"Must sell today - $5 each"
...followed by a list of 10-15 generally stupid and/or insipid 'popular' movies.
To me, this is a tribute to the Genius of American Marketing, which, somehow, convinced the dumbasses of Our Fine Country that it's reasonable to continually shell out good money to own a completely disposable film - one which is difficult to justify paying $8.50 to see in an actual theater.
I suppose that people feel that, by buying these DVDs, they are 'building a video library' that they will proudly display in their drawing room, to convince guests and potential paramours with their urbane sophistication. How else to explain this list, actually found in a craigslist ad today:
Billy Madison
Irobot
Scary Movie 4
Stealing Harvard
Wedding Crashers unrated
War of The Worlds (New one)
Soul Plane
Family Guy Movie
Fun with dick and Jane
Stuck on You
Yours mine and ours
King Kong ( New one)
Date Movie
Bewitched
Saw II
The 40 year old virgin (New in plastic)
American Wedding
Die another day 007
NAtional Lampoons Black ball
Willy wonka and the chocolate factory
Malibus most wanted
The waterboy (Adam Sandler)
Elizabethtown
The benchwarmers
South Park Movie
Which leads me to mention the two most-recent DVDs I purchased for my video library. I bought them at my local Safeway, which had a 2-for-$10 special sale: 'Gettysburg' and 'Dr. Strangelove'.
I am an obsessive Civil War student. This goes back to the following experiences of my youth:
1) collecting the Civil War trading cards that are still fondly remembered
2) learning that my home town was the host to the prison camp that was called 'the Andersonville of the North'
3) discovering the weathered, stone block, along the curb in front of the Water Street house where my grandmother used to live, on which was carved something like 'boundary of the Elmira Prison camp - 1864'
4) and the Big Experience - visiting Gettysburg with my family, around 1958. I remember driving the battleground tour route, stopping at the key landmarks. I VIVIDLY remember the museum and the famous 'Electric Map' (with the narration using a phrase which was forever burned into my brain: "blood dripped in the Devil's Den".
But I digress.
I have read many books on Gettysburg, including the famous eye-witness account by Frank Haskell, and I was thrilled to see the film, produced by Ted Turner almost 15 years ago. For a measly $5, I could have a film that obsessed the writer/director for 15 years, that was partially filmed on the actual battlefield (apparently, they had to very carefully position actors and props to hide the innumerable monuments, statues, and markers), that involved thousands of volunteer re-enactors and equally-obsessive attention to detail, whose remarkable performance by Jeff Daniels completely erased all the bad karma from 'Dumb and Dumber', and, finally, whose eloquent and thoughtful script firmly established that Longstreet was right.
A couple of years ago, a chilly, snowy January, the Nature Conservancy sent me to Harrisburg, PA, to do some training on the Invasive Weed database I developed for them. I used that opportunity to use Baltimore as my base-of-operations (visiting friends there, from long ago), and I drove to Harrisburg via Gettysburg. I had an entire afternoon to drive around and had the place mostly to myself.
There were 3-6 inches of snow on the ground, but I spent a considerable time on Little Round Top
and at The Angle.
It was the first time I had been back there since my visit as an 8 year-old.
But I digress.
We look at Gettysburg knowing about World War I, and the profound futility of an infantry charging an entrenched line, that is well-supplied with (compared with the Napoleanic Wars) effective artillery and (relatively) easier-to-reload, accurate rifles. We today understand that Lee was blinded by his brilliance and successes of the preceeding campaigns (remember that his astonishing victory at Chancellorsville was only 2 months before). We understand (kinda) how 15,000 men could be convinced to obey the order to march a mile uphill, entirely exposed, in 90 degree heat, against Hancock's seasoned veterans, for glory and honor.
The 'Gettysburg' film was over 4 hours. I watched the first half (leading up to the 20th Maine's defense of Little Round Top - words cannot express this) at one sitting, and began the 2nd half. I paused it just as Longstreet gave his sad, silent nod to George Pickett, to prepare for the Charge.
It was appropriate to pause at that point, when it must have seemed within grasp that the Confederate army just might be on the verge of the final, decisive action, that would end (and win) the War, already in its 3rd bloody year.
I waited two days to watch the (now inevitable) finale. When it was over, Lee's gamble had been lost. Nobility and self-sacrifice were not enough to overcome, as Longstreet said, 'the mathematics'. The war would continue for two more years, and, if Gettysburg was a harbinger of the mass slaughter of World War I, even more horrifying battles were to come the following year, at Spottsylvania and (shudder)
But I digress.
Haven't watched the 'Dr. Strangelove' DVD yet. I've seen it many times. I'm waiting for the right moment, to savor it's many pleasures. Reading the Internet Movie Database page for that film, though, I did come across this delicious trivia tid-bit: Stanley Kubrick never told Slim Pickens that this was a comedy. Think about it.
I guess I can't end this post without shamelessly listing my own 'video library', in no particular order. These are films that I can watch over and over:
Casablanca
Lawrence of Arabia
Amadeus
Vertigo (VHS)
Stop Making Sense
Buster Keaton silents (a bunch - all VHS)
Rocky and Bullwinkle - Season 1 (3 DVD set)
Fargo
The Producers
The Great Escape
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
and, of course:
Gettysburg
Dr. Strangelove
And now a couple that I picked up various places, that you can have for $2 apiece:
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (worth watching twice, but that's all)
Lifeboat (Hitchcock's ham-handed WWII propaganda - Karen won this in a contest - worth watching once)
Melinda and Melinda (hey, it was only $5)
Must sell today (or let me know and I'll give it to you the next time I see you).
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