Thursday, December 06, 2007

Today

I was walking home from work through the park and there was a young couple talking about and looking at something sitting between them.
"...outlaw,"
I heard as I approached them.
"He's a good boy," she responded
"Not too good; he's got a twinkle in his eye," he said.

I looked, discreetly, and was surprised to see not a baby or a puppy, but a 1L water bottle on the bench as the subject of their discussion.

I was a bit like 'huh'?

Then I remembered this scene, from whence I believe this dialogue was drawn:



I cannot imagine a play of Raising Arizona, and I suppose I shall never really understand.

3 comments:

teigan said...

I know that feeling. Especially the part about not being able to imagine a play of Raising Arizona. I have never seen Raising Arizona.

I don't really get the Cohen Bros. I liked Fargo and The Hudsucker Proxy (very much) and of course The Big Lebowski. And Barton Fink, too.

But .. it's like Beck. For a long time I had no objection to him, he seemed perfectly pleasant, but I could see that there was something about him that I just *didn't understand*. "What is the *point* of Beck?" I would say to myself, bemusedly - because clearly other people (like you) could see some point to him.

Then I started to understand! And *then* it emerged that he was a Scientologist and I began to feel a bit funny about liking him. But I still like him.

Anyway, I've added it to my 'Want To See' list on Flixter.

wortwut said...

I totally get the Coen Bros. They really float my boat. And Raising Arizona is maybe my favourite of their movies. Come and visit and I shall play it for you on my Digital Video Device thingy.

The nuances of the dialogue in RA are just, like, really good, for a start.

It could not ever work as a play, ever.

I don't get Beck though, either. It doesn't go anywhere for me. It's like aural dilettantism. I like his vibe and shit, but musically he's too surface, yet not surface enough.

The Coens, OTOH, are the masters of stylisation.

I wish I had the right film language.

Raising Arizona is like one of my top five films of all time, fer real.

teigan said...

[I don't get Beck though, either. It doesn't go anywhere for me. It's like aural dilettantism. I like his vibe and shit, but musically he's too surface, yet not surface enough.]

See, I used to think a lot about this, about ten years ago. "Em really likes Beck," I would think. "But I just don't get him. What is the dichotomy of perspective at work here?" Then I remember having a sort of gradual epiphany from about 2002-3 where I downloaded his complete works and listened to them a lot, and sort of figured out why he was so great and why people thought so highly of him. I learned to love Beck by sheer force of will.

All because of you, really. In a roundabout kind of way. So it's weird to hear you say this.

I don't know.

When I get to a point where I actually feel relaxed enough - pending a range of Issues being Resolved and/or Gotten Over - that I can sit down for two hours and watch a movie again, I will make a point to make it the first one that I see.

I am looking forward to this.