A wonderful scene of friendship from The Boat That Rocked

Long-time readers will know that I absolutely love this Richard Curtis movie, so much so that I watch it once a year.  Tonight was the 2015 viewing, and it reminded me how much I love this dialog-free scene of friendship and consolation.  The Leonard Cohen song only makes it better.



Enjoy--but ignore the dumb promo stuff right after the scene ends.

Three things rattling around inside my head

Like everyone (I assume), I find from time to time that certain things have taken root in my head and simply will not go.  Eventually, of course, they tire of the place and move on, but for a while they refuse to budge and stay always just a thought away.

Three such bits are currently in residence, so to encourage them to move along, I'm going to share them with you.

The first is a song I blogged about last week, one I heard in the Delta Rae show and that has stayed with me every day since then, "Run."



The second is a passage from Nick Harkaway's marvelous first novel, The Gone-Away World.  I'm cheating a bit by copying the text from an online source, and I'm hoping the redoubtable Mr. Harkaway won't mind the citation.  (You should buy and read this book if you have not already done so.)

A woman who can eat a real bruschetta is a woman you can love and who can love you. Someone who pushes the thing away because it's messy is never going to cackle at you toothlessly across the living room of your retirement cottage or drag you back from your sixth heart attack by sheer furious affection. Never happen. You need a woman who isn't afraid of a faceful of olive oil for that.

I fell in love with the phrase "sheer furious affection" the moment I read it, and I expect to love it until I die.

My third recent companion is the Count's speech near the end of The Boat That Rocked.  This scene goes beyond that speech, but it's the speech that matters.



There.  With luck, these will all wander into your heads and give mine a break.

The Boat That Rocked

is, as long-time readers will know, one of my all-time favorite movies.  Tonight, we gathered for our annual summer viewing of it.  The Richard Curtis film was, as always, glorious.

Here's a lovely scene that comes after the government has made the boat's operation illegal.



Enjoy.

Finally, a new Richard Curtis movie

Long-time readers may well recall that I am a stone Richard Curtis fan.  The two movies he's previously directed, Love Actually and The Boat That Rocked, are among my all-time favorites, films I watch at least once a year.  He's written so many wonderful screenplays that I couldn't reasonably list them all, but by way of example I'll point you to Notting Hill and the "Vincent and the Doctor" episode of Doctor Who.  Curtis wears his heart marvelously on his sleeve, and I adore his work.

On November 1 in the U.S., his latest film, and the third he's directed, will open.  Check it out.



I am unreasonably excited about seeing this movie.

Not a bad answer

As many of you know, one of my favorite films is Richard Curtis' The Boat That Rocked, which appeared here in the U.S. in a shorter (and inferior) version as Pirate Radio. What many of you may not know is that the deleted scenes from the film are often as good as anything in it.

In the deleted scene below, a rather pompous character, the DJ Gavin, explains the end of his quest to find the meaning of life. What Curtis offers isn't an answer, of course, but it'll do nicely on many days until something better comes along.

Enjoy.

The Boat That Rocked

Tonight, thanks to Steve's research that suggested the region coding on the Blu-Ray release of this movie wasn't really there and that thus led me to purchase that disc, we gathered to watch the full-length, original version of the film that appeared in the U.S. as Pirate Radio.

I liked it a great deal more than the American release, which I quite loved.

Like Love Actually, another of director Richard Curtis' wonderful films, this movie hits me emotionally and strongly moves me. I've praised the film before here, so I won't go over it again except to say that if you liked the American release and have a Blu-Ray player, you could do a lot worse than to pop for this U.K. version.

Spoiler Alert! Near the end of the film, when the ship is going down, the Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman) gives a short speech that I love:

To all our listeners, this is what I have to say - God bless you all. And as for you bastards in charge, don't dream it's over. Years will come, years will go, and politicians will do fuck all to make the world a better place. But all over the world, young men and young women will always dream dreams and put those dreams into song. Nothing important dies tonight, just a few ugly guys on a crappy ship. The only sadness tonight is that, in future years, there'll be so many fantastic songs that it will not be our privilege to play. But, believe you me, they will still be written, they will still be sung, and they will be the wonder of the world.

Rock and roll blasts in my head and is the soundtrack of my life. It is a wonder of power and emotion, and this movie is a love song to it.