Monthly Archives: March 2025

The best movie I’ve seen this year

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Granted, it’s March, but it also seems unlikely anything else I see in 2025 will top Hundreds of Beavers.

The argument is this: a wastrel applejack maker has a reversal of fortune and must survive the Wisconsin woods in winter. It is, above all, a cartoon — but a live action one. It’s not silent, but it has no dialog — eidetic sounds abound; characters grunt or otherwise erupt in exclamatory noises. The visual language is rich and consistent. The film’s look is a perfect hybrid of real and unreal, and the filmmakers achieved this miracle for about $150,000. Thus far, it’s made more than 10x that number.

Our hero must eat to survive, obviously, so his initial challenge is to trap a rabbit. The rabbits and all other animals in the story are represented by people in animal costumes; the viewer accepts this immediately.

There’s a tremendous amount of Warner Brothers vibe here, but also Buster Keaton and the Three Stooges. It’s wry and hilarious and smart, but it achieves this without spoken language. There’s a love interest, a protective father, a video-game worthy progression towards a goal, and deeply hilarious revelations about the state of the beaver scientific knowledge.

Absolutely four stars. My god, what a treat.

An interview with the director is here, and worth your time, but maybe watch it first. The film is apparently available at Amazon, Apple, and Tubi. However, we got to see it on the big screen last night over at the River Oaks Theater, a Houston gem we’ll definitely miss once we’re gone.

Dept. of Iconic GenX Motorcycles, Minneapolis Edition

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I found myself wondering what bike Prince rode in Purple Rain, and because it’s 2025 and the Internet exists, it’s easy to find out. The answer was kinda surprising, and kinda not.

What’s not surprising: It was Japanese. In 1985, Harley wasn’t really something most people would’ve noticed or wanted. The investor group led by Willie Davidson had only closed on the purchase from AMF a few years prior, so their recovery was really still a work in progress. The idea of Harley being “back” didn’t really come up until ’90. So: Japan still pretty much owned motorcycling in the US at that time.

What is surprising: What the actual bike was. In the film it’s a bike with a pretty big purple fairing, which gives it the IMPRESSION of being a large machine. Except we all NOW understand that Prince Rogers Nelson was a tiny, tiny man — about 5′ 2″.

Now, in 1984 we didn’t know this. I mean, he obviously wasn’t six foot four or whatever, but exactly how far to the left of the bell curve he fell was definitely not widely understood until much later.

Crucial to maintaining the illusion that one could not steal Prince by stuffing him into a moderate sized dufflebag was avoiding situations where it would be obvious the dude was crazy short, so clearly the producers were not going to put him on, say, a giant Kawasaki like the guys from CHIPS were riding. Having our hero and romantic lead not be able to flat-foot his moto would’ve been a really dumb idea.

So turns out: it’s a heavily customized but very small 1981 Honda CM400A. The big purple fairing was likely made by Honda customization shop Vetter, who were responsible for the original Gold Wing fairings (which were initially only an aftermarket product).

As the name suggests, it’s a 400cc bike. The parallel twin engine made about 27hp, and Honda insists it was technically capable of 85MPH. Even with a tiny, iconic musician driving, that seems optimistic. OTOH, it was 1985, and the 55MPH limit was still the law nationwide. I know from experience that 20HP will handle a double-nickel without complaint, and in the movie Prince uses the bike around town, not for a road trip to Sturgis. “The Kid” in the film is also not rich; a bike like this would’ve been easy to afford, and got excellent mileage to boot.

MORE interesting, though, is that it was equipped with a Hondamatic transmission, not a traditional motorcycle transmission. The rider didn’t have to clutch to shift at all, which is weird as hell. Predictably, the Hondamatic didn’t last long — they were gone by ’83. Interestingly, though, many modern Honda models are available with a true automatic transmission called the DCT. These bikes don’t even HAVE a clutch lever, which is important because it makes it easier for the rest of us to make fun of them. :)