Well, dear readers, here it is the last of February, a short month. Hence, we shall have short notes in honor of the last of February, a short month. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
There is a brand spanking new website, dear readers, and you really must visit, even though there is nothing up but a press release – it’s called meltzandernest.com. We’ll be adding interesting things to the site as the days go by – rare photos provided by the families of Meltz and Ernest (there’s one up now as a matter of fact), sheet music covers, and details about casting as they become available.
The other night I finally caught up with the Showtime film of Mr. Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor. I’d seen the show on Broadway, and while I felt it was not up to Mr. Simon’s best, I enjoyed it and laughed quite a bit. Well, the film is pretty much a total disaster, in my opinion (IMO, in Internet lingo). In expanding and opening up the play he’s turned it into a maudlin mush and I almost turned it off several times. The cast, which includes original members Nathan Lane and Mark Linn Baker are not as sharply honed as the other original members and the direction by Richard Benjamin is slack and lifeless (he, of course, has already visited this same exact territory with much better effect in My Favorite Year). There are new characters, new subplots but it just lays there like so much fish. Occasionally, when we get an actual scene from the play, it’s funny. Victor Garber is in it, too, and I must say I find him just about the unfunniest person who ever lived, and yet he keeps appearing in everything, always in comic roles, like Mayor Shinn or Daddy Warbucks or Applegate, where he sucks the comic life out of them. I understand he’s good on his dramatic TV series, but please, is there a law that says he has to be in every adaptation of a play or musical?
Yesterday I received a copy of the new biography of Mr. Ron Howard, written by an old schoolmate of mine, Beverly Gray (she wrote a very good bio of Roger Corman). There are three count them three pages devoted to Mr. Howard’s appearance in The First Nudie Musical, with lots of quotes from my very own self. I shall be reading it over the weekend.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because, after all, it is the last of February, a short month.
Has anyone noticed that it is the last of February, a short month? I, for one, do not like February or short months. I like a nice long month.
I watched the Criterion DVD of Notorious, one of the few Hitchcock films that I haven’t seen an inordinate number of times. What a terrific film it is, too, with Claude Rains giving one of the great performances of all time, I think.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do and I must do them quickly for it is the last of February, a short month, and therefore I must complete all February things before it is March, because I do not like February things in March, I find it unseemly. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, Andre Previn’s reading of the orchestral works of Rachmaninov, and a private CD of Encores! version of Li’l Abner, which someone was kind enough to send me. DVD player, The Cardinal and King of Kings. Your turn. Let’s have a flurry of posting, shall we, so that we send the last of February, a short month, out with a bang.