Well, dear readers, color me excited, color me thrilled, color me Barbra, today is the premiere of season two for Outside the Box and episode one is up and running so what are you waiting for? As soon as you finish these here notes go directly to youtube.com/outsidetheboxseries and click on the latest episode at the top. It’s hard to believe it’s been an entire year since the last season, but for a whole slew of reasons it was just impossible to shoot the episodes earlier this year, even though that was the plan. Originally it was March, then I pushed it to April, then June and things just kept coming up and we had a dickens of a time casting it, too. And then once I’d gotten Hal Linden to commit, we had to wait for his schedule to clear and boy am I glad I did because as you will see, he’s fantastic in episode one (or seven if you’re being consecutive. If all goes according to Hoyle, a new episode will be up every two weeks over the next twelve weeks. And if we decide to do season three, then those will absolutely start shooting in late February. Please spread the word, share the video on your Facebook pages so we can be popular with the populace.
Yesterday turned out to be quite a nice day. First off, I got a great night’s beauty sleep – over ten hours and boy did I need it. I woke up feeling terrific. I had an e-mail the required responding to, which I did. That began a little volley the result of which was, I hope, positive and good for the future of a relationship. So, that was very nice. I then picked up a package and an important envelope, did some banking, ate a Cobb salad and a bagel, and then came home. I did some work on the computer, had some telephonic calls, and relaxed. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, thanks to dear reader Jrand, I was able to watch the HBO/BBC movie, The Girl, purportedly the story of the tumultuous relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and his discovery Tippi Hedren. Based on the non-fiction book by Donald Spoto, an author I’m not terribly fond of, and Miss Hedren served as an advisor on the film. That’s all well and good, but the film is anything but well and good. It’s horribly written, horribly directed, and horribly fiction. That a movie like this can sully reputations based on very one-sided information is criminal. Only Miss Hedren knows what really went on, but the screenwriter (and I use the term loosely) just is bent on making it all a boring soap opera. I know some people liked the actor who played Hitchcock, but I did not. Other than occasionally getting the voice right (if not always the accent), he was not heavy enough, the hair was silly-looking and seeing this guy and even the trailer with Anthony Hopkins as Hitch – you just can’t believe it. And if you can’t believe it, you have no movie. The gal who plays Tippi is not so hot, but then the script is awful so she really has nothing to work with. And why should we not take any of it seriously? Because when screenwriters and directors can’t even get the rudimentary basics of filmmaking right they don’t deserve to be taken seriously and one has to question the verisimilitude of the entire project. If you’re going to make a movie about the making of two movies, at least have the studio resemble an actual film studio – what they use is a joke. Have a couple of period shots of Hollywood, even though you’re shooting the movie a continent or two away from there. If you’re going to have Brit actors playing Americans, try to get some who can actually sound American. For dolly shots, don’t put the camera on sticks and then on a wooden thing with wheels – The Birds was shot in the early 1960s not the 1930s. It looks like they’re using a silent film camera. If you’re shooting an actress coming through the door onto a set and the “camera” is shooting that scene (I mean the camera in the film within the film), don’t cheat by showing us the entrance from the OTHER side of the door where there cannot BE a camera. Just the basics, you know? The director is constantly being cute by quoting actual Hitchcock shots and quoting them quite poorly. You know you’re in trouble when the main titles have a song behind them rather than score – and the song has what exactly to do with this film? I could go on and on and on. My favorite, though, and this is the distillation of all that is wrong with this awful movie – they recreate the opening shot of Marnie – with the actress playing Tippi in front of a yellow screen as if the background of where she’s walking was put in later in post-production. Um, no. The shot was made on location and quite obviously so. How ridiculous can you be? A thorough and complete waste of celluloid and money and viewer time.
I then watched the first forty minutes of Fritz Lang’s marvelous 1932 film, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. One frame of this film has more art in it than the entirety of The Girl. Here’s a real filmmaker making a real film. Dated? Of course. But a complete mastery of the medium, just as Hitchcock did back then and for every film he ever made.
Then I did some writing on one of the last two episodes we’ll be shooting, made a cut in one of its songs, and went to Gelson’s and got a few small snacks to munch on. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep, but not before I post the season premiere of Outside the Box.
Today, I shall work on liner notes, then Mr. Barry Pearl will come over and we’ll go have some lunch then attend the opening night of a play at the Pasadena Playhouse. Thankfully it begins at five so I’ll be home at a reasonable hour.
Next week is crazy – working with the East Coast Singer preparing a Christmas show, and shooting two episodes of Outside the Box. I don’t know when exactly I’m supposed to breathe in there, but I guess I’ll have to find the time. But next weekend, I’m just sitting here like so much fish.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, work on liner notes, lunch, and see a play. 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 post the season premiere episode of Outside the Box and then hit the road to dreamland.