BEFORE: Between the events of the last week, with the Republicans poised to take over again, plus the fact that it's too hot to even leave the house, I really just want to chill this weekend, sit around and watched some docs made of hastily-thrown together archive footage and drink iced coffee, but unfortunately it's Saturday and I have to work from some reason. There's a screening at the theater so my lazy day is re-scheduled for tomorrow. Finding that balance between work and get paid with my natural impulse to not work is always a challenge - can't I work JUST enough to pay my bills and then just watch TV half of the time? But then I guess I'm not saving any money for a rainy day or planning some form of retirement income, am I? No, I guess I'm not.
David Bowie carries over from "Wham!" and the Live-Aid footage used there. Live Aid took place on July 13, 1985 so I'm off by exactly one week, bummer. It's also Kim Carnes' birthday today, she was seen 2 nights ago in "The Greatest Night in Pop", so once again, I'm just a bit off.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World" (Movie #3,036)
THE PLOT: David Bowie was an astonishing and eclectic performer. He was a true artist in every sense of the word, infinitely changeable and unpredictable, he remains immortal in people's hearts.
AFTER: This is another one of those unauthorized docs made completely from archive footage and old Spin articles, much like "Elton John: Becoming Rocketman", so really nothing new will be learned today. That's kind of what happens when you build a documentary around the free footage that you already have, like that one TV interview when he talked about where his creativity comes from and also that time he changed into a white outfit before a concert during his "Ziggy Stardust" period. Did you know that Bowie liked to perform as different characters? That he liked pretending to be a space alien character?
Then they had interviews with the people who knew him least, including one music journalist and one photographer who might have taken his picture once, we're not really sure, but he seems like he knows a lot about Bowie's fashion sense.
And what was Bowie's deal again? In one interview he said he was gay, a couple years later in another interview he said he was bisexual, and then a few years after that he claimed he was a closeted heterosexual, which I'm not sure was a thing then, or even now. Well, he was either unique or he was very confused - or possibly he was scamming all of us by being all or none of those things. Maybe he didn't have it all figured out yet, or maybe he was only gay because it was cool back then or a good career move that got him a lot of attention. Well I guess he figured it out eventually, because I saw a quote from him in his later years, when he was married again, to Iman - he said, "You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is." So that probably explains Rik Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, and so many more.
But the doc here really didn't break any new ground, so I'm forced to call a Mulligan tonight and just move on. Maybe I didn't know that one of Bowie's pupils was permanently dilated after a teenage accident - like I knew he had two differently colored eyes, but I didn't know about the left pupil. That's really all I learned tonight, sorry.
Also starring Kevin Cummins, Paul Gambaccini, Pat Pope, Midge Ure (last seen in "Under the Volcano")
with archive footage of Angie Bowie (last seen in "Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World"), Reeves Gabrels (ditto), Iman (ditto), Duncan Jones (ditto), Hunt Sales (ditto), Tony Fox Sales (ditto), David Cameron, Brian May (also carrying over from "Wham!"), Freddie Mercury (ditto), Iggy Pop (last seen in "Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain"), Mick Ronson (last seen in "Rolling Thunder Revue"), Roger Taylor (last seen in "Count Me In"), Vince Taylor, Tina Turner (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop")
RATING: 4 out of 10 movie appearances that someone could not afford to license footage of
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