Sunday, February 25, 2007

Setting, Settling, and Sitting

Good lord - I don't know why I think now is a good time to write -
its 2am and I'm tired and a bit grumpy from above mentioned SITTING
(and thoughts of whether or not I am settling - but that is for another day)
on my poor old bottom for too many hours finishing up a website for a friend who sorely deserves my finally finishing something we started on a YEAR ago-
(Yes, I complete my dances on time - usually early, actually -)

I was inspired to write because I watched Bullets Over Broadway- with all sorts of wonderful waaayyy over the top performances by John Cusak, Dianne Wiest and Jennifer Tilly

The movie is gloating, ego, brandishing of intellect and melodrama of art, artists, etc...
until at the end sweet John says "I know two things, one is that I love you, the other is that I'm not an artist. Ellen, will you marry me?" To which our dear Mary Louis Parker says "Yes I will"

And I recognize these things:
  • it is not necessary to be in pain to be an artist, it helps, but it is a crutch of sorts
  • it is necessary to sleep, and the art you make afterwards will be better for it
  • love is a bolster to art not a deterrent - stable love means you can fully fly through the making of work without wondering if you will be found acceptable when it all finally complete - (love of yourself is included in that category)
time for me to get some sleep so my work can DO SOMETHING tomorrow

Just in case you haven't seen the movie in a while, you are curious, you live in a time zone where you shouldn't be sleeping, or you can't sleep and need some fun one-liners...I copied my favorite IMDB page for you right here:

Memorable quotes for
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Rita: For me, love is very deep, but sex only has to go a few inches.

Cheech: It stinks on fucking hot ice.

Olive: Hey, didn't I tell you to make "horse durves"?
Venus: I don't make nothin' out of horses, especially "horse durves", 'cause I don't know what they are, and neither do you.

Sid Loomis: You're a star because you're great and you are a great star, but let me tell you something, Helen. In the last couple of years you're better known as an adulteress and a drunk. And I say this in all due respect.
Helen Sinclair: Look, I haven't had a drink since New Year's Eve.
Sid Loomis: You're talking Chinese New Year's.
Helen Sinclair: Naturally. Still, that's two days, Sid! You know how long that is for me?

Nick: Open your gift.
Olive: You open it, can't you see I'm dressing?
Nick: Here.
Olive: What is it?
Nick: Pearls. What the hell do you think they are?
Olive: Pearls are white.
Nick: These are black pearls.
Olive: Oh, don't give me that. I never heard of black pearls.
Nick: Just becaus you never heard of them don't mean it don't exist.
Olive: What do think I am, some kind of chump? They're black for God's sake. They probably came from defective oysters.

Helen Sinclair: Two martinis please, very dry.
David Shayne: How'd you know what I drank?
Helen Sinclair: Oh, you want one too? Three.

Cheech: She can't act. Are you listening to me? She makes stuff not work - stuff she ain't even in - it comes out all twisted!

Helen Sinclair: You stand on the brink of greatness. The world will open to you like an oyster. No... not like an oyster. The world will open to you like a magnificent vagina.

Helen Sinclair: She's perky all right. She makes you want to sneak up behind her with a pillow and suffocate her.

[Cheech is helping Olive rehearse a scene]
Olive: Can't you see? You're living out the exact same pattern your mother lived out with your father.
Cheech: I am? Pray tell.
Olive: In some way you're trying to relive it and in the process of reliving it, correct it. As if that were possible. HA.
Cheech: It don't say "ha."
Olive: I know it don't say "ha," I added that.
Cheech: Are you allowed to do that? I don't think you're allowed to do that.
Olive: We're allowed to add things. It's called ad-libbing.
Cheech: Well, I think the whole thing stinks.
Olive: Well, I think you're a degenerate zombie so shut up and read.
Cheech: You shut up.
Olive: You shut up and read.
Cheech: you're lucky you're Nick's girl.
Olive: You're lucky you're an idiot.

Olive: Ain't you the big mouth since you hit your number.

Sheldon Flender: Let's say there was a burning building and you could rush in and you could save only one thing: either the last known copy of Shakespeare's plays or some anonymous human being. What would you do?

[Helen is late for rehearsal]
Helen Sinclair: Please forgive me. My pedicurist had a stroke. She fell forward onto the orange stick and plunged it into my toe. It required bandaging.

David Shayne: Maybe Olive's got stage fright. Maybe she won't show.
Julian Marx: Not Olive. That dame doesn't have a nerve in her body. I don't think her spinal cord touches her brain.

Sheldon Flender: [bragging] I have never had a play produced. That's right. And I've written one play a year for the past twenty years.
David Shayne: Yes, but that's because you're a genius. And the proof is that both common people and intellectuals find your work completely incoherent. Means you're a genius.

Venus: Do you want the blue stuff or the green?
Olive: The imported, dummy.
Venus: Oh, you mean from the *clean* bathtub.

David Shayne: Your taste is exquisite.
Helen Sinclair: [correcting] My taste is superb. My eyes are exquisite.

David Shayne: Suddenly I'm taking suggestions from some strong-arm man with an IQ of minus 50.

Helen Sinclair: Oh, Julian. Julian Marx. I do plays put on by Balasco, or Sam Harris, not some Yiddish pant salesman turned producer. My ex-husband used to say, "If you're gonna go down, go down with the best of them."
Sid Loomis: Which ex-husband?
Helen Sinclair: Oh, I don't know which ex-husband. The one with the moustache.

[Helen complains about her role]
Helen Sinclair: She's dowdy. Sid, the ingenue has all the hot lines. Even the female psychiatrist is a better role.
Sid Loomis: But the role of Sylvia Poston is the lead.
Helen Sinclair: "Sylvia Poston." Even the *name* reeks of Orbach's. I do Electra. I do Lady Macbeth. I do plays by Noel and Phil Barry, or at least Max Anderson.

Helen Sinclair: I'm still a star. I never play frumps or virgins.

Venus: You better get in the mood, honey, 'cause he's payin' the rent.

Olive: [to Warner] I notice you have a really big appetite.

Helen Sinclair: No, no, don't speak. Don't speak. Please don't speak. Please don't speak. No. No. No. Go. Go, gentle Scorpio, go. Your Pisces wishes you every happy return.
David Shayne: Just one...
Helen Sinclair: Don't speak.

Cheech: [at the end, dying] No. Don't speak.

Cheech: Sylvia Pincus. Big fat Jewish broad, had a little tiny husband. She chopped him up with an ax and mailed his pieces all over the country. I don't know what she was tryin' to prove.

Eden Brent: [on David's new script changes] Congratulations. It finally has balls.

David Shayne: You're gonna write it?
Cheech: What am I? A fuckin' idiot? They taught me how to read and write in school before I burned it down.
David Shayne: You burned down your school?
Cheech: Yeah, it was Lincoln's birthday. There was nobody there.

David Shayne: You thought my first draft was c-cerebral and tepid?
Helen Sinclair: Only the plot and the dialogue. But this...
David Shayne: Was-was-was there nothing in the original draft that you feel was worth saving?
Helen Sinclair: The stage directions were lucid. Best I've ever seen... and the color of the binder. Good choice.
David Shayne: Thank you. I've always had a flair for stage directions.

David Shayne: I studied playrighting with every teacher, I read every book...
Cheech: Let me tell you somethin' about teachers. I hate teachers. Those blue-haired bitches used to whack us with rulers. Forget teachers.

Lord Chafee: My tongue is hanging out to present it on the London stage.
David Shayne: London.
Lord Chafee: Look at his face, Helen. You're going to be the toast of Broadway. Why not the West End, hmm?

Sid Loomis: It's a little idea she's wanted to do for years. She plays Jesus' mother.
Partygoer: Oh.
Sid Loomis: It's a whole Oedipal thing - he loves her, wants to do in the father. Well, you can see the complications. Of course, we're talking to Ira Gershwin about a modern musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Quasimodo Jones."
Partygoer: Helen has such a-a-a... a new vitality. Even her face looks so smooth.
Sid Loomis: I know. The monkey glands are working.

Sid Loomis: He's working on a vehicle for Helen for next season. She plays Jesus' mother. It's a whole Oedipul thing. He loves her... wants to do in the father... well you can see the complications.

Helen Sinclair: Make love to me.
David Shayne: Here? Now?
Helen Sinclair: I see no reason to wait.
David Shayne: Jerome Kern is on the other side of the door.
Helen Sinclair: Yes, he's a wonderful composer. You'll have to meet him. Now hang up your pants.

Olive: Don't tell me you still think the world revolves around...
Stage Manager: You.
Olive: ...you.

Eden Brent: There you are. Mr. Purcell, you have been stealing our dog yummies and eating them.
Warner Purcell: Absolutely not. That's an outrageous suggestion.
Eden Brent: Then let me see in your pockets.
Warner Purcell: Would I eat dog food?
Eden Brent: You'd eat anything that didn't eat you first, you big fat pot of helium.

Sheldon Flender: Hey, look who's here. The big Broadway success. I don't write hits. My plays are art. They're written specifically to go unproduced.

Olive: Why do you have to be so masso... masso...
David Shayne: Masochistic.
Olive: Masochistic? What the does that mean?
David Shayne: It means someone who enjoys pain.
Olive: Enjoys pain? What is she, *retarded*?

Nick: Sorry you guys had to hear that. Some problems with the firm.
David Shayne: Really? What type of firm is it, Nick?
Nick: It's a "don't stick your nose in other people's business and it won't get broken" type of firm.

Cheech: Olive, I think you should know this: you're a horrible actress.
[Cheech shoots Olive dead]

Eden Brent: [David has offered to get Eden's dog a saucer of milk] Oh, you needn't bother with that because I breast feed her!
Eden Brent: [awkward pause] Just KIDDING!

2 comments:

Jeff said...

I LOVE that movie. You rule.

Unknown said...

thanks...you too-
I can't believe I had never seen it before -
John Cusak is so riding the line of lovable yet totally annoying
:-)