Moving Targets
She Was The Perfect Target - Until She Opened Fire.
5.) The Haunted Mansion
Last I checked, Amoeba Music is not selling any of these, no matter how much I pester management that there is a ready market for it.
I don’t know what it says about me, but as a child growing up on the sunny island of Oahu, I dreamed incessantly of once again returning to the Haunted Mansion, located on the edge of New Orleans Square in the Magic Kingdom of Disneyland in Anaheim in California on the Mainland…
…Earth.
Something about the temperature, the hues of dark greens, blues and violet, set a-glow by thousands of volts of black light; a soundtrack of pipe organ and church bells… It made a young Job feel at home. I can’t account for it, but that’s how it felt and, infantile as it may seem (maybe even perverse) it still does.
Once inside, I would never want to leave. At age five, I stood at the base of the escalator that took people from the end of the ride to the outside world, and cried. I’m sure people who passed me assumed I was crying because the ride had scared me, when in actuality, I wanted to move in.
I was a deeply unpopular child.
Every once in a while, a copy of the Haunted Mansion soundtrack will pop up in my section of Amoeba. It was only sold at the Park, and even then in limited edition batches (though they re-release them). Most anything Disney on c.d. goes out of print and instantly becomes a collector’s item; there’s always a market for the stuff. There’s people out there right now, who have left their babies alone in cribs, as they hunt for anything with that recognizable Disney logo stamped on it.
hysteron proteron: part one
For the first time: Your art tour of the veiled 45 room.
The great Amoeba Hollywood enigma that is “The 45 Room.” Some simply refer to this veiled room as the “used 7 inch pricing room,” but for others:
“Vinyl Shangri-la.”
Does it really exist, and if so, where? What goes on in there? Who are they?
Questions abound yet few answers come into the light under ampoule fluorescente compacte.
Enquiries try to penetrate this mysterious place of secret societies revolving/evolving from a tiny room, hidden from public view, but to no avail.
There are so many myths. Startling tales and conspiracy theories abound, sounding not unlike the outlandish yarns associated with Area 51, Skull and Bones, the Bohemian Club or the Maury/Vashon Island incident of 1947 (look that puppy up!!) ….
One 45 room rumor has a ceremony involving a stack of power-pop 45’s sacrificed at the feet of a giant forty-foot statue of Murry Wilson (aka Daddy Beach Boys). Can this be true?
What about the reported appearance of “men in black” canvassing, i.e. shopping, in the area and the complex chain of events dating from last July 2, on what would have been Murry Wilson’s 90th birthday … once again, there are no coincidences…. Management promised those fellows were just from Accounting. Really?
Well, let’s look inside this long misunderstood milieu (a den of vinyl antiquity, if you please) and analyze The 45 Room culture. Western anthropologists argue culture is “human nature” and that all people, even record store employees, have a capacity to classify experiences and encode classifications symbolically. Let’s start with an appreciation of their art and how The 45 Room decorates primitive white cardboard boxes, used to display 7 inch records, in an attempt to define a multitude of music genres’ hysteron proteron.
4.) “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”
This is a film by the great, Surrealist, film director, Luis Buñuel. It came out in 1972 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (“The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” won).
While most any of Buñuel’s films qualify for this list, I singled out this one because it makes me laugh the most, and that’s something I need right now.
It’s mostly in French, so those of you who get sudden attacks of spinal meningitis at the mere thought of reading subtitles would do well to overlook this one. (Le grand art n'est pas pour des lâches!) However, if you can appreciate a film that is an adventure, that challenges you, and doesn’t necessarily answer the questions it itself poses, check it out. Also, if you like many foxy ladies, that helps, too.
Girls with curls and big long locks, and beatnik chicks just wearing their smocks
While decidedly a comedy, and absurd to the point of astonishing, it is also a biting critique of social classes, with the wealthy being a primary target.
What is it about? Well, pretty much, it’s about a group of friends who keep trying to have a dinner party and failing again and again and again. And again. I know, you can’t wait to see it now, right? But really, it’s a gas. (Just be grateful I didn’t recommend another favorite, Goddard’s “Weekend”, which I find equally gay, but wouldn’t dream of recommending unless you were really serious about these pretentious French films.)
This Week At The New Beverly Cinema
It's The Place To Be!
From our good friends at the New Bev:
Get yerself down to the New Bev tonight!
Its your last chance to catch
THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN & FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
Tonight at 7:30.
Wednesday the 8th and Thursday the 9th we have Soderbergh's
OUT OF SIGHT & THE UNDERNEATH at 7:30
Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th, its Wong Kar Wai's
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE & DAYS OF BEING WILD AT 7:30 with an additional double feature
on Saturday at 3:40
Saturday the 11th at midnight we have Amoeba Music's midnight screening of
REVENGE OF THE NERDS
This coming Sunday, the 12th we have another special event at the New beverly!!!
We are showing HOT FUZZ & SHAUN OF THE DEAD and director Edgar Wright will be there
to introduce all screenings on Sunday!!! Both at 3:!5 and 7:30!!!
We are also showing Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead on Monday the 13th and Tuesday
the 14th at 7:30.
The new Bev is the place to be!! See ya there!!
New Beverly Cinema
7165 W Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 938-4038
http://www.newbevcinema.com
