Lake Neuron

I was delighted the other day when, at a bargain display near the grocery store checkout, I spotted DVDs of “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” a sublimely funny movie I haven’t seen in many, many years. I snatched one up for $9.99, which is probably about $2 more than the original shooting budget.

I have to explain this movie for those of you who aren’t familiar with it. It was shot by a South African filmmaker, Jamie Uys, and released about 1980. It was very low-budget and never intended for international release, but it just took off somehow. At one point, it actually held the title of the most successful foreign film released in the U.S.

There are two or three interlocking stories, which all merge at the climax. I’ll get to the most famous one in just a moment. One of the other story threads is about a scientist (Marius Weyers), working in remote bush country, whose job is literally studying animal droppings. In reality, he’s a great guy, but he has very little experience with women, and he’s asked to go pick up a former journalist (Sandra Prinsloo) who has decided to give up the pressures of city life for a job teaching at a mission school in the bush. The scientist is attracted to the teacher, which makes him very, very nervous, and within minutes, he manages to give her the false impression that he’s a klutz, a moron and possibly a pervert.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot about a military coup being planned by a cruel but inept guerilla group.

But the storyline everyone remembers is about a bushman named Xi, played by a real-life bushman named N!xau. In the first few minutes of the movie, we see the daily life of Xi and his tribe — who have no knowledge of the outside world — presented, with narration, like something you’d see on public television or the Discovery Channel. The narrator explains how possessions are shared, and how the bushmen live in harmony with nature and each other. When Xi fires a dart at an antelope to feed his family, he even apologizes to the antelope as it dies.

All of this domestic bliss is disturbed when a pilot in an open-cockpit biplane drops an old-fashioned glass Coca-Cola bottle. It’s the hardest, most amazing and useful thing that Xi and his friends have ever seen — but it’s also the only individual possession they’ve ever known, and that soon causes jealousy and conflict. Soon, Xi is given the task of throwing this evil gift from the crazy gods off the edge of the earth — which, as you may already have guessed, ends up sending him in the general direction of “civilzation” as represented by the other two subplots.

The establishing portions of the movie are a little off-beat, but once the plot gets going you will be in stitches.

Title	Content
Movie:	The Gods Must Be Crazy
Director:	Jamie Uys
Release Date:	21 August 1981 (Norway) / Other Countries
Genre:	Action | Comedy
Tagline:	At last, a comedy everyone can laugh with!
User Rating:	11,135 votes, average 6.9 out of 10
Runtime:	109 min
Awards:	2 wins&1 nomination
Cast:	...
Others:	Additional Details Close Move Title Content MPAA: County: Botswana | South Africa Language: English | Afrikaans | Ungwatsi Color: Color Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Sound: Mono Company: CAT Films Certification: Iceland:L | South Korea:12 | Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | Germany:12 | Norway:11 (re-rating) | Norway:12 (original rating) | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | USA:PG IMDBTag: Powered by IMDBTag & imdb.com Sound Mix, Aspect Ratio ...
Photos:	N/A
	Powered by IMDBTag

Our local PBS station has started re-running the old Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series from the 1980s, in what is, essentially, the old “Mystery!” time slot in which the series first aired on Thursday nights in the Middle Tennessee market.

This series is wonderful — not only because of Brett, who is riveting in his arrogance, but also because of Edward Hardwicke, who eventually took the role of Watson. Too many old adaptations have portrayed Watson as a sputtering fool, the type of person whom Holmes would never have tolerated as an acquaintance, much less a close friend or associate. Of course, Watson is not Holmes — only Holmes is Holmes — but Watson is no fool. He has to be smart enough to truly appreciate Holmes, and smart enough to engage Holmes. At the same time, he has to be the viewer’s surrogate in understanding (or sometimes, failing to understand) Holmes. Hardwicke, and his predecessor David Burke, played it perfectly, although for intangible reasons I like Hardwicke better.

I was shocked to read in Wikipedia just now that Brett himself played Watson in a 1980 stage production of “Crucifer of Blood,” opposite Charlton Heston as Holmes! According to Wikipedia (insert disclaimer here), that puts him among only three actors to have played both Holmes and Watson professionally.

The fifth and final installment of the Costa Rica series is now online.

Part four of the Costa Rica series is now online.

I decided to go back to using a filter pitcher for my water, since it’s cheaper and more environmentally responsible than the bottled stuff. But before you applaud me too loudly for my anti-consumerism, I will admit that I did get a slightly gimmicky and consumerist water pitcher. It’s from Pur, and the lid holds a little bottle of sugar-free fruit flavor. You can pour unflavored water normally from the pitcher, for any purpose, or you can pump a little button on the handle and add the colorless flavor concentrate as you pour. It’s actually kind of neat. The pitcher comes with raspberry concentrate, but there are other flavors available. I was afraid that the “unflavored” pours might still taste like raspberry, but the pitcher is cleverly designed so that the flavor and the water come out of different spouts and there’s no easy way for excess flavor to contaminate the supply.

Part 3 of the Costa Rica series is now online.

What a great idea:

[Executive producer Lorne] Michaels mentioned that Jimmy Fallon will air his show online for “five or six months” before it airs in Conan O’Brien’s old timeslot, in order to give it a headstart in finding its creative legs. “We learned with Conan how brutal it was to find a show when it was on the air,” he said.

A fantastic use of web video. In retail, you call it a “soft opening” when you open your store or restaurant with no fanfare but then schedule a big grand opening event later, once the kinks have been worked out.

Part 2 of my Costa Rica series is now online.

YouTube - The Process. Hat tip to Kate O

Anthony Bourdain kills me sometimes. On an episode of “No Reservations” about Colombia which Travel Channel is running right now, he said the hearty breakfast served in that country “makes the Grand Slam at Denny’s look like a carrot stick …. It lands in your gut like an Abrams tank driven by Roseanne Barr.”

Part one of my Costa Rica series is now online.

I belive that “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” will only be posted for a short time, and you really do need to watch it before it goes away (it will still be available from iTunes, and eventually as a DVD). Unique, clever and brilliantly-executed. (I love the messages from “Bad Horse.”) Each of the three parts is about 15 minutes.

The only alcoholic beverage I consume is an occasional bit of red wine. I was on Halls Mill Road this morning covering a farm festival, and on my way home — since I was so close anyway — I stopped at Bedford County’s local winery, Tri-Star Vineyards and Winery, for a bottle of Bedford Red.

Perry and Elaine Casteel, the proprietors, recently announced their plan for retirement. This will be the last season for the vineyards; the winery will remain in business for two or three years until all existing stock has been aged, bottled and sold. They’re fine folks and I wish them well in retirement, but it’s sad that there won’t be a winery here anymore. They don’t want to sell the operation because they live on-site and don’t want to move.

Being only an occasional wine drinker, I’m an idiot about the stuff. I tend towards something that’s a little bit sweet (not sweet enough to be a dessert topping, but sweeter than the dry stuff the real wine experts prefer). It’s been a few years since I had any of the Bedford Red, but I remember it being terrific. It’s classified as “semi-dry.” I probably won’t get to enjoy any this evening — I’m going to Nashville for a journalism awards banquet.

I just got through watching the first two acts of “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” and now I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Dead solid perfect so far.

John Bloom (whom some of you will know as drive-in movie critic / “Monstervision” host Joe Bob Briggs, and others will remember from the “God Stuff” segments which used to appear on “The Daily Show”) has posted a gut-wrenching remembrance of Harry Guetzlaff at the Door web site.