Thursday, January 12, 2006

Live and Let Die

So I've been out sick all day today, camped out in front of the widescreen TV in the living room with a blanket, a cup of hot tea, and a box of Kleenex. I turned on the television this morning, and, as is always true of cable television, I was able to find a channel that was running a James Bond movie marathon.

Now, I thought I had seen all the Bond movies, but the movies I saw today were not the Bond movies I remember. Not because of nostalgia or rose-tinted glasses or anything, but because I was hopped up on woozy-doozy antihistamines, and I watched them in a sort of half-awake stupor as I slipped in and out of consciousness.

It turns out Live and Let Die is not a good movie to watch in such a state. Lots of voodoo rituals with voodoo priests dancing and holding hissing, poisonous snakes out at hapless victims, spinny closeups of tarot cards showing "Death" and "The Lovers", and creepy voodoo heads glaring out at you from the jungle. And Jane Seymour as the tormented Solitaire, of course (against whom I remember having a giant crush when I saw the movie as a kid). And finally, the most surreal part, Sheriff J.W.Pepper - not a guy you want creeping into your semi-conscious nightmares. Trust me.

Needless to say, I hope I get well soon. I don't think I could take another day of surreal Bond mashups in my dreams. Of course, I realize that there are probably worse movies to watch in that state, such as The Cell, the Twin Peaks movie, or The Wizard of Oz (flying monkeys in bellhop uniforms - that's just wrong). What movies do you think would be bad to watch hopped up on cold medications?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh, i see. bond. and here i thought you were writing something about paul mccartney's song stylings during his wings days. i think i may be obsessed...

but to answer your question, i think the labrynth would mess with a medicine-induced mind. yikes.

hope you feel better soon!

Anonymous said...

I don't know about bad movies to watch while drugged up, but I know a good one: The Doors. I once had a really bad sore throat, and the doctor perscribed Vicodin to relieve the pain. I watched Oliver Stone's take on the life of Jim Morrison through a nice Vicodin haze. Between the psychedelic cinematography and the drug enhanced poetry of Jim Morrison, it was quite the trip. I can see why Vicodin has been the drug du jour in Hollywood, and I have been very cautious with this drug ever since.

CC said...

Well, of course I was talking about McCartney's song stylings - they were, after all, the Bondian theme song for the movie. And what part of a Bond movie is more surreal and psychedelic than the opening credit sequence?

Labyrinth is definitely a good, trippy movie to stay away from if you're under the effects of Nyquil. Any movie that takes visual imagery from Escher has the ability to freak on your brain.

Haven't seen The Doors. I have a hard time sitting through movies about musicians, for some reason. I can't even sit through Hollywood Insider or whatever that show is that does a 30-minute history on washed-up musicians and celebrities. But I imagine a movie about The Doors would probably be one of the more psychedelic ones.