Busines as usual

I am a sensitive man. It doesn't take much to move me. The whole film could have consisted of millions of fascist aristocrats defecating into an open sewer, but in the the trusty hands of Australian classical guitarist John Williams, Stanley Myer's theme tune 'Cavatina' has me sobbing my feet out of my of mouth. The signature masterpiece crops up regularly in the film, each time reminding you that you are a very emotional person and that this film is going to affect you on a fundamental level. Isn't Meryl Streep good? Yep, she's just great. It's a bit bloody slow isn't it? Yeah, it is a bit. Robert De Niro is cool. Weird how Christopher Walken already looks dead. Heigh ho. Then suddenly they are in the shit, being tortured by the Viet Cong with a routine sadism that is barely comprehensible. Robert De Niro initiates a heroic yet somehow credible escape from this hell hole, Christopher Walken subsequently goes bonkers and gets into Russian Roulette. De Niro tries to bring him back to Pensylvania. It doesn't work. You know what happens next.

One of my friends and I considered viewing this film as a masochistic rite of passage to be repeated on a regular basis. Whenever anyone asked 'what shall we watch then?' we would suggest ‘The Deerhunter’. It's been a while since i posted a proper blog entry, and seemed like a ripe old time to catch up with my fave Vietnam flick. Two minutes in, one single glimpse of Christoper Walken's wet, lost-doe eyes and we have switched channels and put on Brian Eno's 'Music For Airports'. The film had been showing on Channel 4; 4 Plus 1 shows the same daily schedule of programs slightly later. At some point, with my companion and I lost in Legoland, I roll off the bed, fall on the zapper, switch channels and see Christopher Walken blow his brains out. Seemingly trapped in a horrific, endless time-loop of Michael Cimino's making, we stumble out into the kitchen and one of us throws up.

Next week: Watching 'Irreversible' on Dextromethorphan