Well, dear readers, we’re back in business after the 4th of July. We’ve had our fireworks and barbecues and parades and now we must return to the work week. I, for one, spent a rather relaxing 4th of July. Oh, I’d intended on addressing all the packages for the Deceit video, but to my annoyance I discovered that all the shipping packages I bought, the ones that are clearly labeled CD/DVD, don’t hold DVD packages. So, back they go first thing in the morning and I shall then have to spend most of today addressing them. I may try to get a helper in to help. I’m hoping the discs will arrive by early afternoon, and then I’ll get out as many as I can before the post office closes, and the rest will go out on Thursday. Where was I? Oh, yes, since I couldn’t address anything (trying to do just the labels is too difficult, since the labels are on big rolls), instead I jogged and then sat on my couch like so much fish, having several very nice telephonic conversations. Finally, I toddled of to the annual 4th of July bash at neighbors Tony Slide and Bob Gitt’s home environment. Their little soirees are always lovely and yesterday was no different. Several neighbors were in attendance (including two who were new to me and who I liked very much), as well as the usual interesting assortment of guests, such as Jack Larson, Curtis Harrington, Norman Lloyd, Marsha Hunt and others. The food was, as always, excellent, and I was a very good boy, food-wise, and only had a small chicken breast and some salad. The conversation was sparkling and the Diet Coke was excellent. After a few hours, I toddled back to the home environment, where I immediately sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Killer’s Kiss. I’ve had the DVD for years, yet I never sat down and watched it. Killer’s Kiss is Mr. Stanley Kubrick’s first feature-length film (barely – 67 minutes), although he’d directed one before it called Fear and Desire, a film he barely acknowledged. If one looks at the imdb one sees cries of MASTERPIECE! Of course, the loud shouts of MASTERPIECE are laughable. It’s just amazing how people see what they want to see, or see what they want to see based on some critic’s evaluation. Killer’s Kiss is hardly a MASTERPIECE – it’s an interesting film by an evolving filmmaker, but undone by its crude post-synching (it actually reminds one of the French nouvelle vague which would come along in about five years), and it’s horrible script. However, there are some wonderful occasional images, and the ideas, if not always the execution of them, are interesting, technique-wise. Nice shots of 1954 Times Square, too. The one sequence where you could really say, “Yeah, this guy is going to be really good” is the mannequin sequence. I don’t know what boxing sequence the imdb MASTERPIECE yokels were watching, but it’s clearly not the one in this film, which is fine and nothing more. Apparently these Kubrick-heads have never seen The Set Up. Interestingly, several shots from the film are regularly used on TCM’s little bumpers into their movies.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Or worse, what am I, Professor Drew Casper all of a sudden? Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because we’re back in business and business is a’callin’.
Today, as I’ve mentioned, I shall be addressing labels and hopefully shipping out packages all the livelong day. But, that’s not all, oh, no, that’s not all. No, I shall also be picking up a package first thing in the morning, about which more when it arrives. I shall also be receiving a DSL box to ship my computer back to Apple. I shall also be receiving a few other packages; at least they’re due to arrive soon. But the best thing will happen when I toddle off to have supper with our very own Rodzinski and TPunk – at least I think that’s the plan. I’m trying to decide where I shall take them – perhaps Musso and Frank. Perhaps The Smoke House. Or perhaps somewhere new and exciting. Or perhaps Genghis Cohen. Decisions, decisions.
I must also pick up the digi-beta master and commentary track CD for the Kevin Spirtas video. I’m not quite certain that all of the above can get done in one day, but I’ll try, by God, I’ll try, just like Billy Bigelow. The entire rest of the week is equally jam-packed, and then on Sunday I have to attend opening performances for two count them two musicals – I Do! I Do! and The Last Five Years, which will be playing in rep at the Pasadena Playhouse. And then, the following weekend we debut our cabaret series at LACC and I do the Ray Courts Hollywood Collectors Show as well.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, address packages, ship packages, pick up packages, and have dinner with our visiting dear readers. I do realize that today’s notes were all business and no laughs, but that’s just because we’re back in business and tomorrow we’ll be back to business as usual, notes-wise. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you dear readers get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we?