Well, dear readers, can you believe that in just six weeks the year will end and a New Year will begin? Does that not boggle your mind? Does that not take you aback or, at the very least, take you afront? It’s like time is messing with our collective minds, doesn’t it? It’s like a silent movie, with everything speeding by like a gazelle in a 1952 Nash Rambler. And in just three short weeks I shall be having what must be considered a large birthday of sorts. That, too, boggles my mind. But what can you do? You can’t stop time for time marches on with the inexorability of a taco. Did you know that taco spelled backwards is ocat? In any case, this year is winding down and I am preparing for a new age and a new year. Speaking of a new age, yesterday was a rather nice little day. I got up and got out, for she of the Evil Eye was having none of me. I shipped some packages, then went to the Farmer’s Market to have a spot of breakfast, whilst looking around and breathing the aromatic aromas of the various and sundried food stands and foodstuffs. I discovered they’ve opened a Taschen bookstore and I spent some time in there, as I really find their line of books very interesting. It’s always best to buy their books when they come out, because they go out of print very quickly. For example, the huge The Stanley Kubrick Archives book, which list priced for around three hundred dollars, but which could be found for almost half-price, soon went out of print and now commands close to five hundred bucks – same with their Some Like It Hot book, which I luckily got in a little trade deal. After hanging out there, I then drove over to Melrose, where I came upon a record store called The Record Collector or something like it. This store was, for years, on Highland. It only deals in vinyl, mostly classical, and its proprietor is a loon of the highest order who used to love to pontificate and would deride anyone who bought into compact discs. Back in 1999, the store on Highland disappeared, and I had no idea he’d moved to Melrose. I went in and there he was, same old crusty curmudgeon who remembered me well and chewed my ear for a good thirty minutes. I then went to bookstore I used to frequent – it was exactly the same – old, musty, dusty, and completely disorganized. I was delighted to see the owner is still alive (he must be about ninety now). I finally toddled off to LACC to see a matinee of a play entitled Recent Tragic Events.
Yesterday, I saw a play entitled Recent Tragic Events, by Craig Wright. The very nice Leslie Ferreira directed it and I knew several of the cast members. I found it more of a non-play than a play – a play almost devoid of drama, without enough comedy, and with a playwright who thinks he’s a little cleverer than he actually is. The production, however, was top-notch and was just under two hours, which made me very happy. The actors all did very well, the set was really good, and the lighting was also very good.
I then came home and watched two motion pictures on DVD whilst eating a little pizza from Quickie’s Pizza and Subs. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled Ocean’s Thirteen. I thought the remake of Ocean’s Eleven was little better than mediocre, and I thought the sequel, Ocean’s Twelve was about as bad as you can get. I was wrong. Ocean’s Thirteen is as bad as you can get. What a wretched film. Badly written, poorly directed, and I watched it because I thought at least that Al Pacino would be fun – he wasn’t. And when did he become the twin of Ron Liebman? This guy doesn’t look anything like he used to. I didn’t see the film in theaters, but the DVD transfer is one of the worst I’ve ever seen of a major new film. If that’s what Mr. Soderbergh intended, then he must be taking the crack cocaine. It’s horridly grainy, the color saturation is so strong and so stupid-looking that it makes you want to vomit on the ground. I mean, why hire a director of photography anymore, when this new specious animal called a “colorist” is going to change everything and do all this stuff in the computer? It’s awful.
I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, the original theatrical version of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, which is now, finally, available on DVD. I saw Close Encounters at a press screening at the Academy two weeks before it opened. I remember the evening well, because seated behind me was George Lucas. I absolutely loved the film, and I saw it about ten times during its run. Of course, there was no video in those days, so I was delighted to see that it was going to be re-released as a special new version. Well, I took my daughter, who’d also loved the original, and we hated the new version, with all its little trims put back in and the awful idea of having Dreyfuss actually seen in the mother ship. Then Mr. Spielberg did his definitive director’s cut for the first DVD release – definitive to him maybe, but not to me. The only definitive version is the original theatrical release version, and everything else is hindsight and of no interest to me. And guess what? The theatrical version is still great – wonderfully written and directed, acted, photographed, scored, and designed. It just works, and didn’t need any rethinking or revisionism. The transfer is a little better than the previous DVD, but didn’t seem quite as good as it could or should be. Maybe it is in hi-def.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because time is marching on with the inexorability of a taco and we are merely the rice and beans in the passing parade.
Here is something I was thinking about yesterday. I’d left my glasses in my coat pocket, which, in turn, I’d left at home. And I said to myself, “Myself, darn it, my glasses are in my coat pocket.” And that got me to thinking, which is always a dangerous thing. Since my glasses are a single pair of glasses, shouldn’t it really be “my glasses is in the car?” And how can it be a pair of glasses when it’s only one glasses? There is something amiss and awry here, isn’t there? Is it correct, for example, if one is talking about one item of clothing like pants, to say my pants is in the closet, since the pants is singular? Certainly one says my shirt is in the closet or my shirts are in the closet, but when you say a pair of pants it isn’t really a pair, it is one pant. But you don’t say my pant is in the closet, you say my pants are in the closet. I gotta tell you. It is a conundrum wrapped up inside an enigma.
Today I shall do nothing but watch a few DVDs. I may, just for a change of pace, also listen to some CDs. I may take a drive in my motor car, but mostly I shall just sit around like so much fish and say my glasses is in my coat.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a relaxing day. 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 all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, and do remember the glasses is in the coat and time marches on with the inexorability of a taco.