coal miner’s daughter

Make more Country music biopics is all I have to say. After learning of the plans to film the life of Johnny Cash, I’ve decided that there aren’t enough movies about Country music stars. I mean sure, there was The Buddy Holly Story (who wasn’t country but pretty close to it). And there was also a terrible movie about Woody Guthrie. But the grandma of all Country music biopics has to be Coal Miner’s Daughter. Unlike most biopics, and in particular, ones that have the cooperation of the film’s subject, this one is unflinching in its portrayal of Loretta Lynn from the squalor of her mountain community to her sudden marriage to “Doo” Lynn, and her rise to fame and subsequent addiction to drugs which left her forgetting lyrics and turning to her band for cues.

I really don’t know why there aren’t more movies like this. Americans love Country music, and they love themes of humble beginnings, hard-earned success, fast-living and finally, either tabloid death or redemption. Country music stars have all that plus most of the old guard could probably drink guys like Keith Moon under the table. I mean, shit, these dudes have done some crazy fucked-up stuff. George Jones once drove around Memphis for a week, high on gak, and talking to a lifesize cut-out of Elvis Presley. And of course they’re always pulling guns on people. George Jones could very likely outdrink Snoop Dogg, and he’s like, 104 now. The country guys may not know Karate, but they know Ka-razy. What’s not to love?

Seriously, I should be in Hollywood, writing scripts.

“hello. i’m johnny cash.”

Looks like Johnny Cash won’t make it to the MTV VMAs after all. This is kind of bad news as he would have been the only performer who performs songs, unlike the current rotation of popular artists (damn kids and their music, grumble grumble). Well, the dude is like, 71 and not doing well, health-wise. But still, his video for his cover of Nine Inch Nails’s “Hurt” was one of the best of the year (right alongside Sigur Ros) and it would have been nice to see him.

In other Johnny Cash news:

-Joaquin Phoenix is set to play him in a biopic next year with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash. Don’t know how I feel about that. Phoenix is cool and was a great villian in “Gladiator” (“He vexes me. I’m feewing tewwibwy vexed.”) but is he Johnny Cash Cool? We shall see. Witherspoon, I’m even less sure about.

-A big box set of outtakes from his Rick Rubin produced “American Recordings” is on the way. It includes a duet with Joe Strummer on Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” Strummer once wrote a song for Cash to record but he sent it back, claiming, “It confused me, son.” Or so I’ve heard. Cash outlived Strummer. How punk is that?

Meanwhile, if there’s no Cash tonight, there is always Britney Spears and Madonna, dressed as bride and groom, singing “Like a Virgin” atop a giant wedding cake. Or so I’ve heard.

Damn kids and their music…

mummy, where do I come from?

Found this over at Neil Gaiman’s blog:

“Could you please provide a brief etymology of the word ‘Shatnerian?’ Is this a past-tense usage of an oblique British word, or just a universal adverb for over-emoting and/or bad acting? Just curious. Thanks.

Shatnerian (adj)… rising to the heights of, or at least, approaching the level of thespian artistry of one Wm. Shatner, a Canadian actor with a unique interpretive approach to line reading, dramatic emphasis, pauses and suchlike. (Etym. Coined in his journal by N. Gaiman, author, last night, although I can’t have beeen the first one).”

robert carlyle is the greatest actor in history

Well, he’s pretty good, anyway. And he’s got a new movie coming out.
It looks alright. Here’s the trailer.

big friggin’ nose

Is it justifiable homicide to leap over my cubicle, hunt down, and kill whoever it is that’s playing “Oh Sherry” by Steve Perry on their clock radio?

This song has now replaced Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary (the electronic ‘Clockwork Orange’ version) as the repeated track playing on the iPod in my mind.