The Blockhead network has served me well. NC Tate recommended London/Robinson in Space to Julian, who bought the DVDs, and then passed them on to me. I am grateful.
They are tremendous films that, in choosing the essay as their guiding form rather than narrative, do something startlingly and wonderfully new. I am reminded again of Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crud." I like to rag on cruddy movies, and occasionally make noises about being tired of the form in its entirety, but then I experience something like this, and see that, yes, the crud is out there, but it's silly to judge a form by its crud (and that, in any case, at least ninety percent of novels and music are also crud). Rather, we should seek out the masterpieces.
Another Robinson lover has suggested that Los Angeles Plays Itself is a masterpiece at the level of the Robinson films. It is, like them, essayistic, a film, that is, that tries to do something different. I look forward to the DVD plunking into my mailbox, and also to the third of the Robinson films, which should be out soon.
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