Well, dear readers, the majority has spoken and they have spoken loudly, and so will keep our brand spanking new posting order the way it is. Some people started off not liking it, but by the end of yesterday, they had reversed themselves (no mean feat) and decided it was indeed fine and dandy and also dandy and fine. In fact, I was ready to change it back yesterday morning and had even spoken to Mr. Mark Bakalor about doing so, when I thought better of it and decided to wait a day or two. Well, thank goodness I did or I would have been hoisted on my own petard. Have you ever been hoisted on your own petard? I can’t imagine it would be comfortable, but I’m not certain of that fact because I have no idea what a fershluganah petard is. What in hell is a petard and how can you be hoisted on it? I mean, if I have a petard I damn well want to know about it, don’t you, dear readers? And do they have a machine that hoists? Certainly one can’t hoist one’s self, can one? Can two? In any case, I would have been hoisted on my own petard and that would have been heinous (heinous, do you hear me?). How long does one have to stay on one’s petard? Can one hoist one’s self off one’s petard any time they damn well feel like it, or is there a set time that one must remain on one’s petard? But enough about my petard.
I do hope that all you dear readers will be tuning into this week’s handy-dandy radio show to hear me pick twelve of my favorite showtunes. If you haven’t done so, do. If you have done so, do. Do, do, do (that is three dos), which is also a coprophiliac’s favorite Gershwin song).
Also, if you missed this weekend’s notes, you might want to catch up on them by using the handy-dandy Unseemly Archive Button, because there are many interesting tidbits and also regular-sized bits scattered about to and fro and fro and to and hither and thither and yon like fine fertilizer. Also, we have had no correct guesses in this week’s trivia contest. As those who were around on the weekend know, the original question became null and void when a dear reader inadvertently posted the answer to the site. So, I had to scurry about to find a substitute question, and I thought the substitute question was quite simple, but apparently it is not. You have until tonight to get in your handy-dandy guesses. I will be merciful and tell you that there is a clue buried in yesterday’s notes and/or posts.
I picked up several new DVDs over the weekend and I’ve watched a few, so let’s all click on that Unseemly Button to find out which I watched and before Mr. Mark Bakalor hoists us on our own collective petards.
I ended up not going to that Moderne antique show yesterday, because I was not feeling in a Moderne mood, and one must feel in a Moderne mood to attend a Moderne show. Otherwise there will be a clash of periods and we simply can’t have that, now can we? A clash of periods is unseemly, although not as unseemly as a clash of semi-colons. Now that is unseemly, a clash of semi-colons. What the hell am I talking about?
Yesterday, I began viewing the contents of the second Marilyn Monroe Box from Twentieth Century Fox. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, Twentieth Century Fox has put out a new box. This Fox box has more Marilyn movies, including Monkey Business, Niagra, River of No Return, Let’s Make Love and Don’t Bother to Knock. For my first film from the second Fox box I chose to watch Let’s Make Love. I saw Let’s Make Love at the Fox Wilshire theater when it was first released, and I remember enjoying it, but said memory is clouded by the fact that there was a sneak preview playing with it, Come Dance With Me starring Brigitte Bardot. And that film is more etched in my memory for various reasons. In any case, I have tried to watch Let’s Make Love over the years and I haven’t been able to get through it. One of the reasons was it was usually on television and was always a pan and scan version of the Cinemascope film. I just couldn’t get with it. So, imagine my surprise to find out just what a delightful film Let’s Make Love is. Certainly underrated by most, from what I’ve read on the internet. Part of the problem with the film is that it goes on for fifteen or twenty minutes too long. Shorter would definitely be better for this film. But there are some marvelous moments throughout, three great cameos, the first of which had me howling with laughter. The story is, of course, contrived, but there are many laughs throughout, Mr. George Cukor’s direction is very stylish (especially the musical numbers) and the cast is excellent, including the star, Mr. Yves Montand, and Tony Randall, the brilliant Wilfred Hyde-White, and even Joe Besser. The only real misfire in the whole movie is Frankie Vaughan, who was a British pop singer, and who is just not screen-friendly. Miss Marilyn Monroe is wonderful in this film – stunningly beautiful, funny, rueful – and her musical numbers are a total delight.
Then I put the Fox box aside and watched a brand spanking movie from last year, Mr. Alejandro Amenabar’s The Others. I had enjoyed Mr. Amenabar’s Open Your Eyes (from whence came Vanilla Sky), so was looking forward to this film. It’s very much in the style of Mr. Robert Wise’s The Haunting – in other words, it’s pretty much what you don’t see that is scary, not what you do see. I much prefer that approach to the ham chunk-fisted approach of Mr. Jan de Bont’s retelling of The Haunting, where the whole affair becomes about the special effects. In fact, other than digital fog and some subtle photographic effects, there are no special effects in The Others. It’s creepy, and very stylishly directed (not in the show-off way of most of today’s directors) with a terrific score, which is also by Mr. Amenabar who, by the way, is only twenty-eight years old. The cast is really excellent, especially the two kids, and Fionulla Flanagan. However, the whole thing doesn’t really add up to much – it’s really just an extended Twilight Zone, and I found it very predictable. But it’s all so well done that I’d recommend it anyway.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? I’ll have more to report as the week goes on, as I’ve yet to watch the new DVDs of Mr. Louis Malle’s wonderful Atlantic City, the rest of the Fox box, and a handful of others. I did finish watching Expresso Bongo and was dismayed to realize they’d either cut or changed many of the songs from the stage version. Still and all, it’s a good film, with excellent performances all around, and looks great in its black and white Cinemascope transfer.
I just walked in the other room to make certain I’d spelled Mr. Amenabar’s name correctly. As I leaned over to look at the DVD case, a tremendously annoying sharp pain shot through my lower back. Why? From bending over? That is so annoying, a sharp pain in the lower back for no reason whatsoever. And now, I have a hovering pain in my lower back that will not go away. This is what happens when you get older. You get sharp pains out of nowhere, you begin to fall down, you drool at the most unseemly times, you can’t remember anything, you make awful noises when you try to get out of bed in the morning, you make awful noises when you get into bed, you get heartburn and your whole body begins to droop like so much fish. In fact, if these notes don’t appear one fine day, please send someone to my home, as I will invariably be lying on the floor, writhing in agony, unable to move, hoisted on my own petard.
Yesterday, one of our dear readers who was listening to our radio show, remembered something from one of the One From Column A columns – where I’d been asked what I felt a good song was. He sent me what I’d written back then, and I thought I’d share it with you now.
To me, a good song is a song with a perfect meld of music and words; music that takes me places, that gets to me emotionally, whose harmonic structure connects with me, whose form works for what the song is trying to say and whose notes lay perfectly on the words. Obviously, songs fall into many categories. Pop songs, art songs, theater songs, opera arias, etc. And what makes a pop song good wouldn’t necessarily make a theater song good. So you see how tough the question really is. For instance, there was a song written in the 70s which was sung by Art Garfunkel and which also had a recording by its author, Tim Moore. The song is entitled Second Avenue and the first time I heard it I fell in love with it. I thought it was a great song. But is it a great song? The lyric is sloppy, it has bad rhymes and the words don’t always sit on the music comfortably. The music, on the other hand, is pretty terrific. Somehow, the combination of those words on that music really connected with me. I couldn’t stop playing that song, couldn’t get that song out of my head for weeks. So, to me, that song achieved everything its author set out to achieve. If you compare it to a Sondheim song it becomes apparent that it’s not very good, isn’t sophisticated, isn’t clever and doesn’t have incredible wordplay, But so what? Sondheim songs are crafted for the musicals they are in, written for specific characters to sing. While I find Every Day A Little Death and The Road You Didn’t Take to be two of the finest songs ever written, I suspect that most non-theater lovers would just listen to them and think, “What is it, fish?”
Well, enough rambling, I must get up and greet the day, I must do the things I do, and I must try to get rid of this annoying pain in my lower back. Today’s topic of discussion: While doing the radio show on Saturday, I thought it would be fun if all you dear readers did what I had to do – choose twelve of your favorite showtunes, whether in original cast versions or cover versions. This is not as easy as it seems, as you’ll hear me discuss on the radio show. Just list the twelve – don’t tell us the reasons. Because what we are going to do is to choose, at random, a couple of your lists, and we are going make said lists the subject of a radio show, and we will be doing phone interviews to find out why you chose as you did. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Isn’t that the coolest? Of course it is, because we are cool, man, real cool. So, you know (or will know, if you listen in to the radio show) my choices – now it’s your turn.