So apparently I am the only one who noticed or gave a shit that Mick Jagger actually sang the line "You make a dead man come" at the halftime show yesterday.
On one hand, sure, it's no big deal. On the other hand, we live in such a fucking puritanical country sometimes ever since the FCC had their own little 9/11 thanks to Boobgate, and after having Paul frickin' McCartney as last year's halftime show... well, I was totally expecting Mick and the boys to totally pussy out and sell out. I was saying, "Mick, if the 20-year-old you could see what you're about to do, he'd kick you in the balls." But then Mick actually fucking sang the line (though it was bleeped out, thank you five second delay <"You're welcome," Alan says>), and I just exploded with happiness. I have renewed love for the Rolling Stones. Rock and fucking Roll, man.
After the game, Alan and I had a Paul Williams III double-feature. You probably know Paul Williams III as the short guy with the blond mop and glasses from his several appearances with the muppets. We watched BUGSY MALONE (his choice) and PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (mine).
BUGSY MALONE is a 1920's gangster musical performed entirely with children, some of whom wear mustaches. The kids shoot each other with tommy guns that shoot blops of cream, like pies. This movie is deeply unsettling on a number of levels. For one thing, the cinematography is almost exactly like THE GODFATHER and especially the mob masterpiece ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, and when a kid gets shot with the guns (a big splap of cream in the face usually) they don't react, they don't scream, they just freeze and we never see them again. Secondly, 13-year-old Jodie Foster is the best actress in this movie by default, out-acting even 15-year-old Scott Baio. Yes, believe it or not, Jodie Foster out-performed THE BAIO! And finally, the movie has absolutely no resolution whatsoever. It just ends with a huge shoot-out with everyone getting "creamed" and then bursting out in a huge song and dance number.
Then you have PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, directed by Brian De Palma. This is a glam rock musical that mixes Phantom of the Opera and Faust, with touches of Frankenstein and Dorian Gray. Alan put it best: "Wow, if this movie had been just a little bit worse, it could have been ROCKY HORROR. As it is, it's just slightly too good!" The movie also stars Jessica Harper, who would later star in SUSPIRA and then become Woody Allen's post-Diane-Keaton muse in LOVE AND DEATH and STARDUST MEMORIES. I think Alan's right, Woody made her his muse purely to rub Paul William's face in it.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that PHANTOM is Brian De Palma's best movie. Or at least, it's his most honest movie. De Palma is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors of the last 30 years. Ok, well, let's look at some of his movies: CARRIE, DRESSED TO KILL, BLOW OUT, BODY DOUBLE, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, CARLITO'S WAY, MISSION TO MARS, SNAKE EYES, and most famously THE UNTOUCHABLES and SCARFACE. I haven't seen some of these, and I won't pass judgment on CARLITO'S WAY till I see it...
... but seriously, ok, why the hell do people think THE UNTOUCHABLES and SCARFACE are brilliant movies? Why? WHY? I'm really curious here.
I mean, UNTOUCHABLES should be great, but it's pure over-the-top melodramatic Hollywood schlock, which wouldn't bug me as much if it sorta spits upon the heroism of the real people. Elliot Ness throwing the eeeevil Frank Nitti off a roof in cold blood, smashing him into a car, and wise-cracking, "Nitti's in the car"?! What the fuck is that? How could David Mamet have been a part of that shit?
And SCARFACE is even worse in its ridiculous excess. How people can hold it up to Scorcese and Coppola's work is utterly beyond me. I mean, for God's sake, you have F. Murray Abraham, Robert Loggia, and Pacino playing frickin' cubans?! And Pacino is no longer the Pacino of DOG DAY AFTERNOON; I think he sold his soul the second me mumble-growled "SAY HARRO TO MY RIDDLE FRIEN'!" The SCARFACE remake is pure loud angry style, filled with one-liners that sound like the slogans on t-shirts worn my idiots. I really want to hear somebody defend this movie as art, like so many hold it up to be. Because all I can see is the perversion of a far superior 1933 movie filled with laughably stupid moments like the giant pile of coke (seriously, that's like out of a Zucker brothers movie!) and the ultimate effrontery, the "Push it to the Limit" montage. I challenge you to defend De Palma and these movies.
On the other hand, BODY DOUBLE did provide me with one of my favorite movie moments of all-time: a completely random fully produced musical number of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax" set in a sex club. Perhaps I can forgive De Palma for that. But every time I see Tony Montana hailed as a cultural icon, I kinda wanna puke.
On a totally seperate note, my cat's evil doppelganger just kicked his ass and have him a nasty battle wound. I am kind of perversely amused that my cat has an arch-nemesis, and it's a near-exact copy of himself.
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