What are you reading?

[Ed Gordon]

I have A "Thousand Cuts" as a hardcover, and I've vowed to reread it every couple of years just to try to keep some kind of perspective....

Come on Steve, admit it. You haven't reread "Thousand Cuts" because after a few years, you still can't find where you "stored" it.

[Steve Klare]

Naaaaahh!!

I have that under control!

A few years ago I found myself overwhelmed with books. They are different from films: you read some two-pound Mitchener novel, and even if you enjoy it the odds are it will be on your shelves until the next ice-age and not read ever again! I found myself at book-saturation and did a lot of donating!

The ones I keep are just a few, maybe a little special.

[Ken Finch]

I seem to remember I mentioned “A Thousand Cuts” and two other books in a post some time ago. I cannot remember the topic subject but it was probably a couple of years ago. All three were about collectors and film archives. One mentioned that some collectors were prosecuted because they were obtaining films illegally, particularly in the U.S. I think may be due to the way prints were distributed there. Here in the U K. The cinema circuits only ever rented the films from the distributors for set periods of time and had to return them immediately afterwards. Different circuits had first call on various production companies products. With 16mm with very few exceptions, you could only hire them from distributors libraries. Most of the prints available today are ex library or tv companies. Thanks to video we have never had it so good. Subject to the condition of the print of course.😉

[Ed Gordon]

A Thousand Cuts is a fascinating read, and also very disturbing at times. It is important to remember that the combination of hoarding and collecting can become pure hoarding at some point. Is that film or bluray you want to buy really worth that much? When is the last time you watched that movie? Do you really need all those projectors you keep buying. As Steve said above, A Thousand Cuts is worth reading again to keep everything in perspective.

As Ken said, "Thanks to video we have never had it so good". Collecting digital movies certainly takes very little space, but you can still sink a small fortune into digital collections.

[Ed Gordon]

MGM When The Lion Roars Hardcover Book by Peter Hay



What is it about? It is about five pounds.

An interesting history of the most prestigious and profitable movie studio from the "golden age". It gives you a better understanding of how and why the old studio system eventually failed. You are not going to like Louis B Mayer.

This is one of those coffee table books, that is difficult to read casually because of the size and weight. I am watching the Turner mini-series of the same name which is still available on DVD, and refer back to the book for more detail on certain topics.

[Ken Finch]

Ed, I admittedly have a huge collection of films on dvd but they have never cost me very much. Most have been obtained from charity shops at 50p or £1 each thanks to the media moguls publicity that dvd is dead and the hundreds of “streaming” channels available.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A film sound editor gets involved with Mexican horror movies, the occult and a director who swears the nitrate in his film is cursed. What's not to love?

[Chip Gelmini]

This post........ 😁

[Ken Finch]

“Flickers” no 152, the latest edition of the Vintage Film Circle, from Patrick Moules. Always full of interesting articles from Patrick and Maurice Trace.

[Dominique De Bast]

The story of the Pathé company. It's full of details. I cannot imagine the amount of researches behind that.

[Dominique De Bast]

I just started this British book. There is very few chances it will be translated to French one day, so, helped by my dictionnary, I read it in it's original language 🙂

The title says it all, I think 😉

[Steve Klare]

I just finished "Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?" by Billy Crystal. We were at the public library a few weeks ago grazing for vacation books and I saw this one. He starred in one of my favorite movies: City Slickers, and I hoped to get at least some inside information (Example: when they wrapped production, they gave Billy the horse he rode on screen, and he rode that horse for many years despite never having rode before they made the movie.)

We grew up in the same county (I'll give you odds he loved the Nathan's in Oceanside as much as I did!) and actually attended the same community college for a while. When he talks about Long Island, I get it!

He's had quite a life: his Dad owned a record store in Manhattan and Billy played clarinet as a high school band member with many Jazz greats. He broke into standup comedy early and rose pretty quickly to fame doing it. Beyond that, he got into TV and then movies and has had a string of great successes, and even a few bombs! (If you are in the Band long enough, sooner or later you will blow a sour note no matter how good you are.)

He had an uncanny knack for connecting up with very famous people, even when he still wasn't. For example, as a moderately gifted high school basketball player, he met Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor and they played pickup games together, before he became Kareem Abdul Jabar.

Still: it's a very human story. As a 15 year old he had a huge argument with his Dad one night. Before they had a chance to settle their differences, his father had a heart attack and died. Billy Crystal said that even into his own advanced years, he has a "Dad shaped hole in my life" He talks about puberty, education, falling in love and getting married, having kids and keeps going through "dealing with my parents' crap, and wondering who will deal with my own". It shows that despite all the fame and achievements, we're still human beings and especially where the really big things are, we are much more similar than different.

What I like about him is despite all the money, fame and influence he has, what he values most is his family, past, present and future. In City Slickers, that "One Thing" that is most important in life turns out to be family for Billy Crystal's character Mitch too, so there is a great deal of Billy written in to Mitch.

The interesting thing is it's a book written by a standup comedian: you can tell it too! He has a habit of ending his paragraphs with a punchline! (I swear the Publisher inserted spaces on the page so he can wait for his laughs!)

[Ken Finch]

This weeks local paper. A home cinema of the early 30s.

[Ken Finch]

As the small print may not be readable I will summarise the article. It was set up in the late 20s by Alex Smith in the front room of his parents house I seated 8 people in upholstered seats complete with ash trays, art deco proscenium arch, uniformed attendants and miniature organ which rose up through the stage for musical interludes. It was known as the Alexia. Admission was by invitation and without charge. Films were 9.5mm silent projected at first on Pathescope Kid but soon upgraded to a Pathescope 200B. He provided sound accompaniment with music and sound effects using 2 gramophones. Sows lasted 2 hours and consisted of Pathescope releases and films he had made himself. There is a display about it in the Deal museum of the Moving Image. Regular shows ceased by the 1940s and last performance was in 1951. Like many projectionists he married his usherette!