I don’t really plan on reading Roadside Picnic (numerous reviews and message board posts that I read in the month after watching Stalker alerted me to the differences) but I definitely believe all the conspiracy theories about Tarkovsky and his wife getting sick and dying because of contamination where the movie was filmed. Talk about dying for your best art.

It is pretty cool of RS to include Stalker so high on their list, but as far as I can tell that’s the only fascinating thing about that list. (Yeah, Under The Skin is #6, but I sorta kept that movie at arm’s length.)

I used to have a policy of reading the book after watching any movie I dubbed to be particularly interesting, but I dropped that when I realized I didn’t feel like reading that Upton Sinclair book that There Will Be Blood is based off of. One I’d probably be well off to seek out is James Vance Marshall’s book of Walkabout. Also Tom Perrotta’s original Election.
I guess I’d have to use Interlibrary Loan, I hate to blind-buy books anymore off Amazon. The two big libraries in my college town are inconsistent about what they have and don’t have, perhaps like a lot of libraries, but sometimes stuff disappears from them too, one of my libraries had editions of every Vladimir Nabokov book but they all disappeared except Lolita and Pale Fire one year. I guess people just weren’t reading all those other Nabokov books? Movies and TV series disappear from the shelves all the time too due to people stealing the discs (they used to have all seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer but I have to interlibrary loan to get the last two seasons now.)
I also feel I should re-read White Noise after watching the movie, and I’ve REALLY forgotten the differences between the book and movie of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, having rewatched the movie quite a lot and dealing with my confusing feelings about it.

Aerosmith: That does seem to be true that Music From Another Dimension got no publicity–I only know about it because of George reviewing it! Hah! I really don’t know how they did it and I don’t know to what extent I’m going to listen to any of their dinosaur albums in the future. Maybe Axl Rose should tour as their lead singer with Steven Tyler done for, the last I remember hearing from Tyler anyway was when he fell off the stage or whatever it was. There were also pictures of him shirtless on the beach where he had moobs.

Rainbow: No, once Dio was gone they were completely faceless, even with Blackmore playing guitar, there were just faceless guys playing all the other instruments and singers where you won’t notice when they’ve switched, the style is completely generic metal, Dio’s version of the band had far more personality, it’s even worse than post-1983 Black Sabbath, and the only song I’m likely to ever listen to after 1978 is “Since You’ve Been Gone.” Going through dinosaur bands’ discographies and listening to the shit they put out just to have product on the shelves has become a very tiresome sport with me. Blackmore just does folk stuff now with Blackmore’s Night, fronted by his sexy Gypsy-cosplaying wife who seems to be quite a lot younger than him. I’m not going to listen to them.