Well, dear readers, I am boiling up noodles as I write these here notes. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I am boiling up noodles as I write these here notes. I am, in fact, making a batch of tuna pasta salad because if I split eating it over two days I have always lost weight doing so. There has not been an instance of doing so where I have not lost weight and so I am doing it because weight I must lose. We are a mere two count them two days away from a brand new year, one called 2013. And I must say I’ve been enjoying these last few days of a year I like to call 2012. They have been relaxing and yet I have indeed gotten some work done, especially in terms of book notes. I think many of our regular dear readers will especially be tickled pink by the title. Or, perhaps tickled green or tickled brown. Why is it always tickled pink – other colors need love, too, tickle-wise.
Tuna pasta salad is made and in the refrigerator. Yesterday was quite a lovely day of relaxing. I was up at nine, then did some banking, then had some matzo brei and a bagel, so a pretty light meal. Then I did some errands and whatnot, which included a little trip up to Van Nuys Blvd. and Kittridge. Yesterday on Facebook, the Valley Relics page posted a photograph of a Coffee Dan’s that used to be in the Valley. I had no idea Coffee Dan’s had a Valley location – I frequented the one on Hollywood Blvd. when I was a young snapper of whips. The photo didn’t identify where it was, but I knew instantly it was Van Nuys Blvd. and so did others, who posted that. But you could also see the DWP building, which is still there, and I knew it was Kittridge. It’s now one of those sickening little strip malls the dot every corner of everywhere in Los Angeles and environs. Those sickening strip malls usually replaced gas stations, but also restaurants and small businesses, too. After that, I came home and the helper came by and got all the invoices and shipped out everything save for orders that included our new three releases. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched a whole slew of motion pictures. I began with the new Clint Eastwood movie, Trouble With the Curve. I must say, as clichéd as the script is and as much as there’s really not one original thing in the film, I found it really enjoyable to watch. Clint has done the curmudgeon before – in Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino – but he does it so well and I’m just always a sucker for it. Add to that a winning performance by Amy Adams (who here at least has something to do, unlike The Master), and a good supporting company of players, competent direction, a nice score for a Clint film for a change, by Marco Beltrami, nice photography and it’s a very pleasurable viewing experience. It hits all the clichés – you can see them coming a mile away – the scene where he goes to the cemetery and has a conversation with his dead wife, the father and daughter bickering (“You were never there for me”), the acrimony with management, showing everyone up for the jerks they are – but with Clint it somehow is all fine and like comfort food. It wasn’t a box-office success, which is a shame.
I then watched the second motion picture, which was entitled Arbitrage, starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon. I’d read unbelievable raves for the film. Well, it’s not all that. Gere is excellent as are all the actors, especially the ever-reliable Stuart Margolin, but like Clint’s movie, it’s all been there, done that. It’s somewhat entertaining and it plods along until it’s finally over. Gere takes a really unlikeable character and makes him somewhat winning, but in the end there isn’t really even redemption for him. It’s not really a thriller, as advertised, which is why it probably didn’t do better – yet another case of selling a film incorrectly. One wonders if they will ever learn.
I then watched the third motion picture and talk about a horrendous case of selling a film in the most incomprehensibly stupid way imaginable, I finally caught up with Winter’s Bone. And would you like me to tell you why it took so long? Because the advertisement almost made it seem like a fershluganah horror film, some kind of twisted, tense movie. So I stayed away. Even the back of the package proclaims “a pulse-pounding thriller.” I’m afraid not. There are no thrills, the pulse never pounds, and other than a few moments of quiet dread there is nothing resembling any kind of thriller about this movie. What we have is a character drama set in redneck country. Jennifer Lawrence is very good in her debut, but the fact that she got an Oscar nomination is truly baffling – it’s not that kind of role and I’m shocked enough people even saw it to vote – it also got up for Best Picture, thanks to the stupid new rule allowing ten nominations. It is, in fact, the lowest-grossing Best Picture nominee perhaps in history. And I believe it’s because once word got out that it was nowhere near a pulse-pounding thriller, that people suddenly knew they were hoodwinked and once you hoodwink people you are done. You’d better damn deliver what you promise or you will fail, time and time again. John Hawkes is like a whole other human being in this film from what he was in The Sessions. You wouldn’t even know it was the same person. In any case, I found Winter’s Bone dreary and not much more. Had I known it was based on a Daniel Woodrell novel I would have known exactly what I’d be in for. Instead, I was sure I was in for a pulse-pounding thriller masquerading as some kind of horror film. Good job, ad department.
The one good thing about all three films is that all were under two hours, something that not many films from the year 2012 can say. Whilst watching the three motion pictures on Blu and Ray, I had a little snack of some thinly-sliced Eyetalian salami (probably two ounces in all), one slice of the Darling Daughter’s cherry loaf cake (not a big slice) and then finally one of those French bread pepperoni pizza things – so, all in all, a reasonable calorie count day. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I shall have another relaxing day of watching motion pictures (I’ve really caught up this past week), eating half the batch of tuna pasta salad over the course of the day and evening, and perhaps making a few book notes.
Tomorrow is, of course, our Annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve partay right here at haineshisway.com and you won’t want to be anywhere else. Let’s have the joint jumpin’ with merriment and mirth and laughter and legs, shall we? Let’s ring in the New Year together, shall we? I shall have my obligatory one sip of champagne at midnight after I’ve done my thirty minutes of silent contemplation, of which more about tomorrow. On New Year’s morning I begin my new book, I jog (weather permitting) and then later in the afternoon I go to Barry Pearl and his ever-lovin’ Cindy’s New Year’s Day party. The rest of the week is mostly rehearsing the Kritzerland show, then we have our stumble-through, then sound check and show on Sunday, along with the premiere of episode four of Outside the Box. And, of course, writing every day.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora or the cha-cha-cha, for today is the birthday of dear reader Dakota Celt. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to dear reader Dakota Celt. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO DEAR READER DAKOTA CELT!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, relax, and watch motion pictures. 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, only two nights away from being almost there, there being a brand New Year called 2013.