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With your tongue down my throat

When Ebert died last week, the cinetrix felt a little left out. Yes, she'd seen iterations of his show -- growing up in a PBS household, how could she not? -- but I didn't buy the collections or really read much of his writing until he embraced online platforms. So, how did I get here?

This morning I learned the Iron Lady died, and I realized that England made me, to pinch a phrase from an earlier era. 

Thatcherism made me a cinephile.

Oh, Vestron! Oh, Lorimar! Oh, Embassy and Orion! In the early days of the home video explosion [now-defunct distributors; independent video stores as the norm], my friends and I couldn't get enough of these fascinating filmic glimpses into council flats and immigrant struggles. I learned to follow the names of certain writers, directors, and actors from one movie to the next. I never saw any of them projected in a theater.

Yes, there is that Anglophilia that certain pretentious suburban American teens affect, but from the mid-to-late 80s onward, it meant Another Country, Lady Jane [anything with Helena Bonham Carter's hair, really], Gothic. Also, Prick Up Your Ears, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Wish You Were Here, Aria, Withnail & I, Letter to Brezhnev, High Hopes. Most of all, there was that annus mirabilis, 1985, which saw the one-two DDL punch of A Room with a View and My Beautiful Laundrette that got critics like Ebert talking.

Of course, given the long lag between theatrical and home video, I didn't see either film until nearly two years later, but still. I hated Margaret Thatcher in solidarity with the movies I loved, but today I find myself grateful that her rule inspired production of so many films that changed me -- that made me.

Spend It All

It was my great pleasure [always for pleasure] to spend a week at the Flaherty Seminar in 2011 with Les Blank. His films define generosity and what means to be fully present, and I borrow from filmdom's other great loss this week here as one way in this first, stunned moment of life after Les Blank to try and capture how I felt watching Les's films:

“Kindness” covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

If we are fortunate enough that such a place exists in any realm, there must be beer, garlic, and cochon au lait in heaven. But my suspicion, thanks to Les, it that it is here, all around us, all the time, and all we need to do to attain it is be in its midst and strive to really see other people for the gorgeous beings they are.

"This is my happening and it freaks me out!"

Two quick memories:

• Mark Sandman, the late singer/bassist of Morphine, was wandering around Hollywood Express one night with four videos in his hand. We had a promotion where you could rent five not-new releases for four nights for ten bucks, and it was close to closing and I was keen to go home. So I approached him and recommended Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. He took it and was on his way. The next time he saw me there, he made a point of telling me it was the only one of the rentals he'd enjoyed, and moreover that in real life he'd been to the crazy house with the indoor-outdoor swimming pool featured in the film.
• Roger Ebert attracted a shitstorm when it came to light that he'd panned a movie, Tru Loved, after watching only ten eight minutes. He later ran a second, equally damning, review of the lousy thing after people protested the fairness of not giving the movie an even shake. This same movie was the subject of an absolutely terrible film-series selection meeting fight that soured me so I stopped participating for years after. Some jackasses lobbied for this gay After-School Special -- with fucking Bruce Villanch! -- based on its thematic rather than filmic merits (both sucked, if you ask me). It made the cut and inspired one venue that'd been part of the film tour since its inception to drop out for good, rather than screen a film it wouldn't otherwise book. I will always be grateful to Ebert for that feeling of sweet vindication when he panned that piece of shit, too.