Well, dear readers, the birthday is over and if I can just get over this tidal wave of nausea that just came over me from eating one large piece of cake too many, and if I can just avoid vomiting on the ground, then it will have been a very pleasant birthday. Certainly it was one of the quietest birthdays I’ve ever had, but that was actually fine by me. I spent the morning hours printing out lots of orders and getting lots of e-mail and Facebook birthday wishes. I then had a lovelier than lovely lunch meeting at Hamburger Hamlet, where I had my beloved California Market Salad and garlic toast. The company was stellar and I was given two count them two baseball hats, which was very nice. After that, I came back to the San Fernando Valley and picked up three packages, including a very thoughtful gift from our very own elmore. The I went to Gelson’s and got a Parisian Cake, which I brought home. Then I printed out more orders, read more birthday wishes from e-mail and Facebook, had a really fun conversation with the composer of our next release (who will be signing the first 100 copies purchased via Kritzerland), and then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish and watched a birthday movie.
Last night, I watched a birthday motion picture on Blu and Ray, It’s A Wonderful Life. I discovered It’s A Wonderful Life back in the mid-1970s when I decided to have what would become the first annual Kimmel Movie Marathon, which I held in the garage of my very first home, having converted said garage into a 16mm screening room, complete with a projection booth, big screen and even masking. It was a great room. My friend and Nudie Musical co-director Mark Haggard lent me several of the prints and he suggested starting with It’s A Wonderful Life, which I’d never seen. The films in the marathon were kept secret – no one had a clew as to what we were going to be showing. We began at noon, and the price of admission was a food dish. We began with Wonderful Life, and I was so captivated and amazed by the film, and by its end I was an emotional wreck and a puddle of tears. We did the movie marathon for over ten years straight, and we always began it with It’s A Wonderful Life (by year two, I’d acquired my own gorgeous 16mm print). One memorable year, we were in someone else’s house who had the ability to screen 35mm, and we had an all 35mm marathon. Somehow, for that marathon, the Library Of Congress’ mint nitrate 35mm print of Wonderful Life, which had never been screened, was shown and it was one of the most breathtakingly beautiful things I’d ever seen. That particular marathon was probably our apex – also shown were mint 35mm IB Tech prints of The Court Jester, You Only Live Twice, and our piece de résistance, Vertigo (in the days when it was simply not possible to see the film). After we stopped doing the marathons, I went many years without seeing Wonderful Life – in fact, the first time I saw it since the late 1980s was, in fact, last year, on DVD. Watching it last night on Blu and Ray had the effect it always has on me – within one minute I am weeping and I never stop (other than laughing in between the weeping) until the final frame. I find the film virtually perfect and its story profoundly moving. The script is fantastic, the direction is simple and right, the score by Tiomkin works wonderfully – but it’s the cast that makes the film truly shine. James Stewart gives one of his best performances as George Bailey (and that’s saying something), and Donna Reed is luminous as his gal Mary. The supporting cast makes you realize just how bereft we are these days of great character actors – they simply don’t exist anymore, not in the way they did, and it’s a real shame. In this film, we are treated to fantastic performances from the likes of Henry Travers (who is so great I just shake my head in amazement), Samuel Hinds, H.B. Warner (fantastic), Gloria Grahame (fantastic), Frank Faylen, Ward Bond, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Beulah Bondi – we have no one like them today and that’s why movies feel so much less special. By the end of the film I’d gone through about seventeen pieces of Kleenex. It was the perfect birthday motion picture. The transfer, while very sharp and with excellent contrast, has been almost completely shorn of natural film grain. I’m not one of these twits who goes on and on about “film look” – most of those don’t even know what that means. But even the opticals have been shorn of grain and it looks totally unnatural. They obviously have a really terrific element and if they just transferred it in hi-def without doing so much grain removal, it would probably look great – Casablanca is the poster child for what a movie of this vintage should look like if the element is either the camera negative or close to it – it shouldn’t be overtly grainy (especially if it’s the camera negative), but it should have a fine film grain, nothing you’d really notice but that should be there). Where I have to laugh is when these wags call a transfer that is obviously generations away from the camera negative and therefore REALLY grainy in a way that is what the filmmakers had to compromise for in release prints, but not what the film’s first generation element looked like, and they say it’s “film like” and that the grain is good. Light grain is fine. Optical grain is fine. Grain because film was pushed in low light is fine. HEAVY grain that was never meant to be there is not fine, but also scrubbing an image totally clean is also not fine. Still, this will please most people, and it was grand to watch it and have it be so pleasingly sharp.
After the motion picture, I had a visit from dear reader Sam, who brought me a balloon with a smiley face and some gummy candies. I gave her a piece of cake to take home with her – it was very thoughtful and sweet of her to come by. Speaking of cake, I had two huge pieces, which, as I said earlier, was one huge piece too many. However, the Tums seem to be doing their job. I then had another long and nice telephonic call, and then it was time to write these here notes.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because, after all, it’s a wonderful life.
Today was supposed to be a shipping day, but I found out late yesterday that the CDs would not be ready and would, in fact, be arriving on Thursday morning. So, I revamped the day, and now I’ll be going to the tape transfer place with tapes for an upcoming release, so that will get done. After that, I’m thinking of going to Gelson’s and getting some filet of sole to sauté in butter – seeing Julie and Julia made me want to have that, and it’s so easy to make that I thought it might be fun to do that very thing.
Tomorrow will now be a heavy and long shipping day, and thankfully Cason Murphy can be here first thing in the morning to help. Then the meeting I was supposed to have will now occur on Friday, and then the weekend will be mine all mine.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, maybe do a jog (it’s been way too chilly to even think about), go to the tape transfer place, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up a package or three, and maybe make some filet of sole – if not, I’m sure I’ll find something amusing to eat. 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, whilst we all try to feel that it really is a wonderful life.