AGING MR. BOWIE

RIP, obviously, to the unforgettable David Bowie.

In his honor…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week the nod goes to John Blaylock, the glam vampire Bowie plays in Tony Scott’s 1983 The Hunger…

That film’s wittiest scene comes when John ages, courtesy brilliant Dick Smith makeup, from a sexy New York Goth-club hipster into a grumpy old man, all while sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room…

 
Who hasn’t felt this way waiting for a doctor’s appointment?

FilmBar Phoenix shows The Hunger Friday evening, January 15, at 9:50 p.m. It’s an uneven movie, but worth catching if you’ve never seen it. They’re showing another Bowie fave, 1986’s Labyrinth, on Saturday, and maybe Bowie’s best film, Nicolas Roeg’s sad sci-fi tale The Man Who Fell to Earth, on Sunday and Monday.

SCOTT, FREE

RIP to Tony Scott, passed on at 68 by suicide. I despised Top Gun but I really liked some of his other movies, including his last, Unstoppable.

I won’t be the first to note this, but I was reminded that he changed the end of Quentin Tarantino’s script for True Romance—probably his best film—from tragic to happy simply, he said, because he liked the characters and wanted them to live. I love and honor the sloppy humanity of that cowardly artistic decision, and last night I felt infuriated at the man who made it then choosing to end his own life. But this morning we learn that Scott may have been afflicted with inoperable brain cancer, and I feel rather ashamed of my judgmental conclusion-jumping.