Reminiscence: A Blurb

 Reminiscence

   I remember one time...but I digress.

  This film is both moody and beautiful, kind of like me.

     Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) is the quintessential wonky, charming, naive mark.

   Cyrus Boothe (Cliff Curtass) is a potent, menacing adversary. 

  Mae (Rebecca Ferguson)lends the perfect film noir, Jessica Rabbit, mood to the movie. She's not bad... They just draw her that way.

     Emily (Thandiwe Newton) kicks ass and takes names later while she deals with her own demons.

     Saint Joe (Daniel Wu) is sexy and disturbing at the same time.

   What was I saying?

   I forget.

A Blurb About Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story Of Their Intimate Friendship

It's Always About The Drama... 

     I read Charles Casillo's Elizabeth And Monty: The Untold Story Of Their Intimate Friendship like a bedtime story. Curled up in bed after a nightcap, anxiously awaiting the next tidbit of juicy gossip.

     One wonders. Hasn't this story been told before? Of course it has, in anecdotes and piecemeal biographies. Yet no one has bothered to connect the dots...until now. Somehow, it all makes sense and none of it makes sense at the same time.  That is what I like about this story.

     The author has a great gift of gab when it comes to talking about movies and how they get made. It's like you are sitting in a diner eating pie and sharing stories about film.

     Some of my favorite movies are 'A Place In The Sun', 'Suddenly Last Summer', 'The Misfits', 'Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf'. The list goes on and on. This brings to mind the quote, "Oh what a tangled web we weave" by Walter Scott. No. It wasn't Shakespeare, but I digress.

     Run. Don't walk to pick up your copy of 'Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship' by Charles Casillo.

“Failure and its accompanying misery is for the artist his most vital source of creative energy.”

Montgomery Clift

“Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick and pull yourself together.”

Elizabeth Taylor

Amazon- Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story Of Their Intimate Friendship

It's A Sin: A blurb

It's A Sin

     It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....to be gay. 

WOW! I love the Pet Shop Boys.

   No spoilers here, but just to be clear this show is not for the feint of heart.

    I watched 'It's A Sin' with my best friend. We both came of age during the AIDS crisis. We shared memories and stories about friends and acquaintances. Some of them are still here with us. Some of them we have lost.

     I grew up on the other side of the pond from where this story was told. I went to college at Cornell in 1981. I moved to Los Angeles briefly in 1985. Then I lived in Washington DC from 1986 until 1991.  At some point in my life I ran into, lived with or had sex with all of the characters portrayed here. Somehow, I managed to survive.

     It's A Sin is an evocative, thoughtful and timely reminder of what people went through then, and are going through now.

                   Colin

 

Henry