On my monitor (which is of the old school, non-widescreen varieties), the videos I post are awkwardly cropped so that you're missing half of the picture. This is a bit of a shift, as they used to spill over onto the "About" and "Links" part of the right hand of the frame. I was okay with that, but there's no sense in trying to show you a video if you can't see half of it. If this isn't a problem on wider screens, then I'm less worried, but for my part I can't watch them and I wonder if this is a similar issue for you, the visitors.
Is this a shift on Blogger's part, or is it just the way that new YouTube videos embed? Any answers would be much appreciated. On to our main event:
Hopperthon 
Monday night's tribute to the late Dennis Hopper went... well, it went. We watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, Blue Velvet, and a healthy dose of commercials, trailers, and scenes of Hopper being Hopper (including the "Devolution gun" from Super Mario Brothers and the "Sicilian" scene from True Romance). I also finally tracked down a trailer for Neil Young's Human Highway (as seen this past Sunday, I hope), which remains a favorite of several regular readers of the Blogorium.
That being said, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 didn't go over as well as I'd hoped it would have, which is a damn shame. I hate it when I really like a movie and have seen it several times, only to show it to a group of people that hate it almost immediately and never come back from the abyss of boredom and "this is a bad movie."
Yes, I understand that TCM2 is a very different movie than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, mostly because I feel that Tobe Hooper had in the ensuing years felt a bit tied to the first film, and the sequel is a parody of both the original and the 80s consumer culture that merited a Part 2 in the first place. I mean, really, how seriously can you take a movie where the cannibal family from the middle of nowhere hit the road and make a small fortune off of their human meat barbeque? Even in Texas, which is repeatedly the butt of jokes about culture and its own history (including the Battle theme park, which seems to include walls made of skeletons for no apparent reason). This film is not meant to be taken with the same suspension of disbelief that the first film was.
That being said, sitting in stunned silence with four other people (and only the occasional pot shot taken at the more egregious lapses in logic), I was forced to see the movie the way they did, and maybe the scene with Stretch and Chop Top in the radio station does go on too long before Leatherface comes in. I always bought into the human oddity that was Bill Moseley's Chop Top, so for me the sequence always ratcheted up the suspense as Stretch realizes she can't just get rid of this guy. This time, however, I was informed that Moseley was a "horrible actor" and that "he wasn't holding the hanger under the lighter long enough," so there you have it.
Dennis Hopper's sporadic presence in the film was much lamented, but I hope that the "buying chainsaws" scene and the chainsaw duel at the end somehow compensated for it. I still like the movie, flaws and all.
Blue Velvet went over much better, but then again everybody in the room (save one) had seen the film multiple times. I think the sleep monster was creeping in, as we lost 3/5ths of the group just past the "joyride" scene, and I was a bit bummed that my joke failed miserably.
The Cap'n had considered buying some Pabst Blue Ribbon in honor of Frank Booth, but I then thought the better of it, assuming that at least one of the Velvet fanatics would bring some, so instead I decided to set up their drinking experience with a joke. I bought a "tall boy" bottle of Heineken for the express purpose of offering it to someone. They, in turn could say "Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!"
But nobody brought Pabst Blue Ribbon. They all thought someone else would, and so there's a lonely bottle of Heineken in my fridge that nobody is going to drink. Yee-ha! Here's to your fuck, Heineken.
The other memorable side effect of the night was introducing folks to the effects of Up-Conversion on DVDs, which they had not experience with a really good print. Unfortunately, it has the effect of making the image a little too crisp, as though it were shot on camcorder and transferred directly - especially if the camera is moving. They noticed it in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, but it was apparently quite distracting during Blue Velvet. I'm kind of used to it by now, but this concern has been pointed out to me before, and shy of turning the Up-Conversion off - which would make things seriously fuzzy - I'm not sure how to help you folks. Ideas?
Join the Cap'n tomorrow for my take on this "How Many Movies Have You Seen" meme that has people tagging me up and down Facebook.
TTFN!
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