My last 18 months in Los Angeles were spent guarding party room couches for a luxury apartment complex in Culver City from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
I watched two, sometimes three DVD movies a night on my laptop while guarding those plush couches, 10 to 15 moves a week, every week, for 18 months. That's over 700 movies. Director's Cuts.
That may not sound like a terribly big number to you, but 700 movies is a lot. Netflix couldn't keep up. The sales clerks in two Blockbusters knew me by name. I even hung out at 'art' video stores near UCLA, the kind where the sales clerks don't use deodorant and roll their eyes at customers who've never heard of "Battle Royale."
I quickly ran out of English language DVDs to rent. So I gravitated towards French films, then had a month of Japanese. Italian, Polish, Spanish and Chinese movies came next (see "Blind Shaft"!). My subtitle reading comprehension improved greatly.
Then I got to Russian film. Of course I had to see Sokurov's "Ark", a full length movie that was shot in one long uninterrupted take! One take! Nonstop. No one's ever done that (or will again).
But the Russian movie that sticks in my head like a Bukowski poem is Elim Klimov's "Idi I Smotri", or "Come and See" (1985). It'll stick to your head like momma's heavy biscuits to your ribs. Try it. Especially if you are a WWII political history buff. There are parallels here to our current military adventures.
Tags: Youtube, classic cinema, anti-war flick, anti-war movie, war movie, come and see, director's cut, UCLA, Blockbuster, Netflix, Battle Royale, movie buff, Blind Shaft, Russian film, Elim Klimov, Idi I Smotri, WWII, history buff, military adventures, atrocities, World War Two
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