Some Came Running

Is there anything Nicolas Winding Refn CAN'T do?

I'm decidedly mixed on Drive, for reasons I articulate in my upcoming review for MSN Movies, and as such I'm a little more impatient than I'd normally be with the utterly breathless and increasingly relentless unwarranted dribbling over the film and its admittedly talented director Nicolas Winding Refn. I hit a bit of a Twitter wall with it earlier today when one Industry Tweeter™ chimed in "Drive Director Refn Talks Scouting Gritty Los Angeles Locations." Ooooh, I thought. Refn went to gritty places to scout. No other director does that. So I tweeted some imaginary Refn headlines. They were: 

Drive Director Refn Heals Lame, Makes Blind See, Raises The Dead

Drive Director Refn Successfully Negotiates Middle East Peace Treaty; Tears It Up & Throws It In Your Face, Just For A Laugh

"Please Have Violent Sex With My Wife/Girlfriend," Dozens Of 30-Something Male Film Critics Beg Of Drive Director Refn

Drive Director Refn Allows Lars von Trier To "Kill" Him, Destroying Final Nazi Horcrux

Can you top these? Do you want to? Am I overreacting?

Have a delightful Labor Day Weekend. 

Scene From A Marriage

SCENE: Carroll Gardens, on an early spring afternoon.
CHARACTERS:
Glenn Kenny, hereafter referred to as "GK," recently deprived-of-steady-employment film critic.

His Lovely Wife Claire, hereafter referred to as "HLW," actress, administrative assistant, overall wonder of nature.

(As the couple stroll down Second Place, an SUV rolls by, blaring Thin Lizzy's '70s hit, "The Boys Are Back In Town.")

GK (nodding in nostalgic approval): Nice. Lizzy.

HLW: I always got them mixed up with Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

GK: Oh, no way. Totally different animal.
(unfortunately, he begins singing)
Friday night they'll be dressed to kill...
Down at Dino's Bar and Grill...
(ceases singing, furrows brow)
...because, as everybody knows, Ireland is replete with joints called "Dino's".
(resumes singing, alas)
drinks will flow and blood will spill,
and if the boys wanna fight you better let 'em...
(ceases singing again, thank the lord)
That part always bothered me. "Blood will spill." Okay, so blood will spill. But they follow it with "And if the boys wanna fight." When they say "blood will spill," don't you think that presupposes the boys are gonna fight to begin with?

HLW: Well, yeah, absolutely.

GK: It's like when the Butthole Surfers did that song "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave." "There's a time to fuck and a time to crave, but the Shah sleeps in Lee Harvey's grave." I think when R.J. Smith reviewed it, he just said, "But?"

HLW: Well, in the case of this song, you know, it could just be that Dino, the proprietor of the aforementioned Bar and Grill, is a hemophiliac; hence, he's cutting himself all the time and getting blood everywhere as he goes about his business. And that's why, at his place, the blood will spill even before the boys decide whether or not they want to fight.

GK: I think you're on to something there.

(GK and HLW enter subway station, and, scene.)