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It is the sublime aggregate of form and function and once you experience it, you find that you have to experience it again and again.

For me, it all began back in college. I attended a school primarily known for its performing arts programs so I ran with a fairly unconventional crowd; some musicians, some writers, while others fancied themselves film makers. The one thing we all had in common is that like most liberal arts students we considered ourselves to be immensely cerebral guys who were all destined to save the world – with art. We were, of course, quite wrong but it was in this environment that my love of film – particularly the unconventional type - began to mature. And so it happened that this particular group of friends liked to get together once a week, watch especially peculiar films and discuss them until the wee hours of the morning - all as an intellectual exercise.

One night we were engaged in that familiar but tedious debate regarding the various merits of David Lynch. We reached a predictable impasse, and with a couple of people in the room being devotees it was soon suggested that we gather every David Lynch film in existence and come to a verdict, no matter how long it took. Now, is that utterly pretentious? It absolutely is, but when you're in college that's the sort of moxie that teaches you lessons, and trust me it was about do so here. But at the time all I knew was that I wasn't about to sit through Eraserhead again without a very good reason and this wasn't it.

So I decided to ask a fateful question which was: "Has anyone here seen A Clockwork Orange?" Not one person in the room had, so I was dispatched to fetch my copy. I was saved all right, but it was at a terrible price.

You see in my desperate zeal to avoid a 24 hour Lynch-a-Thon I opened a Pandora's Box that would stay open for almost two months. For it was on that night that the now infamous Clockwork Orange Party was born. My peers came away as utterly fascinated with that film as I am and doubly determined to understand it. But whether you love it or hate it, there's a lot to see in A Clockwork Orange and if you're ever going to understand it you'll have to view it more than once. Thus it was decreed - we would gather every Thursday and watch this film again until we all felt we understood it. Additionally, one person in our group happened to make wine – a very bad Dorm Room Vintage I might add - and agreed to supply libations for our study.

Now, in case you're wondering how many times a person can watch A Clockwork Orange before coming unhinged I am here to report that the answer is once a week for seven weeks. I happen to be a big fan of Stanley Kubrick but if you've seen Clockwork, I don't have to tell you that it is somewhat unsettling and explicit. Our souls now permanently fractured, we wisely decided to move on but we still liked the idea of getting together weekly to review challenging material. To that end, it happened that another of our group had become rather obsessed with the 1989 satire Erik the Viking and suggested we begin with that film. To the chagrin of our resident winemaker, his concoction was vetoed but a compromise was devised; I was able to find a recipe for something called Glögg (a Scandinavian drink made using wine) on a B.B.S. (what geeks used before the Internet was widely available), literally reaching a palatable compromise.

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