Adventures in VHS
When the bad movie quest began [1], we foresaw few obstacles beyond the difficulty of actually viewing the movies. However, since we’re not very good at thinking ahead, we didn’t predict how difficult it would be to find some of them. Some of these we’ll probably just skip whether available or not due to their impenetrable foreignness, like Stjerner uden hjerner. I think I’ve found VHS copies of it, but I’m not entirely sure, since the pages maybe selling them, too, are all in bork bork bork. but something like The Pod People, which was translated into English or doesn’t matter or something: where would you find that? I’ve started an amazon.com wishlist for the movies that aren’t on Netflix [2] in the hopes of maybe getting you freeloaders to help out a bit, but the only copy of The Pod People that I can find is the MST3K version. Maybe it’s under the Extra Terrestrial Visitors name; I’ll add that.
So far there have been no insurmountable obstacles to the movie watching, but there have been a few bumps. Children of the Corn II, unlike its many siblings, is not in print on anything, anywhere. I ended up finding what appeared to be a bootleg transfer to DVD from VHS, probably from Hong Kong. Fortunately it was both NTSC and, other than the name on the DVD publisher’s logo before the movie, in English. We had to slum it on full screen for Cyborg 2 since, probably because the movie was made more with Cinemax in mind than a theater, there is no wide screen version available. One upcoming movie is Son of the Pink Panther, the eighth in the series, and, though the Pink Panther movies were supposed to be released to DVD to promote the new Pink Panther prequel, either they haven’t gotten to Son of yet or they just stopped caring. I got a copy on VHS, and it reminded me of how long it’s been since I actually used a VHS tape. It fits on the shelf next to the DVDs, but am I supposed to store it upright or flat on its side? Do I need to refrigerate it after opening? How often should I change the needle?
In other news, I got to hear someone say “fuck” on the radio today. That really brought a ray of sunshine to an otherwise dreary morning. Even better was the context: a friend of some of the people doing a morning show called them up to make fun of what they were talking about, they put him on, and he let a swear word fly. When informed that he was on the air, he responded, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Beautiful.
Links:
[1] 100 Bad Movies
[2] Amazon.com wishlist