The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: Stardust, a David Bowie biopic made without the consent of the Bowie estate, so, consequently, there's no Bowie songs. And when we're so bereft of the entire reason we're in there, you may as well just change the names and create new songs, like Velvet Goldmine did.

• And we start with a shitty "Homage" to 2001: A Space Odyssey that turns out to be a dream when we realise that nothing about it makes sense.
  
• Who is David Bowie? What does he stand for? Why do I get the feeling this movie doesn't know?
  
• So, fun fact: a few months ago, I bought a book called Bowie's Books and it's structured around a list of 100 books the man recommended, and it gives us a hundred or so cross-sections into his life, and they're all tantalysing looks into this man's life, from the young lad reading Beano comics to a man dying of cancer, concerned with the decline of American intellectualism the same way Susan Jacoby was. As I write this, we're 20 minutes in, and what do we know about Bowie? That he's an androgynous young musician (who doesn't play music) who likes to wear dresses and has shit teeth. And that's it. This Bowie couldn't pass the Plinkett test. Well, maybe he's optimistic about how well the trip's going to go, but even that rings as false. Say what you will about Bohemian Rhapsody, you could at least get a handle on what Freddie Mercury (even if it's just Mercury as a fictional character) was like.
  
• It's so convenient that the filmmakers picked a part of Bowie's life where he was contractually not allowed to do music.
  
• Man, that vacuum cleaner looks so interesting, I wonder how much- Oh, right. This is a David Bowie movie. 
  
• Why is Bowie The Lumineers? And why can't I tell what his song about a woman lying bleeding on the floor was? 
  
• And what the fuck is this flashback even supposed to mean?
  
• Fucking Christ, I knew they couldn't get the rights to Bowie's music, but I was not aware that this extended to changing the lyrics to "The Man Who Wasn't There" to the first stanza of "Antigonish." And it's the one song on the album that the audience is likely to know. 
  
• To be fair, this cover of "Amsterdam" is heartbreaking. Specifically, it breaks my heart how little emotion was put in this cover. I legit did not think it was even possble to give that little of a shit while doing it. And here's how he did it in reality:
  
  
  
• A rock star or a person pretending to be a rock star, what's the difference? Are you shitting me?
  
• Only one psychotic episode, but multiple violent outbursts? That doesn't sound the least bit mutually exclusive.
  
• Pierrot is not the pantomime fool. That's Arleccino. Fucking Christ, Inside No. 9 did an entire episode about how Commedia Dell'Arte works. 
  
• You know, it's impressive how comparing the songs Bowie performs in this movie and his actual career sound so different. Somehow, the man who plays Bowie has had several albums and he somehow can't get invested in what he's doing.
  
• I've spent an abnormally-sized part of my life fearing losing my mind, and somehow, I'm having a hard time connecting to Bowie's fear of losing his. And he's even gone as far as going all Peter Sellers, claiming that the real David doesn't exist and that that's why he's been so boring throughout the film. Blow me.
  
• And to think that Jena Malone's pregnant with the same man who would deny this film the right to put any of his songs.
  
• So Bowie's brother Terry wants to be Sammy Davis, Jr? Well, just be sure to take that eye out, Terry.
  
• To be fair, King and Queen tended to be Master and Slave, at least to an extent. King and Queen being co-regnant has been very rare. In British history, I can only remember two examples: William and Mary only lasted about five years before Mary died, and as for Stephen and Matilda, well, the fact that their era was called The Anarchy should say it all. Also, they were never king and queen at the same time.
  
• As much as I love The Yardbirds, I have to ask: why use "I Wish You Would" throughout the movie? You know, you could have actually used "Let's Spend The Night Together" or "White Light/White Heat" and been a bit accurate to the music without having to use one of his actual songs. Hell, you could have used the latter in the scene where he meets Doug "Not-The-Lou-Reed" Yule and had it be a callback.
  
• And the movie ends as Bowie performs "My Death" and barely even sounds like Bowie.
  

Well, this was shit. Maybe next week, I'll take Apartment 1303, and after that, who the fuck knows? Maybe I'll go to Tubi, maybe I'll find what pieces of shit are available in full on YouTube, maybe I'll actually break down and check out The Grudge 2020 and Black Christmas 2019, but I think I'll put off those two. Especially the last one.