Well, dear readers, I had a pleasantly pleasant day off. I had to leave the house early on account of she of the Evil Eye, so I spent my away time doing a variety and also a Hollywood Reporter of things. I organized my show book into my first tentative running order. We’ll start run-throughs on Thursday, which is the first time I’ll see if this thing works at all, this tentative running order. I came back home at one and just sat on my couch like so much fish all the livelong day and night, whilst I watched several motion picture entertainments on DVD. I made several telephonic calls and did a bit of this and that and also a bit of that and this. All in all, a basically unproductive day, which is exactly what the doctor ordered. The doctor also ordered a salad and a ham on rye, but that’s a different story.
Last night I watched several motion picture entertainments on DVD, but you knew that unless you happened to skip the first paragraph. First I finished watching the motion picture entertainment entitled The Onion Field. It’s not a perfect motion picture entertainment, but it is solid and I really liked it a lot. Excellent script, and terrific performances from Ted Danson, John Savage, Diane Hull, Ronny Cox, and most especially, from James Woods. The film rather horrifyingly points up what an insane joke our judicial system is (the film and the novel its adapted from is a true story). I’d somehow missed this DVD and didn’t even know it had come out (in 2002). It has a nice documentary on it, with interviewees Harold Becker (a very good director), Woods, Savage and Joseph Wambaugh. The transfer is very good, a bit on the soft side at times, but never less than acceptable. I then watched a motion picture entitled The Sting II. What on earth were they thinking? The idea of a sequel is not the problem, and it is written by the original film’s writer. No, the real problem is that they continued the characters from the first film without casting any of the actors that played them. This is, of course, fatal. Jackie Gleason plays the character that Paul Newman played. Suspension of disbelief? Impossible. Mac Davis plays Robert Redford and Oliver Reed is quite bad in the Robert Shaw role. David S. Ward seems to have forgotten how to write a script in the ten years since the original had been made. His work here is truly bad – you can see everything coming a mile away, also fatal for a film called The Sting II. The only upside to this sorry affair is Lalo Schifrin’s bouncy score. Otherwise, it’s a total debacle. I then watched another Claude Chabrol film, this one entitled Masques. I must say I’m basically completely unaware of Mr. Chabrol’s work after his seventies film Le Boucher. I’m now going to have to check out more of it, because La Ceremonie, which I watched the other night, and now Masques are really good movies. Mr. Chabrol has always been called the French Hitchcock, but I don’t see it all that much. That said, Masques really is Hitchcockian, in tone and in plot, and I had a grand time watching it. Philipe Noiret is, as always, fantastic – what a great actor he is. I don’t know how many of these later Chabrol’s Home Vision has just released, but I think I’ve seen at least four or five on the shelves. Once again, the transfer is excellent but the framing at the top is totally off – not as bad as in La Ceremonie, but still tops of heads are chopped in half in many of the master shots, which is just not right.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because frankly that is just what the doctor ordered.
Soon I must hie myself to our long all-day rehearsal. This is the last day for a while wherein we can run the choreographed numbers – we’ll be drilling them and drilling them all the livelong day and hope that the actors can really get strong so we don’t have to worry as we begin putting the show together tomorrow night.
We will be having an Unseemly Live Chat at six o’clock Pacific Mean Daylight Savings Time, although I may not be back in time to partake. But the room will be open, never fear. So, be there or be round, won’t you?
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must rehearse, I must keep my eagle-eye on things, I must attend to many show details, and I must, at some point, eat various and sundried foodstuffs, which, of course, will be just what the doctor ordered. Why is the fershluganah doctor always ordering things? Damn them, damn them all to hell. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to choose the topics and we get to respond to them any old way we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, and I do hope you’ll keep the home fries burning in my absence, or else Ye Olde Bitch-Slap Machine will be put into use immediately.