The long Summer nights are playing havoc with my viewing schedule. There are fences to fix. Beer to drink. My ‘To Watch’ pile is about to topple over and drown the dog in DVDs. It means that I have been neglecting my duties towards writing for The Dirk Malcolm Alternative, so I have decided to resort to the same format that sit-coms reach for when they have run out of things to say – a clip show. It doesn’t mean that we’ve jumped the shark, but it is a chance to revisit the posts that have hardly been visited.
Sometimes it can be a thankless task producing a well honed piece as it can be ignored, while some pieces that are dashed off in a hurry can be adored.
I’m not suggesting that I’m a complete stats-whore, but there are some posts that just didn’t take off, and these are the five top posts that are at the bottom:
DOM: Don’t Look Back (Pennebaker, UK, 1967)
It may have featured in the recent Top 10 Documentaries of All Time, but only 2 people have visited his piece on Dylan on the road. Clearly, it needed a picture of Andie MacDowell to illustrate the feature.
There’s a theme here. Don’t Look Back featured as a suggestion from Dom-Dirk, of a selection of documentaries about Rock, following a couple of pieces about Spinal Tap. There is something hasty about it, because he sometimes texts his posts to me. Texting is the thinking man’s fax.
DOM: Duck Soup (McCarey,US,1933)
This is a short one from Dom-Dirk that served as an entree to more popular piece on Danny Peary’s Cult Movies.
CHRIS: Scanners (Cronenberg, Canada, 1981)
“Mind-blowing and just a bit daft,” is my conclusion about Cronenberg, who needs to be included in my post-Star Wars list, but I can’t quiet decide why, and what should represent his work. If you have an internal monologue in a forest and no body hears, did it really happen?
CHRIS: Battle Royale (Fukasaku, Japan, 2000)
Part of a Takeshi triple bill that past people by. The HUNGER GAMES with teeth, guns and relentless violence.
When Hurricane Bertha hits today, at least I’ll be able to baton down and tackle that DVD pile…
The Dirk Malcolm Alternative 