Its Moulin Rouge time again
All Dressed Up, in Spring's New Clothes, the Briar and the Rose - Tom Waits
Ahhh, my favourite time of year: mid-March, when the trees here begin budding pastel green, and the purple clover sprouts up over the grass. The sky has a greyish, dark-blue hue, which with the cool humidity, suggests Ireland or France in the springtime to me (pity I've never had more to go on than mere impressions). Its the time when rowdy Irish music by the Pogues and Flogging Molly suddenly become daily standards, and in a strange twist, whereas Tom Waits used to be predominantly Fall, he's moved into Spring as well. Thank God for THE FLOGGING MOLLY CONCERT IN TULSA THIS THURSDAY NIGHT! It'll make the best St. Patrick's Day ever, even though it'll be two days early. I need to line up the new Chuck E. Weiss album for summer in conjunction with the new They Might Be Giants that'll come out then. But back to spring first!
March and April also strongly suggest Moulin Rouge (2001) to me, a film, like 300, that conceptually is dead-on to some inner part of me, but which despite excellent execution, isn't balls-to-the-wall what I can conceive of. I still remember that mid-January day in '01 when I first visited the Moulin Rouge website, with this animated picture that floored me (the accompanying music seems to no longer be up on the site). Never before had I seen a picture and concept that so well defined me. Its not pitch-perfect because I'd take out the Cadillac, but otherwise the other elements were all there: the look of aged illustrative book pages, steeped and channeled into live-representation of a meta Victorian era; the very French storybook nighttime skyline, complete with a whimsical moon face; randy and stylish old men out on the town with the newly-initiated young ones, all dappered up for an exotic evening of fun, absinthe in-hand; the physical representation of the Green Faery from the absinthe in the air, teasing the men out into the open where we find a real flesh-and-blood woman, Satine the courtesan, looking hot-as-all-hell in her stage getup, beckoning to them. Though the Faery may tease them, the courtesan can be had for a price. All this wrapped up and set to a snippet from Elton John's "Come What May". I'd never heard the latter track until then, but that looping snippet was perfectly-fitting the tableau.
I instantly had to see this film! And I did, twice in the theatre (once with a very large glass flask of absinthe sitting in my lap, which I promptly downed in the first ten minutes of the film). But even though I loved the movie, it still didn't PERFECTLY capture the feeling I had upon first seeing that website spread. But that feeling still comes up every now and then, particularly at this time of year. Its that 1910 Little Nemo in Dreamland comic strip come to life in the springtime, but with adult sensibilities. I'll have a go at that theme in one of my films someday soon. But in the meanttime I need to import another couple bottles of absinthe; Its that time of year and I miss it so...
Ahhh, my favourite time of year: mid-March, when the trees here begin budding pastel green, and the purple clover sprouts up over the grass. The sky has a greyish, dark-blue hue, which with the cool humidity, suggests Ireland or France in the springtime to me (pity I've never had more to go on than mere impressions). Its the time when rowdy Irish music by the Pogues and Flogging Molly suddenly become daily standards, and in a strange twist, whereas Tom Waits used to be predominantly Fall, he's moved into Spring as well. Thank God for THE FLOGGING MOLLY CONCERT IN TULSA THIS THURSDAY NIGHT! It'll make the best St. Patrick's Day ever, even though it'll be two days early. I need to line up the new Chuck E. Weiss album for summer in conjunction with the new They Might Be Giants that'll come out then. But back to spring first!
March and April also strongly suggest Moulin Rouge (2001) to me, a film, like 300, that conceptually is dead-on to some inner part of me, but which despite excellent execution, isn't balls-to-the-wall what I can conceive of. I still remember that mid-January day in '01 when I first visited the Moulin Rouge website, with this animated picture that floored me (the accompanying music seems to no longer be up on the site). Never before had I seen a picture and concept that so well defined me. Its not pitch-perfect because I'd take out the Cadillac, but otherwise the other elements were all there: the look of aged illustrative book pages, steeped and channeled into live-representation of a meta Victorian era; the very French storybook nighttime skyline, complete with a whimsical moon face; randy and stylish old men out on the town with the newly-initiated young ones, all dappered up for an exotic evening of fun, absinthe in-hand; the physical representation of the Green Faery from the absinthe in the air, teasing the men out into the open where we find a real flesh-and-blood woman, Satine the courtesan, looking hot-as-all-hell in her stage getup, beckoning to them. Though the Faery may tease them, the courtesan can be had for a price. All this wrapped up and set to a snippet from Elton John's "Come What May". I'd never heard the latter track until then, but that looping snippet was perfectly-fitting the tableau.
I instantly had to see this film! And I did, twice in the theatre (once with a very large glass flask of absinthe sitting in my lap, which I promptly downed in the first ten minutes of the film). But even though I loved the movie, it still didn't PERFECTLY capture the feeling I had upon first seeing that website spread. But that feeling still comes up every now and then, particularly at this time of year. Its that 1910 Little Nemo in Dreamland comic strip come to life in the springtime, but with adult sensibilities. I'll have a go at that theme in one of my films someday soon. But in the meanttime I need to import another couple bottles of absinthe; Its that time of year and I miss it so...