Well, dear readers, does it not amaze anyone else that it is already Thursday? Just a moment ago it was Sunday and now it is Thursday and I, for one, would like to know where the time went? Yes, Virginia, I, for one, would like to know where the time went. The time is always going places, and never telling me where. I ask, and I get no answer. Is the time going to a rave club? Do they still have rave clubs or am I about ten years behind the times? Is the time going to Cassell’s on 6th, for a hamburger? Where does the time go? Or, as Judy Collins so succinctly put it, Who Knows Where the Time Goes? Well, we’re off to a fine start, aren’t we? Yesterday was a nice day. I didn’t write quite as much as I’ve been doing, but still managed to do more than my minimum number of pages. I ate the rest of my yummilicious tuna pasta salad, and I drove about in my motor car and did some errands. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Last night I watched two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture was entitled Leave Her to Heaven, starring Miss Gene Tierney and Mr. Cornell Wilde. While I have always enjoyed the film, it’s not one of my all-timers. It’s pretty to look at, and some of it is indeed chilling, but it goes on too long and just meanders too much. I do love me my Gene Tierney, though. I wish I could say the transfer is great, but it isn’t. The color is saturated but off, the image is a bit soft and it’s too dark and contrasty, so much so that you lose people’s faces completely in shadowy scenes. I then watched a motion picture entitled Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. I hated every single minute of this “film”. It’s everything I hate about movies all rolled into one 103 minute disaster. The entire reason this film exists is because kid said, “Look what I did in my computer,” and some producer said, “Wow, let’s do a feature.” The entire film was shot blue screen – no sets. If that’s your idea of a good time you might enjoy the film. I found it stultifying. The color scheme of the film is completely monochromatic, like Cinecolor, so that all the CGI will blend better with the live action. The story is stupid, there are no characters in the film (wouldn’t it be nice if there were one line that explained who Sky Captain is and why he does what he does), and the actors are really really bad. I’ve enjoyed Jude Law before, but he’s hopeless here – he’s not a hero and he’s not a leading man. Gwynneth Paltrow is equally uninteresting, and she should shoot her hair person or whoever made her wear that awful “do”. She should also shoot the costume designer – she wears the ugliest clothes I’ve ever seen in a period film. Angelina Jolie is in a few scenes, but again, I knew nothing about her character and on top of that, I can’t stand watching her, and on top of that she sports an inept English accent. And then there’s the music. I’m sure Edward Shearmur is a good composer, but here he’s been asked to ape a temp track of nothing but John Williams music – if you’re a film music buff, you can figure out what music was temped with what scene. And I can imagine the spotting sessions for this film (where the composer and director sit and decide which scenes will have music) – they sit down, the film begins. The director says “Let’s start the music on frame one.” The film unreels. At 104 minutes, the director says, “And the music can come out here.” That’s right – there was not one second of film that was not accompanied by music. In one of the documentaries, some young kid, one of the producers, says, “We wanted people in the industry to look at this film and know WE’RE THERE.” And I wanted to grab that kid by the shirt and say, “We’re WHERE, you big dweeb!” If this is where these people think movies are heading, they should all be locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane moviemaker. Note to filmmakers: It doesn’t matter that you didn’t have any sets. It doesn’t matter that you created the whole movie in a computer. What matters, and what will always matter, is that you didn’t have a good script with good characters. And you didn’t obey the laws of your own universe. Once you don’t do that, you’re done.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Can someone please tell me where the time went? I heard through the grapevine that time went dancing and was seen doing the mambo. Damn them, damn them all to hell. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below, because perhaps time is waiting for us in the next section.
Nope, time must have gone elsewhere. Speaking of cake, I really need some. Or pie. One of the two or, conversely, two of the one. I would be willing to have coconut cream pie. I would be willing to have Parisienne Cake. I would be willing to have cherry pie with ice cream. I would be willing to have banana cream pie. Cake or pie – pie or cake. One or the other will be going down my gaping maw at some point this very day.
I have hired a private detective to follow time to see where it goes. Then we will know once and for all where the time went. And you will be the first to know, dear readers, I promise you that.
Speaking of birthdays, we don’t have any today, so today is a good day to wash your colored tights and pantaloons so that they are sparklingly sparkling for our next round of birthdays and also our next square of birthdays.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must write, I must drive about in my motor car, I must do a little thisa and a little thata, with an emphasis on the latter. Today’s topic of discussion: Here’s a topic we haven’t done in over two-and-a-half years – if you could have a dinner party with anyone living or dead, who would you invite and why? Let’s limit the guest list to five people besides your very own self and, if you have one, partner. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, as we try to figure out where the time went.