We rented Beyond the Sea tonight - what an absolutely terrific movie! [Warning about this link if you are at work -- the music plays automatically.] A labour of love by Kevin Spacey, who looked and sounded and acted and danced remarkably like Bobby Darin. Not only that, but the movie was done in such an original way for a biopic, while showing reverence for all of the movie-musical-biography traditions -- big song-and-dance numbers, the loving ethnic childhood, the excentric family, the troubled yet ultimately loving marriage, the virtually invisible children, the final breakthrough concert followed by the sad death scene. This movie had it all, plus some great music.
The one song I missed hearing was It Ain't Necessarily So. Then I started thinking about the lyrics, and realized that under the new "religious correctness" these days, there is no way a filmmaker would risk picketing by the Christian Right by having a lead character sing lyrics like this:
"It ain't necessarily so.
It ain't necessarily so.
The things that your liable
to read in the bible
ain't necessarily so . . .
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
But who calls that livin'
When no gal will give in
To no man that's nine hundred years? . . . "
Anyway, if you like Bobby Darin's music, rent this DVD.
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