When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to shamelessly self-promote, and to strengthen the bands which connect one with the Internet, a decent respect to the opinions of Humankind requires that one declare the causes which impel one to the blogitation.
Finally got around to watching this fantabulous film. I knew it was all about "vignettes," but there are 18 of the damn things! And unlike other films that attempt such super-dimensional wanderings, PJT really doesn't try to connect any of the people. A few of them meet at the end, and it's assumed that in some strange (and strangely Parisian) way, they will all be connected in some way.
I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Some were so aggressively minimalist that I wanted to shriek, but on the whole they were nearly perfect. Midway through, a vignette by Nobuhiro Suwa features Juliette Binoche remembering her dead son. Willem Defoe plays a magical cowboy who comes to take away her child('s soul?) and leave her in peace. It was terribly heartwrenching to watch, but it was followed immediately by a magically-real vignette about a child relating the story of his parents. They were mimes who met in jail. First I'm crying about this dead boy, then I'm laughing and crying my eyes out over these beautifully insane mimes. I think it is patently unfair to jerk me around like that. I will be placing this film in the top level of my Brain Queue.
Yeah, it was a bit difficult to work through, to be honest, but it was still one of those perfectly strangely wonderfully beautiful films that I like so well.
It occurs to me that a lot of my "art life" has been spent adoring films like this, or music like Edith Piaf, Bessie Smith and Cinematic Orchestra, or sculpture like Claudel's"Waltz" and paintings like Wyeth's "Christine's World." I suppose that these sorts of things inspire the quickest and deepest emotional responses; it's that odd love/sad thing that happens. Billie Holiday makes me want to climb a tree and cry while doing it. There must be a name for that emotion.
Let's call it "cry" + "love" = CROVE. Billie Holiday's music is crovely.
Seriously, the accordion work in that song is great. Call it a squeezebox, call it a concertina or a flutina, but the thing has got a real sound to it, doesn't it?
I was meandering my way through London a few years ago and had the great fortune of visiting a place that had up until then only existed in my head and on VHS. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the 1971 Disney musical based on Mary Norton's book, had been an oft-viewed part of my childhood. It had just the right mix of fantasy (in the form of animated suits of armor) and historical something-or-other (in the form of a foiled Nazi invasion of England). I really dug watching it.
The characters in the film find themselves on London's Portobello Road, searching for magical books. I'm not sure why that's italicized; it just seemed right. Portobello Road is a huge antique market, with all kinds of cool stuff to be had. While there, I bought my mom some cool old-as-hell spinning bobbins. The Portobello Road of Bedknobs and Broomsticks was a far more fantastic place than the English flea market that I encountered, but it was rewarding nonetheless. Fabulous stuff, really.
I leave you with the text of the song and dance number:
"Portobello Road" - Robert and Richard Sherman
Portobello road, Portobello road Street where the riches of ages are stowed. Anything and everything a chap can unload Is sold off the barrow in Portobello road. You'll find what you want in the Portobello road.
Rare alabaster? Genuine plaster! A filigreed samovar owned by the czars. A pen used by Shelley? A new Boticelli? The snipper that clipped old King Edward's cigars?
"Made in Hong Kong? Two bob a dozen, would you say?"
Waterford Crystals? Napoleon's pistols? Society heirlooms with genuine gems! Rembrandts! El Greco's! Toulouse-Letrec'os! Painted last week on the banks of the Thames!
Portobello road, Portobello road! Street where the riches of ages are stowed Anything and everything a chap can unload Is sold off the barrow in Portobello road. You'll meet all your chums in the Portobello road
There's pure inspiration in every creation. No cheap imitations, not here in me store. With garments as such as was owned by a Duchess. Just once at some royal occasion of yore.
In Portobello Road, Portobello Road The fancies and fineries of ages are showed. A lady will always feel dressed a la mode In frillies she finds in the Portobello road.
"Burke's Peerage;" "The Bride Book;" "The Fishmonger's Guidebook;" A Victorian novel, "The Unwanted Son;" "The History of Potting", "The Yearbook of Yachting," The leather bound "Life of Attila the Hun."
Portobello Road, Portobello Road Street where the riches of ages are stowed Artifacts to glorify our regal abode Are hidden in the flotsam in Portobello Road You'll find what you want in the Portobello Road
Tokens and treasures, yesterday's pleasures Cheap imitations of heirlooms of old Dented and tarnished, scarred and unvarnished In old Portobello they're bought and they're sold
Portobello Road, Portobello Road Street where the riches of ages are stowed Artifacts to glorify our regal abode Are hidden in the flotsam in Portobello road. You'll find what you want in the Portobello Road
I felt that my beard was becoming a liability so I removed a bunch of it. Face looks real trim now; I'm a fan again. Once my new goggles show up in the mail, I'll have a much better idea of how to remember what I used to look like before I got attacked by an evil Senator's goons and stuck in a coma for years before waking up with cybernetic implants and stuff and then get boosted from the hospital before the goons come back to finish the job and get taken to a farm out in the country where I'll slowly retrain not only my latent kung-fu abilities, but also my shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and super-human strength and acupuncture myself so I know where all my new circuits are and then come back and explode all the goons and then make it to the bad Senator guy and probably explode him, too, although that would make me just as bad as him, so maybe I'll just let him live in jail for the rest of his life and then join the police force and kick major ass as a kung-fu cyborg.
We'll call it Hard to Kill: The RoboCop Story, or something like that. Please treat this post as an homage to Steven Seagal and Peter Weller. Weller I like because he actually teaches at Syracuse; he's a smart cookie. And I'll say that the actual Hard to Kill is one of the few movies that I've seen more than 5 times. Due the the repeated watchings, it has grown on me. Although I haven't checked it out in years, I'm sure it's still good. And as for Robocop, come one, it's Robocop.
Peter Weller was also a terrible man in 24.
Steven Seagal is... pretty much an American institution.
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