Well, dear readers, I never quite achieved relaxation yesterday, but I did get a lot done and that’s good as it somewhat frees up today for said relaxation. I did get a good night’s sleep, and then I had to answer a lot of e-mails. Then I saw the first attempt at our opening title animation for the web series. It was good but not quite right. I made a few suggestions and a couple of hours later I saw the new version and it was pretty great. We have to make it a little longer than it is because Grant Geissman has to write a theme that will not be four seconds long – that theme, of course, will cover not only the opening title but the title card that follows, which will tell us what episode we’re watching. I think if we can, between those two things, come up with fifteen seconds, that will be fine. His theme will also play over the end credits, although I do have another way to go if I want to. I also saw the Nudie Musical Blu and Ray packaging – it, too, looks great. We had to fix some stuff and I gave those notes. Then I found more stuff to fix but my designer has just not been around very much to do much of anything this last week. Hopefully, we can put it to bed today as we have a lot of other stuff to do including a completely new design for the Nudie Musical website. I also spent considerable time revamping the Nudie Musical Facebook page. I did the four-mile jog, then had a chicken salad sandwich and a piece of custard pie for my meal o’ the day.
I picked up an important envelope and one package (not the one I’ve been waiting for all week), then came home and decided to “invite” all 2200 plus Facebook friends to “like” the Nudie Musical page. Of course, Facebook, in all its continuing stupidity, has made this such a daunting task that it’s just frustrating and disgusting. One must manually check each and every name on the list. This took me over an hour – I then clicked send and got the “loading” sign – which was frozen. I then noticed that the cable modem was not blinking correctly and dear Time Warner had decided to screw up at exactly the moment I’d clicked send. It came back relatively fast, about five minutes later, but the damage was done – not one name remained checked and none of the notices had been sent. In other words, a completely wasted hour – thank you Time Warner Cable, you scum-sucking pig. Over the next couple of hours I did a few hundred notices and I doubt I’m going to take the time to do the rest. I then finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Men In War – it’s one of the handful of Anthony Mann movies that I’d never seen and since I’m a huge Mann fan I decided to right that wrong. And it is yet another great Mann film – this fellow was a major director who is basically not even remembered today. He directed several classic noirs (T-Men, Raw Deal, etc.), several classic westerns (Winchester ’73, The Naked Spur, The Man From Laramie – all starring James Stewart), a couple of entertaining glossy films (The Glenn Miller Story, Strategic Air Command – again starring James Stewart – they made eight films together), then Men In War, his first war film, which was followed by a few more westerns, God’s Little Acre, the remake of Cimarron, after which he began directing what would have been his biggest film – Spartacus. That was not to be, however, because he and Kirk Douglas clashed repeatedly and since Douglas was the producer, he fired Mann and Stanley Kubrick took over (there are still some Mann scenes in the film – the opening and some of the gladiator training scenes). But he still got to make two big epics for Samuel Bronston – El Cid and The Fall Of The Roman Empire.
Men In War is incredibly compact as a film – it all takes place in one day, as we follow a group of foot soldiers in the 1950 Korean War – they’ve become separated from their outfit, have lost radio contact, and are trying to get to some hill to join up with them. They are bone-weary, nerves are frayed, and there are silent but deadly Korean soldiers all around them, who blend into the landscape so perfectly that no one ever sees them coming. It’s a wonderfully done picture, with a terrific cast, including Robert Ryan (great, as always), Aldo Ray (as good as he’s ever been), Robert Keith (a great performance without one line of dialogue – in fact, he speaks one word in the entire film and that’s in the last six minutes, a very young Vic Morrow, and several other excellent young character actors. I’m sure the photography of Ernest Haller looks amazing in a 35mm print, but you wouldn’t know that from this cheesy, public domain DVD. The score by Elmer Bernstein (who also did The Tin Star and God’s Little Acre for Mann – both issued on CD by Kritzerland) is fantastic – brooding, intense, suspenseful, and classic Elmer. One can only hope that it will come to CD someday.
After that, I wrote the liner notes for our new release and sent those to the designer. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get another good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I really must get some relaxation in. I’m hoping I don’t really have to do much of anything other than Nudie-related stuff and proofing things. I’m sure I’ll do the four-mile jog, and I’m equally sure I’ll eat something light but amusing, and I’m equally sure that I’ll watch a motion picture or three.
Tomorrow I hope will be more relaxing. Tuesday will start off with a bang, with lots of errands and whatnot, banking, and then our stumble-through rehearsal for the Gardenia show. Wednesday is sound check and show, and then the rest of the week will be making sure all the Nudie stuff gets to the replication people, setting the dates for our next shoot, recasting one role (I came up with a great idea whilst jogging), and meetings and meals.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the four-mile jog, relax, eat, and do only a few things. 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, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I’m equally sure that I’ll be equally sure.