"Nightingale, Adam - Just For Laughs, Counsellor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nightingale Adam)

= Just For Laughs, Counsellor
by Adam Nightingale


I hate James Stewart. I mean that with all my heart. He is an aberration. A malignant cuss. A skid sniffing son of a male prostitute. I know that it is an unpopular point of view. I will concede that it is even a minority point of view. I understand that. Everybody loves James Stewart. I hate his rancid decomposing guts. May he suffer the agonies of the damned for all eternity.

I love Robert Mitchum, but I was overjoyed when he died. In addition to my bread and butter film reviewing duties, I write obituaries. I specialise in character actors and young dead hopefuls. My cemetery role call includes Brandon Lee, J.T. Walsh, Ben Johnson, Raul Julia, Haing S. Ngor and Jack Nance.

I first got the gig as a consequence of a pub conversation that me and some journo mates were having one Friday lunch time. We liked to play movie listing games. You know, give me your ten best Harvey Keitel films. Mine are:

Taxi Driver
Bad Lieutenant
Fingers
Blue Collar
Order of Death
Reservoir Dogs
Mortal Thoughts
Smoke
Monkey Trouble
and The Last Temptation of Christ.

We were doing the ten best movie death scenes. Mine are:

Joel McCrea: Ride The High Country.
Burt Lancaster: Ulzana's Raid
Slim Pickens: Pat Garret and Billy the Kid.

Shit. Sorry. I'll stop my list there. If you haven't seen these films, I've just spoiled them for you. Damn. Sorry. Critic's affliction, I'm afraid. We get excited and blurt stuff out, we get annoyed and we give stuff away.

Sorry.

I had finished my movie star death list. I went on to my ten best actual movie star deaths. Mine are:

Jayne Mansfield: Car crash beheading
Vic Morrow: Helicopter rotor blade decapitation.
Brandon Lee: Faulty SFX gut shot slaughter.
Bruce Lee: Aspirin misadventure or Shaolin assassination conspiracy.
Tupac Shakur: Gangland drive by or cynical faked death to improve record
sales conspiracy.
Dr. Haing S. Ngor: Botched LA burglary shooting or poorly disguised Cambodian
death squad assassination conspiracy.
Passolini: Brutal rough trade swish hit.
Jack Nance from Eraserhead: LA donut shop switchblade slaying.
John Wayne and Dick Powell.

These last two caused some argument on account of their having died of cancer, which is technically natural causes, but there is a case to be made that they contracted it when filming The Conqueror on location in what was subsequently proved to be an A bomb testing site.

I'm getting off the point. Sorry.

I didn't just recite a bad taste list. I made each death a mini eulogy. I was showboating. I am not a frustrated actor, but that evening I was an inspired performer. It got me noticed.