Well, dear readers, hold your hats and hallelujah because we’ve gone and reached a new plateau of posts. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, we’ve gone and reached a new plateau of posts and that plateau is a lovely and large number, namely 200,000. That is quite an accomplishment and I, for one, am very happy we achieved it. Therefore, we will be celebrating all the livelong day and night – it will be one gigantic partay here at haineshisway.com. At around four o’clock Pacific Mean Standard Daylight Savings Time I shall open Ye Olde Chat Room for a live and lovely chat. But remember, not only do we chat, we post. And what a posting day we had yesterday. I really didn’t think we’d reach our new plateau until Friday, but we went berserk yesterday and had over five hundred count them five hundred posts, which put yesterday in the top five all-time posting days. Amazingly amazing. Go us. On top of all that, I had a very pleasantly pleasant day yesterday. I got up nice and early and shipped out all packages. I then did some errands, and then came back home and wrote eight count them eight pages, including the dreaded monologue, which I think with some futzing will be quite nice. It’s not as long as the Matt Ashford monologue in Deceit (nearly three full pages) – this one only goes to a page and a quarter. I’m now on page eighty-one and have about nine to fourteen more pages to go, which I’m hoping to finish by Friday afternoon. Then I’ll probably take a couple of days to clear my brain, then look at it with fresh eyes come Monday and do any reworking that I think it needs. After writing, I went to the editing room, but my editor could only do two hours tonight, so we didn’t get much further than we were last night. Our hope is to finish the dialogue editing tonight, but that will only happen if we do five or six hours. Then, on Saturday, we’ll sweeten the show. Then all that will be left will be the up rezzing, the completion of the letterboxing, and any color correction. By the end of next week, we should have our master. After that, I came home and saw that we’d already achieved our new plateau, which was quite a surprise and quite a treat. And that was my day.
Last night, I finished watching a motion picture on DVD entitled Match Point, Mr. Woody Allen’s latest film. I tell you, reading the reviews you’d have thought that this is one of Mr. Allen’s greatest motion pictures, perfection in every way. Sadly, I didn’t find that to be the case. Despite some good acting, and some very nice classical filmmaking, I just thought it was an overlong bore, filled with the kind of stilted “dramatic” writing that Mr. Allen loves. In fact, the last ten minutes has such awful writing that I laughed out loud at some of it. The film is clearly Mr. Allen’s slightly Allenized version of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (A Place In The Sun). But the leading character is so annoying and such a lying creep, that the movie has no center to it. All the characters are fairly annoying in one way or another, none more so than the actor who’s channeling Hugh Grant. And Mr. Allen’s use of opera as underscore really reaches new heights of ridiculousness during the final third of the film. The film runs a whopping 123 minutes, too – gone are the days when Mr. Allen made concise and wonderful little films. This is Mr. Allen’s first film made in England – not because he fell in love with England, but because the BBC is now co-financing or financing in full his films. So, he’s currently back there making a new one. I was impressed only by his cameraman, someone knew to me, and someone who’s obviously a step up from Mr. Allen’s latest cameramen. Transfer was, as you’d expect, fine.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got news to share about a certain phone call that finally came through last night.
As you know, I’ve been waiting for a certain phone call to come through, and last night, whilst I was on my way to the editing facility, it did. And what mysterious person was this phone call from? Well, I’ll tell you what mysterious person this phone call was from, for why should I keep such things from the likes of you dear readers. This phone call was from someone I haven’t seen or spoken to since the early 60s, when I was a mere sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth. For those who’ve read Kritzer Time (and for those who haven’t, what the HELL are you waiting for), I recounted meeting this person in an acting class I attended back then (and that Benjamin Kritzer attends in the book). I saw no reason to change her name for the book, either. And that person was the wonderfully cute little girl who played Amaryllis in The Music Man – Miss Monique Vermont. About a week ago I was contacted via e-mail by someone who’d read my account of that acting class, and this fellow said he knew Miss Vermont and was in touch with her, and that he’d told her about me. And so, she finally called and we had a wonderful chat. I’m not sure she remembers me at all. At first she didn’t remember the acting class, until I told her where it was located, and that sort of jogged her memory. But she thought that she and her mother had already moved back to New York by then. However, since I remember everything from that period of time, I told her all about what we did in class, and I told her we’d had several long telephonic conversations as well. I remember to this day where she told me they were living, and I was completely correct about it. I’m sending her the Kritzer books (actually I’m sending out three sets of them tomorrow, to various folks), and we’ve promised to stay in touch. How much fun is that?
Today, I have quite a bit to do, including our musical theater workshop (MTW), where I hope to finish staging the opening number of our musical. After that, I must come home and write as many pages as I can prior to going to the editing room to hopefully finish the dialogue portion of our editing. And Friday, we’ll be having a reading of dear reader PennyO’s revamped version of her show, which means I shall have to write as many pages as I can prior to the reading, especially if I’m to try to finish the show. Tomorrow night I’ll be supping with Miss Tammy Minoff, and Saturday night I’ll be supping with Miss Jessica Rush.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do all of the above, but especially I must write like the wind, I must also pick up a package or three, and I must eat very reasonably, so that I can have nice dining adventures over the weekend. Today’s topic of discussion: Since it’s our big celebration and partay here at haineshisway.com, tell us your favorite moments and memories of life on this here site. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and I’ll see you all in the chat room at four o’clock sharp, so be there or be round.