#20 - Sliding Doors

“If only I could turn back time, if only I had said what I still had. If only I could turn back time, I would stay for the night. For the night.”

It’s Monday night and I’ve just watched half of the Keanu Reeves sort-of-comedy, Good Fortune. No time to watch it all as it’s 10pm and… god, it’s hard trying to fit anything into an evening when you have kids. Some days we’ll barely manage 10 minutes of a TV show, so a film was pushing the boat out. Anyway, I’m sitting there as Keanu and his small wings are paused on the iPad, and I can’t get the lyrics to Aqua’s Turn Back Time out of my head. You know, the band that did Barbie Girl but also managed to release this classic bit of 90’s music.

“If only I could turn back time, if only I had said what I still had. If only I could turn back time, I would stay for the night. For the night.”

A few nights previous we’d watched Sliding Doors, the rather of-its-time romantic drama (Romdram? Drom? Romama?). Having been in scrolling hell for about 10 minutes, cycling through what was on offer on Netflix and Prime, my wife reading out each film title as she went, I heard “Sliding Doors” and took the path of least resistance. We’d seen it before, but not for ages, and it was surely going to be better than whatever budget, lifeless romcom Netflix had served up.

Issues with the film aside (The whole thing is hard to believe given Gwyneth Paltrow’s character’s boyfriend looks like he stepped out of a recording of Channel 4’s 90s variety show The Word, who then cheats on her with Jeanne Tripplehorn - maybe this film is really about this man’s obvious dream world he’s created?) you can’t deny how catchy the attached Aqua song is. This was a time (late 90s) when all films seemed to have a big song, and the music video would incorporate scenes into it, to act as a sort of trailer.

But this is really getting us away from the point of this week’s newsletter. You see, despite the fact I’d been merrily humming and half singing Turn Back Time by Aqua for days, that night at 10pm having watched roughly half of Good Fortune, I sat up in bed shocked.

“Was that song even in the film?!” I blurted out to my wife, a mild panic in the air, the kind you feel when entering the supermarket and realising you forgot the bag for life.

“In Sliding Doors, you know the song, the main song… did you hear it?”

“No, I don’t think so,” my wife replies while trying to get a moment’s peace with her Kindle.

My brain whirrs into action. I play back the film in my mind, wondering if I heard it. I don’t remember it. You’d think I’d remember it.

My wife disappears to avoid further questions as I head deep into a conspiracy hole instead of getting ready for bed. First I check that the song was indeed from the film. I head to YouTube, and there it is, complete with scenes from the movie. I’m slightly relieved, but not closer to finding the truth.

I Google loads of different terms to see if anyone else has mentioned this online, but the results are so full of AI bullshit that it’s impossible to know - I could start a conversation with the AI to get more information, but fuck that. I do read that the song is apparently played over the end credits, so that’s my next move.

I fire up Netflix on my phone, start the film, and skip straight to the credits. As they begin to scroll a song from the final scene continues to play (Patty Larkin's 'Tenderness On The Block'" FYI) but this isn’t Aqua. Then another song starts, but that’s from Dido. I skip until the end and it’s still Dido, but I see Turn Back Time by Aqua in the music section of the credits. I feel like I’m being gaslit.

My wife returns and asks what I’ve been up to.

“I’ve got a bit carried away with this Sliding Doors thing,” I reply. “I just watched the credits again and it’s not played.”

I feel like I’m onto something.

“This will probably be this week’s newsletter,” I say to her, realising how sad I sound.

Thankfully she’s already asleep, presumably having sensed the complete nonsense that was happening. But I’m sure she’d have been pleased to know I had a topic in mind.

Despite Google largely being rubbish, it did unearth some info on how many films and TV shows that headed to streaming long after release did so with some music removed. My exposé has now turned into more of a rambling tale, but it’s interesting, no?

Apparently an episode of Scrubs replaces a use of U2’s Beautiful Day with some random royalty free music, which completely changes the tone of the scene. At one point, Teen angst show Dawson’s Creek had a completely different title song on streaming - imagine hearing that for the first time while expecting “I don’t wanna wait” to be belted out. Come to think of it, Skins, the British teen show set in Bristol, definitely suffered from this pretty badly. There have been campaigns to get this removed music restored, but not all have been successful.

So, it’s a known phenomena, but no one seems to know if it affected Sliding Doors. I was going to have to watch the film again.

I was in the midst of a terribly busy week of work, so it made perfect sense to spend way too long skip-watching the entire film again. Hit the fast-forward 10 seconds button, listen, hit it again, listen, repeat. At one point I managed to time it so I heard just the word “wanker” twice in succession, but not once did I hear Turn Back Time by Aqua. I checked the credits again, and it’s there. What a crock of shit this is!

In my mind this song and the film are one, together forever and one can’t exist without the other… and yet, here we are. This isn’t even a film I’m particularly fond of, but it has enraged me. Mainly because of the hours I spent looking into it.

What the fuck is wrong with me?!

I had no obvious video game segue planned here, but it does rather neatly fit with the whole death of physical media issue that’s been getting everyone riled up since Sony announced the end of discs from January 2028. Modern media is handled knowing that things will exist on platforms well into the future, but licensing music and brands (such as cars) has and will always be a problem. Without a fully playable original physical copy available for future games, we may well find ourselves noticing music being AWOL and wishing we could turn back time.

This newsletter isn’t entirely about video games - in fact, this one was about my frenzied need to find out if my memory was playing tricks on me. I’ll have a think about some other bits and pieces and round them up in the quick reviews below. I’m a critic, too, you see.

Things I can review:

• Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (BBC iPlayer): I love this film. For me, this tale of a disgruntled radio DJ who takes hostages at a radio station is easily one of the best comedies of the last 20 years. The jokes come thick and fast, with rarely a moment of calm. It’s cringe viewing, but cringe viewing at its best. 5 annoyed farmers out of 5 box-damaged Chocolate Oranges.
• Egg sandwiches (my kitchen): Listen, I know I’ve reviewed these before, but I had to include them again. My neighbour keeps two chickens (I can hear them right now, clucking away), and she kindly offered to give us a box of eggs. We happily accepted, so I made egg sandwiches for lunch on Tuesday, and they were amazing. Clearly those chickens are living a good life. Eggcellent stuff! 5 delicious bites out of 5 textural delights. (Note: I still do not approve of salad cream. It’s disgusting. Mayo only, please.)
• Mario Kart Monopoly (Toy shops): We got this out for the first time in years now my youngest is just about old enough to play. I simply didn’t remember how brutal and frustrating it is, perfectly capturing the feel of video game Mario Kart as you repeatedly get shelled into oblivion. Oh well, daughter, you live and and learn! 5 green shells out of 5 lost coins.