I like the redesign. I especially like that you tried to go "full-on CSS," but also appreciate the difficulty of reaching your goal with that.

Anyway, like the look. Love the reviews. Nicely done.

Thanks, Zack! And now, a response to the posting from my conscience, above.

Here's the deal with 2046. Maybe I should pay more attention to the details of domestic distribution deals, but at the time I read (probably at Mobius) that DVDs of this had hit the shelves in Chinatown, I was unaware of its U.S. distribution status. I don't think it even had a release date. So that played a part in my decision to buy the DVD.

Also, I'm a very moody kind of moviewatcher. My viewing choices are dictated in large part just by the way I feel at any given time. (The sheer quantity of unwatched titles filed on my DVD shelves is testimony to my relative fussiness.) And, I gotta tell you, there was a day where I really, really felt like taking a walk into Chinatown at lunchtime, buying some dumplings, picking up a copy of 2046 and watching it that very night. Does that make me an instant-gratification sucker? Whoring with the inferior experience and betraying the transcendent? Maybe. But I had an enriching experience anyway, so I can live with it.

I'm also very conditioned to seeing movies on video. Growing up with R-rated tastes in a fairly conservative little steel town meant I saw many of the films that delighted me as a teenager -- Cronenberg, Carpenter, Romero, Bergman etc -- either on video(tape) or on cable TV. Granted, there's a huge difference between seeing Halloween on cable TV and seeing it in scope on a big screen in a dark theater. But, you know, Videodrome actually plays very well on the tube. (And I have seen it projected.) So on a very basic level, I'm very accepting (and even appreciative) of video as an exhibition format.

I want very much to get up to the Sunshine Cinema and see 2046. A film print may well be a revelation in the same way that Hero is amplified and intensified on the big screen. But I had my first opportunity in a few weeks to go to the movies last night, and you know what? I wasn't in the mood for 2046. I was in the mood for The Aristocrats! (Interesting note: 2046 is shot, gorgeously, on film, but seems to be a nice match for the solipsism of home viewing; The Aristocrats is shot on crappy video, but benefits greatly from being seen in a roomful of appreciative viewers.) So I'm just taking this movie-watching thing one day at a time.

While it's undoubtedly preferable to see certain films in the biggest and most lavishly furnished of cinemas, some films do actually play better within the more personal environs of one's home.

I'm really pleased, for example, that when I finally got to see Gallo's The Brown Bunny, it wasn't in a crowded theatre, but rather on my television at home. The film's a near-masterpiece in my opinion. Fuck knows what I would've thought of this fragile little film if I had some idiot sitting just across the way from me, chomping on popcorn, slurping back a soda, and verbally announcing his displeasure with this "pretentious, boring piece of shit" at every possible opportunity.

With that said, however, not even the most disgruntled of patrons would've stopped me from watching Wong's 2046 on the big screen first, but alas...not all of us are fortunate enough to have these films screening in local theatres. It's DVD or bust, I'm afraid. Thankfully, though, like Bryant, I have been conditioned over the years to watching movies on video.

Oh, and I love the new re-design, Bryant. Well done.

Thanks man. Yeah, home video is sort of like the devil on my shoulder. I vividly remember making the decision to walk into Chinatown and get a copy of 2046. It made me so happy. I said to myself, "Holy shit, I could be watching 2046 tonight!" It was a real rush, and I just couldn't deny it.

On the other hand, there are movies that I appreciated to such a degree on film that I can't even imagine watching them on video. 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lawrence of Arabia, both of which I saw on their 70mm reissues. (Ah, 70mm.) Kundun is a more recent example.

-bf-

GODDAMMIT!

Let the record show that I did not deliberately delete md'a's comment calling me out for watching 2046 on video. I was going through, deleting the dozens and dozens of comment spams caught in MT-Blacklist, and his post got caught in the net. Blast! Full text follows below.

Deep Focus Weblog
md'a (dangelo@panix.com)
The redesign looks good. But I'm surprised and dismayed that you chose to watch the new Wong Kar-wai movie for the first time on video, knowing that it had a distributor and that you'd have an opportunity to see a good print—especially since you're one of the most visually sophisticated critics on the net. Et tu, Bryante?

2005.08.05 18:04:33