Everything changes, be my friend...

Couldn't resist putting this clip up here.



Yes, that is Crispin Glover (the slightly weird actor who played Marty McFly senior in Back to the Future), and yes, he is doing a drag act of Olivia Newton-John singing her 1978 song Please Don't Keep Me Waiting. This is a small segment from a little seen film by director Trent Harris called The Beaver Trilogy (2000) which I luckily caught at the Auckland International Film Festival in 2001. I waited for the film to come back or the DVD to come out for ages for ages but it never did. Eventually I tracked the director down and asked for a copy. Turns out that he had music licensing issues for Olivia's song and so hasn't been able to release the film but he was happy make me a DVD anyway - very cool. It is one of my favourite films - though is very strange - and I feel privileged to have one of a few copies existing in the world.

(If you like, you can view more of that story here as I wrote a feature about it for an online film site I contribute to.)

The film starts with a strange piece of documentary footage he filmed back in the late 70s with a small town guy (Groovin' Gary) who wanted to be a celebrity and be on TV. He sets up a hokey small town talent quest and invites the director to come down and film it. Harris subsequently remade this bizarre little nothing documetary twice - several years apart - with, first, a very young Sean Penn, and later a young Crispin Glover - hence it is a trilogy. The first remake is virtually word for word but nuances the dialogue and strange events towards a theme of sexual repression in small town America (Beaver is the town the original Gary hails from) whilst the Glover version is a fully blown short film that develops that theme based on the basic outline of the original doco footage.

Harris does a clever job of presenting the surface issue of sexual repression, whilst the major themes are (to my mind) actually the exploitative power of the media, and the viewer as conscious and unconscious voyeur.

Not everyone's cup of tea but I love it!

The start of something beautiful?

I am having a minor celebration because last night our little girl Emily slept a 12 hour stretch for the first time, 6:30pm - 6:30am. Yay! She is 9 weeks old (as of yesterday) and is doing very well. Here is are a couple of pictures from post feed this morning:






Who knows if she'll repeat this feat any time soon or if it will be a while yet? Here's hoping...

I only came along because I'm going out with his sister...

I must admit that I only discovered these guys via the internet this year. Armstrong & Miller are an English sketch based comedy duo in the vein of Fry & Laurie and the like (very well educated and quite clever). They did a great series of sketches in which they portray WWII British Air Force (RAF) officers, replete with posh upper class look and accents, except that they talk as if they are high school boys from the late 90s with all the lingo. The contrast between how they look and what they are saying is very funny. Below is one of my faves where they have been shot down over Germany and are being interrogated by a German officer:



Here is a link to all 8 sketches in the series. Note: some are numbered and some are repeated posts…

I liked them so much that I downloaded them so I can watch them when I like without wasting bandwidth/download quota every time (via a handy Firefox add-on).

Hope you enjoy too…

Memories are sweet...

Back about 7 or so years ago they used to play Walker, Texas Ranger at about 9:30pm on one of the TV stations here. Now, I was never that fussed with the programme itself but, if I was anywhere near a TV, I would excuse myself from whatever was happening for a minute or so and go and watch the opening credits of the show.

There is something that really appeals to me about macho, old school, conservative Christian, martial arts movie hero Chuck Norris singing (incredibly averagely I must say) the theme song to this show. Why did they let him do it? I mean, he talks the first 'verse' bit then when he starts actually singing they whack in another vocal track to layer him up a little so it doesn't sound so bad. Something about it just connects with me in a way that sets off little fireworks in the 'pleasure centre' in my brain.

That's not to mention the lyrics; am I the only person who thinks that they're some kind of ironic homoerotic double entendre?

[Spoken]
In the eyes of a ranger, the unsuspecting stranger
Had better know the truth of wrong from right

[Sung]
Cause the eyes of the ranger are upon you
Any wrong you do he's gonna see
When you're in Texas look behind you
Cause that's where the ranger's gonna be

Particularly taking into account the tone of voice and then contrast this with the overly macho persona that Chuck exudes; it's all too much goodness I tell you.

The night I turned on the TV and another show was playing was the end of an era in my life - sad but true. But thanks to YouTube I can now enjoy the moment again whenever I like!

Beautiful.