depression Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Film Clips: Of Heath Ledger and the Autopsy Report
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy », Columns », Film Clips »
Jeff Wells has stirred up a sh*tstorm of controversy over on Hollywood Elsewhere with a post about the Heath Ledger autopsy report. In a post bluntly titled, "Heath did it to himself," Wells says, in part:New York's medical examiner report was predictably dry and succinct and non-judgmental, but the implication is that Heath Ledger didn't care to calculate or remember which prescription drugs he'd taken, much less assess their combined effect upon his body. You can say "accident" over and over but the blunt answer is that Heath did it to himself. Like I wrote the day he died. A tree didn't fall on him. Actions have consequences.
The post has generated the predictable array of comments, from the sympathetic to the angry to the truly asinine. Which all goes to show, if nothing else, the impact the death of a celebrity can have on people who never even knew him. Of course, with the release of the autopsy report today, no matter which way it came down, people were going to make judgments and jump to conclusions they shouldn't be jumping to. It's easy to judge Ledger, even if his death by overdose was accidental, because he should have known better, right? It's easy to look at what we (think we) know of his life and say, hell, the guy had everything going for him, what the f*ck? That's what most everyone was saying around Park City on the afternoon of January 22, as we all got out of press screenings to the news of his death. Shock. Profound sadness. Disbelief. Vehement indignation and anger, even.
Review: The Flying Scotsman
Filed under: Drama », Sports », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
There's something vaguely shameful but comforting about a cliché sports film. It's like putting on the cozy track pants you keep around for TV night: You're not sure you'd want someone else to witness your enjoyment, but man, it feels welcome and right. Based on the true story of Graeme Obree – a Scottish amateur cyclist who broke several world records on a bike of his own design – The Flying Scotsman is actually two comfort-filled cozily cliché films in one: The inspirational sports tale and the inspirational triumph-over-mental-illness movie. And this makes it easy to make fun of The Flying Scotsman – I've been calling it "Good Will Biking," "A Beautiful Bike," even "Chariots of Bike" – but, again, you don't go to movies like this expecting them to be revelatory re-inventions; you go to see them to watch all the bases rounded, how the cast and crew enact all the expected moments.
The Flying Scotsman starts with a disheveled man riding a bike into mist-shrouded woods, then walking it through Scotland's meadows and fens and trees. It's, as we soon realize, a one-way trip; the rider hangs a noose from a tree and prepares to hang himself. And then we flash back – into the life of Graeme Obree (played by Johnny Lee Miller), and to the things that have led him to the woods, in the rain, to die. We see Graeme in happier days – or, at least, not-suicidal days. Obree's an amateur cyclist – and a good one. But he can't keep his bike shop open, and he's working as a courier to feed his family. One day, he meets a fellow courier, Malky (Billy Boyd) who seems to know all the angles; when Graeme introduces himself, Malky's matter-of-fact: "I know who you are; I follow cycling." It's a nice trick to establish Graeme for us, the audience – setting Graeme up as someone with a few minor records, a certain degree of renown.
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