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August 7, 2002:

THE WHIZ

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am getting quite a late start this morning so I will have to whiz through these here notes. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, today I will be whizzing through these here notes. These here notes will resemble the film Speed in that they will whiz right along without any substance. I like the idea of notes that whiz right along, don’t you? I’m breathless already and we haven’t even begun whizzing along yet.

Last night I finally got around to watching a DVD, the newly released (as of yesterday) Time after Time, starring Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen and David Warner. Twenty years later it’s still a tremendously entertaining film with wonderful performances and some deft writing from writer/director Nicholas Meyer. The plot has a marvelous hook and there’s a lot of humor, too. Warner is brilliant, one of his best performances, and Malcolm and Mary are lovable. The writing really lets them down (M&M) in the last third – there are several terrible plot contrivances towards the end – someone should have spoken up loudly and made them fix them. I remember thinking it back then and I thought it even more now. The film still works despite them, however and it’s so much fun that you tend to forgive it. The DVD looks good – the transfer is very accurate to the way it looked on its release. In other words, this was a fairly low-budget film and this is what it’s always looked like. The sound is not so lucky – my memory of back then is that it was mono – here it’s 2.0 and sounds muffled and not well-mixed. The film has an absolutely wonderful Miklos Rozsa score and it’s still from a day when they weren’t doing wall-to-wall music in films, so the cues actually have power and drama in the film. If you love time-travel books and films as I do, I recommend this.

What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? I also briefly checked out the transfers on several other Warner titles. Them! looks fantastic and includes the colored lettering in the titles (the film is in black-and-white, but the word “Them!” in the titles is in red – very striking). The Swarm looks okay – I was a bit shocked to see that it runs an astonishing 155 minutes – I’ve never seen it, so I’ll watch it and have a full report for you. I do remember shooting something on the Warners lot when this film was in production, and I have a vivid memory of walking to the sound stage and seeing Miss Olivia de Havilland, who waved as I walked past her. Clash of the Titans looks fine, very grainy as its always been because it was not an expensive film and is loaded with opticals.

Has anyone noticed that these here notes are whizzing along? Frankly, or even Stevely, I have never seen such whizzing, notes-wise.

I had some lovely meetings yesterday and I am chomping at the bit to tell you about them, but I never talk of things until they are signed, sealed and delivered. But there are some exciting things in the works and if they all come to fruition it will be great. Why is “fruition” pronounced “frewishun” when “fruit” is pronounced “frewt”? Someone messed up and I think they should be flogged, don’t you? Flogged like Judge Turpin, is what I say.

Well, perhaps we should all click on the Unseemly Button below because we are whizzing along here and we don’t want to slow the pace down one single bit, do we?

Well, do you know what today is? Today is Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me your excellent questions. And tomorrow I shall answer them, dear readers, and I shall be forthright and also forthleft and perhaps even forthmiddle. It seems like only a moment ago when I was answering your excellent questions but that is because I had to answer last week’s excellent questions over the weekend.

The last time I saw notes that whizzed by as fast as this was when I looked at the sheet music to Flight of the Bumble Bee. I have unearthed another wonderful Meltz and Ernest song. Those fellows never ceased to amaze me – they were always so with it and happening, no matter what decade they wrote in. This song was written in the sixties and is an astonishing testament to that to tumultuous era. It’s called Civil Rights, and it’s not just about race, it’s about all Civil Rights. I’ll print it for you in the next day or so.

Someone sent me a press release saying the recording I produced of Beyond Therapy will be released soon. That is good news indeed – it’s very funny and if you like Chris Durang you’ll be very pleased with it, I hope. As most of you know, and as I said above, I produced the recording, my pal Gordon Hunt directed it, and we had a great cast including Catherine O’Hara, David Hyde Pierce, Ed Begley, Jr., and even Mr. Durang himself. I even had my pal Terry Trotter do the incidental music, all variations on Someone To Watch Over Me by the Gershwins.

Well, in the spirit of whizzing notes, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must get in my automobile and wave at people as I pass by them, I must eat various and sundried foodstuffs, I must whiz hither and thither and even yon – but I shall return later to check out your excellent questions and to see how we’re all doing. Ask away, my pretties.

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