Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Rainy Days And Mondays


Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On!

I cried a river over Truly Madly Deeply.

Actually that's a lie. It did not engage me one iota. It was an English middle class Ghost without the raw sexual magnetism of Patrick Swayze, the most beautiful man who has ever lived, the epitome of raw, animal, male manliness. Alan Rickman? Give me a break! I'd like to see Alan flaming Rickman lift a woman over the threshold and get a good old manly sweat going on top of her, muscles bulging like fuck.

But didn't I cry over Juliet Stevenson's grief? No I bloody didn't. It was hardly Breaking the fucking Waves, was it? Not that that made me feel anything, either.

Hard bastard, aren't I?

So we come to Distant Voices, Still Lives which I hadn't seen since it was originally out.

"Classic film," I said to Betty before watching it. "A real tear-jerking working class story. Made all the more poignant because the writer and director, Terence Davies, died tragically young."

"What did he die of?" said a morbid Betty.

"Cancer, I think. He was famous for his trilogy, you know. Known as the Terence Davies Trilogy. It's recently been released on DVD."

So we watched the film.

What I'd found unbearably beautiful twenty years ago I now found unbearably mawkish. Had I changed that much? What had happened to that sensitive young man?

Still, poor Terence Davies. When did he die? Was it the big C? Let's look him up, shall we?

Nope. He's not dead. That's Bill Douglas. Of Bill Douglas Trilogy fame. Now he was a great film maker.

******

Later, we watch a documentary on The Carpenters. And the tears come.

I'm sensitive once more.

16 comments:

  1. That Richard Carpenter came over as a bit dodgy to me Geoff. Not very convincing with the hand-wringing.

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  2. I cried at the end of Die Hard 4.0
    Budget of 27 fuckillion and they still can't kill Bruce Willis.

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  3. Karen Carpenter means much more to me than Alan Rickman.

    Shame her music was rubbish and her brother borderline creepy.

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  4. I found 'The English Patient' quite moving. You should really try watching 'Bambi' though. That'll really get you going. You'll blub like you've never blubbed before.

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  5. It was Rickman's moustache. That was the problem.

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  6. Either kill Alan Rickman or make him play disfigured villains for the rest of time.

    "An Officer and a Gentleman" always makes me reach for the Kleenex.
    Probably just jealous of Deborah Winger.

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  7. Was it the Karen Carpenter story as reenacted by Barbie dolls?

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  8. Murph - Do you think he ate her food? Where does he put it all?

    Vicus - You need to see the director's cut.

    Billy - I love The Carpenters now and again. I used to really hate them all the time along with Dr Hook. I still haven't got the hang of the Hooks.

    Frumps - Cinema Paradiso had me in floods of tears. It was so goddam manipulative!

    Tim - Crap hair, crap moustache. No wonder the ladies fell at his feet.

    Kaz - I don't remember seeing Rickman in anything else. I think 1990 was the year I stopped going to see everything that was out. The only Richard Gere film I've seen is American Gigolo which I enjoyed back in the 80s but probably wouldn't if I saw it today.

    MJ - No, it was a serious documentary. She never wanted to come out from behind that drum kit, you know. She wanted The Carpenters to be a prototype White Stripes. Brothers and sisters can marry in the States, can't they?

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  9. I thought Distant Voices Still Lives was terrible when it came out, didn't understand all the critical acclaim. Everyone kept bursting into song, it was most annoying.

    It's A Wonderful Life makes me cry. Ah, Jimmy Stewart...

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  10. It does it to me, too.

    The script for Distant Voices must have been a piece of piss to write.

    1. Few lines of dialogue

    2. A sing song

    3. Few lines of dialogue

    4. A sing song

    5. A meaningful pose

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  11. ... um ...

    ... where have the rest of the comments gone??

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  12. ... or are they coming back stealthily?

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  13. ... and where are they being hidden?

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  14. This is madness ...

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  15. ... only two more to go ...

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  16. ... that should be yer lot ...

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