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“Treading through the dreadful darkness of the land, I dipped the pith of a rush into the tallow, and soon the rushlights guided me down the somberness, the gloomy flames unveiling this unfamiliar soil.”

B.J. Smith 1714-1775

Cartoons are for kids. Most of the time. Then there is Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. Adult Swim plays during the late night hours and is under much looser federal regulation. Much, much looser, I would say. In fact, it may be possible that the definition of the term loose has been stomped and squashed into a giant red stain on the sidewalk. I have not spent a lot of time watching Adult Swim, but I was not ready for the content of Superjail: Season 3. I think it would be hard to imagine something more offensive and shocking, but I'm sure it exists. Since it is a cartoon there are no limits in the ability to depict horrific gore and bodily destruction. This is a comedy show presented in the new format of compact 11-minute segments. I will say that I didn't see anything pornographic (at least that wasn't blacked out), but other than that there seem to be no limits in the hunt for  the ultimate hilarious gross out.

Superjail takes place in a maximum security prison in some post-apocalyptic future. Mutants, freaks and unwholesome abominations abound. Any kind of social norm has been eradicated in this nightmare vision of the future. I'm not saying I'm shocked or offended, but I feel it is my duty to say that millions will be insanely upset and some will be greatly entertained. If you buy into the premise, I would say it's lots of fun. But I think late night Cartoon Network is no place for kids.

When a documentary is made about a subject and interviews are presented with a wide variety of individuals talking about a single thing, most of the time no one will question such a presentation. In this case, people are likely to question the intentions and ultimate content of the project. The film is directed by noted photographer Deborah Anderson, who has taken photographs of many famous celebrities like Elton John and George Clooney. She is the daughter of rock singer Jon Anderson from Yes. Aroused is about celebrities of a sort. The film includes extensive interviews with porn stars and their agent during the course of an extensive photo shoot. The question then becomes, “How serious is this project?” It turns out to be a somewhat serious examination of the psychological stress that these women have to go through. That said, there is a fair amount of nudity as the film progresses. Is it gratuitous or not? That's not easy to say. I would say that if they wanted this to be taken seriously, they might have limited the nudity. Of course, it will probably have a higher level of sales with the nudity.

I can't say I know many of the people being interviewed, but I will list some names for those of you who might know; Allie Haze, Ash Hollywood, Asphyxia Noir, April O'Neill, Alexis Texas, Belladonna, Brooklyn Lee, Francesca Lee, Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Lisa Ann, Misty Stone, Tanya Tate, Teagen Presley and Fran Amidor. Anderson wants to get to know the real women. Who were they before they became the stigma or pariah? Many of them came from sheltered or timid backgrounds. Some were married to ministers, and some went through strict religious training.

Has there ever been anyone like Frank Zappa? He had a rare combination of incredible professionalism and steadfast sobriety mixed with zany insanity and freakish detours on offbeat paths. He is the freak of all freaks of the sixties yet had an unwavering distaste for the rampant drug use of the time. His music couldn't be more jarring or unconventional, yet he liked stately classical compositions to relax. A Token of His Extreme was a passion project for Zappa that he paid for with his own money back in 1974. It was produced with the intention of being an American Network Television special, but it never saw the light of day in the US.

The DVD also includes an appearance on The Mike Douglas Show in 1976 in which Zappa lamented about the television special. “This was put together with my own money and my own time, and it's been offered to television networks and to syndication, and it has been steadfastly rejected by the American television industry. It has been shown in primetime in France and Switzerland, with marvelous results. It's probably one of the finest pieces of video work that any human being has ever done. I did it myself. And the animation work that you're going to see in this was done by a guy named  Bruce Bickford, and I hope he is watching the show, because it's probably the first time that a lot of people in America got a chance to see it.”

Oscilloscope Laboratories distributes unusual films. Unusual and special. They have packaged two documentaries together: Only the Young/Tchoupitoulas. The first is about kids wandering around a suburban wasteland in desert California. The second is about kids wandering the streets of New Orleans. They are very different experiences, but they are both about the flow of real life. They both have voices that are real and at times inspired. They are about avoiding dramatic structure and explaining and just revealing.

Documentaries used to be very predictable and somewhat uniform in approach, but all sorts of stylistic variations, conceptual approaches, and philosophies of content have been mutating over the last 40 years in respect to what defines a documentary. A documentary style that epitomizes the traditional approach is the style that Ken Burns exhibits. His prodigious output is meticulous and universally loved. It takes a subject and then thoroughly and extensively examines that subject with great reverence and detail, usually to be broadcast on PBS over many nights. This is best reflected in one of his most popular series, The Civil War. It usually involves photographs and videos when available with copious dramatic narration including famous actors reading from the words of historical figures. Then there is the example of Fredrick Wiseman, who would take the subject of some modern institution and then simply record footage of people enmeshed in the institution and allow those events to speak for themselves without narration. Between those two extremes many variations have occurred. The History channel is well known for playing fast and loose with the way they put together their “documentaries”. Many have a large percentage of dramatic re-enactments of events that may or may not have happened.

I should start by saying I just re-watched the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon on Turner Classic Movies, and I fell in love all over again. Olivier was never more magnetic, naturalistic and appealing than he was as Heathcliff. I have watched it many times and Wuthering Heights has been done many times. There have been recent versions with Ralph Fiennes and Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception). This is not one of those versions.

This version is by the adventurous — some would say radical — filmmaker Andrea Arnold. When she first started making films as a director, Arnold made shorts and won an Oscar for a film called Wasp. Both of her first two feature films — Red Road and Fish Tank — won the Jury prize at Cannes. She is a big believer in the Dogme 95 style founded by Lars von Trier, but only as a general philosophy. She does not adhere specifically to all the rules of that movement. Arnold does use the hand-held camera almost exclusively, which gives all of her films — including this one — a documentary feel. There is no music in her version of Wuthering Heights, except for those moments that are generated by the characters in the scenes (though there is a Mumford and Sons song at the end), and the film uses mostly untrained “actors.” It also hopes to shake things up by having the Heathcliff character be black.