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Thursday, April 22, 2010

BAWDY-O COMMENTARIES part 4: Five 00 (Hundred) Days of Summer


Thirty four minutes. According to the writing at the bottom of the screen Summer is humming the theme to "Night Rider" down the phone. Colour me intriuged once more because this "Night Rider" sounds like a riot. The muisc is entrancing, but what of the meaning of the name. Perhaps this is another DVDRommed entertainment I could avail of at another time. Back to the film, and Tom finds Summers humming to be as enchanting as the last sunset before death comes under the cloak of night to return you to the eternal forest of darkness. Perhaps he and Summer will become married, she'll become pregnant and then die in childbirth (which she statistically has a one in one chance of doing, if she's lucky). Then it'll be a downward spiral of despair for Tom until he does the right thing and sensibly takes his own life.


Thirty five minutes. Summer and Tom have come into possession of a filmed nudie bash. I think it is unhealthy for young couples to spy on other disrobed couples with a view to finding satisfaction. Such an activity can only be properly enjoyed on one's own. The closest to a "threeway" this old codger hopes to become involved in would includes a tumbler of brandy and a "saucy" pen as participants.


Thirty six minutes. Not only does young Tom have two favourite architects, he also has a favourite spot. Its in a park on a bench. Summer has asked him "How come?"


Thirty seven minutes. I wish she hadn't.


Thirty eight minutes. Summer has requested that Tom should write on her arm with a biro. It is perhaps possible that young people are inoculated against ink poison through some manner of "jab" or "shot", but back in my boarding school Keating Minor had to have his arm removed after receiving the autograph of his younger brother, Keating Minimus, on the aforementioned limb.


Thirty nine minutes. The narrator informs us that is Day 109 of their relationship. Tom and Summer have an insightful chat about how neither of them wants their teeth to fall out, nor do they wish to grow old. Penetrating writing like this makes me feel like I've known Tom and Summer for all of my life, and not just for what feels like all of my life.


Forty minutes. Just as I'm about to lose all interest, I'm won back by some rather spiffing homophobia. Turns out my bean detector wasn't on the old frazzle dazzle at all when it is revealed that Summer is no stranger to the lady crater of other ladies. I shall go to bed immediately and when I wake up hopefully I will have forgotten that Tom isn't not a woman.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

BAWDY-O COMMENTARIES part 3: Five 00 (Hundred) Days of Summer


Twenty three minutes. Summer asks Tom if she likes her. She declares Tom to be interesting and proposes a romantic amnesty in favour of friendship. Summer is a direct sort of a girl, no nonsense about her. She reminds me of my old nanny and tutor Miss Utheridge, who would spoil our summers with Latin lessons and, once while my parents were away at a wedding, by conscripting us into war.


Twenty four minutes. This film must be set further in the future then I'd anticipated. Summer and Tom are nonchalantly operating a fantastical paper replication device, a sort of Guttenberg press as seen through the eyes of LP Hovercraft.


Twenty five minutes. What ho! Canoodling at a work station! Summer bussed Toms lips fat full of kisses! This certainly turns the tables. Locked lips leads to lovers nuptials in this old romantic's experience. But what of the declaration of friendship Summer made not two minutes ago? Could this be a genuine change of heart or is Summer casting Tom as the lead in a play of her own devising entitled "Fool".


Twenty six minutes. Its all coming out in the wash. Summer acknowledges that she was aware of Tom's light hearted stalking and is being a jolly good sport about it. If more fillies saw "pursuing" for what is was, a fact finding act of devotion, then the prisons would be an emptier place and the tax payers pockets fuller.


Twenty seven minutes. A soujourn to the homesgood department of their local shoppe sees Tom release her inner comedienne. Tom trots out the timeless "All of our sinks are broken" routine while roustabouting around to the wholesalers sinks section.


Twenty eight minutes. What fun! Summer has joined in with the japery and now the rib-tickling twosome are pretending to watch a Baird box as if they were in their own homes! Now they're larking about a model kitchennette. I'm growing wary of them. Their lampooning is most undignified. I do not mind one participating in such horse play in the confines of their own house or inside their own head but I draw the line when two unruly delinquents indulge in such wanton hooliganism inside a respectable wholesaler. I sense another year long break from this film, one which I would find most welcome.


Twenty nine minutes. Tom is a most despicable character. She set out to ensnare the Woman Summer in her web of woo and wine and was successful. Most would be satisfied with Summer as a bedroom companion, but Tom is one of those girls for whom satisfaction always seems to be just out of their grasp. Perhaps if Tom set her sights a bit higher, say by architecting the ultimate love bubble as I had previously mentioned, then she would be a more engaging protagonist.


Thirty minutes. Summer tells Tom that she doesn't want a serious relationship. Tom says she is fine with this. My wife once shared with me the very same sentiment on our wedding night, which was so casual an affair that I haven't seen her since. I remarried of course, but accusations of bigamy, like time, catches up with us all in the end.


Thirty one minutes. Just realised that Tom is a man as he is wearing a black tie, presumably for a wake or after wake party.


Thirty one minutes. I don't know if its the minute old revelation or the surreal turns this production has taken but Tom has just seen the face of an older man reflected in the mirror of a taxi. If Tom had any sense in the world he would call upon the services of a Freudian and undergo one of those full frontal lobotomies I read about in an issue of "Brains Monthly" (Sept, 1925) that everyone was raving about. It cures visions and is apparently very good for freeing up estate in the old noggin for anyone learning how to play the violin.


Thirty two minutes. There's a dancing sequence with people in the street. How is it that anytime I feel like dancing with the city I am made to feel rather foolish, whereas when Tom does it he's greeted as an innovator. I must admit that since discovering the true sex of Tom's character my warmth towards this film has frozen considerably. Its hovering just above absolute zero at the moment. When I thought it to be a recording of a drama of the story of two beans conquering all, I pined as Tom had pined for a happy outcome. Now that its a boring male-female romance, I have lost nearly all interest. There is nothing that this film can teach me about romance. The true nature of romance, for those of you who care to hear the truth occasionally sprinkled onto the poorly prepared lie casserole which everyone gorges on daily, is simple. Marry your housekeeper, that way you won't have to pay her. Its economy with a dash of love.


Thirty three minutes. Tom's depressed at work. Good.


Monday, April 19, 2010

BAWDY-O COMMENTARIES part 2: Five 00 (Hundred) Days of Summer


I had to pause the machine as there was an urchin selling "lines" at the door. I bid him take leave immediately and was so perturbed by the entire incident that I did not watch the remainder of the film until one year later on a train on my grandsons portable wonder box.


Fourteen minutes. I'm already in a bad mood. I spelt fourteen wrong. Its very early and I had a beastly long night. It was swiftly followed by an all too early morning, without even the suggestion of a sign of the salvation of a sizzle of bacon. Or a sausage. Still, one most push on.


Forteen minutes. The narrator has decided to come in early today, as his narration begins what is for me to be Act One, Scene Five Part Two.


NARRATOR: "Anything's possible. Makes life worth living."

That's jolly good old bean because I was about to make my excuses and then jump promptly jump off this moving train. Many thanks.

Frifteen minutes. Tom called Summer a skank because she refused to give her hand gratification within five minutes of their first meeting. After my first viewing of this film I did a google search of "bean" + "film" + wooing rituals" + "office windows". This yielded no results. I can only conclude that this means that this film is truly more groundbreaking then I had given it credit for.


Sixteen minutes. Tom and Summer believe themselves to be listening to music, with scarcely a gramophone or harpsichord in sight. The wooing continues. Their fellow co-workers sit in embarrassed and humble silence, wishing the two the best while thanking god that similar dementia doesn't effect them to hear ghastly ghastly music from the organ inside the haunted house in their heads.


Sixteen minutes. "Loneliness is underrated." A bawdier line, if I may be so bold as to ask the author to consider for future "recordings", might be "Loneliness is unattired!"


Seventeen minutes. The twosome are at a singing and drinking establishment. I hope that they keep their composure and not attempt to sing. I have one courting rule for young lovers and older lovers alike. One should never sing in front of the one you are attempting to woo. Wait until you are married as it can have a huge effect on the speeding up of the process which eventually leads to the dissolution of the marriage. After all, you wouldn't show your Red King, Black Queen and Diamond Jack during the first hand of Hatty Daniels, regardless of how fortunate you were to be dealt the three "Top Of The Tent" cards for said game.


Eighteen minutes. Summer has taken to the stage.

SUMMER: "I'm new so no making fun of me".


But what if you're terrible, my dear girl. It is in this very occasional performers experience that when one requests pity from the audience they are inadvertently requesting scorn, which the spectators then dish out along with generous helpings of spite. Perhaps had you recorded your singings on an audiomatograph before taking to the stage in a public forum then you would have spared us your lobotomized doe eyed snarl. It has already been established that the girl has hearing difficulties and now I know why. If you lived with that in your head you'd will yourself into going deaf too. Very disappointing.


Nineteen minutes. Post singing (had it been signing I would have had no problem), Tom and Summer have a gnatter.

DIALOGUE

Summer: I wanted to sing "Born To Run".

Tom: I named my cat after Springsteen.

I must confess to occassionally feeling somewhat out of the loop when listening to anyone under the age of 80 converse with someone of a similar age. A lot of these references going over my head, but one which I saw and managed to catch. Springsteen refers to Haverystein Springsprung, a Hungarian carpet manufacturer who famously fled the country after the king had given him an enormous purse with which he was to carpet the entire capital city. Thereafter he was known as "Springsteen", for his springing way, and steen as a mistranslation of the third syllable of his first name. The cat being named "Springsteen" is an especially biting bit of business when one considers where are cats at their most content. Where else but a carpet, you fool.

DIALOGUE

Summer: "You don't believe that a woman could be free and independent. I don't feel comfortable being anyone's girlfriend. I don't feel comfortable being anyone's anything."

I have no idea what any of this means.


Twenty minutes. Summer has declared the American city to be one of the most beautiful in all the world. Surely she is referring to the new world and not the old. Despite its heavenly windowed offices and overground underground rail transit service I find that there are far too many "types" lurking in the background, middle ground and occasionally, if kneeling, the foreground. I'm sure you could fill up the list of top ten cities in amongst the small clutch of catherdraled hamlets in and around Oxford. Summer obviously meant this as a joke or is simply willfully ignorant of her nations mother country. You know. One of those "types" you do occasionally hear people boogeying on about.

Twenty one minutes. I spoke too spoon! She has affected an (apparently) "British" brogue with which she is laying ruin to the Crown! What heresy! This filmed drama should have been re-named Summer The Heretic, Damned By Her Own Ignorance. When I write to the actress playing Tom requesting intercourse, I should remember to mention to him that she could bring Summer along, just for the bally hoo of it all. I'd let "Summer" watch as I had my way with "Tom" and just when she'd be next in line expecting a bit of the grumble tumble, I'd remind her of her offensive remarks on film and how such an anti-royalist is not deserved a single moment of gratification.


Twenty two minutes.

Sequestered to the barstool now,

enveloped with the warm throw rug of memory,

recalling fonder times of wonder,

and how television programmes that were on

when they were young were SO good.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Review of "(500) Days of Summer" (part) 1 of (8)()

FILM REVIEW: (500) "Days of Summer"

as dictated to me by my occasional employer.



In the hopes of wooing a certain young lady in my local shop I decided to join their DVD club. No sooner had I replaced the 35 mm projector in my screening room with a VHS playing device that I had to replace the thing with a D-Vid which plays film with CD Roms. Now according to the young man at the Her Majesty's Vinyl D-Vid CD Roms Division I'll soon have to update to Blue Tube. The lengths I have gone for this woman have already exceeded the accumulative efforts I put into my four marriages, the latter of which being so vacant of umph that I find myself retiring more and more often to my hidden screening room behind my library. Now I can watch films there. I've never cared for the dratted medium of the blabber bores, my interest in them was severely curtailed by the death of the beautiful Greta Gribbles, a bit player in the bawdy "Wait, There's No Sash Covering The Ladies Dressing Room Door" series of my youth. However, if my current situation has taught me anything, its that a life without variety is a life not even a toothless vaganondian hag would pity. First film of the club, brackets the five hundred and the B-picture follow up, "Humid Summers of Love". This is the first of my six entries concerning the film in chunks of twenty minutes or so.


500 DAYS OF SUMMER


The opening song is performed by a woman whose voice summons up the face of an individual in possession of deeply unattractive features. I hesitate to paint all young people with one brush but it seems to me that she is a drug addict.


A flat chested young lady, curiosuly named Tom, is counselled on matters of the heart by her infant sister. Though at first my reaction to the entire scenario was one of shock at its inappropriateness, I soon warmed to the child, who possessed a wisdom beyond her years. She has the shrewdness of Clytemnestra, the prudence of Claudius and the voice of a vexed lamb bleating its defiance. Could Tom be the same opiate enthusiast as the singer of the opening song? Perhaps.


Tom's office is a wonder to behold. Straight away it beats any office I had my workers operating in, as it had windows. This is what the offices in heaven are like, where the angels sit around an enormous alabaster table, thwarting the fates and delivering salvation.


A drunk young woman with bosoms has taken the eye of the heroine Tom. Could this be the titular Summer? And could it be that Tom (no doubt called so because she is something of a Tom Boy) is one of those beans I've been hearing about? And out in broad daylight no less. Tom's problem is that she hasn't had a good once over by a real man. Perhaps I could write to the actress who plays "Tom" and offer her my services, should be so inclined.


Tom is with two of her male chums, hereafter Drip Brick and Splinty, hereafter two of her male chums. The little sister, hereafter Hansel, is giving Tom romantic advice. There are no objections to the character Tom's lifestyle. The characters are no doubt to disturbed to retort.


Seven minutes in, and it would seem that the proof is indeed in the pudding. Tom has had some hand in designing Other Mothers Day cards for beans, spreading her sapphoist propaganda into our beloved WH Smiths.


Eight minutes. There seems to be a narrator. Perhaps he was late for the recording on the day they made this film. The film business seems to be a terribly exhausting endeavour. It is my understanding that the film is very costly, but modern equipment allows one to momentarily stop the recording. It is during these precious 20 or so seconds that the directors move about everything on the "set" very quickly in order to ready it for the quickly approaching next scene. Movie magic indeed. At the same time though, why bother?


NARRATOR: "There's only two types of people in the world. Women and men."


Very true, but might I be so bold as to make an amendment. There's only three types of people in the world. Women, men and messy eaters. Its rampant these days and there's simply no excuse for it. If you think without hesitation that you are not one of the damnable majority, might I suggest placing a mirror in front of yourself the next time you dine and study your conduct, with particular attention to the mouthing area.


Nine minutes. My machine appears to have been tampered with. The scene in the office was followed by a scene where Tom and Summer appear to be courting. That was fast. I know that young people need to be rid of their virginities at earlier ages so as to discourage the onslaught of the modern Aids flu, but I feel that with all this baggage, modern romances miss some of the more magical elements of romances of old that helped build character. How many young people nowadays are forced to wait until the fifth year anniversary of the marriage before consummating it. Naturally there was a doctor on hand to dispense advice and encouragement, just in case you should think of the old me as being a sort of a tart.



An offscreen Scotsman is singing about chaos and struggle. If you passed a law banning moaning in Scotland it wouldn't be long before its inhabitants began thrashing themselves in front of trains for fun, so want are they for purpose. Except for Lord Abbigsnale of course!



Summer and Tom seem to be bonding over music. They both have hearing aids. The directors made an excellent choice, whether deliberate or accidental, to play music whenever one of the films many deaf characters attaches their ear to their hearing appendage (still not having a go at the Scots! And it being an appendage of England!). Another stark choice is how characters wearing their listening enhancers seem less likely to participate in a discussion once they've gone to all the bally trouble of putting the ruddy thing on in the first place. Most enraging and artistic. I both hope and fear that the films author to be something of a modern day Van Gogh. The hope is for cinema, the fear is for the torment that genius like this is known to bring to those closest to him.


Summer and Tom are bonding over their enthusiasm for smiths. It is possible that they're indulging in irony so rich and creamy that to even look at it you would immediately become stricken with Type 2 Diabetes. Whenever I attempted to woo a woman through conversation, I too found it useful to comment on matters we could both relate to, such as the wearing of shoes. The more things change, the more things change.


Eleven minutes. It would seem that the young and fiery Tom has reached something of an epiphany. Tom has done some soul searching and it would seem that a life writing quips for cards is not the life that Tom had envisioned. She would prefer instead to become a lady architect. How delightfully cute, she could design a big pink breast shaped dome that she and all her bean chums could congregate in. There they could drink pink champagne. How utterly, utterly charming.


Twelves minutes in and its all quips on deck. Nicknames are the name of the game, and the inamorato with the niftiest nom de plume wins the pinch!

Summer encourages Tom to pursue her dreams of becoming a lady architect, which does indeed seem like an exciting field of work. One wonders how people in fiction have loftier goals then most mortals. For example e.g. they never want to be horse shooters or harbour dreams of working on a golf course.