fine whine

I know that coincidences happen completely by chance, but that doesn't make them seem less remarkable. I just finished watching the Director's cut DVD of Requiem for a dream, which was written by Hubert Selby, Jr. This may not seem like a big deal to you, and some probably already knew that fact.

The significance is a little more to me, though, since I just checked out The Room, also by said Hubert Selby, Jr., from my local library, based on a 'recommendation' from Andy Kaufman. You see, in the book Is this man a genius? by Julie Hecht, the intrepid author gets Andy to reveal his favorite book, The Demon, again by said Hubert Selby, Jr. The library didn't have The Demon, so I grabbed the first one they had. I haven't read it yet, but after the movie I think I'll read it sooner.

The movie's quite good as well. It's not a light watch, and in fact I had to throw in some Benny Hill just to recover—which is where this entry's title originated, as graffiti on a wall. Somehow it seemed fitting.

Anyway, I wanted to blog the link for Amoeba Proteus, the computer graphics company (director) Darren Aronofsky co-founded for his films' effects. Requiem had a hundred digital shots, and they didn't want to outsource. Their technical prowess in film should speak for itself, since their website certainly doesn't. Effectively three whole pages (including a Quicktime demo reel), the site offers very little in the way of information about their projects and accomplishments, other than their titles and brief mention of an upcoming animated feature. Not quite ketchup fodder, in my opinion. I found more interesting information in this indiewire interview.

I just finished reading Gary (K?) Wolf's 1981 book Who censored Roger Rabbit?, which, I have to admit was quite good, if not almost completely different from the film we all loved (1988's Who framed Roger Rabbit?), which recently was re-released on dvd. It's a competent detective novel with one foot firmly rooted in the first-person tradition, and the other foot waaaay outside the lines in a cartoon limbo.

So anyway, I'm trying to track down a URL for the guy, and discover two surprising facts. First, there is (or was) a WFRR sequel in pretty serious development... and now it's in development hell, likely to never even see the light of day as a straight-to-video. Admittedly the gee-whiz aspect of cartoons and people together on the screen has lost a lot of its punch in these days of Jar-Jar Binks and his CGI ilk, but the ideas in the film and book were original enough to have given me second thought renting a sequel. The other fact concerns Disney's dealings with Mr. Wolf, as apparently in February it was decided that The Mouse could get away with screwing Gary out of his share of money from the film and its abundant merchandising. First they edited out the racier footage from the movie, and they tried to screw the guy out of his money? He created the characters and had the idea after all. Something doesn't quite smell right with the whole thing.

Oh, and if anybody wants to see the unedited version (complete with Baby Herman 'fingering' a very surprised dame), drop by some time and watch it on my laserdisc player. Old technology *does* have its uses, apparently.