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June 13, 2007:

SWEDISH NOTES

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I have decided to write today’s notes with a Swedish accent. Of course, since you’re reading these here notes you won’t actually be able to “hear” the accent, but believe me it’s here. Just imagine that if I write “these here notes” that you’re hearing “de noteska hare.” My goodness, I’m already feeling Swedish, aren’t you? I haven’t felt this Swedish since I took a Turkish bath and ate a French roll. I’m simply trying to make haineshisway.com truly an international site, and I thought Swedish was as good a way to start our Good Neighbor Policy as any. I’m feeling very Max Von Sydowesque right now. Have you ever felt Max Von Sydowesque? If so, how did Max Von Sydowesque feel about being felt? Speaking of being felt (or, in our Swedish accent – “Speaks ov beingska feltska”), yesterday was a strangely unpredictably unpredictable day. For example, I got up. That was unpredictable. Then my friend Mr. David Wechter called and we ended up having a little early lunch meeting at Art’s Deli. After that, I had to do a few errands, and then had to do a little work around the home environment, and then I had a two-hour rehearsal with Miss Joan Ryan. We continued working on the patter and she sang through the rest of the songs. I ended up cutting one-and-a-half songs out of the second act, because after hearing it all together, they simply weren’t needed. The act seems to have a real nice structure and trajectory now. We’ll have one more quick session with John Boswell, to rework a couple of numbers and endings, and then we’ll begin staging the show next week. After Joan left, I did a few more errands, answered some e-mails, checked out the packaging for the next Kritzerland CD (which I’ll announce next Monday), and then finally sat on my couch like so much Swedish fish.

Last night, I managed to watch two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled The History Boys, based on the play by Alan Bennett, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring most of the original cast. I didn’t see the play, and therefore have nothing to compare it to. I’ve always liked Mr. Bennett’s work, ever since seeing Beyond The Fringe. Whilst I enjoyed the film, I didn’t find it quite as compelling as I’d hoped it would be – it just seems to go along on its merry way and then it’s over. There is some good dialogue, and the actors all acquit themselves very well – after watching young American actors whisper their performances in movies and think that that’s somehow acting, it’s very refreshing to see a cast of young people who actually know how to act and who actually project when they’re speaking – not unnaturally so, mind you, just the way a normal person would talk. Mr. Hytner is not a wonderful filmmaker and that’s part of the problem – a lot of the direction isn’t smooth and is a bit awkward-looking. And the “score” by George Fenton was most annoying. The transfer is fine, but the decision to desaturate the color, makes it seem like a Warner Bros. transfer with somewhat faded color. I really hate that trend. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled 36 Hours, a taut little thriller written and directed by the excellent George Seaton. I’d never seen the film all the way through. I know it wasn’t a hit when it came out, but it’s aged well and is quite a good film. The plot (based on a story by Roald Dahl) is really clever, and the actors are all wonderful – James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Taylor (one of his best), Wolfgang Preiss (here billed as Werner Peters), and a host of others. The film never flags for one of its 115 minutes. The only downside is the score by Dimitri Tiomkin, which is just weird and not helpful to the film. Mr. Seaton had just done The Counterfeit Traitor, which was scored by Mr. Alfred Newman, and that score was fantastic, and 36 Hours would have seemed even better with that sort of score (or a Jerry Goldsmith score). The black-and-white scope transfer is mostly excellent, with only a few scenes not as sharp as others.

What am I, Ebertska and Roeperska all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because otherwise I might start feeling like a Swedish meatball.

Today has turned into a non-stop going and doing day. I have a breakfast meeting, a lunch meeting, and then a post-lunch meeting, as well as having to approve the packaging of the new Kritzerland CD, and a whole slew of other details to attend to.

Tomorrow is equally busy with meetings and rehearsals and whatnot. The happy part is that the evenings are free, so I do get to relax at the end of a busy day.

For those who were wondering, today is Flag Day. So, if you have any flags lying around like so much Swedish fish, then unfurl them, baby, and hang them proudly.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have three count them three meetings and then do a lot of whatnot. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we? Weska shallska.

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