Mickey Rourke's Golden Globe

While I didn't get to see the Golden Globe-award ceremony on telly last night, two things excited me very much when I woke up to the news on my radio alarm clock this morning: Kate Winslet's first two Golden Globe wins (finally!) for The Reader and Revolutionary Road, and Mickey Rourke winning 'Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama' for The Wrestler.


Even though I haven't seen the film yet, and I'm secretly rooting for Sean Penn to win an Oscar for Milk, Mickey Rourke's award excites me so much because he plays one of my all-time favourite characters on screen, The Motorcycle Boy in Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish.


Based on S.E. Hinton's young adult novel novel, Rumble Fish focuses on Rusty James (played by Matt Dillon), who wants nothing more than to follow his brother's example in a world of youth gangs. However, his brother whom everyone calls The Motorcycle Boy, is heavily traumatised by his years as a gang leader, and as a result, is colour-blind and partially deaf. The Motorcycle Boy tries to warn Rusty James away from the gang world, telling him about Rumble Fish: Siamese fighting fish who will attack any other fish they encounter, even battling their own reflection to the death.


As you can tell, it's all very heavy on symbolism, but with a great cast (also including a stunning Diane Lane, Nicholas Cage, Tom Waits and Dennis Hopper as the brothers' Dad), it's a beautifully-made film. Coppola shot the film in black and white, only showing the Rumble Fish in colour and although at times the combination of the style of the film and the symbolism threaten to turn it into a self-important arthouse flick, Mickey Rourke's amazing performance saves it from becoming a charicature. To hear that strange, disembodied voice of his describe the way he sees the world ("it's like black and white tv with the sound turned low") is as good as it gets in cinema.

My good friend Katie runs a great website on both the book and the film Rumble Fish: The Wrong Side of the River, and she recently got the opportunity to attend a screening of The Wrestler followed by a Q&A with Mickey Rourke. She took some great clips of the Q&A; it's inspiring to hear him talk about his acting at such a leisurely pace - TV interviews are normally so rushed. You can see several clips on her YouTube-channel, my favourite clip (not least because I got a special dedication!) is of Mickey talking about how he got Bruce Springsteen to participate on the soundtrack.


It's a world of difference, looking at Mickey Rourke in 1983 and now, but it's really exciting to finally see him get such recognition for his acting, while a lot of people had written him off several years ago.

Wuthering, wuthering, wuthering heights

If William Wyler's 1939 production of Wuthering Heights had been in colour, it probably would have looked a bit like this.

Heather Little Moor, originally uploaded by grahamramsden52.

, originally uploaded by marcinéma.

Heather , originally uploaded by grahamramsden52.

Covered, originally uploaded by erik.drost.

IMDb claims the producers had real heather imported from England to make the California landscape used in the film make more like authentic "Brontëesque" moors. I don't know if it's true, but it does sound like one of those romantically outlandish Old Hollywood-tidbits of information.

In a departure from the novel, there is an afterlife scene in which we see Heathcliff and Cathy walking hand in hand, visiting their favorite place, Penistone Crag. Wyler hated the scene and didn't want to do it but Samuel Goldwyn vetoed him on that score. Goldwyn subsequently claimed, "I made "Wuthering Heights", Wyler only directed it."

Cathy: Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change.
Heathcliff: The moors and I will never change. Don't you, Cathy.
Cathy: I can't. I can't. No matter what I ever do or say, Heathcliff, this is me now; standing on this hill with you. This is me forever.

The Edge Of Love (2008, John Maybury)

Well, I certainly didn't mean to disappear from this blog for over a month. Sorry about that, I started a new job and rather got carried away in all the excitement, heh.

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Last week, rather unexpectedly, I read about Richey James Edwards being officially declared dead after having been missing for nearly fourteen years. I should say the timing was unexpected, because ever since becoming a fan of the Manic Street Preachers in 1999, I didn't think there was much of a chance of Richey still being alive.


While it wasn't surprising, it did still make me feel rather uncomfortable. Whenever I think about the Manics, I think about that terrible quote from Nick Hornby's 'High Fidelity': "what came first, the music or the misery?". Let's not dwell on the misery-bit, there, but it's a strange thing to think about my personality would have been had I not become a fan of the Manics. They influenced me very much when I was a 12-year-old, and I'm happy that they did because without them, I wouldn't have known about Abraham Zapruder, S.E. Hinton and Harold Pinter when I did.

Coming from Wales, the Manic Street Preachers also introduced me to a whole range of Welsh literary heroes I'd never heard about, one of them being Dylan Thomas, most famous for writing the play for voices, 'Under Milk Wood'.


It was strange to hear about Richey James when I did, because the weekend before I had just seen The Edge of Love, a Dylan Thomas-biopic of sorts that focuses on his life during and shortly after the Second World War, when he lived with his wife, his childhood sweetheart and her soldier husband in Wales. Starring Matthew Rhys as Thomas, Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley fight for his affections as Caitlin MacNamara and Vera Phillips, Thomas' real-life wife and ex-lover.


It's very tempting to compare The Edge of Love to Atonement, since both are very British films, set in the 1940s and star Keira Knightley, but that would be an unfair comparison. While I did very much enjoy Atonement, The Edge of Love is more human and it's about the relationship between four people instead of Atonement's good versus evil; sensationalism aside, the viewer gets more emotionally involved with The Edge of Love. This film is about flawed people instead of angelic Robbie Turner, and it stays with you because of the great performances and beautiful locations.

Keira Knightley already won me over with her performance in Bend It Like Beckham and Atonement, but as the opening credit rolled, I felt unsure about Sienna Miller. To be honest, I always considered Sienna Miller to be one of those actresses who become famous by pretty much playing themselves in a few films that are released in the same year, launching them to flavour-of-the-month-fame. Steve Buscemi's take on Theo van Gogh's Interview already garnered Sienna Miller good reviews, but since I disliked the original, I found the film unbearable watch.

Not to give away too much, Miller gives an amazing performance, out-shining everyone else on the screen. Those last moments between Catty and Vera are just heart-wrenching; a great moment in 2008 cinema.

Writers' Rooms

Leave it to The Guardian to come up with greatest idea ever for a photo series: writers' rooms. There's a tonne of them over here, but I'll post some of my favourites. I really love the way you can tell how these writers go about their work; some have a neat desk with a fancy chair and their room ends up looking more like a corporate office, while others work surrounded by piles of paper and sit in disintegrating armchairs.

Rudyard Kipling


Hanif Kureishi


J.G. Ballard


Alan Sillitoe


Sue Townsend

like black and white tv with the sound turned low

"Your mother," he said distinctly, "is not crazy. Neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother. He is merely miscast in a play. He would have made a perfect knight in a different century, or a very good pagan prince in a time of heroes. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do."

"those guys would have followed you anywhere, they probably still would"