Half a decade of the title in the middle then -- oh why the hell would you do that? (Earlier)
Review 2009: Subjectively Speaking
Last night I chatted to my new friend Zoe on Facebook and as you can see, without Twitter's character counting restrictions, it became more of an essay writing competition than a conversation. Same rules as before -- I didn't know what the subject would be until we started talking (typing). See if you can spot the moment when I turned into Paul Morley.
Zoe: Oops, I've started talking here. Shall we carry on here? This thing still confuses me!!
Stuart: Let's carry on here. How are you? What would you like to talk about?
Zoe: I'm ok thanks for asking. Bit odd this as I've never properly met you. Ok how about this to break the ice ... Pop Music is Dead. Would you agree or disagree with that statement?
Stuart: Disagree. Vehemently disagree. Why do you think it's dead?
Zoe: Oops, did I hit a nerve? lol. Manufactured boy/girl bands, one hit wonders promoted by televsion shows, cover version after cover version filling the charts, where have all the good pop bands of our youth gone to?? What has happened to originality?? Do you still listen to the top 40? I haven't this decade. Even the BBC knew pop music was dying out cos they pulled Top of the Pops!
Stuart: All of which is true of course, but to an extent it was also true in the 80s with Stock Aitkin and Waterman (which I was huge fan of at the time) and even earlier you could argue that the motown sound was entirely manufactured. Pop music if you're talking about in terms of Spice Girls thru Girls Aloud is manufactured but always has been.
I agree that the Simon Cowell axis of shit has gone some way to changing the perception of pop music but if you look at something like the PopJustice website you can see that pop music is alive and well. I'd call Lilly Allen, Kate Nash, Little Boots, Lady Gaga, Paloma Faith even Metric, pop music, even if the sound is often based on guitars or electronica.
I think the problem is that as such the definition of "pop music" has narrowed lately. Blur/Oasis and before them The Rolling Stones/The Beatles were considered to be pop music whereas these days they're thrown in with rock music and fans of that kind of music tend to look sideways at "pop" as though it's something entirely different.
Zoe: Yeah, but how many people will have heard of most of those names you just mentioned?? Where are our 21st Century Rolling Stones, Oasis, Beatles etc? I doubt if those bands started out today you would ever get to hear of them! Not too sure I agree with your comments about Motown music being manufactured though when you compare it to the likes of Pop Idol/X-Factor these days. I see little similarity between likes of Stevie Wonder and Leon Jackson, and Diana Ross and Michelle McManus! S/A/W started the decline of pop music back in the late 80s and it hasn't recovered since.
Stuart: Oh I see. So what you mean is that there aren't any bands producing the kind of groundbreaking music that we heard from The Beatles etc and even if there were they wouldn't have the same following.
Firstly, with digital distribution and mass demographics it is increasingly harder for bands to get noticed because there's such a diverse audience. I'm listen to an album right now by a band called Metric which was released earlier in the year and is very good indeed and I wish I'd known about it sooner so it could have soundtracked some of the past few months.
But that doesn't mean that something, if it's as good as The Beatles, can't break out. The question is whether it has to. The measure of success has reduced and I suspect quite a lot of bands are happy to have a smallish but loyal following because it allows them to have the creative freedoms that mass production prohibits them from having.
Plus the problem with guitar bands is that they're rather caught in their looong shadow. Even Oasis who have never lived down the fact that everything they do sounds like The White Album (or whatever).
My understanding of Motown is that was the musical equivalent of the old Hollywood system and was essentially copied by S/A/W. They had a roster of stars and would choose who recorded what, effectively filling a gap in the market. If that's not manufacturing music I don't know what is. In terms of musical quality there's a country mile between what Berry Gordy was doing and Simon Cowell, but the methodology was very similar indeed.
Good god, that's an essay isn't it? Sorry.
Zoe: OK, I'll try not to be as epic but I can't guarantee lol. I do think there are bands out there doing good music but they don't get given the exposure that the more "instant-hit", if you like, pop acts are. It so much easier for a record company to go with the easier option rather than invest in something that may or may not turn out to have more longevity.
On the point of digital distribution etc this should surely have made it easier for people to find any good music that is out there? After all didn't the Arctic Monkeys supersonic rise to public prominence derived from the internet and such sites as Myspace etc??
Then again, when you think about it, maybe there just aren't any really really good pop bands out there anymore. If you think back, for example,to Live8 a few years ago, who were the big bands that performed? U2, The Who, REM, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney - were where the 21st century generation of good pop bands? If that concert had been in the 1960s who wouldhave headlined? Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hendrix? The 70s - Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie? The 80s - Queen, Dire Straits U2? Are you with me? In the 21st Century we don't have our really good pop bands any more.
The methodology in what Motown and S/A/W did I can undersatnd was similar, but quite rightly the quality between the 2 couldn't be further apart. Motown took good singers/artists and produced amazing records. S/A/W took soap stars and the like and produced utter musical diarrhoea in my musical opinion. If they had wanted they could have put Geoff Capes in a blonde wig, written a tediously catchy synth song and promoted it on CBBC till it got to No1! lol
Stuart: Exactly. When they should be spreading the money around and investing in lots of different music (which was rather the case in the early to mid-90s, the money is being put into less acts but that changed in the late nineties and hasn't improved much since.
Arguably the sea change happened when the first, best, Sugababes line-up were dropped by the record company because their singles only charted in the top twenty and that was registered a failure.
But that doesn't mean pop music is dead. It's just different. I think you have to be careful not to mix up the definition of what constitutes "pop music". There are perhaps no bands like the ones you list, but that's because pop music has moved on to other things. Girly pop mostly, bluesier influences. R&B.
People are just listening to other things, and like I said earlier, the sound mixes guitar music riffs with dance beats it's all very postmodern because the people creating the music have a much wider range of musical tastes because they have access to a wider range of music.
Not necessarily worse, just *different*. Rock music will have resurgence soon probably just as it did in the early nineties with Brit pop and actually earlier this decade with your Arctic Monkeys and the like. What S/A/W and their successors have done has *nothing* to do with that. They're different genres of pop music.
But I think we're hitting against a taste issue. I love all of the music you list, but I also love Shakira and think her contribution could be and is potentially as important, particularly in relation to introducing world music sounds into mainstream pop.
And people are finding the good music. Little Boots was a grass roots discovery, v popular before she was signed by a record label. Kate Nash too. These things still happen. And both of those are country mile away from most other things and look to the past for influence.
Zoe: I do find it interesting you mention the Sugarbabes, because this in a way has a lot to do with what seems to have become "karaoke" pop music. I think I'm right in saying that none of the original members are still in the "group"? Surely they are now a tribute act? If not, what's the point any more? Just resurrect any band with new personnel and call them The Grateful Dead, Beatles, Lynyrd Skynyrd?!
Talking of Karaoke, lol, the one thing I despise about the way pop music has gone these days is almost upon us again - the X Factor Xmas No 1!!! Do you realise that if they do it again it will be the 5 year in a row??!! A British institution ruined by a reality TV show. What chance do Bob the Bulider or Mr Blobby have of ever regaining the top spot at Xmas?! lol
As an aside, did you know that 9 of the last 25 Xmas No1s were cover versions of one sort or another . . .?
Stuart: On that we can agree. There are no original members. It is just a tribute act with the same name. If Sugababes are the yardstick, then pop music is dead.
Zoe: Somewhat ironic when you think about it that Mr Blobby and Bob the Builder actually did do original Xmas No1s! lol May pop music rest in peace.
The Noughties: Fractions
Web User’s recent headline, “Brits spend three days a month online”, offers a nice soundbite and though the “facts” within their article simply reveal the results of a survey given by a company with a vested interest, that wouldn’t exist unless people were sitting in front of a screen providing a predominantly textual window into the world. I’d say it was pretty accurate. Indeed I expect that if I were to keep my own diary, taking all of the hours into account, I too would be horrified by the amount of time I spend online, wondering what happened to me, and why I don’t have something better to do.
The story of my decade would be a randomly edited avant-guard production consisting mostly of shots of me sitting in front of a keyboard of some description. I first went online at home in the final embers of the nineties and it’s long enough now that I can’t really remember what it was like not to be in front of the internet somehow. I used computers a lot in the 90s so that wasn’t anything new; but to have all this information and the capacity to communicate at my finger tips from the moment I wake up to when I got to bed, that was something new.
When I was in Stratford-Upon-Avon earlier this year, I cut myself off from the web and from television. My only sources of information were a radio and newspapers and I felt liberated. By the day I came home I’d decided that I wouldn’t spend half as much time online that I’d continue with the simple pleasured I’d rediscovered, of reading, of listening to plays, of eating out. Why spend so much time online anyway? And yet months later, here I am again. It’s the itch, as the article says of one in four people, there’s the wonder if I’m missing anything, a bargain, a meetup, an arts show, not to mention the news about this that and everything else going on in the world.
Do I feel the isolation sometimes? Yes, and probably more than sometimes. Do I feel like a richer person because of the web? Yes, that too. I have a far greater awareness of the world, of how it all fits together, how nothing is clear cut, how everyone in fact has a vested interest. But the result is that I also find it difficult to settle on one thing, my mind often splitting in half, even smaller fractions, as I think about how to achieve the next task whilst still accomplishing whatever’s in front of me, even in my leisure time, with the result that they something cancel each other out and I’m left broken. Perhaps Lily Allen has a point. And you won’t hear me say that often, no matter how much I like her music.
The story of my decade would be a randomly edited avant-guard production consisting mostly of shots of me sitting in front of a keyboard of some description. I first went online at home in the final embers of the nineties and it’s long enough now that I can’t really remember what it was like not to be in front of the internet somehow. I used computers a lot in the 90s so that wasn’t anything new; but to have all this information and the capacity to communicate at my finger tips from the moment I wake up to when I got to bed, that was something new.
When I was in Stratford-Upon-Avon earlier this year, I cut myself off from the web and from television. My only sources of information were a radio and newspapers and I felt liberated. By the day I came home I’d decided that I wouldn’t spend half as much time online that I’d continue with the simple pleasured I’d rediscovered, of reading, of listening to plays, of eating out. Why spend so much time online anyway? And yet months later, here I am again. It’s the itch, as the article says of one in four people, there’s the wonder if I’m missing anything, a bargain, a meetup, an arts show, not to mention the news about this that and everything else going on in the world.
Do I feel the isolation sometimes? Yes, and probably more than sometimes. Do I feel like a richer person because of the web? Yes, that too. I have a far greater awareness of the world, of how it all fits together, how nothing is clear cut, how everyone in fact has a vested interest. But the result is that I also find it difficult to settle on one thing, my mind often splitting in half, even smaller fractions, as I think about how to achieve the next task whilst still accomplishing whatever’s in front of me, even in my leisure time, with the result that they something cancel each other out and I’m left broken. Perhaps Lily Allen has a point. And you won’t hear me say that often, no matter how much I like her music.
even the animation
Elsewhere My review of Doctor Who's Dreamland which I enjoyed immensely, even the animation.
The Noughties: Credit
“No credit to anyone!” is the sign that greeted me at the newsagents on my way to work last weekend. As far as I can gather it’s a new addition to the front of the till, though knowing my approach to spatial awareness, it could have been there for years. The sign is a reaction no doubt to those customers who are forever saying “I’ll pay you next time I’m in” or “Put it on my account” not really understanding that their payment is part of a chain which ultimately leads back to a supplier or the supplier who supplies the supplier, who wants to be paid and that someone, presumably the newsagent will eventually be left out of pocket if they don’t stump up the cash. Which they obviously haven’t because otherwise there wouldn't be any need for the sign.
The Noughties: Vampires.
About Sometimes I think the whole decade in fiction has been about vampires. The decade began with the final embers of Buffy and has concluded with the Twiglet phenomena. As Bella Swan's story continues to hold us in its grip, I as a tribute thought I'd reveal the following. In the late 90s when I still thought I could make a living as a script writer, I turned out a treatment for a vampire script. I can't remember why, or what it was for, but it does have its moments, most of them written by someone else originally. Not that such things have stopped Stephanie Meyer. Just add plaid.
The Dracula Murderer
by
Stuart Ian Burns
The Characters
Helen Goodfellow is a Samantha Mathis / Helena Baxendale-type. Early-twenties. She was a normal school girl until a vampire went on the rampage in her school and killed all of her friends, and her mother, who was visiting the principal / head teacher about her grades. She didn't have much of a home life - her parents were divorced, her father had disappeared. Her way of coping is to fall into a world of her own. She began to research vampires, reading all of the books she could, watched all of the movies she could get her hands on, and documentaries, and eventually began to uncover a number of strange serial murders which fit the Vampire M.O. No one really believing that vampires exist, she now travels the world investigating these murders and more often than not uncovering a vampire responsible. The whole enterprise is slowly sapping her mentally and physically, so it is lucky that this seems to be her final hunt.
Isaac Story is a George Clooney / Hugh Laurie-type. Early-thirties. He is returning home for the first time in many years because his mother is close to death and he is hoping to make a reconciliation with her. She gave him an interesting childhood, with her unusual behavior at times. He left for University as soon as he could, and has not had much contact since. When he left, he didn't tell the girlfriend he had been with for years, even though she had stood by him through all of his mother's moods. Although he knows he was a bastard to her is hoping to see her again.
Jennifer Ryman was Isaac's girlfriend. She is a Janine Garafalo / Helena Bonham-Carter type. Early-thirties. She now works at a city bar as she attempts to work her way through University.
Elaine Story is Isaac's mother. She spends much of the story in sick bed. She is dying because she is a vampire who has abstained from drinking blood for many years, trying to see the error of her ways, after leaving her son Isaac to bring himself up much of his teenage life, because she would be out many late nights feeding her need. Abstaining has slowly debilitated her, however, and she is slowly beginning to feel new urges.
The Synopsis
Helen stands on a railway platform. She looks at her watch. There is silence.
Isaac stands on the step in the open door way of a subway train. He tells Jennifer that he is 'so sorry.' She smiles sympathetically at him. 'I know.' she says, and passionately gives him a goodbye kiss. The doors close between them. The train is empty. Isaac goes and sits down.
Jennifer looks on sadly as the train leaves the station.
The train reaches Helen's platform. The doors open and she enters. She sits opposite Isaac. They simply sit staring at each other. "Its time," Helen says. He bows his head, the scene shifts to ..
... a typical rainy day in the city. Elaine Story lies at home, dying in her sickbed, her only comforts are Television, a home help / nurse who patronises her, and the view, through tinted windows, of a nearby building were a child is dancing in the rain. A medical monitor beeps her continued existence. The child runs in when he feels her staring at him, after sensing something uncomfortable. The nurse is on the phone:
'I'm so sorry to hear that. Alright. Bye.' she says. She puts the phone down and turns to Elaine, and tells her that her son will be slightly later because of traffic. Elaine does not move. She keeps staring out of the window.
Isaac Story is in his stationary car on a rain swept road. He puts the receiver down on his car phone, having just spoken to the nurse. He sighs and puts on the radio. Bill Wither's 'Lovely Day' plays. He turns the tuner on the radio to someone concerned with the drought, saying that at least its raining. Isaac clicks it off in disgust. A rare gap in the traffic appears and he begins to drive to catch up with the car in front.
Helen Goodfellow stands in the rain. She is very soggy. She carries all kinds of bags, one of which has large patches all over it demonstrating all of the places she has been. She has been trying for the past hour to hitch-hike, unsuccessfully. Although she has done this before, it is a bad day. Then, a car stops and window winds down.
Helen runs over. This is Isaac's car. He asks were she is going. She says its ..... He tells her he is going the same way, and to a chorus of honking horns, she gets her bags into the back of the car, and herself in the front seat. As they drive along, they engage it what they believe to be small talk, to pass the time, beginning with the weather and how long she had been standing there. There are many nervous pauses. As they drive, he tells her about going home to see his mother, about how sick she is. She tells him her cover story - about looking for her father to tell him that her mother has died. They find a common ground about losing their respective mother's before they can say all of the things they want to say. She tells him that she hopes he will get there in time. He asks her if she has been to all of the places on her bag. She tells him that her search seems to be process of elimination. He doesn't believe her, somehow, but doesn't think that he has any right to press the matter to a complete stranger. If she is lying, she will have her reasons.
Elaine's curtains are drawn now. The rain has stopped, and the sun has come out, so the room is still quite bright. She watches television, some soap opera. She is not interested. Rather than simply changing the channel, she simply stares at the channel changer / remote control. She does not blink. The light in the room is dimmed, slightly, as a cloud passes before the sun. Elaine smiles slightly. There is a relief in her eyes.
Isaac's car stops outside a youth hostel, is getting dark now. He helps Helen out with her many bags and they say their goodbyes. Isaac watches her go, still with a feeling that something was left unsaid by him. We follow Helen into the hostel. There is a slight spring in her step as she looks around the slightly cramped entrance hall.
The nurse opens the front door to the flat, to reveal Isaac carrying a quite bedraggled bunch of flowers. He introduces himself. It is dark outside. We next see him sitting on the edge of his mother's bed. She is sitting up now, drinking coffee. The nurse is replacing an I.V. He tells her that he is sorry he didn't come back sooner. She tells him that he couldn't be because he would have made the effort. He nods his head, in recognition of this truth. The nurse swears loudly. Isaac is concerned. She has cut herself. As he sees if she is alright, Elaine begins to sweat visibly, her eyes fixed on the wound like a puppy's eyes fixed on the hand of its owner clutching a favourite ball. They notice the sweating, and believe it to be because the I.V. isn't in place.
Helen leaves a cinema alone. She walks through town, glancing furtively from side to side. She is in the middle of the club district. Loud, beating music plays from clubs and pubs in the locale. Before her are a couple, enjoying a night out. She watches them half jealous. The beat becomes louder and louder sounding more and more like a heart-beat. The couple before her stop and begin to kiss. She halts in her tracks, reminded of something. The guy begins to kiss the girls neck. The beating becomes louder, until ... ... the landscape changes to become a scene from Helen's childhood. The heart beating is hers, as she watches a man with huge fangs bite hard into her mother's neck. She screams and runs down the street, and from a distance watches the Vampire begin to drink heavily from her mother's body. Her instinct is to look for help, but is paralysed with fear and unable to do anything ...
... we return to the older Helen, she turns herself from the couple and puts her hand out, quickly jumping into a cab.
Isaac has left his mother for a few hours, and has decided to find a bar. The place is quite plush. As he enters, one of the bar-girls clocks him and tries to hide. Realising she has been spotted, Jennifer Ryman decides not be rude and greets him at the bar, and asks him what he would like. He tells her, that he wants his favourite, and she pours him a Vodka. He asks her how she has been - and what she is still doing working at this bar. She tells him that she is trying to pay her way through college. They are the same age, so there has obviously been some water under the bridge. He tells her about his law degree, about the partnership offer he has had. He asks her when her shift ends. At this, she releases her pent up anger and asks him what the hell he is doing here. He tells that he wants to apologise. She begins to wash the bar with a cloth. He tells her that in all these years, he couldn't stop thinking about her. She stops cleaning for a second. He tells her that he wishes he had spent the past ten years, wondering what life could have been like if he had actually told her he was leaving, instead of taking off the way he did. She looks up at him ...
... and suddenly we see the younger Jennifer. She is smiling. We here Isaac telling her that he loves her, but there is something he has to tell her. She is quizzical, there is nothing good he could possibly say in this serious voice of his. He tells there that he has had some bad news. Alison, his sister, her best friend has been found dead. That they are having problems finding out the cause of death. Her face fills with grief ...
... we return to the older Jennifer. She tells him to return at half-past eleven.
Isaac and Jenny sit in a cafe drinking coffee. They have obviously been here a while, because a waitress arrives and gives them a refill. Isaac tells her it is nice coffee. The waitress smiles, half-disbelieving him. Jenny tells him that he doesn't change - theirs was obviously not the most monogamous relationship. He smiles at her, bitter-sweetly. There is a pregnant pause. She sips her coffee, he looks out of the window. He tells her that they have to talk about it. She tells him that there is nothing to talk about. He left when she needed him most, when his mother needed him most. That his way of dealing with it, hurt all of the people he was closest to. He tells that it was the last straw, that everything took over him, that he didn't have the strength to wait another year for University, that the opportunity to leave was there and he took. That it wasn't that easy for him. She tells him how selfish his decision was. Tells him that she rebounded with some complete bastard who used and abused her, then left her with ... a child, so he shouldn't tell her about how hard it was to deal with Alison's death, and the way she died. She gets up. She is late - she expects her baby-sitter to quit when she returns. He tells her he wants to see her again. 'What's the point?' She asks.
Elaine awakens. It's morning. The nurse is already here. She tells her that the IV needs replacing. 'What's the point?' Elaine asks.
Helen is at the library. She yawns, glancing at the clock on the wall, which tells her it is only nine-thirty in the morning. This isn't the large cavernous place one would expect. It is dank, dark and doesn't look like it has been decorated since at least the seventies. She sits at a table, a huge book in front of her. It is a bound copy of the local paper. We see the headline, 'Local girl dies mysteriously'. Then, headline after headline, 'Alison Story Murder - still no clues', (the name seems familiar but she doesn't think anything of it) 'Swimmer's death linked to Alison Story murder', 'Fourth murder, Community in mourning', 'Eighth victim claimed', culminating in the headline. 'No new clues to the identity of The Dracula Murderer.' We see Helen with a hand-written list of names, looking through a phone-book, finding telephone numbers. We see her on a pay phone, 'no ... no, I understand,' she says as she puts the phone down. We see her making a different call - 'I can be there in half an hour. Thankyou.'
We see Jennifer, she sits relating her story to Helen, who has obviously found her because of a comments she made to the paper. She tells her that Alison had been such a nice girl, impossible to fault. How tragic it had all been. About the media attention. We see Helen's face as she remembers ...
... she is being interviewed by some reporter, who is milking what happened for all it is worth. It must have been very hard for you, he says. How did you cope? He asks her many pointed questions - type which shouldn't be asked to someone who has just lost her mother and friends in a horrific way. He asks her what happened to her father. Helen tells him that she hasn't seen or heard from him, and that she would like to get in touch ... ... we shift back to Jennifer, who describes what happened when the media disappeared. Helen asks her if she had any support from her boyfriend, Alison's brother. No, Jenny says pointedly. Helen asks her if she can get in touch with him. Jenny tells her that he can be found at his mother's place, she supposes ...
... we are back in the carriage with Isaac and Helen. She asks him if Jennifer understood. He says that he told her as much as he could, but that it was hard for her, but she agreed to what they had asked for. He says that she said that she has forgiven him, although he isn't so sure. He asks her how she knew. She tells him she had done this long enough to have seen the signs....
... it is late afternoon. The doorbell of Elaine's flat rings and Isaac answers it. He opens the door and we see Helen standing there. 'It's you ...' she says. 'Hello,' he smiles.
Isaac sits with Jennifer in the Kitchen. Isaac is describing that he took it very badly. 'That's why you left.' Helen deduces. She asks she can meet his mother.
They enter Elaine' bedroom. She is sleeping. Isaac tells her that the doctors could not find out what was wrong with her. Helen looks at her closely then swears loudly. 'Get out,' she screams. 'What?' Isaac does not understand what is happening. Helen begins to chant loudly in some European-language. Elaine awakens suddenly, her eyes opening wide. As she chants, Helen reaches into her bag and produces a cross. Elaine convulses. Not really knowing what has gone on, Isaac tries to fight Helen. She fights him off. Elaine begins to transform, fangs appearing in her teeth, her ears elongating, her hair growing longer. The room suddenly fills with rushing wind, the fabric of clothes and bed linen waving heavily. Helen shrills her chanting louder. There is chaos. She pulls out the a stake. There is shadow across her face ...
... We return to the frightened teenager watching a Vampire devouring her mother. We watch her glance around, looking for something. She pulls a rung from a wooden fence, and approaches the vampire. With all of the courage she can find, she hits it around the head. The vampire falls backwards to the floor. Helen raises the rung ready to plunge it into the vampire, and for a brief moment ...
... we flash forward to older Helen, in the same position, as she plunges the steak into Elaine ...
... then we return to the younger Helen, as that Vampire reels with pain, then falls limp. Helen watches its features change into that of a human. 'Daddy?' she screams in utter disbelief, as his body begins to disappear ...
... and Elaine's body does the same. There is calm is calm in her bedroom. No sound, except for the slow, dark beep of the medical scanner signalling her death. Helen and Isaac stand there, looking at the stained, empty bed. Isaac is stunned. Helen boughs her head in prayer, as the scene shifts ...
... back to the subway carriage. Isaac asks Helen if this is the only option. There is another option, she says. They wait till a certain age, and without warning, they transform and the hunger begins, and they would kill someone they are close to. And when all of the death has ended, someone like her will arrive and they will die anyway. At least this way he might go to wherever with a clean slate, and she could not think of the idea that she would become what her father was. He sighs. He asks her if she brought it. She tells him she did and reaching into her bag produces the steak she used to kill his mother. He breathes deeply and begins to chant. The scene shifts between the two of them chanting loudly, then the chanting continuing as they hold crosses, and finally as they stand opposite each other in the isle of the train as each lift their steaks and begin to plunge them into their opposite hearts. The scene cuts to black.
We see quite a handsome guy sitting in the living room of quite a comfortable looking apartment, reading quite a think hardback book. He turns a page. A child appears and tells him that mummy said that if he doesn't come now they will go without him. Alright, he says. Then Jennifer puts her head around the door and re-iterates. Alright, he repeats and stands up, throwing the book back onto the couch. For the first time, we see the title - 'The Dracula Murderer' by Jennifer Ryman.
The Dracula Murderer
by
Stuart Ian Burns
The Characters
Helen Goodfellow is a Samantha Mathis / Helena Baxendale-type. Early-twenties. She was a normal school girl until a vampire went on the rampage in her school and killed all of her friends, and her mother, who was visiting the principal / head teacher about her grades. She didn't have much of a home life - her parents were divorced, her father had disappeared. Her way of coping is to fall into a world of her own. She began to research vampires, reading all of the books she could, watched all of the movies she could get her hands on, and documentaries, and eventually began to uncover a number of strange serial murders which fit the Vampire M.O. No one really believing that vampires exist, she now travels the world investigating these murders and more often than not uncovering a vampire responsible. The whole enterprise is slowly sapping her mentally and physically, so it is lucky that this seems to be her final hunt.
Isaac Story is a George Clooney / Hugh Laurie-type. Early-thirties. He is returning home for the first time in many years because his mother is close to death and he is hoping to make a reconciliation with her. She gave him an interesting childhood, with her unusual behavior at times. He left for University as soon as he could, and has not had much contact since. When he left, he didn't tell the girlfriend he had been with for years, even though she had stood by him through all of his mother's moods. Although he knows he was a bastard to her is hoping to see her again.
Jennifer Ryman was Isaac's girlfriend. She is a Janine Garafalo / Helena Bonham-Carter type. Early-thirties. She now works at a city bar as she attempts to work her way through University.
Elaine Story is Isaac's mother. She spends much of the story in sick bed. She is dying because she is a vampire who has abstained from drinking blood for many years, trying to see the error of her ways, after leaving her son Isaac to bring himself up much of his teenage life, because she would be out many late nights feeding her need. Abstaining has slowly debilitated her, however, and she is slowly beginning to feel new urges.
The Synopsis
Helen stands on a railway platform. She looks at her watch. There is silence.
Isaac stands on the step in the open door way of a subway train. He tells Jennifer that he is 'so sorry.' She smiles sympathetically at him. 'I know.' she says, and passionately gives him a goodbye kiss. The doors close between them. The train is empty. Isaac goes and sits down.
Jennifer looks on sadly as the train leaves the station.
The train reaches Helen's platform. The doors open and she enters. She sits opposite Isaac. They simply sit staring at each other. "Its time," Helen says. He bows his head, the scene shifts to ..
... a typical rainy day in the city. Elaine Story lies at home, dying in her sickbed, her only comforts are Television, a home help / nurse who patronises her, and the view, through tinted windows, of a nearby building were a child is dancing in the rain. A medical monitor beeps her continued existence. The child runs in when he feels her staring at him, after sensing something uncomfortable. The nurse is on the phone:
'I'm so sorry to hear that. Alright. Bye.' she says. She puts the phone down and turns to Elaine, and tells her that her son will be slightly later because of traffic. Elaine does not move. She keeps staring out of the window.
Isaac Story is in his stationary car on a rain swept road. He puts the receiver down on his car phone, having just spoken to the nurse. He sighs and puts on the radio. Bill Wither's 'Lovely Day' plays. He turns the tuner on the radio to someone concerned with the drought, saying that at least its raining. Isaac clicks it off in disgust. A rare gap in the traffic appears and he begins to drive to catch up with the car in front.
Helen Goodfellow stands in the rain. She is very soggy. She carries all kinds of bags, one of which has large patches all over it demonstrating all of the places she has been. She has been trying for the past hour to hitch-hike, unsuccessfully. Although she has done this before, it is a bad day. Then, a car stops and window winds down.
Helen runs over. This is Isaac's car. He asks were she is going. She says its ..... He tells her he is going the same way, and to a chorus of honking horns, she gets her bags into the back of the car, and herself in the front seat. As they drive along, they engage it what they believe to be small talk, to pass the time, beginning with the weather and how long she had been standing there. There are many nervous pauses. As they drive, he tells her about going home to see his mother, about how sick she is. She tells him her cover story - about looking for her father to tell him that her mother has died. They find a common ground about losing their respective mother's before they can say all of the things they want to say. She tells him that she hopes he will get there in time. He asks her if she has been to all of the places on her bag. She tells him that her search seems to be process of elimination. He doesn't believe her, somehow, but doesn't think that he has any right to press the matter to a complete stranger. If she is lying, she will have her reasons.
Elaine's curtains are drawn now. The rain has stopped, and the sun has come out, so the room is still quite bright. She watches television, some soap opera. She is not interested. Rather than simply changing the channel, she simply stares at the channel changer / remote control. She does not blink. The light in the room is dimmed, slightly, as a cloud passes before the sun. Elaine smiles slightly. There is a relief in her eyes.
Isaac's car stops outside a youth hostel, is getting dark now. He helps Helen out with her many bags and they say their goodbyes. Isaac watches her go, still with a feeling that something was left unsaid by him. We follow Helen into the hostel. There is a slight spring in her step as she looks around the slightly cramped entrance hall.
The nurse opens the front door to the flat, to reveal Isaac carrying a quite bedraggled bunch of flowers. He introduces himself. It is dark outside. We next see him sitting on the edge of his mother's bed. She is sitting up now, drinking coffee. The nurse is replacing an I.V. He tells her that he is sorry he didn't come back sooner. She tells him that he couldn't be because he would have made the effort. He nods his head, in recognition of this truth. The nurse swears loudly. Isaac is concerned. She has cut herself. As he sees if she is alright, Elaine begins to sweat visibly, her eyes fixed on the wound like a puppy's eyes fixed on the hand of its owner clutching a favourite ball. They notice the sweating, and believe it to be because the I.V. isn't in place.
Helen leaves a cinema alone. She walks through town, glancing furtively from side to side. She is in the middle of the club district. Loud, beating music plays from clubs and pubs in the locale. Before her are a couple, enjoying a night out. She watches them half jealous. The beat becomes louder and louder sounding more and more like a heart-beat. The couple before her stop and begin to kiss. She halts in her tracks, reminded of something. The guy begins to kiss the girls neck. The beating becomes louder, until ... ... the landscape changes to become a scene from Helen's childhood. The heart beating is hers, as she watches a man with huge fangs bite hard into her mother's neck. She screams and runs down the street, and from a distance watches the Vampire begin to drink heavily from her mother's body. Her instinct is to look for help, but is paralysed with fear and unable to do anything ...
... we return to the older Helen, she turns herself from the couple and puts her hand out, quickly jumping into a cab.
Isaac has left his mother for a few hours, and has decided to find a bar. The place is quite plush. As he enters, one of the bar-girls clocks him and tries to hide. Realising she has been spotted, Jennifer Ryman decides not be rude and greets him at the bar, and asks him what he would like. He tells her, that he wants his favourite, and she pours him a Vodka. He asks her how she has been - and what she is still doing working at this bar. She tells him that she is trying to pay her way through college. They are the same age, so there has obviously been some water under the bridge. He tells her about his law degree, about the partnership offer he has had. He asks her when her shift ends. At this, she releases her pent up anger and asks him what the hell he is doing here. He tells that he wants to apologise. She begins to wash the bar with a cloth. He tells her that in all these years, he couldn't stop thinking about her. She stops cleaning for a second. He tells her that he wishes he had spent the past ten years, wondering what life could have been like if he had actually told her he was leaving, instead of taking off the way he did. She looks up at him ...
... and suddenly we see the younger Jennifer. She is smiling. We here Isaac telling her that he loves her, but there is something he has to tell her. She is quizzical, there is nothing good he could possibly say in this serious voice of his. He tells there that he has had some bad news. Alison, his sister, her best friend has been found dead. That they are having problems finding out the cause of death. Her face fills with grief ...
... we return to the older Jennifer. She tells him to return at half-past eleven.
Isaac and Jenny sit in a cafe drinking coffee. They have obviously been here a while, because a waitress arrives and gives them a refill. Isaac tells her it is nice coffee. The waitress smiles, half-disbelieving him. Jenny tells him that he doesn't change - theirs was obviously not the most monogamous relationship. He smiles at her, bitter-sweetly. There is a pregnant pause. She sips her coffee, he looks out of the window. He tells her that they have to talk about it. She tells him that there is nothing to talk about. He left when she needed him most, when his mother needed him most. That his way of dealing with it, hurt all of the people he was closest to. He tells that it was the last straw, that everything took over him, that he didn't have the strength to wait another year for University, that the opportunity to leave was there and he took. That it wasn't that easy for him. She tells him how selfish his decision was. Tells him that she rebounded with some complete bastard who used and abused her, then left her with ... a child, so he shouldn't tell her about how hard it was to deal with Alison's death, and the way she died. She gets up. She is late - she expects her baby-sitter to quit when she returns. He tells her he wants to see her again. 'What's the point?' She asks.
Elaine awakens. It's morning. The nurse is already here. She tells her that the IV needs replacing. 'What's the point?' Elaine asks.
Helen is at the library. She yawns, glancing at the clock on the wall, which tells her it is only nine-thirty in the morning. This isn't the large cavernous place one would expect. It is dank, dark and doesn't look like it has been decorated since at least the seventies. She sits at a table, a huge book in front of her. It is a bound copy of the local paper. We see the headline, 'Local girl dies mysteriously'. Then, headline after headline, 'Alison Story Murder - still no clues', (the name seems familiar but she doesn't think anything of it) 'Swimmer's death linked to Alison Story murder', 'Fourth murder, Community in mourning', 'Eighth victim claimed', culminating in the headline. 'No new clues to the identity of The Dracula Murderer.' We see Helen with a hand-written list of names, looking through a phone-book, finding telephone numbers. We see her on a pay phone, 'no ... no, I understand,' she says as she puts the phone down. We see her making a different call - 'I can be there in half an hour. Thankyou.'
We see Jennifer, she sits relating her story to Helen, who has obviously found her because of a comments she made to the paper. She tells her that Alison had been such a nice girl, impossible to fault. How tragic it had all been. About the media attention. We see Helen's face as she remembers ...
... she is being interviewed by some reporter, who is milking what happened for all it is worth. It must have been very hard for you, he says. How did you cope? He asks her many pointed questions - type which shouldn't be asked to someone who has just lost her mother and friends in a horrific way. He asks her what happened to her father. Helen tells him that she hasn't seen or heard from him, and that she would like to get in touch ... ... we shift back to Jennifer, who describes what happened when the media disappeared. Helen asks her if she had any support from her boyfriend, Alison's brother. No, Jenny says pointedly. Helen asks her if she can get in touch with him. Jenny tells her that he can be found at his mother's place, she supposes ...
... we are back in the carriage with Isaac and Helen. She asks him if Jennifer understood. He says that he told her as much as he could, but that it was hard for her, but she agreed to what they had asked for. He says that she said that she has forgiven him, although he isn't so sure. He asks her how she knew. She tells him she had done this long enough to have seen the signs....
... it is late afternoon. The doorbell of Elaine's flat rings and Isaac answers it. He opens the door and we see Helen standing there. 'It's you ...' she says. 'Hello,' he smiles.
Isaac sits with Jennifer in the Kitchen. Isaac is describing that he took it very badly. 'That's why you left.' Helen deduces. She asks she can meet his mother.
They enter Elaine' bedroom. She is sleeping. Isaac tells her that the doctors could not find out what was wrong with her. Helen looks at her closely then swears loudly. 'Get out,' she screams. 'What?' Isaac does not understand what is happening. Helen begins to chant loudly in some European-language. Elaine awakens suddenly, her eyes opening wide. As she chants, Helen reaches into her bag and produces a cross. Elaine convulses. Not really knowing what has gone on, Isaac tries to fight Helen. She fights him off. Elaine begins to transform, fangs appearing in her teeth, her ears elongating, her hair growing longer. The room suddenly fills with rushing wind, the fabric of clothes and bed linen waving heavily. Helen shrills her chanting louder. There is chaos. She pulls out the a stake. There is shadow across her face ...
... We return to the frightened teenager watching a Vampire devouring her mother. We watch her glance around, looking for something. She pulls a rung from a wooden fence, and approaches the vampire. With all of the courage she can find, she hits it around the head. The vampire falls backwards to the floor. Helen raises the rung ready to plunge it into the vampire, and for a brief moment ...
... we flash forward to older Helen, in the same position, as she plunges the steak into Elaine ...
... then we return to the younger Helen, as that Vampire reels with pain, then falls limp. Helen watches its features change into that of a human. 'Daddy?' she screams in utter disbelief, as his body begins to disappear ...
... and Elaine's body does the same. There is calm is calm in her bedroom. No sound, except for the slow, dark beep of the medical scanner signalling her death. Helen and Isaac stand there, looking at the stained, empty bed. Isaac is stunned. Helen boughs her head in prayer, as the scene shifts ...
... back to the subway carriage. Isaac asks Helen if this is the only option. There is another option, she says. They wait till a certain age, and without warning, they transform and the hunger begins, and they would kill someone they are close to. And when all of the death has ended, someone like her will arrive and they will die anyway. At least this way he might go to wherever with a clean slate, and she could not think of the idea that she would become what her father was. He sighs. He asks her if she brought it. She tells him she did and reaching into her bag produces the steak she used to kill his mother. He breathes deeply and begins to chant. The scene shifts between the two of them chanting loudly, then the chanting continuing as they hold crosses, and finally as they stand opposite each other in the isle of the train as each lift their steaks and begin to plunge them into their opposite hearts. The scene cuts to black.
We see quite a handsome guy sitting in the living room of quite a comfortable looking apartment, reading quite a think hardback book. He turns a page. A child appears and tells him that mummy said that if he doesn't come now they will go without him. Alright, he says. Then Jennifer puts her head around the door and re-iterates. Alright, he repeats and stands up, throwing the book back onto the couch. For the first time, we see the title - 'The Dracula Murderer' by Jennifer Ryman.
on the subject of gay marriage
Politics Sorry, one final video today. But this is too good not to share. It's New York State Sen. Diane Savino's on the subject of a gay marriage bill.
If this was a feature film, the room would be standing to applaud at the end of that as James Newton Howard's celebratory chords crashed in. Sadly this is the real world and the bill was opposed 38 to 24. As Dennis DiClaudio notes at Indecision Forever: "I would love to hear a single argument, one-tenth as cogent as that, in opposition to marriage equality."
If this was a feature film, the room would be standing to applaud at the end of that as James Newton Howard's celebratory chords crashed in. Sadly this is the real world and the bill was opposed 38 to 24. As Dennis DiClaudio notes at Indecision Forever: "I would love to hear a single argument, one-tenth as cogent as that, in opposition to marriage equality."
taH pagh taHbe'
Shakespeare And of course I've checked my copy of The Klingon Hamlet (Pocket Books, 2000) and he is indeed playing the text as translated by the "Klingon Language Institute" or Nick Nicholas and Andrew Strader and not just making it up as he goes along. It's not a bad performance. I'm just not sure an actual Klingon would play it that way, with the crying. Worf cried, but he was adopted by human parents. Have I said too much?
Opus Arte Advent Calendar
Opera Oh yes. I've just been sent the following email which I know you'll find interesting:
"This email in particular is regarding the Royal Opera House and Opus Arte, their multi-platform arts production and distribution company. In short, Opus Arte bring opera, dance, oratorio and theatre to the cinema and across a range of digital formats, for all to enjoy.I do like these online advent calendars; they're welcome change from the usual religious or Dickensian examples you find in shops. I've set up a .bat file on my desktop so that I can open them on mass each morning to enjoy their treats. So far it looks like this:
This Christmas they are bringing The Nutcracker to the cinema screen in high-definition recording from the Royal Opera House itself, so those that might not be able to make the show, can see it across the country.
For this they’ve made a great digital advent calendar for The Nutcracker, which, once you’ve entered your details, gives you a short clip of the opera on a daily basis, and a little bit of info. Entertaining and fun at the same time.
We thought, because of your obvious like for culture and the arts, you’d enjoy the calendar and might think that others would enjoy it too. It’s live here:
http://www.opusarte-adventcalendar.com/
So, please feel free to let your readers know about it, as I said, the ROH are trying to help people who might not be able to enjoy the experience of the opera live, have an experience of their own.
"@echo offNow I've added this Opus Arts example so that I can enjoy a burst of dancing or singing too.
start iexplore.exe -new http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/features/adventurecalendar/
start iexplore.exe -new http://www.echoarena.com/competitions/index.asp
start iexplore.exe -new http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/online/advent/
start iexplore.exe -new http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/highlights/h0912calendar/h0912adventcalendar.htm
start iexplore.exe -new http://www.dorsetcereals.co.uk/advent-calendar
start iexplore.exe -new http://www.opusarte-adventcalendar.com/
garage stepped
News This is David Young, father of Oliver Young one of the sailors freed by Iran this morning. As I watched him being the doorstepped (or rather garage stepped) on BBC News, I thought he looked a bit familiar:
Here's why:
"It's a show about time travel."
Here's why:
"It's a show about time travel."
At around midnight last night ...
TV At around midnight last night, the analogue television signal at Winter Hill was turned off for the final time. On ITV1, it happened during quirky cop show In Plain Sight, cutting Mary McCormack off mid-sentence and at a rather inopportune moment:
Review 2009: Subjectively Speaking
In which I talk to @tempestuous about her chosen subject of films. It was probably the longest conversation either of us had attempted on Twitter and was a largely successful experiment. Pity I did my usual and strayed off into auteur theory which meant the following exchange lasted two whole hours. For clarity, I've removed everything from each tweet but our names so that you can at least tell who is speaking ...
On the subject of films.
@tempestuous Ha! Yes, what timing! I sure am. How are you?
@feelinglistless Fine thanks. Are you ready, Baltimore? I SAID ARE YOU READY, BALTIMORE?
@tempestuous I'm the one who gets to do the interrogating! So it's more like -- LIVERPOOL! At the ready?!
@feelinglistless I thought it was the other way around, but I'm game. Let's go. What will we be talking about?
@tempestuous Okay! I am going to talk to you about movies.
@feelinglistless Excellent.
@tempestuous LOL is it that way around? Hold on, since I am now choking on my iced tea. I am ill-prepared!
@feelinglistless Don't worry. We'll just talk and I'll probably end up doing most of it anyway.
@feelinglistless So what did you want to ask me?
@tempestuous My original thought was to throw a few of my favorite movies out to you, and let you tell me your quick opinion on them.
@feelinglistless Short pithy opinions coming up.
@tempestuous It's interesting, because beside one-off little notes here and there, I've never actually had a Tweetversation before.
@feelinglistless That's what I wanted to try. See if Twitter works like a chatroom, because that's what it looks like if you're using a client.
@tempestuous It's actually slightly frustrating and leads my brain to questions like the ones my non-Twitter friends ask: Why not IM?
@tempestuous But anyway, I spent a little while thinking about the movies that I am forcibly compelled to watch whenever they are on tv
@tempestuous First up: a movie I have actually more or less memorized: A Room With A View, 1985, I'm sure you've heard of it.
@feelinglistless I have. Merchant Ivory. Arguably Helena Bonham Carter's most normal performance.
@tempestuous Most normal, save for her ""hyperactive eyebrows,"" as I believe Tim Burton has said of that particular performance"
@tempestuous She's one of those actors I'll see in anything - literally anything - but it's the film's over-the-top charm that gets me
@feelinglistless Hah, true. But what's interesting about A Room With A View is that it really brought Merchant Ivory into the mainstream.
@feelinglistless It was their most commercial film up until that point. But they made many great films before that. The Bostonians, Heat & Dust
@tempestuous Have you seen Shakespeare-Wallah?
@feelinglistless I haven't! It's on my list of films I'm saving because I know they're good and I don't want to see all the good films now.
@tempestuous I found it charming in a completely different way than their later movies, sort of rough-edged and strange.
@feelinglistless A lot of their early films are like that. The general perception of M/I is of these perfect little costume dramas when ...
@feelinglistless ... their earlier work is more akin to third cinema, more interested in the Ismail Merchant's cultural heritage.
@tempestuous Yes exactly! It's quite a revelation if you're tuning in for the corsets and the posh accents!
@tempestuous And I could go on for ages about the Prawer Jhabvala / EM Forster relationship
@feelinglistless Which sort of dogged the rest of their career. Unless Emma Thompson turned up wearing a straw hat, people stayed away.
@tempestuous I could go on and one, but I'll throw out another of my memorized / will laugh hysterically EVERY time films...
@tempestuous And I may really hit against some cultural differences here, but... Pee-wee's Big Adventure!
@tempestuous (If going from Merchant-Ivory to Pee-wee isn't a 360... I don't know what is)
@feelinglistless Never seen it. Haven't seen any of the Pee Wee Herman films. He's not a huge cultural figure in the UK
@tempestuous Okay, you should see it... maybe not for Pee-wee, but for Tim Burton.
@tempestuous Unless, of course, you're not a Burton fan, in which case... you might find the whole thing even more annoying
@tempestuous That's one of those films that I'm not sure will translate if you didn't see it an early age. Like The Goonies.
@feelinglistless That's my fear. But it's true I can be a bit vanilla about Tim Burton's films. I think Big Fish is one of his best films ...
@feelinglistless Which I know is a controversial opinion.
@tempestuous I loved Big Fish - thought it was like his silly/dark early themes were distilled into something dark and poignant
@feelinglistless It's also markedly less stylised which is what stopped me from enjoying Sweeney Todd.
@feelinglistless But the story structure really appealed to me and I always cry at the end when the giant wanders into shot.
@tempestuous I thought Sweeney was his return to awesomeness. I felt burnt by Planet of the Apes and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
@tempestuous BUT... I'm massively biased with my love of the original music and Helena Bonham Carter's free pass to do anything
@feelinglistless My reaction to Burton is rather skewed. The wilder his gothic excesses are, the less engaged I am.
@tempestuous I'm really curious to know what you'd think of Pee-wee, then. It's a ridiculous movie but it's done with such heart
@feelinglistless It's a bit like Martin Scorcese. I love everything Scorcese's done, apart from Goodfellas. It's a contradiction.
@tempestuous I just rewatched Goodfellas when it was on cable... yeah, not my favorite, and I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to him
@feelinglistless I much prefer Casino.
@feelinglistless The Last Temptation of Christ is clearly the best of the Jesus films. Life Lessons the best film about an artist's muse.
@tempestuous I have not seen Life Lessons! I'll have to add it to the queue!
@feelinglistless Careful, it's one of the three short films that make up "New York Stories" along with one of Woody Allen's best too.
@tempestuous What do you think of the Coen Brothers?
@feelinglistless I can only stand about 50% of the Coens's films. Again, it's stylistic issues keeping me from being able to completely engage.
@feelinglistless Typically my favourites are The Hudsucker Proxy and Intollerable Cruelty, which were slated by the critics.
@tempestuous Two of my favorites, but I have a soft spot for the super-stylized ones. Have you heard any buzz about A Serious Man yet?
@feelinglistless Mark Kermode said that he can't understand the audience appreciation its getting considering its about at Coenian as they get.
@feelinglistless I think what links Burton and the Coens and number of these directors is that they're trying to deliberately bring a --
@feelinglistless -- sensibility that other directors, international directors predominantly, just *have* and that rubs me up the wrong way.
@tempestuous So you think it's a sort of manufactured sensibility, then? It doesn't feel like it comes naturally.
@feelinglistless Exactly. There's being deliberately different, then being deliberately obtuse. Wes Anderson's films seem more heartfelt
@tempestuous From the moment you see the typeface in the opening credits, you know you're in his world
@tempestuous One of the reasons I find Anderson's films so appealing is that they are so seamlessly stylized
@feelinglistless Whereas in a Coen Bros film they're trying to be stylised AND appeal to as wide an audience as possible. It doesn't work for me
@tempestuous I guess I'm less cynical about the Coens and Burton. I'm also just a snobbier-than-usual casual viewer, not a critic!
@tempestuous I thought the Coen's Burn After Reading was astonishingly wicked commentary on the intelligence of the general audience
@tempestuous Like they took what seemed like a movie that would have mass-appeal and completely turned it all upside down and inside out
@feelinglistless Exactly. I loved it for that. Oh and the moment when suddenly the whole thing falls apart and it just sort of ends.
@ tempestuous And it's perfectly structured because it should be when that character heads off into their climactic success.
@tempestuous Really sticking it to the people who just thought Clooney and Pitt were there to put on a jolly laugh-riot of a film
@tempestuous And that brought back fond memories of living in Minnesota when Fargo came out. The ignorant were terrified by the violence
@tempestuous And there was all sorts of outraged ""We do not really sound like that!"" fussing over the accents.
@tempestuous There's some similar train of thought to living in Baltimore and seeing John Waters' films
@tempestuous And the train is sort of passing my NaNoWriMo-addled brain by...
@feelinglistless Only seen Serial Mom. But you have to understand that the distribution of his films in the UK has been very limited
@tempestuous So what do you think about using Twitter to have a conversation?
@feelinglistless It's very tricky. The problem is update rates and the mismatch between devices. Sometimes we're talking over each other ...
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