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The Art of Singing Badly
New post on The Sundae in praise of bad singing
In a new article for The Sundae, I write about how some of my favourite scenes in history are of people singing badly — and what they tell us about emotional alienation, the rationality of performance, and the genius of Ben Affleck.
A preview:
Armageddon is the kind of movie that people say “not that it’s a great movie or anything but…” before they say anything nice about it. It’s a Michael Bay movie about guys who work on an oil rig going to space to save the Earth from an asteroid, and therefore dumb, and therefore sucks. One day I’ll write about how it is a great movie, actually, because Michael Bay is a genius and he deserves his flowers after being treated as a critical punching bag for most of his career. But right now, I want to tell you about my favourite scene.
The oil workers, having been given a crash course in being astronauts, are about to board the rocket. They’re in their space suits. Harry (Bruce Willis) hugs his daughter Gracie (Liv Tyler) goodbye, promising to see her in a couple of days. Then Ben Affleck, who plays her boyfriend AJ, holds her close, swaying her in his arms as he sings: “All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…” It’s ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, which manages to be fun and silly at a potentially tense moment, but also resonate as terribly romantic and bittersweet, heart utterly on sleeve. Affleck first sings in a quiet intimacy, forehead pressed to Tyler’s, and then belts with buoyant exuberance, sweeping her up off her feet.
He can’t sing worth a damn. It’s beautiful.
You can read the whole thing here! See, I promised I’d be writing for The Sundae more.
icymi
Friday Film Showcased is back! Listen to the season 2 preview to get ready for all that’s to come. Available wherever you get your podcasts, unless you get your podcasts somewhere weird, in which case, let me know and I’ll sort it for you.
My article on my fave girl Michael Cimino is available in full on the Current Affairs website, all deleted scenes restored. I discuss Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, Year of the Dragon, and Cimino’s general air of mystery.
and a classic from the archives…
this piece I wrote about Panic in Needle Park for Crooked Marquee in 2021.
parting recs
Watch: Unman, Wittering and Zigo is great. As good or better than If…, and you’ve never even heard of it.
Listen: ‘When I’m With You’ by Sparks. I like Sparks now! Deal with it!
Read: I dunno, Franny and Zooey? It’s never a bad time to read Franny and Zooey. You have no idea what percentage of my copy is underlined, it’s stupid.
Check out otherwise: Metazooa is basically impossible for a humanities loser like me but that makes me all the more thrilled if I make literally any progress.
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