Les Bicyclettes de Belsize: Through to the Skies

As I mentioned on Twitter, Facebook, and all the usual places, I just added Engelbert Humperdinck's "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize," his 1968 hit record which I always loved -- and thought I loved more than I should have -- to my Science Fiction and Fantasy Songs playlist on Spotify, as you can see below.  It's the 16th song on the list, but they're not in any kind of ranking.  "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize" just seemed to go well with "Over the Rainbow," at #15.  Both after all are fantasy songs, both come from motion pictures with fantasy narratives, and both motion pictures are musicals.

Of course I've seen The Wizard of Oz many times, but never the Les Bicyclettes de Belsize movie. So I figured the least I could do is see it.  And lo and behold, it's available, free, on YouTube.  I've put it below, in case you want to see it, too.

It's a short film -- a shade under 30 minutes -- and actually quite charming.  Steve, a young man, rides a bicycle, eventually in a park (in London, but not Belsize Park, which is a real place in London).  He crashes through a poster of beautiful model, Julie.  He's instantly smitten with her.  She's looking for love.  They soon meet in the park while she's on a photo shoot.  He gets off his bike to be with her, and they walk off hand in hand.  Meanwhile, a little girl has developed a crush on Steve.  She's a little distraught to see Steve walk off with Julie, but then a little boy comes by, and we get a double happy ending.  There are other songs throughout the short film, but none hold a candle to "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize".

The movie has a pleasant psychedelic feel.  The lead almost could've been played by Donovan.  The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour was just out the previous year, and love was still very much in the air.  There's a song in the Les Bicyclettes de Belsize movie about needing love, and I wonder if it was inspired by John Lennon's "All You Need Is Love," also out a year before Les Bicyclettes.

Anyway, invest the half hour, and enjoy ...

Twin Peaks: The Return 1.9: "I Don't See No Hidden Buttons"

That was the best line in Twin Peaks: The Return 1.9 tonight - "I Don't See No Hidden Buttons" (said by the sheriff) - because, of course he sees no hidden buttons, how could he, if they're hidden, and somehow that deeply obvious statement about what can't be seen is symptomatic of the entire Twin Peaks: The Return story, right?

And it was a pretty good story, too, tonight, with at least one other outstanding line, "I am not your foot," said by a foot, and somehow reminiscent of Donovan's "I Love My Shirt," though there's nothing fruit case about that, as Rosenfeld (kudos to the late, great Miguel Ferrer) says about that poor blogger who is actually one of the few people who is not insane in this warped gem of a series returned.

Because that blogger has seen the alternate dimension, the one that spawned the bad Cooper and somehow Dougie too.  But the good news is that word of the two Coopers is now beginning to leak out.   To show you how far gone I am, by the way, our neighbors have a little dog named Cooper, I've known that since they bought the house next door about a year ago, but it just today occurred to me that maybe they named the dog after Cooper from Twin Peaks, as the lady of the house was calling after the dog to stop furiously barking, probably about a rabbit, but who knows.  (I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog.)

But if that is true - that the dog next door was named after our Cooper - the question is which one, the good one or the bad one, and why?

Possibly the tormented blogger would know - leave it to Lynch to put the truth in the mouth of a blogger - and I'm glad that someone, some living breathing being from this, our, dimension, has seen some of what is actually going on, because that provides hope for the rest of us.

Hey, I just wanted to also mention that, in addition to Lost,  I'd say Fargo (the TV series), Heroes, and lots of Tarantino's work is inspired by Twin Peaks, and that's nothing to sneeze at, but worth pointing out in someone's blog.

See also Twin Peaks: The Return 1.1-2: Superluminal Sans Cherry Pie ... 1.3-4: Coffee and Cole ... 1.5: The Mod Squad Meets Big Love in the Diner ... 1.6: Red Door and Childish Scribbles ... 1.7: Lost and Not Lost ... 1.8: Atom Bomb and Mr. Homn


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Donovan Concert Cancelled Tonight - with Strange Coda

Hey, I'm not even sure this warrants a blog post, but -

Tina and I were looking to forward to seeing Donovan tonight at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey - part of his Sunshine Superman 50th Anniversary Tour.  Actually, that's about my least favorite of his songs, but "Jennifer Juniper" and "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" and its recitation of gorgeously unusual colors are among my all-time favorite songs, period.

So we were really looking forward to this concert.  I even passed up a dinner with some Fordham University colleagues - which I actually enjoy - to go see Donovan.  We even arrived uncharacteristically early, and had a delicious dinner at the nearby Pintxo y Tapas restaurant.

Then we walked over to the concert hall.  The place was deserted.   We found out why: Donovan had cancelled.  He's ill.  Email had gone out, while we were sipping some scrumptious soup in the restaurant.

But here's the coda.   We walk back to our car, are just about to pull out, when another car parks in a little in front of us.  A couple emerges, and I could just tell that they're on the way to the Donovan concert.  Whether they had been sipping soup somewhere, too, or for whatever reason, they hadn't seen the email. So I tell them the concert had been cancelled - to save them a walk in the rain - because Donovan had taken ill.

"Oh my God!" the woman said.   "The last time I was at this theater, the concert was suddenly cancelled, too!   It was for Lou Reed.  He was ill - and you know what happened to him!"

Oi!  I certainly do.   I'm hoping that this woman and the Bergen Performing Arts Center aren't locked into some kind of jinx.  It's a good diabolical story - "The Dybbuk of Bergen County" - but I'd rather hear Donovan sing.   I hope he's soon back in the best of health.

Dimensions: Watercolor Time Travel

With another winter storm howling on the doors of New York, I took refuge in Dimensions tonight, a lushly beautiful 2011 British time travel movie, recently made available on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video.

The director, Sloane U'Ren, has previous credits as a set designer in television shows ranging from Alias to Six Feet Under, and it shows in Dimensions.  The movie, which tells a close-up story of a young scientist in 1920s England obsessed with time travel, moves like an Impressionistic painting from scene to scene, with images and textures and lenses that brush the soul.

There is a palpable innocence in the movie, which almost makes it akin to Primer, though Dimensions is barely about paradox and time loops.   It is rather about love, sought and lost, accidental and deliberate.   The movie also resonates with Daniel Faraday and Lost, which also has the charm of the young man as scientist -- though, again, Dimensions is manifestly not about the world-changing implications of the time travel we find in Lost.

The first part of the movie is indeed so uncontrived - a rarity for any time travel story - it almost seems like a YA or younger tale.  As the movie progresses, we get a romantic triangle of characters in their twenties.  The acting in this section is very good -  the most memorable coming from Olivia Llewellyn and Camilla Rutherford's quietly powerful performances, and good work from Henry Lloyd-Hughes as the scientist, too - and this more than the storyline makes this part of the movie blossom.   Antony Neely, whose main previous movie credits are in music, wrote the screenplay for Dimensions, and the story indeed progresses like a song, with versus and repeated chorus and bridge - an apt form for a time travel tale - or maybe an etude from Debussy.

Watercolors and tears, a story that moves like Donovan's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven," make Dimensions an unusual and even remarkable time travel story, which not only takes place in the 1920s but almost feels as if it was written and filmed back then, had such evocative color cinematography been available.  See it if you'd like a compelling introduction to what time travel could be, or the sense of wonder you had when you encountered your first time travel story at 12 years of age.

Other reviews of off-the-beaten-track recent time travel movies: 95ers: Time Runners: Original and Entertaining and I'll Follow You Down: Excellent Time Travel Movie

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"one of those extremely rare sequels that end up better than its predecessor ... worthy of the title, blockbuster, if this were a movie ... by far the best time travel story I've ever read" - Scott Sandridge, SpecMusicMuse 




"resonates with the current political climate . . . . heroine Sierra Waters is sexy as hell . . . . there's a bite to Levinson's wit" - Brian Charles Clark, Curled Up With A Good Book

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And The Chronology Protection Case movie


podcast review of Dimensions and two other time travel movies