Well, dear readers, as I mentioned yesterday, I am having a gloriously glorious quiet and restful holiday weekend and I hope each and every one of you are as well. And now, may I just wax nostalgic for a little bit? When I was a wee sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth, I used to love coming attraction – you know, those wonderfully wonderful “coming soon to this theater” or “coming soon to a theater near you” classic movie trailers, especially those from the 1950s through around 1965, when trailer-making seemed to go to HELL. I looked forward to the coming attractions as much as I did the main feature. It wasn’t like now, you weren’t inundated with pretentious trailer after trailer after trailer – you got one or two, and they were cherce. The classic trailers were usually narrated by the great Art Gilmore (those who’ve read the new book know I brought him out of retirement for The Creature Wasn’t Nice) or Les Tremayne, and much more infrequently, Paul Frees. And the way these trailers were edited and blurbed made you want to run to the theater to see the film the following week. Sometimes, in fact frequently, the film wouldn’t quite live up to the hyperbole of the trailer, but sometimes they would live up to it and even surpass it. I loved when trailers were in Cinemascope (black and white or color – didn’t matter to me), and I just loved the whole feel and sound of them. Unlike today, trailers for comedies didn’t give away every laugh in the picture (today you frequently get all the funny bits in the trailer so that when you see the film itself, you just sit there like so much fish). Today’s trailers all have that awful self-important vibe and you either get that hideous voice intoning pretentious crap (“In a world…”), or you now get the new thing – pretentious text followed by pretentious images. The whole thing makes me want to vomit on the ground and none of today’s trailers ever make me actually want to see the film. No, like most things today, the fun has gone out of it, the old-fashioned ballyhoo has gone out of it, and the new-fashioned ballyhoo is anemic and dopey. There, I have waxed nostalgic and feel better for it.
Yesterday was a very nice day. Once again, I slept very late and had a great night’s sleep. I got up, was lazy, answered a few e-mails, made some telephonic calls, including a couple of important ones, and then had a couple of poached eggs on toast at Jerry’s Deli. I sent out our new release advance announcement to my dealers, I prepped our eBlast announcement, I listened to CDs, I made the decision to announce at midnight rather than get up at six in the morning, and thought about many things that needed thinking about. Then it was time to mosey on over to the Burbank Airport to pick up a friend. Her plane was ten minutes late, then it took the stupid airline another twenty-five minutes to get the baggage to the carousel. So, I just did the carousel waltz and drove around in circles for twenty-five minutes. Then my friend and I went to have a light repast, and I heard all about her trip whilst she ate some trout and I ate a BLTA. I then took her to her home environment and I came home and finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture in high definitions on the DVR entitled Killer’s Kiss, a Stanley Kubrick film. He’d made one film before this, Fear and Desire, but he didn’t like to acknowledge that one at all and always thought of Killer’s Kiss as his first real movie. The film runs a brisk sixty-seven minutes. It was shot for practically no money and it looks and sounds like it. At time it’s very awkward, the acting is stilted, but there’s something about it that’s so striking and so original that it still plays beautifully and is like a breath of fresh air. Plus, there are amazing shots of Broadway circa 1955, when there were three or four movie palaces on every block of Broadway in Times Square. The fact that there are NONE today – NONE – is not only astonishing, but nauseating. Back then, Times Square looked unique and was uniquely New York – now it just resembles Tokyo. Another real plus is the wonderful score by Gerald Fried, who would also score Kubrick’s The Killing and Paths of Glory. The hi-def transfer is quite nice and one can only hope for a lovelier than lovely Blu-Ray at some point soon.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button because coming soon to a website near you is the next section.
Today, I’ll sleep till about nine-thirty, then I have some business to take care of and take care of it I shall. Then the rest of the day is mine all mine, and I shall hopefully print out lots of orders and then I’ll be joining my helper, her mother, and her sister, for dinner at Genghis Cohen. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to another superb meal.
Tomorrow, there’s lots o’ stuff to attend to and attend to said stuff I shall. This week, I’ll be writing, attending several meetings, having several meals, and on Friday night I’ll be seeing the wonderfully wonderful Miss Nancy Dussault at the Gardenia. So, a busy week, but one I’m looking forward to. Also, I don’t know if anyone has noticed but today is the last day of May, and tomorrow is the first day of June, a brand new month and I’m quite sure it will be busting out all over. Of course, I wish everyone a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, and creativity.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, announce the new Kritzerland title, I must hopefully print out lots o’ orders, I must take care of some business in the morning and I must sup at Genghis Cohen. Today’s topic of discussion: Coming Attractions of course – what are your favorites, what are you memories of them, what is your first memory of seeing a coming attraction? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, coming soon to haineshisway.com near you.