BEFORE: Went out yesterday with a colleague from Calfornia, an animation friend passing through town on his way to a comic-con in Italy - we've worked together remotely on a couple of films, we've done voices for two of the same films, and we used to hang out together at San Diego Comic-Con during all that. He offered to buy dinner so I suggested a BBQ restaurant in Manhattan that I haven't been to in years, but I used to go there all the time when they had all-you-can-eat Mondays. (That was during a recession, they don't offer that any more.). He also invited an ex-co-worker of mine, who I worked with for 5 years, and she and I have worked for three of the same employers, two animators and one college. Talked about the old times, but it's bittersweet because we're revisiting a time in our lives that's over, and there's no going back.
This week I had the occasion to do something similar, I went back to our old studio space because someone shipped a thank-you gift to our old address by mistake, just three blocks away but it was like going back in time eight years, and I saw that the studio space is now a DJ academy. Also every place I used to eat lunch in that neighborhood closed down, either during the pandemic or maybe after. It was a bit like going on a date with your ex, I imagine, things are kind of how you remember them except things don't feel quite right, you've moved past this and you've made your peace with the fact that things are different now and yet here you are again in the same spot.
All I could focus on was the fact that the restaurant had a certain vibe, you'd stand in this long line and pass by the carving station, order your meats by the pound or in one of their combos, get sides at the next station and carry your tray back to your table, but of course now it's all table -side service, because of COVID, and it's just like every other damn restaurant. They also don't serve green bean casserole any more, but that was their BEST side dish, of course. Everything else was fine, but I just can't get over the missing pieces, whether they're tangible or intangible, to properly enjoy myself. Nostalgia, I suppose, is just focusing on what's not there any more.
Geoffrey Streatfeild carries over from "A Royal Night Out". Yesterday's film was directed by Julian Jarrold, who directed today's film as well. But I don't track directors for some reason, so I don't know how many times this has happened accidentally.
THE PLOT: A drag queen comes to the rescue of a man who, after inheriting his father's shoe factory, needs to diversify his product if he wants to keep his business afloat.
AFTER: Sometimes I find a movie because I'm looking for another film to pair with something else and fill up a DVD. This time I was putting "Dirty Pretty Things" on a disc and looking for something to fill the disc and make a double-bill of sorts. Searching the cable guide on the actors' names is often a quick way to do this - so even if I can't find two movies that pair thematically, at least they'll have one thing, or one person in common. This process is guided by the chain, but it also has an influence on guiding the future chain, if that makes sense. Assuming the second film is available on demand, I'll dub it even if I haven't seen the film before, and then just add it to the list and wait for it to surface to the top, and this is usually by providing a link between two other films, or between two holidays.
So this got suggested by the process because it had Chiwetel Ejiofor in it, and then there was a kind of acceptance, in me saying, "Well, I've probably avoided this film long enough..." or maybe it's a "might as well" kind of thing. I'm not drawn to movies about drag queens, but I'm also not intentionally avoiding them, it's just not my world but I'm also for practicing acceptance. It's like finding out my co-workers are going to pride parade, which might have bothered me a bit in the past considering my history, but now I just let it go and think, "Well, OK, good for them, I hope they have fun...but it's not part of my world." Live and let live, I don't force my lifestyle on other people, and I keep my private stuff private, but I realize at the same time that other people live differently, and that's OK.
Disclaimer over, I know Pride month is coming up, and I'll probably end up working at Newfest for a few days, but a gig is a gig. Every year I think my ex-wife is going to show up to watch a film, if feels kind of inevitable but it hasn't happened yet. I'll deal with it when it happens. In the meantime, let's get into "Kinky Boots", about a man who inherits a shoe factory, and things being what they are, the economy is bad and inferior shoes are being imported from Slovakia, Charlie Price finds that he keeps having to lay off more and more workers, and eventually if this keeps up the factory will have to close. But one female employee points out that he needs to diversify, seek out new markets for his products and think differently if he wants the business to succeed. Charlie's wife, meanwhile, wants to sell the factory to a developer who would turn all that big empty factory space into luxury condos or flats.
I can't argue, that's probably the idea that makes the most financial sense - but it also feels like giving up, and I see this every day in the animation business. The studio is struggling, there's little money left after paying the studio rent and the payroll taxes, so how do we get ahead? Diversifying is the strategy, let's see if we can get a table at Comic-Con, run a Kickstarter campaign, monetize the YouTube channel, sell some signed drawings and cels from the older films, license a couple features to a BluRay distributor, and then maybe that gets us through another two months, repeat as necessary. That's been my life for the last two years, wait make that ten years, no wait, it's really been more like thirty, hasn't it? So yeah, I get it, find your tribe, put something out there that's not like anything else on the market, do whatever you can to get publicity, and hopefully it all adds up to something.
One night Charlie sees four guys in an alley bothering a woman, and he steps in to her defense, and instead gets a boot to his head, when Lola the drag queen defends herself. When he comes to in the drag show dressing room, he sees the broken heel, and eventually has the lightbulb moment - transvestite men need better boots, ones that will support a man but are also made for a woman, if you know what I mean. OK, so he's got a lot to learn about the drag queen market, but at least he wants to be invited to the party. There's a niche market there for making boots, but first he has to find out how to make them sexy. Or kinky, and maybe there's a fine line there.
Charlie hires back Lauren, the employee who gave him the push, and also calls on Simon/Lola, who gave him the inspiration. Now he just has to convince all of these factory workers, some of whom are conservative and set in their ways, to stop making Oxfords and switch over to thigh-high lipstick red zippered boots, and also black patent leather, zebra print, and whatever else the drag community might be inclined to wear. Charlie has a falling-out with Lola, and also with his fiancée, but he'd already set up a fashion show in Milan, but has no models to wear the boots on stage. He literally falls flat on his face, trying to model the boots himself, but since he'd placed a call earlier to Lola to apologize, she shows up with her entourage of Angel Boys and they put on a daring musical display on the runway (These Boots Are Made for Walkin') and save the day. Sure, its formulaic, but formulas tend to have a way of working, don't they?
The film got turned into a Broadway musical that ran from 2013 to 2019, co-written by Harvey Fierstein and with songs by Cyndi Lauper. Then, of course, there's a filmed version of the stage musical, and probably a documentary about it as well, and I think also a documentary about the real-life shoe factory, but I'm just going to watch the original film and then move on, because there are still so many more movies to watch.
Also starring Joel Edgerton (last seen in "The Green Knight"), Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"), Sarah-Jane Potts, Jemima Rooper (last seen in "The People We Hate at the Wedding"), Nick Frost (last seen in "Attack the Block"), Linda Bassett (last seen in "Effie Gray"), Robert Pugh (last seen in "Colette"), Ewan Hooper (last seen in "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave"), Stephen Marcus (last seen in "Iris"), Mona Hammond (last seen in "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers"), Kellie Bright (last seen in "Ali G Indahouse"), Joanna Scanlan (last seen in "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"), Leo Bill (last seen in "Cruella"), Gwenlian Davies, Sebastian Hurst-Palmer, Courtney Phillip, Ilario Bisi-Pedro (last seen in "Children of Men"), Barry McCarthy (last seen in "Notes on a Scandal"), Mark Haddon
RATING: 5 out of 10 arm-wrestling trophies
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