You Baby Gorilla.

Marathon Man aka "They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To."

On the train ride back to NB last night I finally got around to watching Marathon Man. On my last job we had a circle of Netflix going where we would circulate whichever disc's we had at the time, and anyone who wanted to watch them could rip them to their computer before tossing them in the outgoing mail bin. I mention this only to help explain the next useless detail to this story, which has to do with my priorities when it comes to watching DVD's.

In what passes for my mind, there are three sorts of DVD's. I'll try and outline them in succinct (yeah, right) detail right now.

The first is the largest group, the ones I own. I used to buy DVD's fairly regularly, but stopped a few years ago when I realized it was a lot of money to spend on things I rarely use after purchasing them. But around the time of my first retirement (read: September) I said to myself "hey, your disposable income is shrinking exponentially, why not find something BESIDES records, alcohol and comics to waste it on!" So I started actually COLLECTING DVD's, which is worse than just plain buying them. For instance, before I decided I HAD to own every Eddie Murphy movie, I would never have paid good currency for a copy of "Pluto Nash." Fuck, I probably wouldn't have paid in wooden nickels, because that's honesetly a kind of embarassing thing to own. But now I not only own that movie, but almost bought "10", despite the fact that I have no desire to actually watch it, because I thought it would be funny to own on the sole basis of "Dad...she's a 10!" (if you don't know...)

Now, leaving aside my already problematic collecting tendencies, I also have access to the Princeton Record Exchange, a haven for creeps and assholes who spend too much money on crap. They have a HUGE and constantly updated selection of used DVD's that range from two to five dollars, before any markdowns that may or may not take place. In my few months living in New Brunswick, I've purchased at least a few dozen movies there, and they're not exactly all Oscar Winners. While I'm not at Joe Steinhardt levels by any means, my DVD collection is growing at disgusting rates.

The second group is whatever I've burned/ripped from other people. These either reside on DVD-R's, or my computer if I'm out of blanks. I only rip movies that I want to see but don't want to own, either because I don't like them that much or they don't fit into my collecting blueprints. The number of these varies, depending on factors that aren't worth mentioning. And considering what I obviously think IS worth mentioning, that's really saying something.

The third and final group is whatever I have from netflix on any given day. I feel like there should be at least a sentence or two of useless information to go with this group too, but oh well.

So if you take the reverse order of how I just listed them, that's my priority when it comes to actually watching DVD's. I watch my netflix movies first, because then I can send them back and get more, therby getting every cent's worth out of my monthly fee. Then I watch the ripped/burned movies, because that way when I'm done I can erase/throw them out/give them away. Because anyone who has collecting problems can tell you, you don't keep a burned copy of something for your collection, because then you're not just a pathetic asshole, you're a pathetic asshole with no standards. And when I've plowed through both those groups, I move into my collection and see if there's anything I haven't watched yet/really feel like watching again. There's exceptions to this of course, like if i buy/get something new that I can't wait to watch. But for the most part, that's how it goes.

SO. I watched Marathon Man, which falls into category #2. And it was fucking awesome. Totally insane yet completely tied down and believable, at least in the little internal world it created. And it got me thinking about how they really don't make movies like that anymore, edgy, weird movies that aren't totally out there, movies that are fantastic and far fetched but stick tightly to the built in logic of the movie. Dustin Hoffman as a young man is an actor that just doesn't exist today, and Laurence Olivier as a Nazi dentist...fuck. Seriously, go out and see it as soon as you can.

I know that last paragraph was pretty pretentious and laced with too much "back in the day"-ism's for someone who wasn't around, believe me. But remember that it was written by someone who thinks Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo is one of the most underrated films of the last ten years.

"DO THE LETTERS T and J MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU????"
"Uh, I don't know, Turkey Jizz?"

"Ahh, perhaps you don't understand. Ahh... if you don't pay me now, I'm going to uhh... take this swizzle-stick, and uhh... I'll be shoving that right up your pee-hole. "

Goodnight and godbless.