Revisions, Nick Cave is awesome, and THE PROPOSITION

[thehefner]

I have added a couple new paragraphs to THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES and am considering scrapping a couple others (I'd deeply hate to lose the French Existentialist Blow Job, but I fear it just doesn't work in this context). In any case, the opening is stronger, and I think the whole show is now going to get a serious infusion of neurotic energy. Hopefully this will be a good thing.



The Brand-New Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Music Video is utterly 70's-tastic! I keep waiting for a bearded, coked-out Scorscese to pop out at any second. fishymcb described the video as hypnotic, adding, "I would kill for him if he asked me to."

I just marvel at how gloriously hideous Nick has become. I mean, he was never a handsome man, but keeping the long hair with the badly-thinning top and capping it off with the (ironic?) 'stache, I couldn't help but think that he's turning into a combination of a Tarantino character and Hector Savage from THE NAKED GUN 2 ½: THE SMELL OF FEAR.

Regardless, Nick Cave could look like the bastard child of Bea Arthur and Steve Buscemi, for all I care, he'd still be awesome. I'm totally on a Nick Cave music kick, buying up a new album of their every couple weeks. This is significant because I rarely, rarely get into new bands these days. I've pretty well settled into my stubborn-old-man music tastes and can't relate to you kids today with your Panic at the Disco and your Hannah Montana.

But I'm totally and thoroughly digging Nick Cave and the Bad seeds, even more thanks to their wonderful videos. "Henry Lee" with PJ Harvey--whom I didn't care for until I saw this--is beautiful and sensual in a drunken heroin-addict kind of way, and one of my all-time favorite music videos.




Cave is furthermore awesome because he wrote THE PROPOSITION. Have you all seen THE PROPOSITION? What a great goddamn movie, an Austrailian western with Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Emily Watson (already well on her way to becoming an adorable old woman), and David Thewlis, looking delightfully rodent-like.



Throw THE PROPOSITION on the list of movies to show people who claim to hate westerns. It's bloody excellent.

Now I'm tempted to follow it up with SERAPHIM FALLS, an Irish western with Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan. I've heard it's not bad, but by all accounts, nowhere near as good as the Aussies' THE PROPOSITION. Which y'all should see. Like, now. Please.

Comments

[bimmin.livejournal.com]

This post was a ball of wonderful. *^_^* The new vid is awesome. Although I can't help but think he's sounding more like Bob Geldof (a now Bob not a Rats Bob). I had no idea he did the screenplay for The Proposition...that's just crazy wow!


Mmmmm...Red Right Hand...

[kali921.livejournal.com]

You do know that I'm probably the Nick Cave expert on LJ, right? You might want to check out his first band, that being The Birthday Party, who were a totally seminal band from Australia. I own every Nick Cave release, have seen him upwards of a dozen times, and I posted a link to the Dig Lazarus thing last week!

You may also want to check out his work with Jim Jarmusch.

And, you know, there are all the excellent spinoff side projects with his axis of creative cronies, like Crime and the City Solution.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Egads! Overload! But in a very good way. Okay, throw the Birthday Party onto my iTunes to-buy list!

What did he do with Jarmusch? I'm totally a JJ fan.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

It was a nice touch to include Red Right Hand in HELLBOY.

[nymphgalatea.livejournal.com]

I cannot believe a film with Emily Watson, Guy Pearce and Ray Winstone passed me by. A Western, no less. God damnit. (This is why I love you. You bring spiffy things to my attention)

I like Nick Cave & Warren Ellis' soundtrack to The Assasination of Jesse James. The internet tells me that they also wrote the soundtrack to The Proposition. Clearly this film was made specifically to appeal to me.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I am very upset that THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD did not get full distribution, or even a showing here in DC. From what I understand, we should be talking about it in the same breath (well, with a title that big, I dunno if that's possible) with NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

The fact that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis wrote the soundtrack just sweetens the deal. Because yeah, the music really helped to further drive THE PROPOSITION.

And thank you! I do love it when people actually pay heed to my spiffy recommendations. It doesn't happen often enough. ;)

[plasticity.livejournal.com]

mmm, the pj harvey with nick cave thing is fabulous, thanks. I really love her for all the reasons on display here: her wooziness, her sensuality, and that voice that's trained just enough to howl when she needs it to.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

And in truth, I haven't seen it quite so wonderfully before nor since in my casual experiences of her work. Even a google image search doesn't seem to do justice to the woman in that video.

[nymphgalatea.livejournal.com]

Aww, cupcake icon, my favourite.

The Assassination is damn good. Not as brilliantly ominous and bleak as No Country, but still a great Western. And I'm not normally one to gush over Brad Pitt, but he is astonishingly good in this.

And it's just a beautiful-but-harsh looking film, as all good Westerns should be. However the pacing is a little too slow, and it suffers from the same fate as too many Hollywood movies, in that it's far too bloody long for its' own good.

I have a terrible soft spot for Westerns, which probably comes from watching the Dollars trilogy at far too young an age. They're all about mythologising America, which as I've said before, is one of my personal literary/filmic kinks.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I remember a time when people used to talk about Brad Pitt the same way they talk about Johnny Depp, a crazy-handsome leading-man actor who purposely shied away from "pretty boy" roles in favor of more interesting ones. I should re-watch A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT and TWELVE MONKEYS to see if he still holds up to my original opinion of, "Oooh, this is a guy to watch!"

And it's great to hear that you like westerns. I've often bemoaned the disdain for westerns from people who's never seen a good one (and yet love FIREFLY). It's especially grand to read you like Leone; ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST is neck-and-neck with THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY for my favorite film of all time.

[nymphgalatea.livejournal.com]

I do not understand people who adore Firefly, and claim to despise Westerns. It simply Does Not Compute in my brain. You can't really seperate out one from t'other. Or at least I can't.

I have an abiding love for Westerns, yes. They always seemed to be on BBC2 television on wet Easter holiday afternoons when I was a wee girl. Most of them were probably pretty dire, but I have good memories of watching them with my 'Papa, and then making forts out of sofa cushions and coffee tables :)

[lairdofdarkness.livejournal.com]

Completely off topic here but

Your Popeye post has been linked on Occasional Superheroine

I think you may now be famous!!

[irish-caffeine.livejournal.com]

Ooooo, have you picked up The Boatman's Call yet? That's easily my fav. As much as I love the Cave, his albums can be somewhat uneven at times, but TBC is just solid. Some of the most painfully heartfelt ballads he's ever churned out.

Personally, I've been listening to Murder Ballads on the train to school every day. It's probably not the healthiest thing to do, but it puts me in the best mood.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I may hold off on that after I get a bit better acquainted with his older stuff, and save the best for last. Because I'm finding I rather prefer his later stuff to his earlier. I started with "Murder Ballads," and listen to that one on a weekly basis, then picked up "And No More Shall We Part," which apparently long-time fans dislike, but I absolutely adore, and then "Henry's Dream," which kicks ass.

But I just bought "From Her to Eternity" and "Tender Prey" yesterday, and... well, so far, "Tender Prey" is good (did the original version of "Mercy Seat" really, really need to go on for seven fucking minutes?!), but "From Her" was... ehhhh? The reviews from the long-time fans are glowing, so maybe it'll grow on me with repeat listenings, but for right now, it didn't do much for me.

But I'll totally, absolutely check out "The Boatman's Call," once I get a bit further along.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Well so it has! Awesome! Thanks for the heads-up!