They are on the train! It only took, what… seven chapters before anybody got on a train? Originally I had Jamie getting on a train at the end of Chapter Five, but then I changed a bunch of stuff.
In my line of work, which involves a lot of sitting at a desk drawing tiny lines over and over, it can help to watch movies to break the monotony of the less-exciting aspects of drawing comics all day, every day. They have to be a certain kind of movie though – absolutely no subtitles (you can’t read while drawing), preferably not too much visual plot-furthering that requires you watch a bunch of silent stuff happen for ten straight minutes in order to know what’s going on, and also it helps if you can understand what the people are saying so you don’t have to try to read their lips (once again, hard to do while drawing).
This week I’ve been on a Cillian Murphy kick because besides being a ridiculously good-looking dude, he is also an incredible actor (and the Irish accent, in the movies where he has it… automatic swoon for all American ladies, I think). So right now I’ll review three Cillian Murphy movies I watched this week based on their ability to be enjoyed while simultaneously drawing.
Disco Pigs (2001)
This movie is INSANE! Not only is it about two insane people (one of whom is naturally played by Cillian Murphy) but the plot itself is totally wacky. From what I’ve read, the movie script was adapted from the script of a play by the same name, with the same part of Pig played by Cillian Murphy for the stage as well as the screen.
The movie’s about two friends born hours apart in the same hospital who have a disturbingly codependent relationship since birth and who live next door to each other. As they enter their seventeenth year, the boy (Pig) realizes he is sexually attracted to the girl (Runt) and things start getting creepy, especially as Runt begins to realize there are people to meet and friendships to forge outside of the bond she shares with Pig.
As far as drawability, this movie sucks balls. Not only do Pig and Runt speak in a nearly unintelligible Cork accent, they also speak in a weird baby-talk dialect of their own creation. The combination of these two aspects of their speech make it sound most of the time like they (especially Pig) sound like drunk Rastafarian children. The following clip is not for children:
I don’t know what he just said but I know it was fucking filthy.
So not only is much of the language completely unintelligible, but a great chunk of the movie is told through visual elements that you really need to keep your eye on. All in all, if you’re going to watch one Cillian Murphy movie while drawing, DO NOT MAKE IT THIS ONE.
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
In this one, Cillian Murphy plays the super hot 70′s era main character of indeterminate gender, Patrick “Kitten” Braden, who is also known as Patty or just Kitten depending on the circumstances. The movie’s mostly just the story of Patrick/Kitten from birth until present day, which I’m guessing is mid-20′s, where through a complicated and amusing turn of events, s/he is being accused of setting off an IRA bomb in a bar. We also learn of Patrick/Kitten’s origins as an orphaned baby left on the doorstep of a priest and raised by a foster mother who clearly hated him/her. There is much fabulousness throughout the film from Patrick/Kitten, despite whatever troubles s/he encounters in life and in love.
For some reason, it’s nearly impossible to find a good scene on YouTube, so this trailer which really doesn’t explain much will have to do (I can forgive it for its inclusion of a T-Rex song):
This is a pretty good movie, especially if you are like me and are attracted to movies about gender variant people, Irish accents that are understandable, 70′s glam rock, and anything to do with the Ireland/North Ireland/English conflict (which has interested me ever since someone told me that being part Irish and part English, which I am, is some kind of paradox or oxymoron).
Overall, I had a pretty easy time understanding what was going on without looking up too much, so I’d say if you are trying to draw while watching a Cillian Murphy movie, you could certainly do so while watching Breakfast on Pluto.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
This is one of the rarest kinds of Cillian Murphy movies in which he does not play someone who is in any way out of the ordinary, be it a psychotic murderer, zombie killer, or fabulous gender variant individual. In this one he’s a doctor in rural Ireland, circa 1920, whose brother is in the IRA. He is about to go be a doctor in England when he witnesses a few acts of horrific violence inflicted on his fellow Irishmen by the British army and decides he will instead stay home and fight for Irish independence from Britain.
This is a pretty typical period-piece type movie about a big important war, specifically taking the thing people always say about civil war being “brother against brother” completely literally by making a movie about two brothers working together, but eventually pitted against one another, during the Irish Civil War. It’s definitely a good movie if you like those kinds of movies (I do) and most especially if you have a specific interest in either the Irish War of Independence or the Irish Civil War (I do).
As far as drawability goes, this one is somewhere in between Breakfast on Pluto and Disco Pigs. If you have an interest in the subject matter, definitely try and watch it while drawing. Some of the accents are difficult to parse, but for the most part are pretty understandable. Some of the action requires extended watching-without-looking-down, which makes it hard to draw, but most of the movie you should be okay just drawing while only occasionally looking up.
So in order of drawability, with #1 being the best and #3 being the worst, here are your top Cillian Murphy Movies to Watch While Drawing:
1) Breakfast on Pluto
2) The Wind That Shakes the Barley
3) Disco Pigs
Of course, this is just of the three that I watched this week. I didn’t include any of the others I’ve seen, but I may do another review going over some other movies at some other point in the future.
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Ha, yeah, I tend to watch crap movies I don’t care about while I draw, otherwise my pen dries out while I stare, gape mouthed at the screen. Or I’ll feel like I missed out on too much of the movie, and want to watch it again.
That breakfast on pluto looks really interesting and would probably grab my attention too much. Gender benders! Yeah! We were just watching Mark Bolan videos on YouTube the other day. I wish I looked like a boy when I wore makeup.
Oh man, yeah if you like gender-bending and Mark Bolan then you DEFINITELY should watch Breakfast on Pluto. The only way I’d ever even heard of it is Zane brought it home for me from some $10 DVD bin and said “Hey it’s got that guy in it and he’s a drag queen or something! It’s like the perfect movie for you!”
I too know the pain of wishing makeup looked as awesome on me as it does on certain dudes. Instead it just makes me look more like a woman than I already do, which is totally boring.