Let's talk about R.W.Fassbinder. I am very excited about his movies being available on DVD! I had to stop getting his movies for a while, because the VHS copies at Kim's were clearly illegally taped from TV or something worse....almost unwatchable. But all that has changed and I have had the pleasure to experience almost all of them in decent quality. Most recently The Niklashausen Journey.
Let me say that I am a great admirer of Fassbinder's work. And I think I have a pretty high tolerance for unorthodox filmmaking. But I had to abandon this one half way through, simply because there were too many pointlessly dancing hippies in it. It's kind of like: Werner Herzog makes a Goddard revolutionary movie and has a bunch of hippies sing and dance in nature. I just don't know. In fact, Fassbinder's face (ha stands near the dancing hippies in a leather jacket) doesn't really seem so confident either. But it's available on DVD in decent quality. Might be great when high on pot.

And this is what's going on at the Parliament in Rom:

Schroeder resigned from the SPD. Hmm. Remember what happened when the government stepped down just before WorldWarII?
I guess this is a little different.

People are NOT getting my emails. At least not all of them. And I'm not getting other people's. Very distressing.
Especially concerning the Jet Blue itinerary that I need to present to the passport agency today to justify my getting an expedited personal passport appointment.
Good thing I remembered, they won't let me back to my apartment if the passport isn't valid 6 months at least. But all the qualifying passport pictures look like I'm an unhappy person who suffered a mild stroke or was recovering from a visit to Room 101. Shall I get new ones?

I got sidetracked for an evening and watched the Cronenberg movie "Dead Zone" which is pretty bad. Except, if somebody else knows the movie, it might be fun to grab their hand and act spastic.
Anyway, I watched 3 versions of 1984. This book seems to have been really popular in the 50s communist-paranoia times. Paranoia seemed to outweigh fear of explicit content.

The first one was a live TV tape from 1954 (with Donald Pleasance and Peter Kushing). It didn't do the sexy part of the book too well (more like prudish 50s acting) but it was close to the text and moved pretty fast. (It had that futuristic quality of old scifi movies. I think I'll always imagine the future as being Black and White.)
The second is from 1956 and Donald pleasance plays a different character (not Winston in either case). It's interpreting it's source more freely and the cast is completely wrong. The editing seemed good, though. Don't get it at Kim's Video, their copy is simply awful.
The latest one from 1984 had full frontal nudity and was much more naturalistic. Too bad it was boring. Close to the book. I didn't like it too much, but it has a better rating at Rottentomatoes

P.S.:I now have a wiki, once I figured out how to use it, we can discuss movies there.