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Posted
2 hours ago, Thunderplex said:

My daughter knew him best as the dad in the Wild Thornburys.

A sad day for acting.


Today I learned. I am constantly saying SMASHING in Nigel Thornburys voice. 

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Posted

Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. What an absolute double kick in the bollocks reading those headlines were. 

I think I first saw Tim in The Worst Witch, but it was Frank N. Furter that made an indelible impression on my 13 year old brain. 

A friend of mine (with somewhat more liberal parents than mine) had put the Rocky Horror Picture Show on while at his house and it was like nothing of seen before. I didn't get all the way to the end before I had to go home for dinner (where I immediately dug out my mum's Meat Loaf album).

I was probably about 20 when I purchased my own copy of the film (paying that extra £1 for the widescreen edition, as was the fashion at the time), and with older ears, I realised that all the whackiness couldn't hide just how brilliant he was when he sung I'm Going Home. It's that special chemistry of a great song, with the perfect performance and production.

The same friend also showed me The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I was well aware of Dolly Parton, but I was off the age where I was more focused on the tits and Burt Reynolds being hilarious. (Typing this, I've just realised that I was doing the "hold your hat sideways and turn your head into it" thing outside the restaurant, about 30 minutes before we saw the news about Dolly!). 

Back in April 1993, I was a long haired, denim clad, heavy metal listening 17 year old, and if been to see my friend's first gig. Afterwards we all went back to the converted garage that was their rehearsal space and drank irresponsibly. In the early hours of the morning, we took a walk down to the 24 hour petrol station because we wanted snacks and cigarettes. For reasons I don't remember, I was barefoot. While others were being served, I was looking through the CD rack, and in amongst them was a Best of Dolly Parton type compilation. For whatever reason this one caught my attention, and I started reading the inlay booklet, which had a mini-biography of Dolly, and it was here that I learned that (at the time) she'd written over 2500 songs. Considering how I was fascinated with how prolific Prince and Frank Zappa were, this elevated Dolly in my estimations of her, and I started looking into her work. 

Purely from a musical standpoint, she was an amazing woman. Ridiculously talented, wonderfully selfless, and with an almost British self-depreciating sense of humour. When you consider what she was up against in her early career, and somehow successfully kept control of her publishing, it's clear that beneath the big hair, big smile and big boobs, the biggest thing of all were her balls. 

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Posted (edited)

I know musicals are considered with the same esteem as sex pests on here but I  unashamedly love Rocky Horror and the main reason, as it is for everyone who likes it, is Tim Curry's performance (and Christopher Biggins as an extra).

He lifted everything he ever appeared in and you'd always be genuinely excited for his scenes. A one off. 

Edited by Gus Mears
Posted
4 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Is this film worth watching? Looks like good fun from this. 

It's pretty ropey, but it's one of those watchable because he's in ham mode films for me.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Is this film worth watching? Looks like good fun from this. 

I would say yes. Almost everyone is miscast, and a lot of it will leave you scratching your head, but it's definitely a lot of fun. 

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Posted

I saw Rocky Horror when I was probably far too young to see it; definitely under 12. I think my Dad just loved the soundtrack and thought the film was funny. It's weird that for all its queer cred and weirdness, The Time Warp was school disco fodder, to the point that when I first saw Rocky Horror I assumed it was a joke that the Time Warp is the dance they do in the film, because it was a cheesy old disco song - I hadn't realised that the song was from Rocky Horror.

As a teenager, I got absolutely obsessed with it. I was a goth kid, figuring out that I was queer, getting into film and music, and Rocky Horror just sat right at the centre of all of that. It was a big part of my life for a long time; am-dram productions, live shows, afterparties with everyone dressed up. Occasionally you get discourse from younger queer kids about how Rocky Horror is problematic and bad, but they don't get it - there was nothing for a specific kind of smalltown queer kid that said "you're allowed to be you" as loudly and brilliantly and weirdly as Rocky Horror. I think it's missing the point completely to see Frank as a queer sexual predator stereotype - he also gives us Don't Dream It, Be It, and I'm Going Home, which are both absolutely gorgeous, and where my mind really goes to when I think of how good Tim Curry was.

 

Before Rocky Horror, there's a story I know I've told on here before. When I was a kid, my parents had a "study" - a tiny room with an Amstrad computer, dot matrix printer, and all my Dad's Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Michael Crichton books on shelves. The door to it was on one side of the back-porch, perpendicular to the door to the downstairs toilet. I used to hate going to that toilet, because it was concrete floor and painted brick walls, and having to walk through the porch meant it was absolutely freezing. To make matters worse, the door to the study never closed properly, so you could always see through a crack in the door as you walked past it, where the one thing visible was a giant poster for It, just Tim Curry as Pennywise with a creepy scaly hand staring out at you. It absolutely terrified me for years.


Beyond that, he was just incredible value in everything, wasn't he? You know that even in a bad film or bad TV show, you're getting at worst a memorable performance from Tim Curry if not a brilliant one. He was just always so much fun. 

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Posted
43 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

As a teenager, I got absolutely obsessed with it. I was a goth kid, figuring out that I was queer, getting into film and music, and Rocky Horror just sat right at the centre of all of that. It was a big part of my life for a long time; am-dram productions, live shows, afterparties with everyone dressed up.

Went to see Rocky Horror at New Theatre when I was a teenager knowing nothing about it. My girlfriend and I just went in the smart-ish gear we always wore for theatre. Definitely the worst I've ever felt wearing my job interview trousers and a nice shirt!

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Posted
6 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Went to see Rocky Horror at New Theatre when I was a teenager knowing nothing about it. My girlfriend and I just went in the smart-ish gear we always wore for theatre. Definitely the worst I've ever felt wearing my job interview trousers and a nice shirt!

Just say you're Brad Majors.

(asshole)

  • Awards Moderator
Posted

Just to add another to the sad celebrity deaths this week, artist Yayoi Kusama has died at age 97. Her ‘infinity rooms’ were massively popular when they had them at Tate Modern a couple of years ago, and chances are even if you don’t know the name you’ve probably seen her work or her influence somewhere. 

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Posted
27 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Went to see Rocky Horror at New Theatre when I was a teenager knowing nothing about it. My girlfriend and I just went in the smart-ish gear we always wore for theatre. Definitely the worst I've ever felt wearing my job interview trousers and a nice shirt!

at the exact opposite end of the spectrum, I once found out there was a screening of Rocky Horror happening that evening, and I was already out and didn't want to go home and get changed. At the bar before the show, someone pointed me out and said, "at least somebody made an effort". I was literally just wearing the clothes I left the house in that day.

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