Now that it is -- let's see here -- 5:08 in the morning down here in Texas, it occurs to me that since I will have to either go to the doctor this afternoon or else to work tonight at 8:00, it would have probably been a good idea for me to have actually been getting some sleep. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of glancing at this week's issue of the Dallas Morning News' TV magazine and discovering that Sid & Nancy, one of the most exhilarating classics of morbid cinema ever filmed, was due to show up on Encore this morning at 3 a.m. Well -- how could I not find the time to catch Gary Oldman wandering around in a heroin-induced stupor while Chloe Webb somehow managed to make you hate her yet still want to cry when her character meets her fate? The film really is about fate to an extent, isn't it? Sid and Nancy were fated to be fucked up and -- at least as far as the film's representation of them are concerned -- you can't really hold it against them. So, anyway, I stayed up and watched it and it's still a great movie (as opposed to other great movies that turn out to be the exact opposite once you actually sit through them) and while I know I should have gotten some sleep, I'm glad I didn't.

However, I think I will now. Encore is currently showing yet another cult film from the past -- Lords of the Flatbush, which has a cult specifically because it stars a pre-Rocky Stallone and a pre-Fonzie Henry Winkler. In short, it's a movie that's probably more fun to talk about ("It's like this movie Stallone made with Fonzie..." followed by fake laughter) than to actually discuss, much less watch.

So, I will now do the right thing and get some sleep. However, before I do that, does anybody remember a pre-Lords of the Flatbush Stallone film called Rebel, where apparently Stallone was some sort of Weatherman type (the film was apparently from the early '70s) who basically did that whole Rambo thing but in the name of social equality as opposed to anticommunism? Some people swear that this film is just an urban legend and it seems to be next to impossible to find a copy of it. (I've read that it was released under several different titles.) However, I swear, I am pretty sure that I actually saw the last five minutes or so of this film one Saturday afternoon back in the early '90s. I seem to remember a very young Stallone, out in the middle of a field, railing against injustice before a very abrupt title crawl told us that he ended up doing some time in prison before being released and hooking up with a girl whose name I cannot remember (This was apparently a very important plot point in the film or else somebody just made that final epilogue up on the spot). I have always kept an eye out for any possibility of that film popping up on another Saturday morning but it hasn't and I haven't been able to find any concrete reference to it anywhere since those five minutes 12 years ago.

(naturally, just as Rebel is amazingly obscure and ignored, Stallone's porno film, A Party at Kitty and Stud's -- which no, I have not seen and no, I have no desire to see -- seems to be the proverbial bit of obscure movie trivia that every idiot on the planet has convinced himself that only he knows about.)

Well, needless to say, catching a full viewing of Rebel has become a bit of a pointless obsession with me and, if so inclined, I could probably use this whole quest as a metaphor for just what exactly is probably wrong with my life. Consider -- I am not a fan of Sylvester Stallone's. It's simplistic to lump all the various factions of '60s liberalism into one category labeled the New Left but then again, that hasn't stopped the majority of Leftist historians from doing just that so I might as well join and say that I do not have much respect for the New Left in general and absolutely no respect for the Weatherman in specific. The five minutes that I saw of the film would have been unwatchable and dull if not for the trivia factor of having Stallone in the film and, since I'm indifferent to the guy and his career, the appeal of that trivia factor was pretty much used up in those five minutes. In short, I am seeking to waste two hours of my life on something that will probably bore me at best and offend me at the worst but yet I have looked for Rebel in the Sunday TV supplement every day since I caught those thuddingly dull five minutes years ago.

Why? The reason goes to the soul of every obsessive-compulsive, self-appointed student of pop culture out there and it's either pathetic or strangely noble depending on how you look at it. I have to see this film not because I have any desire to sit through it but because I know it's out there yet I haven't seen it. It's the same reason why I'll eventually have to read War and Peace. It's there.

Yep, some guys prove their worth by climbing Everest. I track down obscure, bad films starring actors I don't particularly care for -- which I guess is why it was important that I stay up and watch Sid & Nancy tonight. The two hours I spent on that will someday down the road, hopefully, serve to cancel out the two hours I know I'm going to waste on Rebel.

And unfortunately, Lords of the Flatbush is starting to look kinda good. Hell, I can always sleep at the doctor's office....  ¶ 5:00 AM