Well, dear readers, it is Thanksgiving week and I, for one, would really like to give Thanks if only we can cross the finish line with the Holy Grail project. That would please me very much indeed. I’ll give all my other Thanks (and there are many) on Thanksgiving Day, including thanks to some turkeys I’ve known. I cannot believe it’s basically the last week of November. I mean, it really seems like only yesterday it was November soon to be December of 2008, and here it is November soon to be December of 2009. These years are going by much too quickly, like a gazelle with a pompadour. Does anyone still wear a pompadour? Or a pageboy? Yes, hair today, gone tomorrow. I had a rather pleasantly pleasant Sunday and I hope everyone else did, too. I was hoping to sleep late but I didn’t. I got up and decided to just be lazy and lazy I was. I didn’t finish the liner notes, I didn’t jog, I don’t know what the HELL I did do, but all of a sudden it was two-thirty and I had to leave for the DGA to see Nine. Oh, yeah, I did pack up about fifteen orders, so that took a while. I got to the DGA before three (the movie was starting at four) and was more than a little surprised to see “Lot Full” for the DGA parking lot and every single parking space within three blocks taken. There weren’t any DGA screenings prior to Nine so I didn’t know what the HELL it was about. There were also paparazzi outside the parking lot. I got so annoyed that I just decided to go home. I went to Fairfax and turned left and about a block up I found a parking space so I grabbed it and jogged back to the DGA, all three-and-a-half blocks. There was a line of about sixty people, so I took my place. It came to light that the DGA had rented out the big theater for a SAG screening of Inglorious Bastards and many from the cast (including Brad Pitt) were there for a Q&A (I guess they’re really hot for a SAG nomination, as if those actually meant something) – no wonder there were paparazzi outside. Why they would rent out the facility and plan two screenings so close to each other is anyone’s guess, and everyone on the line was annoyed about it. Finally at about three-thirty, the Inglorious Bastards people came out and by three-forty we were allowed to go in. I got my favorite seat, so that was good. I also ran into muse Margaret and her ever-lovin’ hubby Richard. By three there wasn’t a seat left in the theater. And then Nine began at four.
Yesterday I saw a motion picture musical entitled Nine. Warning: This is just MY opinion. If reading MY opinion is going to upset you, skip directly to the next paragraph, because I can only call it as I see it. Other people’s mileage may vary. I really wanted to like the motion picture musical entitled Nine, but while the film has its moments, for me it was just another case of pandering to an audience the filmmakers think will not put up with people singing unless its in a fantasy sequence or in the mind of a character. Audiences will, in fact, accept ANYTHING if it’s done well and if the filmmakers set up the world properly and then obey the rules of the film’s universe. It’s not that the conceit doesn’t work – it seemed to work for Mr. Marshall in Chicago, but Nine is not Chicago and after about the fifth number it just becomes wearying. All the numbers look and feel the same – you know, the flashy, quick editing, the concert-style lighting, the Bob Fosse shots and moves (without the art), and lots of gals in garters. We’ve seen it all before. And all the up-tempo songs end in exactly the same way – the editing becoming more frenzied, the sound louder and louder and then a huge burst of a button. They were, at the DGA, greeted by silence, despite two of them having huge applause on the soundtrack itself. I had hope for Be Italian, which Mr. Marshall films just as Fellini did (without the art) – Saraghina starts the song (the sequence is in black-and-white), but then, within twenty seconds, we’re back in fantasyland for no reason, and back to the garters and, basically, Mein Herr, which has what to do with Be Italian? Fellini’s 8 ½ is a brilliant film and meditation on art and the creative process. It’s intensely personal and yet universal – funny and very touching. I never saw the musical of Nine onstage, but only like a few songs from listening to the cast album, where they are not quite hyped up as they are on the soundtrack. But in the film of Nine, we get the beats, we get the outline, but I never cared about anybody in the film. They try to have it all ways – a little Nine, a little Fellini, a lot of Chicago, and it ends up being a long 110 minutes. The cast is all fine, although I just didn’t really care for Daniel Day Lewis all that much. And, as I’ve said before, I just can’t even look at Nicole Kidman anymore, so weird is her face. The film, shot in scope, looks okay – I expected it to look sharper, but perhaps the print shown won’t be indicative of the release prints – certainly it won’t be better projected than at the DGA. The orchestrations are nice, but the sound is pumped way too loud. There are a few orchestral cues in the style of Nino Rota, and there’s one irritating running gag where people keep saying they like Guido’s films, especially the early ones. All they left out was the “funny” as in Woody Allen’s “the early, funny ones.” Interesting to rip off that joke from Stardust Memories, Woody’s own “homage” to Fellini’s 8 ½. There were signs of some last-minute additions – I know they were doing major reshoots in June for some of the musical numbers, because I lost two dancers in Nudie to Mr. Marshall. All in all, it’s not a bad movie, but, for me, it just sort of jerked along, alternating between scenes and fantasy numbers. The final shot is quite nice and even somewhat affecting. So, for me a bit of a miss, but I’m sure others will feel differently. The reaction of the audience at the DGA was quiet, save for sporadic chuckles because of the film references, but it got polite applause at the end. There were a couple of teens in the audience who woo-hooed as the lights went down, but thankfully there never did it again. I can only imagine the youngsters from certain chat boards who will plotz and die from loving this film so much – they will cheer each number, they will be obsessed, just as they were with Sweeney Todd and Dreamgirls and just as they will be with whatever’s next. As I’ve said, they already love it – they don’t even need to see it – they’ve got the soundtrack, have seen the clips – it’s a done deal. And that’s fine. One thing I’ll say for Sweeney, even though I didn’t love it as much as most did – it had the courage of its convictions and was a MUSICAL – people sang. It wasn’t in the mind of a character and fantasyland. And people bought it, sat there, and were fine with it.
Mr. Marshall was there for a Q&A but I had to run off to meet our very own Miss Alet Taylor at Jerry’s Deli, where we had sandwiches, onion rings, and cake and a wonderful time.
I then came home and watched Spooks, a Three Stooges short in three dimensions – the rest of the shorts in the set, the non-3-D ones have been wonderful. The three dimension shorts look awful – they really screwed up on these big-time. I’ve seen decent-looking 3-D on DVD and Blu-Ray, but this transfer, whatever they did, just doesn’t work – there are shadows and weirdnesses and things completely out of registration, which makes the 3-D effects not what they should be.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I think I’ll go style my hair in a pompadour or, perhaps, a pageboy.
Today, I may or may not be having lunch and/or dinner with our very own Beth Malone. I’ll know after she contacts me, hopefully early this morning. Then I’ve got to attend to a few errands and whatnot, and my main task for the day is to absolutely finish the liner notes – and maybe jog. And hopefully get the last of the notes on the Holy Grail release, because with Thanksgiving coming, I really want to wrap this up before we actually announce next week.
Tomorrow we have a three-hour work session. I know it’s going to be torture for some of it, because we have some basic disagreements about placement of certain things – we’ll see how it all works out, but I’ve insisted on open minds, a bulletin board, and index cards, which I think will, at long last (I’ve suggested this for a long time), be very helpful.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, try to do a jog, do some errands and whatnot, finish liner notes, and do whatever else needs doing, and then hopefully supping with Beth Malone. Today’s topic of discussion: What was the first thing you ever saw in three dimensions, film-wise? When did you see it, where did you see it, and how effective was the process. I’ll start – the first time I ever saw 3-D (I didn’t see any 3-D films on their original release in the early 1950s) was in the first year that Disneyland was open – at one of their Main Street theaters they showed a 3-D short and all I remember about it was that Annette was in it. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I dream of pompadours and pageboys.