By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Not in my name: another Chris Doyle's gay karaoke (plus Chris Doyle)
Two Chris Doyles, and at least one’s a genius. First up, In Ottawa, Bradley Turcotte of Capital Xtra reports on some Canadian Idols: “Dog & Pony’s song “bible” lists tunes as varied as the Jackass soundtrack and Disney standards. The bible also outlines karaoke tips and techniques to aid the singer, so your voice is the only way you’ll be made into a fool. Owner and operator Christopher Doyle is the “Dog” in their company name while his wife, Danni, is the “Pony.” “I’m the dirty dog who gets to ride the pony,” Doyle chuckles.” But what of the genius? Yes, cinematographer Christopher Doyle is doing the journo crawl and dog-and-pony drinks show once more, this time with Mathew Scott from The Australian: “It’s 5.30 on a Saturday afternoon, but acclaimed Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle, a self-confessed “madman”, enters the Hong Kong Fringe Club looking as if he has only just greeted the day. He is wearing crushed cotton shorts, a loose, grubby T-shirt and running shoes. His hair is a wild mop and his fingernails look as though he has not been hitting the tiles but scraping them clean. He orders a beer,
which he will hold on to for the next two hours as we go from the Fringe Club to a 40-minute photo shoot in a neighbouring suburb and back into town, where we part company at another bar… He can be an outrageous haam sup, the local slang for pervert, as the photographer’s young female assistants try to get him into position for the shoot and he threatens to pull down his shorts. “It’s all part of my game, isn’t it?” says the 54-year-old. “I won’t change who I am or how I am. It’s like when I work with directors either here or in the States. They know I am a madman, but for that period of time I’m their fucking madman.” And of why he and Wong Kar-wai have done so well over their history? “All great partnerships work this way, whether it be in the bedroom or on the film set. You don’t give a shit about that person’s faults if you know what you have is special.” But Doyle, as always, is unafraid of assailing what he finds less than special. “”Look, I could go on for about eight hours about Lost in Translation. [Coppola] took a nation and shat on it. The way it presents this American world view is perhaps the most insulting thing I have ever seen. Where is the humour in presenting Japan as a nation of freaks? And then you have Memoirs of a Geisha, a film basically put together by a speech coach… Why not try to give people something real?”