Well, dear readers, I give you fair warning – if you are easily scared do not read today’s notes, for they will be filled with beasties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. I, for one, am already scared. I am shivering in my boots. Perhaps if I put on some other clothing aside from the boots then perhaps I would not be shivering in my boots. Yes, it is Halloween, the night when hobgoblins come to play, when creaking doors reveal hideous creatures known as trick or treaters. A night when painting the town red takes on a whole new meaning. A night when children are on one big communal sugar high. So, beware, my hainsies/kimlets – beware of what lurks in the shadows, for the shadow knows or, at the very least, the shadow nose. Speaking of the shadow, yesterday I had quite a lovely day. For example, I got up. That was lovely. I jogged, answered e-mails and telephonic calls, did errands, and then toddled off to LACC for our first day of blocking on The Brain. The first thing we did was review the opening number vocally. And then I just dove right in with staging the number. Of course, I’d already staged it for the reading last May, so I recreated what I remembered, and then redid what I didn’t remember. It took about two hours to rough it out, and I was surprised and delighted at how fast everyone picked it up and how conscientious everyone was. I then finessed it, and we ran it many times. The ending and the timing thereof was confusing to everyone, but we just kept hammering away at it, and the interesting thing for everyone was the fact that the blocking helped the singing, especially with cut-offs. I then blocked the opening of Act Two, which is a reprise of the opening number, but with quite a bit of dialogue – I did then entire thing and it was really fun. We ran that a few times, then I went back and blocked the pre-opening number sequence and that went very well and we came up with some funny stuff for it. We finished around eight, and then I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish – a good day’s work and very gratifying and pleasing. I think the students felt good about it, too.
What was that? I heard something go bump in the night. Damn them, damn them all to hell. Last night, I did manage to watch one count them one motion picture on DVD entitled They All Laughed, a film of Peter Bogdanovich. A box-office dud upon its release, the film was hated by some critics and lauded by others, but the general public didn’t go. I saw it back then and pretty much loathed it. But, as you know, some films from the early eighties seem better now than they were then. Unfortunately, this film isn’t one of them. It was obviously Mr. Bogdanovich’s love letter to Dorothy Stratten, with whom he was having a relationship. And she is very beautiful. One certainly can’t fault a cast that includes Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, and many others. But the film plods along without much of anything to hold the attention, other than some lovely shots of 1981 New York. In the extras, there is a “conversation” with Bogdanovich and director Wes Anderson, wherein Bodganovich says that this is his favorite of all his films. I think it’s fairly obvious why, and it has little to do with the film on view. He says it’s closest to who he is and his sense of humor – since there is little humor on view, I think that speaks volumes. He says the opening, which has little to no dialogue for many minutes, was his homage to Rio Bravo. He says he cut the film in the camera. He says all the film babble that he always does – everything is cribbed from some director he loves or some film he loves, and I do mean everything. The fact is, other than a handful of films, Mr. Bogdanovich has made mostly films that haven’t done well critically or financially. Whatever talent he once had has pretty much evaporated. They All Laughed is 115 minutes long, and like all the rest of Mr. Bogdanovich’s output, it does not have a musical score and like most of his films, it desperately needs one. Here, it’s all songs and jazz versions of standards, but much of it has nothing, and a proper score would keep things moving along and even help to achieve the romanticism Mr. Bogdanovich would have you believe the film is permeated with. As it is, the film just lays there like so much fish. The transfer is fine. As to the “conversation”, let’s just say I can’t stomach watching Mr. Bogdanovich, with his little ascot and thoroughly pretentious manner – and Wes Anderson isn’t much better.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below but beware – who knows what danger lurks in the next section. The shadow knows.
Chills run up and down my spine – for things are going bump in the night. Today, I must ship a couple of packages, do a few errands, and then block the huge end of act one musical number. Nothing like diving into these huge numbers, but then again, it’s nice to get them out of the way quickly, so we can then concentrate on the scenes and solo and duet songs. Rehearsal will end a bit earlier than usual, around seven, so the kids can do their Halloween thing, and Kevin Spirtas and I will attend Sister Act, The Musical.
I have goose bumps it is so scary around these here parts. The other scary thing is that this is the final day of October. Can you believe it? Can you believe this year is almost over? Can you believe it’s almost been a year since we were going into rehearsal with Deceit? Where does the time go?
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, ship, drive about in my motor car, rehearse, see a show, and eat, not necessarily in that order. Today’s topic of discussion: What is the scariest movie you have ever seen? The one that made your skin crawl, the one that had you squirming with tension and fear, the one that made you almost consider bolting from the theater? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we – and remember, the shadow knows.