Well, dear readers, what an amazing day of postings we had yesterday. Our little food nostalgia did the trick and perhaps we’ll do more of that soon. Interestingly, there was no nostalgia whatsoever for the snood. Go know. I do love posting photographs to these here notes, and I’ll be scanning lots o’ stuff over the next couple of weeks but I’ve pulled three for today’s notes.
Back when I was a wee sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth I went to the Wiltern Theater a lot, especially in the summer when I’d go with my father to his restaurant, the Kiru. I’d hang out in the morning (sometimes he’d let me total the receipts from the night before on his handy-dandy adding machine), sometimes I’d just sit and eat maraschino cherries at the bar, or I’d play with the huge Grundig radio, or I’d eat the shrimp cocktail shrimp out of the big barrel in the kitchen, dipping them in the thousand island dressing. Then at around eleven, Al, the chef, would make me a turkey sandwich to go, and I’d mosey on over to the Wiltern to attend the first show of the day for whatever was showing. One of the first things I can remember seeing there was a movie called Lisbon, starring Ray Milland. I remember it vividly not so much for the movie but for the fact that I had a horrendous allergy attack and by the time I left the theater my nose was so red it looked like a clown nose.
I saw lots of great and not great movies at the Wiltern, which was one of the most beautiful theaters ever – it had a huge downstairs and two balconies. The screen was very big and I loved their curtains. It’s where I saw Jack the Ripper, Li’l Abner, North by Northwest, Tammy and the Bachelor (with Debbie Reynolds there in person), Hercules, Hercules Unchained, Jazzboat (starring Anthony Newley), The Great Imposter, and tons of others. One day, at the Cinecon dealer’s room I found a photo, maybe the greatest photo of the Wiltern ever, circa 1958, kind of the height of my attendance there – I, in fact, saw the double bill that is on its marquee, with No Time for Sergeants being the lead film. What makes the photograph so special, however, is that the film’s co-star, Nick Adams, is standing across the street leaning against a lamppost. He signed the photo to a well-known Hollywood columnist who’d been supportive of him. The actual photo is quite large and it’s faded, but thanks to handy-dandy digital technology I was able to bring it back to its full perfect color glory. Get a load of this.
Isn’t that fantastic? And then I found this fun photograph of dear readers Laura, Sandra, and Kerry, taken several years ago when I took them on a Kritzer tour (for anyone who comes to LA, the Kritzer tour is a MUST). Here they are standing in front of what was once my father’s restaurant, the Kiru at 3474 W. 8th Street. Obviously it no longer resembles even one whit what it looked like.
Also, back in the day, I bought tons of paperback books. I loved paperback books. Next to the Kiru was a Carl’s Market and there was a drug store on the other end of the block, both of which carried lots of paperbacks. I wrote about Carl’s in the Kritzer books and also the title story of How to Write a Dirty Book and Other Stories. That story was about an out-of-work screenwriter in the late 1950s who is kind of a nerdy fellow, who starts writing “adult” novels, which he turns out to be very good at. It helps him in his life, too. It’s a fun story I loved writing, because I used to sneak looks at all those adult paperbacks in Carl’s Market. Even at eleven or twelve, I was rather interested in the prurient nature – the titles I use in the story, with the exception of the book my hero writes, are all real. While I couldn’t buy those, I did buy all the movie tie-in books – I had a LOT of them and I read them voraciously. But when I was writing the story, I bought some adult books for nostalgia sake – Mystery and Imagination had a whole shelf of them. And the one title that made me laugh louder than any other was Hot Pants Homo. I know you think I’m making it up, but here is the living proof.
Now, how many of you dear readers are going to eBay right now to try and find your own copy? I still have tons of paperbacks out in the garage, some of them quite rare because they are the true first editions of certain things. And of course I have the original cover paintings on some of them.
And now for our regularly scheduled notes. Yesterday was kind of a fun day. I got up several times during the night, but managed to sleep until ten, so I think I got a little over eight hours of blessed sleep. Then I did my morning ablutions, answered e-mails and then moseyed on over to Jerry’s Deli for a lunch meeting. That was a lot of fun. After it, I did some banking, then picked up no packages. Five minutes after I left the mail place a package arrived. What else is new? So, back I went to get the package.
Then I listened to an upcoming two CD set we’re doing. It’s a GREAT release and one I’m really excited about. The sequencing all worked well except for the first film on the first disc. That I felt needed some sequencing help and so I moved a few tracks around, listened, and it worked much better. The music in this two CD set is exquisite. Then I did a three-mile jog, then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Passion, directed by Brian de Palma, starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace. Mr. de Palma has always been a mixed bag for me, with all his “influences” that he seems to never want to acknowledge. Of his early films, I like Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise, and Obsession, although none of those are perfect. I love Carrie – a film he gets exactly right, thanks to a great script and perfect casting straight down the line. After that, it becomes much more dicey for me, even though I know that his subsequent films have rabid fans. I found Dressed to Kill pretty mediocre, with its Hitchcockian sequences drowning in homage but not nearly as good because Hitchcock is Hitchcock and de Palma isn’t. The Fury I kind of enjoyed. I thought Blow Out was okay, but I thought Body Double was one of the worst movies ever – how anyone can buy that film is anyone’s guess. The Untouchables was overwrought but very entertaining. And then there were things like Snake Eyes and Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia and Bonfire of the Vanities and Raising Cain – for me, all terrible. But his fans forgive him everything and somehow all of those are masterpieces. I don’t think so.
So what to say about Passion? Well, I’d forgotten what it was until ten minutes into the film, when I knew I’d just seen the same damn movie and indeed a quick search of this here site told the tale: Passion, a film shot, I believe, in 2011, was based on a terrific French film called Love Crime, which starred Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier. When I wrote about that film, I also wrote I knew de Palma had remade it. I just don’t get the point of remaking a really good film that came out one year earlier. And since the remake can’t be called an American film, since it wasn’t really shot in the U.S. and features a cast of almost all foreign actors – well, let’s just say it was a lesson in futility. The remake has a script by de Palma – some of which sticks close to Love Crime and a final third that is pure de Palma and unfortunately I don’t mean in a good way. The thing that makes the original 2010 version work so well is because all the characters are completely believable as is the world they inhabit. But you know you’re in bad territory in the first scene just with the set design.
Whatever one thinks of Miss McAdams, and I happen to think she’s just like most actors today – not that interesting – she is too young for the role she’s playing and therefore the story doesn’t quite work as well as it does in the original. Noomi Rapace is a wonderful actress, so brilliant as Lisbeth Salander in the Dragon Tattoo movies. But here she flounders. And the supporting cast is just the bottom of the barrel with some of the most mediocre acting I’ve ever seen. The boyfriend character, who is played by a good actor in the French film, here is played by an anorexic, whispering, unpleasant-looking fellow and you just sit and wonder why any woman would give this guy a second look. Then de Palma compounds that by casting someone who looks the same as a police commissioner. That’s just dopey.
The never-ending score by Pino Donnagio just shows the usual having to ape a temp track and not a good temp track. The French film has very little music, so that when it’s used it actually means something. The story in Love Crime is fascinating and the way in which you get the information about what really happened is easy to understand and visually very clear. Mr. de Palma, on the other hand, muddies everything and two-thirds of the way through, when the French film does everything right, de Palma devolves into his usual excess, unnecessary and pointless split screen, and worst of all, several of his horrible “dream” sequences, which have nothing to do with anything and which are so confusing that you just sit there and want to yell at the screen. The French film ends on a fun, ambiguous note. The de Palma version ends ambiguously, too, but in a completely stupid way.
He also makes the huge mistake of changing a male character to a female, because one implied Lesbian relationship isn’t enough – de Palma thinks two is better than one. But it’s much more fun to watch a woman executive with a sympathetic male assistant. This may be the nadir of his career, and it’s not hard to see why the film received no theatrical release in the United States, where the only screenings it had were at a handful of film festivals. Not recommended at all by the likes of me, despite a nice transfer. I was so irked at having had to sit through it, I then put on Love Crime, intending just to skip around and see how much was different, but I ended up watching all of it – it’s great and that film is highly recommended by the likes of me, especially for the wonderful performances of its two leading ladies, both superb actresses, and a supporting cast of excellent French actors, none of whom are anorexic and none of whom whisper and none of whom look like each other.
Here is the final Kritzer Time song before we get into Benjamin’s original songs. This was the first song I really learned how to play on the piano. I loved this song and bought every version I could find, whether instrumental or vocal. Vocal by Guy Haines, arrangement by Grant Geissman.
Today, I have a lunch meeting, then a meeting with Lanny Meyers and the East Coast Singer. I’ll also find time to jog, to hopefully pick up some packages, and to have a relaxing evening so that I’m ready for tomorrow’s recording session.
Tomorrow is the first day of recording. I’ll get to the studio by nine for our ten o’clock downbeat. I can’t wait, actually. The band will hopefully be done between two and three, and then we record our four backup vocalists, after which I’m sure we’ll go out for a bite to eat. Sunday is our second day, which should be a bit shorter. When we’re wrapped, I’ll head over to The Federal to see Sharon McNight’s show. Monday and Tuesday evenings are both final vocal dates. So, a busy few days and then it’s almost time for the Kritzerland rehearsals to begin.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a lunch meeting, hopefully pick up some overdue packages, have a meeting with Lanny and Sandy, do a jog, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, too many. Blu and Ray, too many. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall dream of all my classic paperback books. Which paperbacks did you have and love as a kid?