"Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?"

I watched Ed Wood last night. Every time I see that movie, I get so moved and inspired.

It always makes me feel nostalgic. I remember renting it from Movies and More-- I must have been about 9. Movies and More was a video store around the corner from my house when I was growing up. When they went out of business, I bought their copy on VHS.

Pretty soon, a new video store opened up in the same strip mall: the Beverly Hills Videocentre. That place was really great-- a tiny store on the second floor packed from top to bottom with movies. When I was 12 and 13, that place was my safe haven. I doubt I would have survived puberty without it. The guys who worked there, Rick and Lon, were amazing. Somehow, they didn't mind the fact that an annoying pre-teen girl was always hanging around, eating their free cookies and demanding conversation and recommendations. Those guys made me the person I am today. They showed me Repo Man, True Stories, Forbidden Zone, (the original) Bedazzled, Female Trouble (who gives that to a 12 year old girl? No matter, I am eternally grateful) and so many more. Lon showed me some really bizarre movies from the 80's, like Liquid Sky and Starstruck. Rick told me about Belle & Sebastian and "El Presidente," which is still my favorite Thom Yorke song.

I rented Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space from them, and was so confused that Plan 9 is considered to be the classic. I remember my conversation with Rick about it. He said that I liked Glen or Glenda better because it was something that Wood really cared about, no matter how shitty the movie happened to be. He was absolutely right. Good and bad are completely subjective. Quality doesn't really matter to me-- for me to enjoy art, there just needs to be passion behind it. There is no worse crime than mediocrity.

They went out of business five years ago-- I'd made real friends by then and didn't depend on them for company anymore. It was still devastating. I cried and hugged them, which probably made them kind of uncomfortable. I wonder if they know how much they did for me. I wonder if they know how much it meant for me to have a place to go where people were nice to me and listened to what I had to say. I wonder what they're doing now. I wonder if they remember me.

I still dream about it sometimes. That they got their space back and are moving back in, even though I'm on the other side of the country now. In my dreams, they never recognize me.

What was I supposed to be writing about? Ed Wood, right. Bad movies made with passion. I wonder why I like them so much. Maybe because I find them reassuring. They soothe me in a way.

I guess it's because they remind me that greatness can be achieved on so many different levels, and that gives me hope.

Die Bergkatze/The Wildcat (1921)

Pola Negri being seriously badass in Ernst Lubitsch's 1921 comedy The Wildcat.

Last night I saw The Wildcat (the German title is Die Bergkatze, literally "The Mountain Cat"), and I finally understood what the big deal was about Pola Negri.

I went home, checked IMDB, and said about Negri the same thing I'd said years ago about Garbo after first seeing Ninotchka (Lubitsch, 1939), "I can't believe she didn't do more comedies!"

As is often the case with the movies which really get me fired up, the plot of The Wildcat is nothing to write home about. Vain playboy lieutenant gets robbed in the mountains by a band of thieves, but his life is spared by the uncouth lady-thief. She falls for him, he falls for her, but he's engaged to someone else, blah blah blah, the ending reinforces class segregation.

Whatever.

The sets are ABSURD. Giant white curlicues in the interior of a military mountain fortress...why not? There's also an insane dream sequence with a band of-- you know, I'm not going to ruin it. You need to see it to believe it.

The cast of brigands and soldiers are adorably hapless, and the sequence introducing the male lead...well, let's just say it's a great example of the use of crowds in silent film.

It's a romp, an impecably made romp.

But what The Wildcat is REALLY about is Pola Negri. She is brilliant. From the moment she bursts out of her tent and (literally) starts whipping her ne'er do well band of thieves into shape, we are on her side and we want to know her story. Unglamorous, uncouth and unfeminine (as far as beautiful female movie stars go, anyways) in her rags and leopard pelt, toting a giant pistol (see above) and a big knife, Negri manages to be so funny, so sexy, so charming, so adorable, and somehow so believable in this picture that it's impossible not to fall in love with her.

I really need to see more of Lubitsch's work. But from the two movies I've seen, I really like him. I like his style, I like his sense of humor, and most of all I like what he gets out of his actors. I understand why Veronica Lake's character from Sullivan's Travels is so keen to work with him.

I'm going to resist describing the movie at any length, because I think it's great and that everyone should see it, and I don't want to take away from that experience. The Kino DVD (part of the Lubitsch in Berlin series) is the film's first American release. Rent it, buy it, whatever, it's marvellous.