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Pennies In Heaven

I don’t do these kinds of appreciations with any consistency, but I was reminiscing just the other day about one of my favorite piece of weird television, the British miniseries, “Pennies From Heaven,” which starred the wonderful character actor, Bob Hoskins, and here I see Hoskins is has ascended to the source of pennies. Though […]
Hoskins Campbell

I don’t do these kinds of appreciations with any consistency, but I was reminiscing just the other day about one of my favorite piece of weird television, the British miniseries, “Pennies From Heaven,” which starred the wonderful character actor, Bob Hoskins, and here I see Hoskins is has ascended to the source of pennies.

Though the movie, with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters, is also very good, the series is something truly special, a meditation on art and life, on how art – in particular, the popular songs of the 1930s – elevates us out of our lives, and, in so doing, can destroy us. It’s some of the saddest television you’ll ever see, and sadness – not the same thing as depression or pain – is an emotion our culture is no longer particularly attuned to. Pile on a whole series of astonishing performances, an incredibly faithful attention to period detail, and the insane formal inventiveness of making the whole thing a lip-synched musical, and you see why I love it so much.

Everyone’s going to be talking about “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” which was a whole lot of fun, but when I remember Hoskins, it’s as Arthur, the dreaming and hopelessly outmatched music hawker of “Pennies From Heaven.”

Check it out, and remember him yourselves.

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