Movie talk

I'm trading in four DVDs tomorrow at the buy/sell/trade place:

1. Salmonberries. K.--excuse me, k.d. lang stars as a lesbian (!) "[i]n the harsh and lonely Alaskan wilderness," for whom "an unlikely relationship blossoms" as she and another lesbian (!) "find the freedom to face old demons and to express their hidden yearnings." Elizabeth Pincus of Popcorn Q (?) called it ". . . a masterpiece of longing laid bare. . ." All ellipses in the original so the full sentence must have been something like, "The producers paid me $25 and a carton of Goobers to call it a masterpiece of longing laid bare, so that's what I'm doing. I hate myself and I hate you."

2. Querelle. Fassbinder's last movie he said as if he knew who Fassbinder was. It stars Brad Davis (of the still-gripping Midnight Express) as (cover copy) "a beautiful, proud and tough loner, a sailor named Querelle whose commanding officer Sebion worships and desires him from afar." Yes, another gay film (nttawwt). Here's the great Halliwell's description: "A homosexual sailor has a mystical quest which involves murder."

It's actually much weirder than that. Know why I have it? Because when we got our first DVD player I wanted a foreign film to add eclat to the collection, which then consisted of the third season of Laverne and Shirley. I saw Querelle on the shelf at Circuit City and didn't even read what it was about. In other words, it was bought purely as an act of social climbing. And look where it's got me.

3. Mystery, Alaska. Sports movie so stupid even Russell Crowe can't save it. Back cover copy: "'This is a sensational movie!'--Larry King, USA Today."

4. White Man's Burden. I've raged impotently (the Drunkablog way!) about this movie before, so Halliwell again: "In an America where the black race holds the power, a white worker kidnaps his boss after he is unfairly sacked. Feeble and heavy-handed satire that deals unilluminatingly in stereotypical characters and situations." It stars stereotypical paranoid schizophrenics John Travolta and Harry Belafonte.

All very, very bad movies. So is The Bad Seed, but you'll take my copy when you pry it from my cold dead fingers that you had previously hammered with the metal heel of your little black shoe until I let go of the wharf and drowned.

(Credit: Goobers pictured are not human-edible Goobers but peanut butter pet Goobers from pet-treats-online.com.)

Update: Sometimes you eat the Goober, sometimes the Goober eats you.