What can we say about Barfly? A great picture. That's what we can say. A friend of mine recommended Barfly to me. I watched the start and it said "Some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must live!" After that I was hooked, I knew this guy Bukowski wrote from the gut. I bought as many Bukowski books as possible. Pulp, Hollywood, and Women (my favourite!). I like his novels and short stories more than the poetry. But some of the poems are intense! The movie is also excellent. The two leads are great-Faye Dunaway is in high acting form here. So is Mickey Roarke who seems to have gotten under Bukowski's skin for the role......a side note he did the movie sober! This movie is directed by Barbet Schroeder who also did Reversal of Fortune. He also made the 4 hour Charles Bukowski Tapes (which I own) and it is good, but way too long! Bukowski drinks and reads poems. Back to the film-good supporting actors in this one. The beautiful Alice Krige (from Haunted Summer) is in this as well as David Lynch regular Jack Nance. Lynch was actually on set one day. Bukowski has a funny cameo a barfly in the bar where Mickey meets Faye. I heard that Dennis Hopper wanted to direct this and have Sean Penn star. Schroeder fought hard for it though. Hopper states Schroeder couldn't direct traffic! I guess he proved him wrong. Schroeder went into a production office with a power saw and threatened to cut off his pinky finger if they didn't put more funding into the film. Obviously a labour of love. So check it out if you can, the writing is top notch stuff.......Highly recommended. Thanx.
