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Life & Arts

Revisiting classics is better than going to the movies

The Film Scamp

Geronimo Rodriguez

True moviegoers can cry and complain all they want about how awful movies continue to rake in millions of dollars, but what they should realize is they don't have to give in so easily.

Yes, staying home and watching one of the hundreds of classic films on DVD is better than sitting through some recycled horror film or seeing Steve Martin humiliate himself in a remake of The Pink Panther. 

Eight Below, for instance, is just a joke, and its success is indicative of the poor family values some parents are teaching their children. Spending money to watch some junk about a guy and his pack of dogs just isn't right. Not even the Tom Hanks stinker Turner & Hooch could yank money from my hands.

I'd rather watch Al Pacino's character in Heat explain to a snitch how he can get killed walking his doggie before I pay to see most of the movies in top 10 at the box office. 

I'd even settle for watching Nick Nolte's character in Sidney Lumet's gripping Q&A humiliate some cross dresser to get the scoop on an informant on the run. Hell, I even watch a couple of Law & Order episodes before I get in the stupid line for a weekend.

This past weekend, for instance, I watched Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Angel Heart, starring Mickey Rourke in his prime. I caught a few directing mishaps in Kill Bill -- I've seen it about a dozen times -- and I finally got around to watching some of the special features on the Angel Heart DVD. Finally, Rourke shows some modesty in an interview featured on the disc.

The weekend before that, I watched Robert De Niro and James Woods share the screen in Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in America. I replayed over and over the part when Jennifer Connelly's Deborah reads some poem to Scott Tiler's Noodles about how he'll always stink like the streets. It's a good scene that carries more weight than most of today's movies, and I may cherish it even more when I finish listening to film historian Richard Schickel's commentary on the film.

These are just a few of the films that keep me from watching some bad movie in a theater filled with people who know nothing about quality films, but the one DVD collection that will keep my eyes peeled is Francis Ford Coppola's ultra-slick The Godfather.

Never mind that this work shows a young Pacino chewing up the screen alongside the legendary Marlon Brando; Coppola's commentary on this baby invites viewers into another world that's filled with stories of him getting pressed by Paramount Pictures to his time on the set with Brando.

I'd go on about what DVDs are worth their time, but my point is that most movies nowadays aren't worth a bucket of popcorn, and there are too many alternatives out there to be wasting a couple of hours on some junk.

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