Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

I’ve seen a few movies recently and I thought I should write up my reviews. Of course, no one really cares to check my reviews before going to a movie, but I’ll do it anyway.
Zatoichi, The Blind Swordsman – Zatoitchi is to Japan what James Bond is to Great Britain and America, the story of a cultural hero that lives on in movies with various actors and directors. Takeshi Kitano, actor/writer/director of many films including Battle Royale and Brother, takes the reins of the franchise. Finally being released in the US, Zatoichi is on the screen in it’s full glory instead relegated to the DVD route that many international films suffer.
Now, I’m a huge fan of Akira Kuroswa, and all other samurai movies are measured against the Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, perhaps the two greatest action films ever made. Zatoichi is good even in compairison to these films. Takeshi is limited by the bounds of the pre-existing 20+ films that came before and can’t really stretch himself.
The action is good, the villians are evil, the innocents are innocent, and Zatoichi is one serious ass-kicker. You won’t be disappointed. The ronin samurai and his woman are the most intriguing characters in the film. Poised on the edge between a desire to escape ever present violence and their need to survive they have the most interesting story. I sure I missed a ton of the subtle nuances since that Japanese would find culturally obvious, but that simply means I’ll have to buy the DVD for the commentary when it is released.
The one thing I didn’t understand was the closing dance number. Can anyone explain that?
Napoleon Dynamite – When I saw the previews for Napoleon Dynamite I was hoping for a huge blockbuster comedy with plenty of lines to put into casual conversation like Ghostbusters. Alas, it is not to be.
The film is hilarious and well made, but the humor is in the context of the film. The director shot the film at a deliberately slow pace. Compared to the MTV style of many films these days, it was quite nice to have extended scenes with locked camera shots.
The story takes place in present day Idaho, but has the look of an older film. The themes though are universal; feeling like an outsider and the desire to be popular.
For anyone that was not in the popular crowd in high school (meaning most of the Cruft faithful) this movie will resonate.

Earlier this year, my Uncle Ron passed away. Ron was a great sax and clarinet player. Growing up I can remember hearing tapes of Ron play. I have a clear memory of driving with my Uncle Gus to fish for bass with Ron’s music playing as we drove in the pre-dawn darkness to a Kansas pond.
My dad gave me three tapes of Ron playing to convert to CDs. One of the recordings was quite old. One tape from 1970 that was probably a few generations old.
I realized that I didn’t have a cassette player and even if I got one, I’d still have the problem of jury rigging the recording into a computer and converting it to a CD. After dodging my dad’s emails and questions about the conversion for a while, I was beginning to get desperate. I pondered the problem for a while and finally stumbled on cassettes2cds.
Just like it sounds, cassettes2cds converts cassette tapes to CDs. It’s mainly meant for converting old prerecorded cassettes into CDs for current use. You know that old Police, Led Zepplin, or Duran Duran cassette you have sitting around, it can be made into a CD. (Don’t even pretend that you didn’t buy one of these albums. I know you did and you probably also bought a Michael Jackson album as well in your younger days! Next you’ll try to tell me you don’t know the words to ABBA songs and hated Grease. Friggin’ liars…)
Where was I? Oh yes, the base cost of the job is $7 per CD, less if you convert a large quantity.
I emailed the guy who runs the site and asked a few questions and he seemed to know his stuff. Throwing caution to the wind, I sent the tapes off.
When the tapes arrived I got an email telling me so and daily updates on the status of the conversion. In about a week, a box arrived.