Appeal for Sanity From the Rev. Arthur Belling...
Peace Quite Remarkably Like That of A River: An Anti-Social Commentary
I walk a lot. I don’t do it for the exercise, exactly, but because I feel, a great deal, that if I don’t do something drastically physical, I’m going to do something drastically violent to someone. (Psychiatrists have been chasing me down for years, just because I make statements like that.)
Often I used to walk with only my thoughts for entertainment (which left me pretty bored, let me tell you) but in the interest of furthering the technological cause, I’ve adopted a Walkman. It’s a piece of crap, but it works (occasionally, and badly.)
And what, you more than likely don’t care to ask, do I listen to while walking?
Well, seeing as you don’t give a slug on a fig leaf what I listen to, I’ll answer you. It’s only polite.
The answer is this:
Monty Python.
However, for the purposes of this article, lets say it’s Danny Elfman.
That is, I listen to Danny Elfman’s movie soundtracks (easily mistaken for Python if you are, for instance, deaf). The ones from “Edward Scissorhands” (starring John Cleese and Graham Chapman) and “Beetlejuice” (starring Michael Palin) and “Spiderman” (starring Carol Cleveland). You know what I’m talking about, and even if you don’t, could you at least pretend to so I don’t feel insecure? Mostly the ones from “Edward Scissorhands” though. Not only because those are the ones I like best, but it greatly aids in my fantasizing of the day Johnny Depp will show up and cart me off in a horse-drawn Caddillac. As the soundtrack is perpetually unavailable, I had to tape the music directly from the beginning and ending fo the movie, using a lovingly-hand-held recorder. Unfortunately, my family is not naturally quiet, and they managed to be doing dishes in the next room while I was recording. The inspirational oohing and aahing from the Sackville-Bagginses chorus, then, is puntuated by vicious clatters, multiple clunks, a few broken dishes, and violent thumps on the kitchen door, as though it was brand-new drum set that my brother decided needed experience.
This has been a round-about way to get to my point, which is this: Danny Elfman is a terrific composer, and I hope he does the music for “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” assuming they ever get so far on the movie project as to make the hiring of a music-man a good idea.
I notice also that Elfman does the music for, as far as I can tell, pretty much all of Tim Burton’s movies, which I think are pretty awesome.
This has been a round-about way to get to my point, which is: I love Tim Bruton! He is so weird!
It’s only recently that I’ve been introduced to his films. I remember never being allowed to watch “Edward Scissorhands” or “Beetlejuice” when I was little. Actualy, other than Python I wasn’t allowed to watch anything more risque than “The Road to Morrocco.” I suppose I’ve watched the first two Batmans before, but I couldn’t remember them at all, except for one point: in the first one, when Bruce Wayne was sleeping upside down. That’s it, and it creeped me out. But while “Edward Scissorhands” is now my second favourite movie (right after “Road to Moocco” and “Waking Ned Devine,” tied for first, which shows I was brought up right after all) “Beetlejuice” is funnier by far, and it’s funnier for one major reason.
Well, okay, two major reasons. Reason One is the Day-O scene, watching which made me fall out of my chair laughing, and reason two is—
(Yet another round-about way of getting to my point, which would be: ) Michael Keaton.
Apart from my inherent fondness for people named Michael, Keaton’s got several things going for him. Sarcastic, blue-eyed, radically eye-browed, moody, hysterical, and perpetually on a down-hill slide into insanity. A line from “Notting Hill” comes to mind: “Used to be good-looking now kind of squidgy aroud the edges.” I don’t know why that line brings itself up. It applies to Hugh Grant right enough, but not to Michael Keaton.
I have a request.
Also, I have a round-about way to reach my point: I would very much like it if someone convinced Keaton to play Zaphod Beeblebrox in the Hitch Hiker’s movie, assuming they ever get far enough on the project to make the hiring of actors a good idea.
While I’m at it, I’d like it if one of the following actors played Ford Prefect.
Owen Wilson/Jason Marsden/Billy Boyd/ Kevin Spacey.
If you like, you can make a charitable effort and give all the parts to actors who need a leg up— which would mean hiring Marsden, in this case. I don’t think that man has worked in over seven years.
Don’t be misled by all this; it’s not my real point at all.
My real point, in a rigidly vague sort of way, is this: Why the heck hasn’t Hitch Hiker’s (starring Monty Python as the Book, Rik Mayall as Trillian, and the ghost of Bing Crosby, whom my father once had coffee with, as Slartibartfast) shown up in theatres yet? Admittedly, the death of our beloved Douglas Adams has cast a pall (or, alternately, past a call) over the whole proceedings (especially as it appears he wasn’t, after all, merely spending a year dead for tax reasons) but what kind of excuse is that? The books have been around a long time. They were written in the seventies/eighties/nineties. They have millions of fans who would go see it millins of times, which would produce millions of dollars. Provided they do it right, it could be the most major trilogy of movies (especially if they make all five of the books into movies) of all time! I mean, forget “Lord of the Rings.” (Sorry, Billy.) We’re talking real space and real humor and real hitch hikers. Oh, and terrible songs.
No, wait, you are hiring Danny Elfman, aren’t you?
Which brings me to my real, true, actual, no-substitutes-accepted point, in the most meandering, round-about way in the known universe, which is this:
Fake out.
You actually thought I had one, didn’t you?
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