Showing posts with label Carlotta Films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carlotta Films. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The NFOH Problem




To describe the condition I'm thinking about, I'd rather not use the expression "it's a no-brainer" because I'm surely educated enough to try harder. How about I use "not a fuckin' ounce of hesitation (NFOH)" instead? That describes it.

I'm referring to movies you just keep spending money on. New editions. New cuts. Improved transfers. New extras. Restorations. Hideous bootlegs promising gold and delivering turds. Versions shitted out of some porn star's orifice. Versions revived, re-loved, masturbated over, re-edited, raped by censors, and run through the worst of projectors with nary a cleaned frame in sight.

What are your NFOH's? What are the films that never lose their spark for you? That you shell out hard-earned bucks for over and over and over again until you're staring poverty in the kisser? What films will bury you? End your misguided existence? Break up your marriage? Destroy your future?

The subject came up today when I learned that a French company, Carlotta Film, had just put out a BluRay of Gerard Kargl's extraordinary ANGST aka SCHIZOPHRENIA. Until today, I've been making do with a shitty, fan-subbed DVD-R and a half decent DVD without subs. Those two disks have been servicing my cinematic needs like two old but reliable callgirls for longer than I can remember. Still, the prospect of Erwin Leder on Blu, the Klaus Schulze music on Blu, the lurid, dazzling visuals of ANGST on Blu, was just too much. I couldn't resist.  Actually, I never had anything TO resist. I went into robot mode and bought it.


The BluRay is not subtitled in English -- but did I give a fuck? No. Did I hesitate to flick open my wallet, rip out my credit card, and head straight to Amazon.fr for a purchase? Hell, no. It was a done deal the moment I got the mail about it. ANGST is a NFOH of the first order. There wasn't a second's pause to consider the fact that there would be no subtitles on the feature or the extras; there'd be the amazing Leder voice-over, sure, but I wouldn't be understanding it so well because German is not a language I speak. However, I've seen ANGST at least thirty times, so I pretty much remember every poisonous line.

The NFOH condition is a serious one, an addiction, a blot on one's financial sobriety.

What are the other NFOH films that threaten to destroy my sanity, force me to question my sanity?

Not in order, and there aren't too many, but here they are...

What are yours?