First, I finally broke down and picked up a Sony PSP. As is my usual approach when cool new technology is introduced, I tend to rationalize in my head why I don’t need to always be an “early adopter,” as they say. I’m currently going through this right now with the iPod Video, telling myself that my 60GB iPod Photo is fine, that I’ll never watch TV on the thing anyway (and knowing full well that if someone like Pixar signs on and makes their movies available, or if they ever give me the 100 GB iPod I really want, that I’ll be all over them). I did this with the PSP, too.

The last thing I wanted was a new game system to sit around and taunt me about my lack of time to actually pick it up and play it. That’s what the PlayStation 2’s for. And a system that’d necessitate me buying games and movies in yet another format? No way. I know this technology is transitory, that soon enough, we’ll be able to just download games or movies to devices (like the iPod. In fact, if Apple could figure out a way to make their iPods also double as gaming systems, they’d rule the world). So it looks cool, I’ve heard good things, no thanks.

Of course, as ever, fate conspires to convince me I’m wrong. The first step was actually seeing the PSP for myself—it’s immeasurably cooler to hold and to watch than it is to see in a magazine. And then there’s the recent spate of travel I’ve been doing. Sitting on planes crisscrossing the country, the iPod is nice, yes, but at times, a little interactivity would be nice, too. Or having a means to watch movies on movie-less airlines when I tired of reading or typing on the laptop. Or… you see, my list of reasons of why I didn’t need the PSP seemed to get shorter and shorter.

And along those lines, it was a “shorty” that finally did me in. The impending birth of the Ryall Kid (or Movie Poop Shoot 2: Electric Boogaloo, as we call him or her) at the end of the year meant, most likely, time spent in a big white building while I waited to be called to do whatever it is I’ll be called upon to do. Tell me that the enforced solitude of a maternity ward waiting area isn’t the ideal spot for a PSP—I didn’t see me being too able to concentrate on a book at the time, so… well, that seemed to be all the convincing I needed.

If I needed any more convincing, well, I was being sent advance copies of three recent additions to the PSP movie collection—Stallone’s FIRST BLOOD, Van Damme’s UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, and the original STARGATE (all available as UMD’s, the PSP format). And, you know, what good would it do me to have those movies and no player? So I picked one up last week (right before yet another plane ride, nicely enough. Although I do strongly recommend noise-canceling headphones instead of the ‘phones that come with the system. It was tough to hear over the noise of the jet.

As for the movies themselves, as much as the push is to go larger with the 96-inch plasma screens and all, I have to say, there’s something really cool about seeing movies in this format. I was most looking forward to FIRST BLOOD, a movie I’ve loved ever since I saw it for the first time in the ‘80s.

RAMBO II (a movie whose name still bugs me, since there was no “RAMBO I”) and the subsequent sequel to that chest-beating flick might have made the character of John Rambo (and the actor who played him) into a cartoon character, but the first movie really holds up nicely. This is the movie I was most looking forward to watching again, even if I did see it just last year with the Special Edition DVD release.

On the PSP, which has better resolution than screens ten times its size, you can make out every detail of the movie. One of the things I always loved about FIRST BLOOD was its cinematography—you can feel the chill in the mountain air as Sly’s character walks into town, and later, on the escape, when he does a quick slice-and-dice job to make himself an outfit. And the scene where he takes a dive off the cliff comes to vivid like on the PSP, too. This is actually a perfect movie for this system, one whose scenery and action scenes dominate. Movies with a lot of talking, like, say, a Woody Allen flick, won’t really be as effective at this size. I know that seems counter-intuitive, since movies with widescreen action usually benefit from a larger screen, but I really love the look of this movie on the PSP’s screen.

On the disc, you also get the commentary track from Stallone, which is decent, if unintentionally funny (Sly doesn’t exactly seem troubled by feelings of inferiority, but he does also show a good sense of humor in places, too). And you get the alternate ending that was so heavily hyped on the last DVD release. That release, with all of its nonsense features added, was a real bust, but the ending itself is a good little novelty to include here. It’s hardly an ending, actually, and overblown sequels aside, I’m glad they cut it from the movie, just because it was so poorly executed. Still another chance to hear Richard Crenna’s over-heated, staccato delivery is always nice.

As for UNIVERSAL SOLDIER and STARGATE, well, they’re both less successful to varying degrees. SOLIDER, starring hammy Jean-Claude Van Damme and wooden-but-hammy Dolph Lundgren (and the late Jerry “LAW & ORDER” Orbach, too) is a bit ridiculous, really. But it’s still one of Van Damme’s better movies. And since it, too, has more impressive visuals and over-the-top fight scenes than it does clever dialogue or well-thought-out story, it’s good for airplane viewing, because if you can’t hear Van Damme’s fighting machine character speak over the roar of the jet engines, well, that’s okay. The movie was directed by ID4/GODZILLA director Roland Emmerich, so you pretty much know what you’re getting here.

STARGATE is a better movie, and it’s also directed by Emmerich, and written by him, too, alongside his ID4 screenwriting partner, Dean Devlin. The movie also begat a decent run of TV shows, too, and it makes its slightly wacky cast (James Spader, Jaye Davidson and French Stewart in the same movie?) mostly work, too. Kurt Russell always grounds these kinds of movies, though, and even in 1992, Djimon Hounsou was a good actor stuck in a not-great movie, as seems to be his career path.

The movie itself is pretty heavy on special effects, but the story, dealing with parallel universes, offers a bit more than future Devil/Emmerich releases. It does feel like one of the first “new-age” sci fi movies, something that tackled theology and ancient civilizations much more effectively than a movie like THE MUMMY. Again, maybe it’s because I’m still taken by the PSP, but I thought it was a good movie to see in this format.

Coming Soon

Music

JOHNNY CASH: THE COMPLETE SUN RECORDINGS 1955-1958
Due out November 8 from Time/Life Records

You’d think the last thing the world needs right now is another set of JOHNNY CASH’s Sun Recordings. Really, go hit Amazon.com and scan the Cash listings and you’ll see a half-dozen or more discs or boxed sets that contain Cash’s amazing ‘50s output he recorded for Sam Phillips and his Sun Records.

So the preponderance of this material, coupled with the impending release of the Cash biopic (WALK THE LINE with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, due out on November 18), make the more cynical among us (namely, me) think that this is just a cash-grab, so to speak.

Of course, once you listen to the set, any such cynical thoughts are swept away by the sound of Cash’s baritone from fifty years ago.

Maybe it was the recent BRIAN SETZER release, Rockabilly Riot, Vol. 1: A Tribute to Sun Records, or maybe it’s the fact that I came to Cash’s music in ’91 with the first Rick Rubin release, American Recordings, but hearing all these classic tunes as they were originally recorded, was a better experience than I expected. Often, old recordings are charming for what they are, but ultimately, they’re hard to listen to for extended periods because of the tinny sound (try getting all the way through a ROBERT JOHNSON disc, or even some original ELVIS recordings). But the sparse arrangement that Cash perfected so many years ago works in his favor here. Hearing his “I Walk the Line” or “Folsom Prison Blues” from this ’54-’58 period, you his pared-down sound doesn’t sound dated, it sounds timeless.

And yeah, while there are numerous other sets of Cash’s Sun Records music, at least this set is a complete one, offering one version of every song that he recorded at the studio, 63 songs in all. The set retails for $40, which means you can find it for probably $5-10 less than that, offering a lot of good American music for about half of what the songs would cost individually on iTunes. Not sure why Sam, and not Johnny, got the cover photo for the box, though.

The set I got was for reviewers only, meaning it was three discs with no fancy packaging. So I assume you’d also get a booklet that talks about Cash’s beginnings and history at Sun Records or some such. But if you don’t, there’s always that upcoming movie to tell you a bit more about who he was back during this period.

Books

THE STEWARDESS IS FLYING THE PLANE!
By Ron Hogan and Peter Bogdonavich
Due out on November 9, 2005 from Bulfinch Publishing, 272 pages

Somehow even bad movies from the ‘70s seem like fodder for remakes now, if you take a look at recent film releases. I mean, no one would ever argue very strongly that the Aamco pitchman/Streisand betrothed made a good movie in the form of the original AMITYVILLE HORROR, and yet here we are, getting hustled the DVD release of the even-worse remake. Is there any way to sop this? Of course not. But I’d still like to suggest that current filmmakers take a look at Hogan’s new coffee table book.

If they do look at the book, which is a nice hardcover collection of photos and factoids about pretty much every movie from the ‘70s, they might at least be intimidated into leaving the better films alone. The best photos included in this book are the behind-the-scenes stills, but really, most everything Hogan included here shows you what a great time for film-making the ‘70s were. Peter like Bogdanovich, who sits down with Hogan (a blogger and book reviewer who’s primarily found at Beatrice.com) for a long conversation to open the book. Then we get into films by guys like Bogdanovich, as well as other mavericks at the time, Cassavetes, Coppola, Scorsese and others. And flipping through the book’s pages, amongst the images are trivia like a movie’s box office, its inspiration, and some of the techniques that went into making these movies. “Inspiration” is a good word for many of the movies included in the book, since they just seemed so much more about developing interesting styles and interesting movies than much of the output we see today. The book is sectioned off by genre, offering nice histories of the decade’s Dramas, Westerns, Horror films, Comedies, and others. At any rate, it’s a nice diversion for film fans and especially film history buffs. Really nice surprise to find on my porch. Let’s just hope it doesn’t inspire a remake of, say, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW…

Next Week: Back to the SHOW, with a look at the development of the story's characters.

/chris

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