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We're here, then we're not here. We're somewhere else. Maybe.
Mostly what today brought was hammering sheets of rain, but after I got back from my doctor's appointment this morning, the mail was kind enough to leave me a contributor's copy of Sky Whales and Other Wonders, in which my story "Stone Song" appears in the same table of contents as Tanith Lee, Anna Tambour, Erzebet YellowBoy, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Mike Allen, and other worthies. This is my oldest real story and I am very pleased, for a number of reasons, to see it finally in print. The rest of the book is rather lovely, too.
Of the five movies I've seen now by Stephen Frears, I think The Hit (1984) may be my favorite. It's an existential film about gangsters—in this case, an expatriate informer and the two hit men sent to take him out after ten years—but it's not Tarantino; it resists glitz or flash or splatter, instead using the countryside of northern Spain as a kind of meditative sounding board against which Willie Parker (Terence Stamp) plays his Zen-like whimsical calm, throwing both of his captors off-kilter with motives the audience, like Myron and Braddock (an almost unrecognizably young Tim Roth and John Hurt as a man so closed up, he's nearly a non-speaking role), can only guess at—both ends against the middle? a genuine philosopher's fatalism? the fun of it? Certainly he's got nothing better to do on the way to his own death. The screen is full of immense space and light, the kind of sky that can swallow you. The dialogue has odd stops and flaws of silence where you expect responses or remarks. Somehow a clean execution detours into a road trip, a stopover in a safe house results in a second captive (Laura Del Sol), a dusty gas station and a haze-veiled waterfall hold equal potential as sites of transcendence or horror.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nineweaving gave me the Criterion DVD last year and it took me until now to get around to watching it: I now want to see more of Terence Stamp. I like also that despite the disparate subjects and varying merits of The Hit, Mary Reilly (1996), Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), and The Queen (2006), there is a palpable continuity of atmosphere between them; I think it's the way Frears looks at people. What haven't I seen by him that I should?
And I was totally not functional for the Burns Night I'd been invited to, so Viking Zen and I held our regular movie night with occasional alteration; she made cock-a-leekie soup and we drank whiskey and watched Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro (1962), in which Toshiro Mifune is awesome. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Of the five movies I've seen now by Stephen Frears, I think The Hit (1984) may be my favorite. It's an existential film about gangsters—in this case, an expatriate informer and the two hit men sent to take him out after ten years—but it's not Tarantino; it resists glitz or flash or splatter, instead using the countryside of northern Spain as a kind of meditative sounding board against which Willie Parker (Terence Stamp) plays his Zen-like whimsical calm, throwing both of his captors off-kilter with motives the audience, like Myron and Braddock (an almost unrecognizably young Tim Roth and John Hurt as a man so closed up, he's nearly a non-speaking role), can only guess at—both ends against the middle? a genuine philosopher's fatalism? the fun of it? Certainly he's got nothing better to do on the way to his own death. The screen is full of immense space and light, the kind of sky that can swallow you. The dialogue has odd stops and flaws of silence where you expect responses or remarks. Somehow a clean execution detours into a road trip, a stopover in a safe house results in a second captive (Laura Del Sol), a dusty gas station and a haze-veiled waterfall hold equal potential as sites of transcendence or horror.
nineweaving gave me the Criterion DVD last year and it took me until now to get around to watching it: I now want to see more of Terence Stamp. I like also that despite the disparate subjects and varying merits of The Hit, Mary Reilly (1996), Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), and The Queen (2006), there is a palpable continuity of atmosphere between them; I think it's the way Frears looks at people. What haven't I seen by him that I should?And I was totally not functional for the Burns Night I'd been invited to, so Viking Zen and I held our regular movie night with occasional alteration; she made cock-a-leekie soup and we drank whiskey and watched Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro (1962), in which Toshiro Mifune is awesome. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
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ETA... spelling correction
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Thank you. I don't know if you would, either, but I suspect you would appreciate the cinematography.
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Have you not seen My Beautiful Launderette??*
Sammy and Rosy Get Laid??*
Prick Up Your Ears??
*Scripts by Hanif Kureishi at his bestest. Launderette is among my Top Ten Fave Films Evar. (Or it used to be; haven't updated that list in a while :)
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Apparently I am a barbarian.
Launderette is among my Top Ten Fave Films Evar.
So noted. What else is on the list, once you get around to updating it?
All very worth seeing.
Right. This should keep me busy for a while . . .
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Thank you.
She is pleased.
I am very, very glad.
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Laundrette is the movie that launched Daniel Day Lewis.
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You're in good company. I think those are going at the head of the list.
Laundrette is the movie that launched Daniel Day Lewis.
I think I've seen him only in A Room with a View (1985) and There Will Be Blood. I decided to avoid Nine.
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Frears' Dangerous Liaisons gets the balances in the text right in ways I've never seen done so well.
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May I ask you to explain further? I've read the book, although not recently.
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I find myself not startled that Les Liaisons dangereuses would appeal to you . . .
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I must pick up a copy of Sky Whales; that much is clear.
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Seriously. He could have been like Zatoichi.
(I need to see more Toshiro Mifune while I'm at it—so far I've gotten to Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954), and then Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro. What else of his do you like?)
I must pick up a copy of Sky Whales; that much is clear.
Yes. It's good.
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Terence Stamp is awesome--a couple of other films of his I like are Pasolini's Teorema and Soderbergh's The Limey.
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It got on my radar because it had John Hurt in a lead role, and how often does that happen? And then the rest of it turned out to be terrific, too.
Terence Stamp is awesome--a couple of other films of his I like are Pasolini's Teorema and Soderbergh's The Limey.
I'm definitely going to see The Limey; it also seems that I should see Poor Cow (1967), which The Limey samples for backstory, and The Collector (1965), since I remember enjoying the book. I hadn't realized or remembered he was in Teorema—I wanted to see that one after I found it mentioned in some of the same articles as Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle (1976), which I loved. Thank you!
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Whisky/whiskey can be even more soothing than tea, sometimes.
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It was a very nice evening.
Whisky/whiskey can be even more soothing than tea, sometimes.
It didn't hurt me. I didn't even give myself inadvertent alcohol poisoning, which impressed me in retrospect when I finally looked up how many ounces in a shot versus the glass I'd drunk.
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Excellent.
It didn't hurt me. I didn't even give myself inadvertent alcohol poisoning, which impressed me in retrospect when I finally looked up how many ounces in a shot versus the glass I'd drunk.
Goodness. I'm delighted that you didn't. It is wise to be thoughtful of one's glassware, yes.