Video Picks for March 8, 2001
by Joe Danko

Editor's note: we couldn't quite get a reliable enough schedule for me to want to maintain the Video Picks the way we did them last year, so I'm no longer planning on separating them from our regular views content. However, we're interested in these short, one paragraph reviews (as well as longer ones) at any time for the site, either a group at once, like we have here, or just an individual one that we'll group up with some others if necessary. Also, we're more than willing to have Book Picks and reviews as well...send them to views@misfit.org

I have several excellent choices....but you will probably not find them anywhere except my house:

1. SECONDS - 1966 - Rock Hudson, directed by John Frankenheimer
   A wealthy banker in midlife crisis becomes involved with a shadowy underground organization that can change his identity...permanently. Scary and disturbing.

2. DARK STAR - 1974 - John Carpenter
   Science fiction run amok. The commander is sort of dead in the freezer and you can't quite control the alien you adopted that looks like a beachball. What do you do when you can't outsmart your own smart bomb?

3. TWO LANE BLACKTOP - 1971
   James Taylor is The Driver, a car-obsessed racer with stringy hair and a concentration that precludes conversation. He travels the backroads of rural America with his buddy, The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys). There is also Warren Oates as GTO.

4. WATERHOLE #3 - 1969 - James Coburn, Carrol O'Conner, Bruce Dern.
   Coburn as gambler Lewton Cole is as cool as they come in the old west. The sound track, sung by Roger Miller, is worth the price of admission by itself. Find out the true "Code of the West" is "do unto others before they do it to you" and where nonconsensual sex is referred to as "assault with a friendly weapon".

5. FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH - 1973 - Run-Run Shaw
   THE original kung-fu film.

Joe Danko lives in North Saint Paul. He previously wrote about Hannibal