It is when Nana and Joan of Arc exist in the same
flesh, or Boris Karloff and Bing Crosby, that the abysses of insanity are under
the fog at every turn…
…Anyone else, man or woman, who contained such
opposite personalities within his body would be ferociously mad. It is her
transcendence of these opposites into a movie star that is her triumph (even as
the work she does will eventually be our pleasure), but how transcendent must
be her need for a man ready to offer devotion and services to both the angel and the computer.
-Marilyn,
Norman Mailer
I really like Matthew Modine. Kubrick saw his brilliance and tenderness and his performance as Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket is the most human in any of the master’s masterpieces. After I threw up the morning Magic FM told me that there had been a shooting in a cinema in Colorado showing The Dark Knight Rises (in which Modine co-stars), I tweeted him to tell him of my horror and grief. He tweeted back a photo of a victory sign and the words:
It’s all good Andrew #TweetPeace
My Dad was a member of a video club in the early 90’s for a while. It
was half-hearted, but we had a few good ones. Hamburger Hill, Mississippi
Burning, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket. They tended toward
big budget intellectual exercises, and he instilled in me a love for Hollywood
in a time of industry grunge chic. I started watching the Oscars the year Pulp Fiction was released, even though I
was surprised that Jim Carrey wasn’t nominated for The Mask. I genuinely was. I bet fifty pee to a mate of mine, back
when fifty pee was a lot of dough. It was inexplicable. How could Jim Carrey
not get nominated? It was amazing, his performance. Secretly it turned me on.
I unfollowed 1500 people on the 5th of December, and then
slept for 24 hours. I have lost 200 followers because of my actions, people who
were only following me so that I would follow them, the reason I followed them
in the first place.
The vast majority of them were indie, self-pubbed writers. Believe me,
there is nobody duller on Twitter than an indie, self-pubbed writer.
I was back on the ward today for my injection. I didn’t bother bringing
my sunglasses this time, since I understand now that the nurse gets off on the
invasion and I didn’t want her thinking that I respected her. One of the care
workers had helped me tidy the flat before I went, even going so far as to
throw out both my tobacco and my Royal Mail card that I needed in order to pick
up the wheelie suitcase my mum had ordered for me. Huh. Straight after the
horse faced skank had jabbed me up (I forget her name) I bumped into Dr Ghosh
as I awkwardly sauntered to the smoking pod.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked.
“You’re looking well, Andrew!”
“Had 402 views of my YouTube video. Me, one take, singing Rockin’ In The Free World.”
“Oh yes,” he smiled, “that’s an easy one to play, isn’t it. Who was it
again, who wrote it?”
“Neil Young.”
“Yes, thirty years ago, right? Yes, it’s just three chords.”
“Difficult to sing, though,” I replied, grinning.
“I’m sure it is! Great to see you looking so well.”
“You too,” I replied, and put my earphones in, feeling used and
worthless in a totally punk rock way.
A friend of the girl who hung herself was smoking a cigarette just
outside the pod, and therefore inside the ward, next to a woman with
Alzheimer’s who has a habit of self-inflicted head injuries. Inside the pod was
a South African murderer that I met in the Secure Unit. He was wearing the
hospital pyjamas, trembling from the medication, his head bowed, moaning about
his mother. I lit up and put on Rape Me
by Nirvana, ignoring his babbling and working out linguistic motifs I could
study for this book. If you ever do get sectioned, then my only word of advice
that actually matters? Don’t talk to the
ones in pyjamas…
There seem to be quite a few conspiracy theories revolving around
YouTube about James Holmes and The Dark
Knight Rises massacre. I tried watching one of them, but they were all so
poorly made. The editing was like something out of an Alan Smithee movie and
whilst I know for a fact the filmmakers felt their efforts to be transcendentally
profound and hip, their utilization of sombre voice over intercut with Hans
Zimmer’s score and sinister photos of Barack Obama made me understand the ache
inherent in their lack of cinematic talent. As for the movie itself? I bought
it today for £15.99 in a BP Garage just by Blue Leaves House, after a dull
three hours on Pynchon Ward. I had the dubious honour of getting the Word
Conundrum, an anagram puzzle they leave on a white board daily. The answer?
CELEBRATE. I thought the movie was pretty good. Wally Pfister’s cinematography
was exquisite, a deep cornucopia of blues and browns. The editing was stately
and mannered, the direction epic and tender by turns. The script had a few
unintentionally gigglesome moments, especially when Morgan Freeman had to
explain the hugely complex plot to the audience, which he does better than any
actor in cinema history. All in all it was a reverent, rich, wonderful failure,
that was as self-adoring as the worst of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and nearly as homoerotic. According to a
recent tweet by Bret Easton Ellis (who was at an Official Academy Screening) it
won’t win. Too self-indulgent and now too scarred with abnormality and horror
for the film to win much of anything. The movie set out to be the most profound
and important movie of 2012. It is, but for all the wrong reasons…
A.W.M 07/12/2012
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