MANY THANKS FOR YOUR KIND THOUGHTS

From March 9 until March 12, yours truly was the reluctant guest of the friendly folks at Houston's Methodist Hospital for emergency treatment for an as yet undiagnosed ailment. How quickly one can go from feeling hale and hearty to hovering between here and the hereafter, certainly gives one pause. Hats off to the local paramedics and the staff of the aforementioned facility whose promptness, professionalism and skill contributed greatly to a positive outcome.

 

Despite three days of scanning, prodding, poking and monitoring with the latest of medical marvels, no definitive cause for the event could be determined. After recuperating and donning the mantle of Captain Bijou for only sporadically for a few hours a day, I am now back in my office full time, seemingly as salty as ever, but with a renewed respect for the fragility of life. In just a few short minutes, I traveled from seeming immortality to the verge of closing my hazel eyes perhaps forever.

 

During my healing, my wife, Eloise and I  -- in attempt to "get away" for a few days, trekked to one of God's most beautiful creations, The Valley of Fire, about 45 minutes outside of Las Vegas. The stunning grandeur and breathtaking vistas readily call to mind the reflective lyrics of Bob Nolan's song, "The Touch of God's Hand." So silently we stood, specks among the ancient stones and massive peaks -- hewn and shaped by the ageless winds and long distant seas -- searching for words to describe what lie in mute testament before our awestruck eyes. It was just what the shaky soul needed for affirmation and rejuvenation.

 

Which is why I now shake my head when I get a phone call or e-mail from a customer who wants to know where their order is -- after all, it's been three weeks!! Don't get me wrong, I have deeply appreciate each and every one of Captain Bijou's customers worldwide and, for the past 24 years of Captain Bijou's existence, have always made an effort to process and ship each order as expeditiously as possible. To all of you who knew of my recent illness and have demonstrated your care and concern with kind words and patience, I offer you may deepest thanks.

 

After all, in the final analysis, there simply are things more important than DVDs, movie posters and collectibles....

 

SO LONG, MITCH....

On a sadder note, we have to say good-bye to our long-time friend, Mitchell Schaperkotter, 71, who passed away on April 2 after a lengthy illness.

 

A retired postal worker, Mitch was prominent 16mm collector and, in the late 1960s and early 70s, operated the Bristol Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee. One night a week he would screen "B" westerns, serials and films classics that were then not readily seen on television.

 

In 1972, Mitch and fellow Tennessee film collectors, "Packy" Smith and Wayne Lackey, founded the Memphis  Western Film Festival to bring stars and fans of the western film together for several days of forums, screenings, autograph sessions and a dealer's room that featured dozens of dealers and thousands of posters, films and items of movie memorabilia . Over the years, the event, now called the Memphis Film Festival featured personal appearances by guests as Buddy Ebsen, Janet Leigh, Clayton "The Lone Ranger" Moore, Ben Johnson, Buster Crabbe, "Spanky" McFarland, Johnny Sheffield, Harry Carey Jr., Huntz Hall, Anne Francis, Ed Kemmer and Pat Buttram to name but a few.

 

Mitch became close friends to two perennial guests at the festival, Eddie Dean and "Lash" LaRue. I recall sitting with Mitch on numerous occasions over the years behind his table in the Memphis Film Festival dealer's room with one or the other screen cowboys seated their with and spending hours informally shooting the breeze. Two decades earlier, I would have been in short pants and bouncing on my seta in the cool darkness of The Joy Theatre watching Eddie or Lash -- or both if the right PRC picture was playing -- bringing owlhoots to swift, certain cinematic justice.

 

Many thanks, Mitch, for giving me and thousands of others, not only the pleasure of having know you, but the opportunity to meet first-hand so many of those that meant so much to me at Saturday matinees gone by. Our hearts go out to your loving wife, Wanda, and other family members. 

 

This year's edition of The Memphis Film Festival will be held June 5-7 in Olive Branch, Mississippi and boast a guest line-up that includes Noel Neill, Jack Larson, Dick Jones and many more. To find our more visit the festival website, www.memphisfilmfestival.com .

 

CAPTAIN BIJOU GOES DIGITAL!!

We are presently in the process of converting many of  the 8x10 glossy photographs we offer from negative source material to digital prints. Previously, both 8x10 color and black and white photos could be duplicated by taking a positive photo print, striking a copy negative and printing multiple copies from the negative, which resulted in a print a generation removed from the source material and, usually, slight loss in detail, color and clarity. With digital prints, the photos can be enhanced, blemishes and defects removed and, in the case of color prints, color corrected to provide with a photographs that are often equal to the original print, and, in some cases better.

 

More importantly, we can now open our vast archive and offer many of the rare photos which we have accumulated over our  half-century of collecting.  We have already posted nearly 100 new 8x10s -- both black and white and color -- to the site and will be offering additional photos from our suppliers and our own resources in the coming days. We still have a substantial prints struck from negatives, but once those are gone just about every 8x10 we offer will be digital.

 

You may have also noticed that some black and white photos carry a $4.00 retail price. Despite increased costs to produce 8x10 photos, we have not raised our $3.50 retail price for black and  white photos in nearly ten years. Other internet sellers  currently sell either black and white or color prints for the same amount: usually $5.99 each, and as our costs continue to mount, we may have to adjust our selling prices to be more in line with our competitors in the future.

 

In the meantime, our black and white 8x10s will sell for $4.00 each; color 8x10s for $5.00 each. Here's a thought for all of you thrifty Captain Bijou customers: though we are in the process of changing prices for black and white photos on our site, thousands of black and white photos still carry the $3.50 price for that until we change the price on the site. Changing all of those prices is not something we can do overnight, so if you hurry you can still buy a large number of the black and white photos we offer for $3.50 each! Once we change the price to $4.00 on the listing, you will no longer be able to take advantage of the lower price. 

 

THE ACADEMY FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT...WELL, SORT OF

Out of one of the most lackluster movie seasons in memory...the chaos of the writer's strike... and, perhaps, the singularly most unsatisfying Oscar ceremony ever....the six thousand plus members of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences collectively and correctly awarded their coveted "Best Performance by Actress" to exactly that....the best performance by any actress for the year...or, for that matter the decade. Perhaps, it is the best screen performance since 1927 when they first began giving out the award. 

 

Marion Cotillard's embodiment of tormented singer Edith Piaf in LA VIE EN ROSE captured the soul of the tragic "little sparrow" so thoroughly, it continues to haunt both mind and heart days..weeks...months after screening. Ably abetted by Oscar-winning make-up by Didier LaVergne and Jan Archibald with direction by Oliver Dahan, the stunningly beautiful Ms. Cottillard transforms -- in effective non-chronological sequence -- from a frail, earthy street singer to the toast of the international set to an arthritic, wizened shell of a woman who has embraced life perhaps too fully...too hungrily...too painfully. That hurt... that unquenchable desire resonated in each note of every performance ... which is why Piaf's remarkable voice still speaks to us --- we who daily plod and trudge -- as do those of Judy Garland and Billie Holliday. To capture that essence  as clearly as a Piaf note, is a performance for the ages.  

 

Though being nominated for Best Picture, and well as dozens of nominations in other categories, by a host of international critics' organizations, LA VIE EN ROSE did not receive an Oscar or Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture or Best Foreign Picture. Instead, we got NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

 

I openly confess to being a Cohen Brothers fan. Three of their movies -- RAISING ARIZONA (1987), THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) and OH, BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?(2000) -- are among my favorites. With tongues firmly planted in their collective cheeks, they offer dark screen farces -- quirky, irreverent and filled with broadly stereotypical characters. Which is their strength....and their weakness as well. How do their most successful films "work" if your remove the cardboard characters?? If all of the West Texas folk in NO COUNTRY are shorn of their s-l-o-w Texas drawls and implied ignorance, does the film work as well?? Ditto for  FARGO or OH BROTHER...and just about any of their successful films. Remove the broad stereotypes and the films fall flat.

 

In addition to wasting Tommy Lee Jones, who seems to be on hand to lend authenticity to the proceedings with his drawl and little else, and Woody Harrelson, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN has that "we've seen it all before" feel to it. In fact we have. Just take Sam Raimi's A SIMPLE PLAN (1998) and fuse it with the Cohen's FARGO...change the locale, edit and, essentially, you have NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Yes, I realize there is more than a little redundancy in filmmaking -- it has been often stated that there are only twelve basic scripts in Hollywood -- and it is more often not what is said in film but how it is said. Which is why the Cohens' have been so successful as has Quentin Tarantino with his patchwork, take-parts-from-my-favorite-seldom-seen-drive-in-movies-and-put-'em-together-with-unconventional-editing-techniques style of  filmmaking.

 

Certainly just as worthwhile, but flying far below the Academy's nominating radar, was Denzel Washington's second directorial effort,  THE GREAT DEBATERS. Starring Washington with the incomparable Forrest Whitaker and produced by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions, it earnestly told the story about a Depression-era debate team from a small, Texas negro college and their activist (-- read socialist/communist--) coach. Though the film received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, this inspiring it failed to garner a single Oscar acknowledgement.

 

At least we can all be thankful that that THE GREAT DEBATERS wasn't made by the Cohen Brothers. With their penchant for stereotypes and sophomoric, offensive humor derived from said stereotypical characterizations, the possibilities boggle the mind.

 

And don't even get me started on Cate Blanchett not receiving the golden boy for her uncanny performance as Bob Dylan in I'M NOT THERE....

 

It is, of course,  far easier to be critical of the of the cinematic results of cast and crew than to make a motion picture film. Noted film critic Roger Ebert dipped his pen in the celluloid inkwell and gave us three Russ Meyer skin flicks: BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970), UP (1976) and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA VIXENS (1979). The creative process is a difficult one -- whether it an individual working with canvas and pigments or collectively attempting to arrange snippets of celluloid in meaningful, memorable order or arrange sound and camera cues for telecast. Despite beliefs to the contrary, any film criticism -- regardless of stature of the critic -- is, in the final analysis, a singular opinion and only worth the price of an admission ticket.

 

At least there was an Academy Awards ceremony this year, albeit uninspired. As a dedicated observer since the first telecast in 1953, it was apparent glitz was definitely off the evening's glamour, and the entire event seemed to have a hesitant feel about it. For the most part, it was a rushed together with the final set pieces falling into place only after the writer's strike had been settled....and it showed. Through wars, conflict, social upheaval and an attempted presidential assassination, the Academy Award ceremonies have endured. It would have been a shame to have proven on Oscar night, once and for all, that the pen really was mightier than the sword.