David Bowie Tribute
I’ve surprised myself by being somewhat knocked for six by this loss, I’m not much of a music fan anymore but have always been a fan of Bowie, and I think we all kind of knew he had been ill due to that relatively recent withdrawal from public life. He was one of those figures who always formed the background of one’s life however, was always there with those immortal albums and breakthrough songs, and unlike The Beatles or the Stones whom I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about he was a genuinely inspirational figure, so this loss is deeply felt around this quiet corner of the internet. So I have a little screen orientated tribute and I’ll keep my comments to a minimum, starting with this which I was only watching last night as part of my Tarantino revisit – this might be one of the greatest sequences in his entire career, purely because of the marriage of image and music;
Any consideration of his screen persona would be redundant without that era defining turn in The Man Who Fell To Earth, probably the most successful synthesis of his stage and screen persona,
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence received a Blu-Ray upgrade a couple of years ago and nearly made the cut here, but instead I really want to talk about Judy;
He kept acting into the 21st century, garnering some sneering plaudits for this turn as the enigmatic Nikola Tesla, and apart from critics being critics I never quite understood why. Again he was trading on his slightly mysterious, otherworldly aura which seemed perfect for this role, and so what if the accent isn’t quite identifiable?;
More esoterically here is another path paving moment, before UK actors became the charming Hollywood psychopaths de rigour as exemplified by Gary Oldman or Anthony Hopkins Bowie made a memorable appearance in this nocturnal cult classic – the fact that his name was Colin, making him Colin the Assassin is just…brilliant;
Even when cropping in so called ‘kids’ films he remaining an enigmatic entity, one day I’d love to revisit this on the big screen as I remember this film having a memorable effect on my adolescent mind, and not just because of Jennifer Connelly;
Finally something a little more personal whilst perhaps an obvious choice, but I distinctly remember seeing this on Top of The Pops back in my youth and having my ripe neural pathways frazzled by this combination of oddly violent imagery and nursery rhymed sonic sound. It remains and will always be one of my favourite songs of all time;
David Bowie (1947-2016) RIP
What an absolute wretched start to the year. This isn’t a music blog so I won’t be going there, but the legend was of course something of a screen presence as well, and frequently unfairly maligned in that area if you ask me. Nevertheless I was a huge fan of his music, his persona and his experimental brilliance, the word legend is bandied around far too often but he was unquestionably one of the most unique, envelope pushing popular pop culture artists of the past century. I’ll craft something a little more substantial when the shock has subsided, but I always loved this exchange in one of his overlooked screen appearances;
Minty's Menagerie 
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