Musical Mondays Week 51 The Rose

[SlidePocket 707]

After this movie, Bette Midler and director Mark Rydell would go on to reteam for another music-themed film, "For the Boys" from 1991 where she and James Caan play USO entertainers. If anyone's familiar with that, that could be a future candidate.

[PollyDarton 1807]

Re Rabbit: I just love it. It doesn’t always work so well, but watching movies with friends and cracking jokes is what I live for. I don’t actually find the chat distracting at all... I’m usually distracted by other things. 

 

But seriously... I fully support more Rabbiting with MM and maybe even the regular movies if anyone is ever interested. It’s just great and it’s super easy... everyone should join!

[gigi-tastic 2322]

So I am still BAFFLED by ... honestly so many things. But let's focus on my confusion about how her manager treats The Rose at the start.  She's begging for time off and he being such a greedy soul sucker even a Dementor would be like "Take it down a notch bud"  insists she can't take any time off at all. I get that they have a tour to do. But when a fucking REPORTER tells your star TO HER FACE she looks tired maybe you should get her some R & R. 

Even if you don't care she's a human being, you should care about your profits. She's your asset, and is essentially your main product. You don't want to have people coming to see her and being pissed she's barely able to perform and looks like a corpse from burn out.  That's how you get people demanding their money back, fans not buying tickets for the next show because word gets out she sucks,and venues canceling you. 

You also don't want her so fucking miserable she stars using heroin again (which they touched on lightly as being a former problem) or even more drugs from misery/ a need to stay amped for the show. 

If you absolutely must be a cold hearted opportunist, at least think of and treat Rose as a prized racehorse (though the way some horses are treated this is probably a bad analogy) or something else that must be given a lot of care to perform perfectly for you.  

Yes she's clearly a handful (and in desperate need of some kind of mental health  care for her intense mood swings and temper.) But if you treat her with some decency I bet you she wouldn't be so much to deal with. 

So maybe you don't give her a year off, maybe you say a month or two. Maybe you make sure she has as much calm as you and your team can manage on tour so she's not randomly SOBBING and wandering the streets all the time. Maybe you hire someone else to care for her as she clearly needs so you don't have to witness human emotions. I don't know. 

Maybe, just maybe it's a bad idea to be a soulless bastard. 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

So we can all agree she just died from sadness /a broken heart right? Or does a heroin od take that long to go in effect? Like can you wait for a helicopter, talk to your parents on the phone, ride in said helicopter, perform a number THEN die? 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

10 hours ago, PollyDarton said:

My guess is Mae West by the costume. 

I was thinking Veronica Lake for some odd reason

[tomspanks 9039]

3 hours ago, ol' eddy wrecks said:

Well, now you have my attention.

If you guys need an emotional palate cleanser, and haven't seen it yet, you lot could always try Dancer in the Dark. It should go down smoothly like a shot of Clorox.

You're evil!  

[gigi-tastic 2322]

6 hours ago, Cinco DeNio said:

Well-wriiten @grudlian. What’s even worse is the movie would have us believe the whole garage part was simply to get a picture of a picture and to leave another. Taken together all that might have taken, what, five minutes?

Also I couldn't understand if that was a memorial her parents had always had up or just threw together after she died and why it was in a garage of all places. If you want to have a memorial you would think it would be in a public place? If it's her family's special memorial why put it up out in the garage? Why not instead have it in their house? Also it would have actually had an effect if it had been Huston leaving a photo he maybe shot of her during the movie at the peak of their (week long? Month long? Who knows with this movie I was so confused by time) romance. 

Also THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A ROSE LEFT AT THAT MEMORIAL

[tomspanks 9039]

3 hours ago, ol' eddy wrecks said:

I am curious then, since I do have a couple of long distance friends, is the group watching experience kind of dependent upon being on something like a laptop, more-so than say an htpc, for actually interacting?

Back catalog HDTGM movies seems like the typing/commentary wouldn't be a big deal like, but having group chat off to the side for watching something more serious would be distracting, I'd imagine, right? Or, even a comedy where you do want to be engaging with the movie itself to a reasonable degree. 

Or do people leverage a voice chat while watching?

Well, do you and your long distance friends usually chat while watching movies?  Before rabbit came along, my friends and I often used gchat to watch movies together, so the commentary feature of rabbit worked well for us.  I actually think voice chat is more distracting.

[Cameron H. 23786]

1 hour ago, gigitastic said:

Also I couldn't understand if that was a memorial her parents had always had up or just threw together after she died and why it was in a garage of all places. If you want to have a memorial you would think it would be in a public place? If it's her family's special memorial why put it up out in the garage? Why not instead have it in their house? Also it would have actually had an effect if it had been Huston leaving a photo he maybe shot of her during the movie at the peak of their (week long? Month long? Who knows with this movie I was so confused by time) romance. 

Also THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A ROSE LEFT AT THAT MEMORIAL

No that wasn't the memorial, that was just her old hang out spot. It was essentially her version of Weezer's "In the Garage."

I'm not sure why it was in the garage, but I would assume it was either they didn't want all her cut outs on her bedroom wall, they didn't have a bedroom for her, or, in my mind the most likely, that's the space they set aside for her to do her music shit - which can get loud.

The people bookending the film are reporters chronicling her life. (I.e. "This is where it all started.."). The pictures on the wall show her idols - the people that had attained the adulation she craved. I didn't catch them all, but I definitely noticed James Dean which seems significant in a "live fast, did young" kind of way. The picture of her at the end suggests that she achieved her goal, but at a cost.

I think the saddest thing about that scene for me is the fact that her parents did leave her stuff up. Considering she seemed so keen to avoid them, it appears that regardless of how strained their relationship might have been, her parents never stopped loving and supporting her. 

 

 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

7 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

No that wasn't the memorial, that was just her old hang out spot. It was essentially her version of Weezer's "In the Garage."

I'm not sure why it was in the garage, but I would assume it was either they didn't want all her cut outs on her bedroom wall, they didn't have a bedroom for her, or, in my mind the most likely, that's the space they set aside for her to do her music shit - which can get loud.

The people bookending the film are reporters chronicling her life. (I.e. "This is where it all started.."). The pictures on the wall show her idols - the people that had attained the adulation she craved. I didn't catch them all, but I definitely noticed James Dean which seems significant in a "live fast, did young" kind of way. The picture of her at the end suggests that she achieved her goal, but at a cost.

I think the saddest thing about that scene for me is the fact that her parents did leave her stuff up. Considering she seemed so keen to avoid them, it appears that regardless of how strained their relationship might have been, her parents never stopped loving and supporting her. 

 

 

Ahhh that makes so much more sense. I was confused by the other photos and thought maybe people were comparing her to them? Idk I watched it on my phone. 

I definitely also was saddened by how clearly her parents still loved and cared for her.  They wanted to go to her show! I'm kind of fascinated by this though. You would think that Rose would be the way she is because she came from a neglectful home situation and she was forever trying to compensate for the lack of love and affection. She seemed absolutely desperate for love and affection. I'm sure people from good home situations also can feel that way but as someone with similar, if much less severe issues of craving love, acceptance, and validation, I know that I'm partly this way because of a slightly messed up home life. So it would make sense to me if her parents were maybe not the greatest but it feels very much like her parents love and support her. I feel like they might not understand her, but they clearly support her.

Also why didn't she want to see them at all? Was she ashamed of herself and didn't want them to see her falling apart? Which is a whole other level of sad. 

I'm also now remembering how much I love The Blue Album . 

[grudlian. 4725]

24 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

I think the saddest thing about that scene is the fact her parents did leave her stuff up. Considering she seemed so keen to avoid them, and regardless of how attained their relationship might have been, it appears her parents still never stopped loving and supporting her. 

 

 

I read the reason for her avoiding them, at least when they see them from the car, is thinking she'd be a disappointment. "They supported me and look at me. They are literally washing an American flag and I'm a coked out hippie. They don't need to see me like this." Since get basically nothing on their relationship, we can only speculate. Based on every other scene in the movie, it wouldn't have turned out great for Rose and there would be some screaming.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

Ok so when she talks about the football team thing am I wrong in thinking she was gang raped? Clearly that is what happened right?

My god this poor woman. This movie just constantly shits on her. I'm honestly surprised we don't see her beloved childhood pet run over.

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

9 hours ago, gigitastic said:

So we can all agree she just died from sadness /a broken heart right? Or does a heroin od take that long to go in effect? Like can you wait for a helicopter, talk to your parents on the phone, ride in said helicopter, perform a number THEN die? 

That and drugs. When she's looking for change in the phone booth, she gulps down about 8 pills, and we're to believe that she was strung out on top of that? And sure, she was sad on stage, but she was also completely high. It wasn't sadness that required her to be carried onto the stage or to be propped up by the bass player. 

To be fair, that's not what a heroin OD looks like ... you don't collapse from exhaustion. Too much heroin makes your brain forget to breathe because it's too flooded with dopamine, but by the time it kills you, you've probably been laying around for a while. Her body would have to metabolize the pills, so maybe that accounts for the delay. But a severe alcoholic and pill user, mixing heroin, helplessness, and melodrama -- toxic combo. 

 

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

9 hours ago, tomspanks said:

Well, do you and your long distance friends usually chat while watching movies?  Before rabbit came along, my friends and I often used gchat to watch movies together, so the commentary feature of rabbit worked well for us.  I actually think voice chat is more distracting.

Currently we don't. I watch movies with IRL friends. Hearing about rabb.it made me curious if that experience could be replicated or somewhat approximated with a couple long time long distance friends. Thinking about it, it's a technologically tough request if you want to both need able to hold side conversations and still engage with the movie being watched. 

And that's not even getting to the issue of, it'd probably be often with a movie I own with a local copy of, not something I'm streaming in a browser through a service.

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

26 minutes ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

But a severe alcoholic and pill user, mixing heroin, helplessness, and melodrama -- toxic combo.

Melodrama is a hell of a drug.

[grudlian. 4725]

1 hour ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

That and drugs. When she's looking for change in the phone booth, she gulps down about 8 pills, and we're to believe that she was strung out on top of that? And sure, she was sad on stage, but she was also completely high. It wasn't sadness that required her to be carried onto the stage or to be propped up by the bass player. 

To be fair, that's not what a heroin OD looks like ... you don't collapse from exhaustion. Too much heroin makes your brain forget to breathe because it's too flooded with dopamine, but by the time it kills you, you've probably been laying around for a while. Her body would have to metabolize the pills, so maybe that accounts for the delay. But a severe alcoholic and pill user, mixing heroin, helplessness, and melodrama -- toxic combo. 

 

This is what threw me off about her dying. She just collapses and I knew Joplin died from an OD. I don't know what pills Rose took. So, heart attack from pills, booze, exhaustion, stress of performing is possible. I guess death on stage is a more dramatic movie moment than shooting up alone in a hotel room. 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

2 hours ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

That and drugs. When she's looking for change in the phone booth, she gulps down about 8 pills, and we're to believe that she was strung out on top of that? And sure, she was sad on stage, but she was also completely high. It wasn't sadness that required her to be carried onto the stage or to be propped up by the bass player. 

To be fair, that's not what a heroin OD looks like ... you don't collapse from exhaustion. Too much heroin makes your brain forget to breathe because it's too flooded with dopamine, but by the time it kills you, you've probably been laying around for a while. Her body would have to metabolize the pills, so maybe that accounts for the delay. But a severe alcoholic and pill user, mixing heroin, helplessness, and melodrama -- toxic combo. 

 

Oh assumed it was an overdose of some kind but I was just surprised it took so long and she was able to do... anything on stage in her condition.

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

1 hour ago, grudlian. said:

This is what threw me off about her dying. She just collapses and I knew Joplin died from an OD. I don't know what pills Rose took. So, heart attack from pills, booze, exhaustion, stress of performing is possible. I guess death on stage is a more dramatic movie moment than shooting up alone in a hotel room. 

Wouldn't that have been a more fitting and less ironic death for Rose, though? She's at her lowest point, feeling like no one really loves and that she's all alone. A hotel room overdoes would be the epitome of her isolation. Instead, she dies in a moment where she is being adored and loved by thousands of fans from her own hometown ... she's the exact opposite of "alone" in that regard.

Roses wilt, and wilting is a slow and agonizing process ... they don't implode from rock n roll excess. 

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

4 minutes ago, gigitastic said:

Oh assumed it was an overdose of some kind but I was just surprised it took so long and she was able to do... anything on stage in her condition.

You've clearly never seen Joe Cocker perform 

[grudlian. 4725]

1 minute ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

Wouldn't that have been a more fitting and less ironic death for Rose, though? She's at her lowest point, feeling like no one really loves and that she's all alone. A hotel room overdoes would be the epitome of her isolation. Instead, she dies in a moment where she is being adored and loved by thousands of fans from her own hometown ... she's the exact opposite of "alone" in that regard.

Roses wilt, and wilting is a slow and agonizing process ... they don't implode from rock n roll excess. 

It depends on if you find being physically alone or being emotionally alone despite surrounded by people who adore you is more tragic. 

[Cameron H. 23786]

12 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

It depends on if you find being physically alone or being emotionally alone despite surrounded by people who adore you is more tragic. 

I agree. I think dying alone in a bedroom would have been a step too far for me. I mean, I can just imagine this slow pan out from her body on the floor. The movie is rough enough without that going on too...

At least the movie lets her go out in a somewhat triumphant fashion even if its no less tragic.

[tomspanks 9039]

32 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

It depends on if you find being physically alone or being emotionally alone despite surrounded by people who adore you is more tragic. 

See also (only grudlian click on this):

The Wrestler

[grudlian. 4725]

17 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

I agree. I think dying alone in a bedroom would have been a step too far for me. I mean, I can just imagine this slow pan out from her body on the floor. The movie is rough enough without that going on too...

At least the movie lets her go out in a somewhat triumphant fashion even if its no less tragic.

Or really hammer home the tragedy. Let her collapse...then show her OD... then no one attends her funeral... then, I don't know, the last shot is a dog peeing on her unkempt tombstone?

[grudlian. 4725]

5 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

See also (only grudlian click on this):

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The Wrestler

 

Oh I'm very familiar with this.

The ending was ambiguous! He could have lived, won the match, went back to the WWE, won a title belt at Wrestlemania, was accepted by his daughter, and became president of ther United States!

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

11 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

See also (only grudlian click on this):

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The Wrestler

 

 

10 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Or really hammer home the tragedy. Let her collapse...then show her OD... then no one attends her funeral... then, I don't know, the last shot is a dog peeing on her unkempt tombstone?

Or have it end like mother! Have Rose's adoring crowd rip her to shreds and then burn all of Jacksonville to the ground.

I think we've decided that what this movie needs is a Darren Aronofsky remake.