While the original had its charm, I think this is one case where the remake was better.
I hope your week is filled with fortune and glory. And absolutely no snakes.
Do You Realize?
I’m not a singer, but people root for me. They like me to try for that unreachable note and maybe fail in an interesting way.
– Wayne Coyne
Hehe, I know that feeling. See, and that’s why I love this band. And this song… a lot of people find it gloomy (everyone you know some day will die? Oh noes!) but me, I find it so uplifting. What, you didn’t know you were gonna die?* Anyway, the song’s not about dying, it’s about living. About living like you understand your time round these parts is finite. Make those choices, take those chances. Jump!
This is punk rock.
Not punk rock as in Green Day but punk rock as in just do it. And work out what you’re doing afterwards.
-Wayne Coyne
Hehe, I know that feeling.
*Although I haven’t yet decided whether I will or not. I might not fancy it.
A quoi ca sert l’amour
Utterly delightful animated short film set to Edith Piaf’s A quoi ca sert l’amour, or What Use Is Love?.
It made me smile. For various reasons.
Friday’s Short Story
– Oh will you look at… They’re bloody doing it again!
Who are dear?
– Them bloody kids, who do you think? They’re out there again.
Can’t you just ignore them, dear?
– Oh they’d like that, wouldn’t they?
I really don’t know dear, would they?
– What? I’m telling you. It’s getting beyond a joke. The spitting and swearing, well, kids will be kids, won’t they? And the drinking, who didn’t at their age? And the knives and the ketamine and the crumping. All part of growing up. But this is beyond the bloody pale. Beyond. The. Bloody. Pale. I mean, look at them.
What are they doing dear?
– They’re floating, that’s what they’re doing. Floating there by the bus stop like… like big… look at me! I’m stuck for a simile, that’s how bloody angry I am!
Calm down dear.
– You calm down.
I am calm, dear.
– Well fine. Stay that way. I just don’t know how you can be with those bloody teenagers bobbing up and down in the breeze like… like… God damn it I’m angry! Floating kids. What next?
I wouldn’t know, dear.
– I’ve got a good mind to go out there and glue their feet to the floor. There, try floating now you buggers. If I were ten years younger I would have, just see if I wouldn’t.
They’re not hurting anybody, are they?
– Not hurting? Not..? What’s that got to do with… they are blatantly breaking the laws of bloody physics out there, right in front of my bloody house, and I don’t see why I should have to sit here and watch them drifting through the, the area like… like bloody… God damn it!
Dear? Dear, are you ok?
–
Dear?
–
Dear, are you crying?
– I wish I was young. I want to be young. I wish I was young.
******
Them Bloody Kids by Harris
more tiny tales
Thursday Night Lullabye
For anyone who needs one.* Sweet dreams. x
*Just make sure you’re asleep before the solo 🙂
The Curse of James
This tubby moustachioed loon has loomed on my horizon again. The Curse of Jeff was on in Newcastle at the weekend, at a Northern Screenwriter’s meeting at the Side Cinema. It’s nerve-wracking but fun watching a film you’ve made with an audience. It kind of reminds you why you do it, and I really needed reminding.
I’ll admit it was nice to be asked where I found the actor who played Jeff, and if I was still in touch with him. Well, we’ve fallen out a couple of times, but he’s still around, yeah…
Then a nice lady from an atheist film festival based in Florida got in touch, wanting to screen the Brummie mentaller. Apparently I’m promoting “reason, critical thinking and freedom of inquiry through the medium of film”. I thought I was just putting on a silly accent and having fun with a baseball bat, but maybe she’s right. I’m like Richard Dawkins, me.
She kept calling the film “The Curse of James”. Which interestingly is the name of a song I’d just wrote*, innit. Coincidence? Nah. That’s God’s hand at work, if you ask me. I’ll not tell her that.
*I’m supposed to be writing a film, hence lots of songs. I’m a doyle.
Hank Meets Elvis
Hank Kingsley is one of the finest comic creations in… ever. Jeffrey Tambor just inhabits the character: selfish, venal, needy, greedy, insecure, mean, loving, pathetic and very, very funny. And all the more impressive when you see him playing George Bluth in Arrested Development, an equally complex character, but so different from Hank. What an actor!
There is so much I could say about The Larry Sanders Show, the writing, the performances, the self-mocking celebrities and the amazing triumvirate of characters Larry, Hank and Artie…
But what I really want to say is this: Seriously, I don’t look like Elvis Costello, do I?
Do I?
That’s right. I don’t.
My Neighbour Totoro
If you’re not all warm inside after watching this – call an ambulance! In fact, I’d better do it for you, because you’re probably dead.
The films of Hayao Miyazaki are pure imagination painted on screen. Full of warmth and madness, they stay with you long after watching.
I honestly don’t know whether it’s because Japanese storytelling conventions are very different from ours, or whether it’s just cos they’re bonkers, but when wacky insanity happens in Japanese films, the characters tend to just accept it and get on with the story. Soot gremlins in the loft? Well of course there are. A big furry monster at the bottom of the garden? Mmm, lets snuggle on his tummy. It makes for a dreamlike experience, imagination unfettered by the need for logic or rationality. My kind of world.
Whenever I watch a Studio Ghibli film I feel like I’ve been hugged by a mad but beloved auntie with a nutty story to tell. (Apart from Grave of the Fireflies which will harsh your vibe for a week. Seriously.)
And of course, the animation is spectacular. I found this compilation of clips from Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Laputa, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle and Nausicaa. Ignore the music and feast your eyes on the visuals. Don’t you want to visit some of these places? Be aware it’s not just empty spectacle. You’ll be dazzled, but you’ll care.
Local Hero
I love this film so much. I have seen it many, many times and it never fails to charm and delight me. It has an air of quiet melancholy, and the ending is on the bitter side of bittersweet, but it’s very funny, and very moving. The beauty of the landscape and the earthy eccentricity of the locals contrasting wiith brashness of the American interlopers makes for a comedy of culture clash, and yes, lessons are learned and people change, but it never veers into sentimentality or cliche.
There is a yearning for a better, simpler life running through the story, a yearning I respond to. And the music is beautiful and the ending makes me cry and “Are there two G’s in bugger off?”.
Featuring a cast which includes a young Peter Capaldi and an old Burt Lancaster, the performances are pitch-perfect, and the script is witty and humane. I love it. Oh, just watch it, willya? I just watched the above clip and I’m already a li’l bit emotional…
Here’s what happens when director Bill Forsythe, who also wrote and directed the equally funny and almost as affecting Gregory’s Girl, is reunited with the town of Pennan 25 years after shooting wrapped. It turns out Mark Kermode has seen the film more times than me. I would never have pegged him as a fan.
Metarie
This is one of a select few songs that have an inexplicable and unavoidable effect on me: it makes me cry for no reason whatsoever. It doesn’t matter where I am, what I’m doing or what mood I’m in, by the second verse I have to turn and look stoically into the middle distance and have a manly lip wobble. The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys does the same thing, and that’s a big, bombastic happy epic romp of a tune. So why does it make me blub like a toddler who’s accidentally swallowed hs favourite bt of lego? Couldn’t tell you. But if you decide to play this video, turn the sound down so I can’t hear it, there’s a love.
Ramshackle Charm 