Roy Orbison :: Pretty Woman

[postlink]http://yoursoundtrackfilm.blogspot.com/2012/02/roy-orbison-pretty-woman.html[/postlink]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-pkqjmzVPoendofvid
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Oh, Pretty Woman

Riff 1:                               Riff 2:

E|-----------------------             E|-------------------------|
B|-----------------------             B|-------------------------|
G|-----------------------             G|-------------------------|
D|-----------0----------- 2x          D|-------------0--4--2--0--| 4x
A|---------2-------------             A|----------2--------------|
E|-0--0--4---------------             E|-0--0--4-----------------|


           A              F#m              A                        F#m
V.1 Pretty Woman, walking down the street, Pretty Woman, the kind I like to


             D                E                                 
meet, Pretty woman, I don't believe you your not the truth, no one could 


look as good as you


(riff 2):


       A                F#m               A                 F#m
Pretty woman, won't you pardon me, Pretty woman, I couldn't help but see,


       D                 E           
Pretty woman, you look lovely as can be, are you lonely just like me?


(Riff 2):


Dm            G7            C             Am            Dm            G7
Pretty woman, stop a while, Pretty woman, talk a while, Pretty woman, give 


             C Am Dm            G7              C            Am
your smile to me. Pretty woman, yeah,yeah,yeah, Pretty woman look my way,


Dm            G7                   C  A           F#m     D 
Pretty woman, say you'll stay with me-eee, Coz' I need you, I'll treat you 


E     A             F#m  D        E
right. Come with me baby, be mine tonight. (riff 2 play during "tonight"):


       A            F#m                A            F#m          
Pretty woman, don't walk on by, Pretty woman, don't make me cry, Pretty 


D            E
woman, don't walk away, hey, okay, if that's the way it must be okay.


I guess I go on home, it's late, there'll be tommorrow night but wait 


(pause)


What do I see? (riff 1) 2x (Riff 2) 10x (during the rest of the song)


Is she walking back to me? Yeah, shes walking back to me. Oh, Oh Pretty 


A A
Woman


*http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/r/roy_orbison/pretty_woman_ver3_crd.htm


Storyline, The Misfortunates (Belgium, 2009):


What is it about Belgian Directors? They manage to make films which are about working-class people, full of hard knocks and everyday misery... and yet, not only is there a joie de vivre between the lines, but sweetness and fun. The Misfortunates reminds me very much of the kind of films by the Frères Dardenne...La Promesse, Le Fils... sort of like Ken Loach, but without the total grimness of his vision. 

The story is told from the point of view of a young man remembering his time as a thirteen-year-old... at the point where he is taken away from his family because of the degrading environment. I'm not going to go into a description of the film... simply to say that in all the films mentioned above, what shines out especially are the incredibly realistic performances...you totally forget that these are actors, and you learn something about the way "the other half lives", which may horrify you or disgust you, but somewhere in all that, their humanity wins you over. I find this to be a particularly Belgian trait...I can't think of any serious French films that have this capacity for realism, grittiness and humanity. And the ability to make you like something about all the characters, no matter how objectionable they might be for the most part. And of course, these days, there is nothing comparable coming from America, where everything is formulaic. (The closest I've seen to this kind of realism recently in American film is Winters Bone... which comes close but is too manufactured to work on a deeper level). The Misfortunates is not to be missed. by klc-16, France

The Misfortunates was a 2009 release at Cannes, and it is based on a novel by Dimitri Verhulst. It is a startling, rowdy piece that wedges in more authenticity and excitement than most American releases we see at the multiplexes. It's a coming-of-age story that works, because the people involved feel connected to the material. In other words, director Felix Van Groeningen has made a film that isn't just entertaining; it's genuine, as well. He avoids simplifying the tone of his work, and the result is an engaging but often shocking experience.

The plot revolves around Gunther Strobbe (played in his younger years by Kenneth Vanbaeden, and Valentijn Dhaenens as an adult). Instead of intently studying Gunther as a character, the story investigates his environment and, most importantly, his family. Within the first few minutes of the film, the audience is made aware of the bizarreness they are about to be a part of. In a scene involving some drunken cross-dressing, Groeningen uses jump-cuts and seemingly random splices of black-and-white footage. The ideas explored in the picture are disorienting, so the storytelling is equally unusual.

The energy of the introductory scenes is maintained throughout, and that is one of the biggest strong points in this film. The philosophy of the Strobbes is sometimes sickening, but there is enough sweetness and humanity to connect with the audience. The family draws a parallel between their history and Roy Orbison's career; when Orbison has a musical comeback, it is a sign that there are great things to come for the Strobbes.

For every offbeat nostalgic moment, there are five that depict alcohol abuse and sexual depravity. This isn't a one-dimensional portrait, and Groeningen uses the pleasant elements of the movie to ease into the uglier ones. In one offsetting scene, Gunther's father orders him to expose his penis to prove that he is indeed his son. Later on in the film, the protagonist's brother tells him that "real life starts once you have a good f--k." This is an unflinching examination of a group of people, and that's what makes it special and effective. The plot is difficult to summarize, because this isn't a film that is based around formulaic storytelling. It's a series of extreme events that brought one character from boyhood into adulthood.

Groeningen has made a beautiful film. Not "beautiful" in the sense that it's warm and inviting and pretty. It's evocative and sharply photographed and true. It's sometimes difficult to look at, but it's even more difficult to turn away. by Costigan_Corleone_Bickle, Canada 

A struggling author, Gunther, is seen as the story begins. Like most writers, he is trying to put into a book his experiences. Gunther's childhood was a traumatic experience. Growing up in a small Belgian town, he was surrounded by male figures during his formative years. His mother was absent and had no input in his upbringing. So Gunther has to rely on his loutish father and uncles for role models, that in a way, marked his life forever. The only female during those formative years were his grandmother, Meetje, who had no vote in whatever was important for the boy, or his future.

Gunther was not a model student. Part of the problem was his inner conflict in which his family interfered in the way others saw him. Gunther is rejected by the only boy, Franky, that ever showed a semblance of being a true friend. Franky's father, decided his son didn't need a bad influence in his life, so the two became distant, as the worlds they both came from.

Being at the center of a hard drinking family also was a factor in Gunther's development. He saw his own father and uncles go to binges of drinking that rendered them useless. As Gunther gets older his relationship with a young woman is threatened when she becomes pregnant and he doesn't want her to have the baby. Gunther's, as a writer, experiences the rejection from publishers until a Dutch editor sees the merit of his life experiences in the novels he goes to write. The arrival of the baby soften Gunther's soul and then becomes the man he always wanted to be.

We were pleasantly surprised by what director Felix Van Groeningen was able to achieve with this film. He contributed to the screenplay in collaboration with Christophe Dirickx and Dimitri Verhulst. The Belgian cinema offers a different mixture of original ideas, that in the hands of the creator of this film, gives audiences a peek into a different way to present stories that capture the viewer's imagination.

Never saw Kenneth Vanbaeden, the young actor who plays Gunther as a young man. He reminds us of a young Ricky Schroeder when he was a child star in the American cinema. Mr. Vanbaeden is a natural; he gives an effortless performance as the child that grows without guidance and who owes everything he became to his grandmother's wishes to separate him from an alcoholic father and uncles that were leading him to a life of binging and perpetual drunkenness. Valentin Dhaenens is fine as the older Gunther. Koen De Graeve, an actor we admired in "Loft" plays Celle, the father that lives in a constant fog, neglecting his son. Gilda De Bal is effective as Meetje. The supporting cast is excellent.

Ruben Impens photographed the small Belgian town in all its drabness. The incidental music is by Jef Neve. We look forward to the next project of director Felix Van Groeningen, a talented voice from that part of the world with a lot to say. by jotix100, New York

I know one shouldn't mix reviews with personal experiences, but when watching this film I couldn't help but constantly remember an anecdote that happened to me one New Year's morning in Brussels: trying to cure my party hangover with some friends in a bar, we observed a guy trying to cross the street with a crate of beer. Now the streets were all frozen over and the king had advised in his New Year's address to stay at home. Plus the roads in Brussels are caved in by traffic. So the weight of the crate kept the guy sliding towards the middle of the street. He could make it to either side without, but not with the crate. Nevertheless, he kept trying for over an hour to pull, shove or otherwise move the crate from where it was stuck - until he found the ingenious solution: He drank six bottles of beer on the spot, thereby sufficiently reducing the weight to pull the crate over - only that he got so drunk and spaced out in the process that he slipped and broke all of the bottles, so his whole effort came to naught.

This little story has nothing and everything to do with 'Misfortunates' which is chock full of incidents like this one. And as abundant films about losers and social misfits may be in Belgian/ Dutch cinema (like Aaltra, The Sexual Life of Belgians, Flodders, Spetters), this one takes the cake in every respect: the autobiographical story is perfectly adapted and wonderfully played. Its provides tons of utterly irrelevant, but amusing add-ons like when the Strubbes invite themselves over to an exiled Iranian couple to force them into watching a Roy Orbison concert because their TV's been repossessed. Like in my little story, one cannot help but somewhat admire the persistence of the Strubbe family to make their lives as dysfunctional as humanly possible, while one cannot ignore the destructiveness of it all.

If you like painfully real social dramedy, this one is for you; if your threshold for witnessing the lower recesses of human behavior isn't very high, you're likely to find 'Misfortunates' an extremely tasteless affair. by Radu-A

*http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1075110/reviews

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