Well, dear readers, as I write these here notes it is approaching one in the morning. At two in the morning it will still be one in the morning. No, it is not the time space continuum, it is the fact that we are discontinuuming Daylight Savings Time. Hence, the notes aren’t really going up an hour late even though that would appear to be the case. How can that be the case when the case is the case. That, of course, does do a very good impression of a case – that is the Rich Little of cases. Oh, dear, I no longer have a clew as to what the HELL I’m talking about and that is because at two it is one and frankly that is messing with the windmills of my mind. Speaking of the windmills of my mind, yesterday was quite an interesting day. I awoke – that was interesting. I then hopefully averted what could have been a disaster, and then I jogged. After that, I toddled over to LACC, where we had a three hour vocal rehearsal. We’re still at the point where people are forgetting what we work so hard on trying to have them remember, but they’re trying very hard and at some point it’s all going to sink in and then it will be second nature. But, I’ll say one thing – when they get it, when they lock on and do what they’re supposed to, it sounds great. After rehearsal, I came home and did some stuff around the home environment, and then I toddled off to a Halloween partay given by our very own Vinnie. What a fun partay it was – there were all sorts of scary Halloween decorations, and everyone was in costume. I forgot that it was a costume party, but thankfully I came as an Old Jew. There was lots of food and very nice folks – I stayed for about ninety minutes then gave up the Halloween ghost and came back home, where I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I did manage to watch two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled The Last Voyage, a film I was rather fond of as a sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth. The ads promise ninety-one minutes of pure suspense. There are quite a few minutes that are really suspenseful, but many other minutes aren’t. The film has not worn especially well – the pompous narration is awful, and the script is serviceable and nothing more. It’s an interesting precursor to Irwin Allen’s disaster films and some of the sequences are still harrowing. Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone are fine – Tammy Marihugh, who plays their redheaded (and I do mean redheaded) daughter, is put through a lot and it really looks like she was upset many times. Woody Strode is, as always, dignified and wonderful, George Sanders acquits himself nicely as the Captain of the doomed ship, and Edmond O’Brien spouts many lines like, “Go! Do it! Go! Do it!” The transfer is quite good – the effects scenes are very grainy as they always were, but the color is excellent and the transfer is very sharp. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled Mission Impossible III. Since I saw the other two Mission Impossible features and hated them, I figured I ought to see this one so I could make it three for three. This outing was directed by J.J. Abrams, he of Alias and Lost fame. And what you get is what you’d expect – a 150 million dollar two-hour episode of Alias under the guise of a Mission Impossible film. The parallels to Alias are endless – Mr. Abrams uses every trick he used on that series, so if you ever saw that series you could see every trick coming a mile away. There are a lot of action scenes – very well done, very loud, and entirely pointless. The acting is what you’d expect. The transfer is excellent for the most part, but does have some inconsistencies, surprising for a new film transfer. Sound is robust. Most pathetic thing in the film: the rap song over the end credits – shameless, shameful, and excruciating.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button so I can tell everyone what I’m doing today.
Today I am doing nothing, that’s what I’m doing today. Today I am relaxing, I am watching DVDs, I am eating reasonably, and I am maybe taking a drive. And whatever I do, I’ll be doing it an hour earlier.
I’ve been listening to the rough of the Alice and Emily concert – even with no mixing it sounds pretty good. I’m making notes about how to tighten the patter (I’m still determined to get this on one CD if possible – and I think I can achieve that by tightening the patter without losing the flavor of what they did). I’m going to try and have all my choices by Tuesday, so when Vinnie is ready for me I’ll be ready for him.
Tomorrow, we start blocking the show – a lot of work to be done, with several really big musical numbers to get out of the way first.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, relax, make notes, drive about in my motor car and above all watch DVDs. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, and don’t forget, we get an extra hour to post so let’s make the most of it.