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October 12, 2003:

I DO! I DO!

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, hold your hats and hallelujah because we’ve got something unique to celebrate today. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, we’ve got something unique to celebrate today and damn it all we’re going to celebrate it in high fashion (tuxedo pants and frilly blouse). Today we are celebrating not a birthday but a wedding, our first here at haineshisway.com. Yes, Virginia, dear readers Noel and Joy are tying the knot, are getting hitched, are doing the matrimonial stomp. So, let us put on our wedding attire: pointy party hats and colored tights and pantaloons. Let us break out the wedding food: cheese slices and ham chunks. Let us dance the hora and also the meringue. For Noel and Joy and also Joy and Noel will be saying I Do! I Do! – oh, a Schmidt and Jones reference. Let us all send them our best haineshisway.com wedding wishes on this most festive wedding day. On the count of three or the duke of four: One, two, three – OUR BEST HAINESHISWAY.COM WISHES ON THIS MOST FESTIVE DAY!

I feel in honor of Noel and Joy’s wedding that those Hainsies/Kimlets who are still single should all get married today. I, for example, would marry as long as my partner lived in a different state. That would be bliss, in fact it would be the state of bliss.

Last night I watched a motion picture entertainment entitled Seabiscuit. I got a DVD screener of it and took a gander at it. I thought it was fine, but then I’m a sucker for horses and horse racing. I am not a fan of its writer/director, however, and I feel the film is not nearly as good as it should be. It’s rather ponderous and filled with Screenwriting and Directing 101 cliches. I found the whole folksy Studs Terkel-like narration during the first forty minutes really annoying. A few period photos would have done the trick and in much less annoying a fashion (stiletto heels and black leather mini-skirt). Especially, as he abandons the folksy Studs Terkel-like narration for the duration of the film (and it’s a long duration). Then there’s the whole neat little business of the jockey and the horse being the same – both abandoned, both treated poorly, and both becoming a success despite the odds. That would be fine if it were done subtly, but the writer/director lays it on with a trowel and beats us over the head with it mercilessly. My favorite laugh-out-loud moment was when the jockey has an accident and shatters his leg, and then Seabiscuit has an accident and hurt his leg. And, if we didn’t “get” it, we have a slow tilt down to a closeup in one shot of the jockey and horse’s bandaged legs. I don’t need to be fed the meaning on a spoon every two minutes. The music does the same. No one loves Randy Newman more than I, but I’m tired of his Americana thing – all his Americana scores are the same. I don’t know that I blame him, however, since I was told he had to rewrite his score several times at the whim of the writer/director and the producers. That’s what it comes to these days – when they feel something is not working they blame the composer. Mr. Newman eventually left the film and the score was fashioned by others from his material. Today, more than ever, scores must sound exactly the same because these auteurs temp-track their films with other film music (I’d bet this film was temp-tracked with Field of Dreams and Mr. Newman’s own The Natural) and then they can’t hear beyond that. Why hire a composer at all? It’s shameful, really, and film composers today, with rare exceptions, are not allowed the creative freedom they once knew.

What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Don’t we have a wedding to celebrate? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below so said celebration can continue until the cows come home.

I also watched a tidy little thriller entitled Black Sunday, from the novel by Thomas Harris, and directed by John Frankenheimer. It’s done very well and is really suspenseful, and unfortunately, was a very prescient film. Terrific screenplay, great great score by John Williams, tense direction by Frankenheimer and excellent performances by Bruce Dern (as a deranged Vietnam vet), Marthe Keller (as a terrorist) and especially Robert Shaw (as an Israeli). Its plot seemed fantastic back then – sadly, today, it seems all too real. The transfer is interesting – I think it’s probably very good but it took me a while to realize it. I think Mr. Frankenheimer purposely went for a very dirty grainy and gritty look for the first hour of the film, so it takes a bit of getting used to. Once we go outdoors for the climax of the film, it looks incredible, so I’m assuming this is exactly what it looked like in theaters.

Don’t forget, tonight is our Unseemly Live Chat at six o’clock Pacific Mean Daylight Savings Time. There will be much to talk about tonight so you won’t want to miss it. Remember, there are always things discussed in chat which are never discussed on the site. I’ll say no more, oh, yes, I will say no more.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must relax, do some grocery shopping, eat some foodstuffs, and get ready to do the next batch of fixes for the book. After those, there will only be one batch left. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which the topic is yours for the choosing. So, choose away, let’s have loads of lovely posts and build back up to where we were prior to the crash. And let’s toast the wedding of Noel and Joy and send them on their way with lots of good cheer.

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