Overheard at First Friday |
We eavesdrop so you don't have to:
"I'd hella buy other people's clothes an' shit."
"Yeah, I like how that kinda flows into the other."
"It looks like dental work."
"Wow, this place is huge."
RIP SYD BARRETT |
Pink Floyd cofounder Syd Barrett died late last week. The Weekly's Spencer Patterson is still absorbing the news: This news has me down, and I'm not entirely sure why. Syd hadn't recorded in 36 years and hadn't been with the Floyd since '68, so it's not as if I had my fingers crossed for a comeback. I suppose it's the very notion of Syd that I'll miss. Hendrix, Marley, Cooke and Curtis died young, but somewhere, just beyond the reach of man, existed a living vessel once inhabited by rock's madcap genius, whether its current occupant remembered him or not. His reclusion inspired Television Personalities' "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives," along with many a seeker's mecca to Cambridgeshire hoping to sneak a glimpse. But Syd never emerged, leaving his adorers to comb for hidden meaning in his immortal lyric, "I am yum, yammy, yam, don't, yummy, yam, yoom, yum."
DVDs |
Yellowbeard (2 stars)
$14.94
The Black Swan (3 stars)
$14.98
For those fans of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest who want to extend the experience, there's a treasure trove of similarly-themed movies to be found among new DVD releases. Yellowbeard is far more noteworthy for its cast of world-class comic actors than anything that transpires on the screen, but it's really a gas to see so many of them in one place ... especially those who aren't with us anymore. As befits a 1983-vintage parody, the comedians came from the laugh factories of Mel Brooks (Madeline Kahn, Peter Boyle, Kenneth Mars, Marty Feldman), Monty Python's Flying Circus (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle) and Cheech & Chong. Brits Spike Mulligan and Peter Cook represented The Goon Show and Beyond the Fringe, while James Mason and Susannah York were brought in for dramatic relief. Sitcom director Mel Damski clearly wasn't up to the task of containing the madness, so Yellowbeard will appeal more to stoners than anyone else. Released in 1942, The Black Swan remains one of the most entertaining of the classic swashbucklers. Working off a screenplay by Ben Hecht, director Henry King spun a yarn about a reformed pirate (Tyrone Power) who falls back into old habits by kidnapping the governor's tempestuous daughter (Maureen O'Hara) and high-tailing it for the high seas. The Technicolor format makes Black Swan all the more appealing.
Columbia Pictures is releasing the Fortunes of Captain Blood, Captain Pirate, Crystalstone and The Boy and the Pirates as part of newly acquired MGM's "Midnight Movies" series. None of these qualifies as a classic, even by the standards of the midnight-movie crowd. They remain far more suited for the Saturday-matinee crowd.
Pirates, which swept all the awards worth mentioning at this year's AVN awards, is being rereleased in a R-rated version. The explicit sex scenes in period costumes have taken quite a hit, but the intention is to exploit the market provided by national video-store chains, hotels and premium cable.