Well, dear readers, the week is zooming by like a gazelle in combat boots. I tell you, I get up in the morning and the next thing I know, I’m writing the notes again. I know I did things, and I ate things, but I just don’t know how the day went by so fast. For example, I awoke just before nine, and then the phone rang and it was a fellow scribe who wanted to pick my brain about my books. She picked my brain for ninety minutes, but she was a very nice person and we had a lovely chat. As soon as I got off the phone, I realized I had to ship out review copies of the new CDs, as well as prepare the Footlight order. After that, I wrote four pages of the short story (quite randy, if I do say so myself, and I do), and then I went off to collect some mail and packages. I then went directly to the post office and shipped off what I’d packaged, and then I came back to the home environment, where I wrote some more pages (quite randy, I must say). I then ate some foodstuffs, and I then wrote another two pages (quite randy, I must say). I’ve never really written any randy passages, but it’s sort of the point of this particular story, and it’s quite fun. Luckily, I was prepared by such stories as The Randy Vicar and the Milk Duds, The Randy Vicar and the Download, and The Randy Vicar and the Eighteenth Hole. Those stories were all quite randy. Where was I? Oh, yes, then I got two interesting calls – one from my pal, Rick Waln, one of the stars of Together Again, now living on the East Coast. He told me that he wasn’t going to be able to make our little party on Saturday. We had a lovely chat, and then fifteen minutes later the phone rang and it was another Together Again cast member, one for whom I’d left two messages – Debbie Tilton. She will be making the party. I think this party could be a lot of fun, but even if it isn’t, there will be cheese slices and ham chunks. 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 on DVD was entitled Crash, a film of Paul Haggis. Mr. Haggis wrote the fine screenplay for last year’s Million Dollar Baby. I’ve had people tell me that Crash is this year’s best film. It may, in fact, be this year’s best film, but that’s damning it with faint praise. Or fainting it with damn praise. Or praising it with damn faint. I found it quite pretentiously done, full of its own importance, and very much in the style of P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia – with multiple characters whose stories all intertwine. There’s some good dialogue, and the performances are excellent. The DVD package describes it as a thriller. I really wish these companies would hire someone to do their box copy who didn’t have their head up their rectal cavity. A thriller it isn’t. It’s what they call in Syd Field and Robert McKee parlance, a character-driven piece. But, you never really spend enough time with all these characters to get more than a perfunctory knowledge of them. When you read the reviews on the imdb.com, you’d think this film was the second coming, until you come to the realization that all these people doing the raving are teenagers. Not only teenagers, but teenagers who somehow know all about the Syd Field and Robert McKee film structure strictures – they all talk about act one, and act two, and act three, and all that crap, so one wonders just who these folks are. The film has one of those wall-to-wall droning scores, more atmosphere than music – I hate that stuff, but it at least gives the film a texture. The photography is very nice (scope), but I’m just bored of these filmmakers playing on the computer, doing digital manipulation of color. I do think the film’s heart is in the right place, and a couple of scenes are affecting, but I just didn’t buy it. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled Harry and Tonto. Now, there is a character-driven film. Every character is wonderfully etched, from one- scene parts to the heart of the film, Mr. Art Carney. The film remains heartfelt, funny, warm, and very touching. It works beautifully from start to finish. The writing is great, Paul Mazurskey’s direction is simple and understated, and you simply cannot find better performances in a film. Carney is terrific, Melanie Mayron walks away with all her scenes, Ellen Burstyn is great, and if you have a dry eye in the Geraldine Fitzgerald scene, I don’t want to know you. Miss Fitzgerald, with whom I worked right around that time, does so much with so little, and it’s just magical. Bill Conti’s score is perfection, and the cat who plays Tonto gives a fine performance. The transfer is fine, but there are many shots where it looks like the focus puller was asleep. I believe that’s the way it’s always looked, and the fact is, except for those shots, the transfer is nice and sharp.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because if we don’t they day will be over and I’ll be writing Friday’s notes.
I tell you, since beginning this short story, I am feeling quite randy all of the livelong day and night. Have you ever felt randy? And, if so, how did randy feel about being felt? In any case, one can’t feel too randy, and I am quite jiggy with feeling randy. In fact, I feel as randy as a gazelle in go-go boots and a miniskirt.
Today I must not only feel randy, I must do many other things. For example, I must order food platters, which I didn’t have time to do yesterday. I must buy liquid refreshments for the party (no alcohol allowed). I must also ship some orders that came in today, and I must also pick up a package or three.
I think I have finally eaten too many corn-on-the-cobs, and I am now officially over needing to eat another for at least a year. In fact, the mere thought of a corn-on-the-cob sets my stomach roiling.
Well, that was a lovely paragraph, wasn’t it? It wasn’t randy, but it was corny. We don’t allow groaning here at haineshisway.com.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must go hither and thither and yes, yon, and I must write some more randy pages, so that I don’t lose that randy feeling. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s randy day here at haineshisway.com – what are your all-time favorite randy books, film, musicals, plays and songs. Let’s have loads of lovely posting shall we, whilst we all just sit around like so much fish, feeling randy.