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Favorite Things

Rain

Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) in The X-Files Pilot (1993).

Rain appeals to my melancholic inclination, and makes me think of many things I love: seeking refuge from the storm in The Old Dark House; sheltering at the Rashōmon city gate to stay dry; the debate on the Declaration of Independence in 1776; seeking refuge from a different storm in The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Roy Batty’s last words in Blade Runner; Billy Kinetta’s revelation in “Paladin of the Last Hour”; Claudia comforting Lisa in the aptly titled “A Rainy Night”; the smell of a Labrador having shaken the rain off her fur; Rob McKenna in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; the pelting of Collinwood (and/or the Old House) in Dark Shadows; Mulder and Scully at any given moment in the first five years of The X-Files; Charles and Tommy’s talk in Four Weddings and a Funeral; Andy Dufresne’s freedom in The Shawshank Redemption; my first two rain-soaked short stories, “After the Fall” and “Last Night”; Billy Shipton’s last hour in “Blink”; and others that aren’t coming to mind.

Charles (Hugh Grant) and Tom (James Fleet) in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

I used to love the rain, and it saddened me that I lived in place where it doesn’t happen as frequently as I’d like. But now, when it does happen—as it’s happening right now—I worry about something completely out of my hands, a vestigial obligation of friendship that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. The once-pleasant melancholy inclines to inescapable despondency, and I wonder if a favorite has slipped away…

Blade Runner

The Criterion Collection #69.

I received my Laserdisc player as an early birthday present in November 1994. At least, that’s how I remember it.

Are memories to be trusted?

Are they real?

Circa 1987, Criterion released the international theatrical cut of Blade Runner on Laserdisc, a version without any unicorn dreams or nagging ambiguity.

Because I bought the LaserDisc the week of Christmas, Blade Runner (1982) became my Christmas Eve movie. The DVD of the Director’s Cut supplanted the LaserDisc at the turn of the millennium and was succeeded by the Final Cut on Blu-ray and 4K. I missed a few years early on, when family gatherings in far away places robbed me of the necessary technology, but there’ve been no years without Deckard since I left home.

Rachael (Sean Young) in Blade Runner (1982).

It’s probably weird to spend Christmas Eve questioning the nature of humanity, or maybe not.

“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?”
Gaff

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Doctor Who (1963–89, 1996, 2005–)

Doctor Who is the most versatile and imaginative of television—or, perhaps, storytelling—formats ever devised.

“It all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard, and now it’s turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure, don’t you think?”

I. M. Foreman Scrap Merchant 76 Totter’s Lane Shoreditch, London UK

David Bowie (1947–2016)

David Bowie as Special Agent Phillip Jeffries is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). Photo by Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock

“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”
David Bowie (1947–2016)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) features the speech I delivered at each acting audition I attempted during my theatrical phase. It worked every time but once, and I suspect…that is I think…that there really wasn’t much acting, per se, to be done. The accent was the only bit of performance, and—not to blow my horn—it was terribly good, but to put it a slightly different way, those auditions felt like dropping the daily performance and being myself…which is odd, given that I have a last name and a job and am married, though not to anyone I met at a wedding, despite the apparent probabilities of that sort of thing.

Carrie (Andie McDowell) and Charles (Hugh Grant) in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

A Riddle

Riddle me this: What sounds like a Wolverine but looks like an ENigma?

Frank Gorshin (1933–2005), singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” in a Toluca Lake parking garage.

If you’d told me as a child that I’d pull into the lot of the Oakwood on Barham around 9am on 11 June 1999 in preparation for an internship at The X-Files and that the first human being I’d encounter in Los Angeles County would be the man who played the Riddler…I’d only care about the Riddler bit because none of the rest of it would make any sense to a child.

Even as an adult—in retrospect—I only really care about the Riddler bit. Having Frank Gorshin welcome you to L.A. with Rodgers & Hammerstein really sets a ridiculously high bar.

Frank Gorshin as the Riddler in Batman (1966–8).