Air Act was passed. Dr. Ian Clark, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa responds: 'This is pure fantasy unless the reporter is able to detect parts per billion changes to chemicals in ice.' "

This is an excerpt of an op-ed by Tom Harris, an Ottawa mechanical engineer, published on June 7 in Toronto's National Post.

Initially, I found this a compelling quote. It turns out, however, to be compelling for other reasons. In an act of due diligence I decided to read the commentary the Star and Tribune claimed to cull from. The real climate scientists referred to above are all basically Global Warming deniers.

Not at all what you would be led to believe by simply reading the Star Tribune.

The newspaper industry complains about blogs not having professional editors to check journalistic abuses of truth and objectivity. I'm not arguing for the primacy of bloggers, but if newspapers don't do their jobs properly, then they have no one to point their finger at but themselves. What pisses me off the most is spending my time reading only to be misinformed. Which in turn means I have to spend more time writing this to let off steam. Thanks for nothing.