Despite all my rage, I am still just a bat in a cave.
- with credits to Billy Corgan

Who says the quizmaster is not hip? You think he only does oldies like The Gold Diggers of 1933? This week, every one of his movies is from the 1990's, and some are even good (believe it or not). So quit whining! The top movie is a real sleeper. It slipped in and out of the theaters too quickly for me (I was underage at that time), and its shelf life as a laserdisc was far too brief. It might never come out on DVD. Nevertheless, you can find this movie at Tower Records, in widescreen format (the A.R. is 1.85:1).  Mr. M. tells me there are around 73 black & white movies in his catalog, which have this A.R. Once you have a list like this, the modus operandi is:

"I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but I'll know when I find it." 

So, during the search, my prime candidates were The Addiction, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, and A Midwinter's Tale. The last movie was eliminated using Screen World, and movie trailers. Just type in "movie trailers", and let Yahoo's search engine find the sites. I have a recorded copy of the Dead Men trailer, so that movie was also easy to eliminate. This leaves us with the first movie, and just how do we confirm this, without spending any money? I could not find any trailers for this film. The laserdisc and vhs box art are too abstract. To make a long story short, the place to go is Border's Books, where you'll find a book titled, The Vampire Film, by Silver and Ursini. On page 284, you'll find a picture of Anabella Sciorra in a matching black nightie. The drapes also match the ones in Dan's screen shot. Out of curiousity, I raided my friend Preppie Boy's film collection, and decided to watch the movie in its entirety. This film is weird, without much sexual overtone. At least it's not overt like Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, where a nun is raped, and nude bodies parade around. I'd say this movie (The Addiction) sounds the death knell on the study of philosophy. For if you read between the lines, academic philosophy is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. Fear and Loathing, and the Sickness Unto Death says it all.

Miscellaneous notes:

Here's the scoop on the other films in this week's quiz. The Double Life of Veronique can be deduced, once you recognize Irene Jacob's face. Three Kings, an abysmal, racist war picture is so obvious, anyone can guess it. If TV Guide's reviewer, Maitland McDonough, did not find all the verbal and visual references to Arabs as Towel Heads offensive, he might think twice were someone to make a movie about the Irish, referring to them as Potato Heads. The ending of the movie is a wimpy, liberal copout, and hardly makes up for or explains the guttural, racially superior tone earlier in the film. Mallrats, part 2 of Kevin Smith's New Jersey trilogy, was expected after Dan did part 1 (Clerks). The best scenes from Mallrats include Ivannah the 3-nippled psychic, and a topless Joey Lauren Adams. Stay tuned for part 3, Chasing Amy.

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