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March 7, 2015:

THE NICER DAY

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, it is late so I must write these here notes in a hurry, for she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon.  I’m happy to say that the Google DNS thing has been fixed and I changed my DNS settings back to what they were and everything seems to be fine and dandy and also dandy and fine.  So, it was a much nicer day yesterday than the day before when I had to deal with all that and a few other things you don’t know about.

The first nice thing was that for the first time in days and days I finally had eight hours of sleep.  Once up, I did stuff on the computer and answered tons of e-mails, then had to leave for the little early lunch meeting at Dino’s Pizza.  The meeting was fine, and the pizza was, as always, incredible.  I was actually a good boy and only had three slices of pepperoni pizza.  After that, I picked up two count them two packages, then came home.

The helper came by and got all the Stormy Weather invoices, as we’re getting it in Monday morning and will ship then.  Then I answered yet more e-mails, did a little work on the show I’m writing, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.

Yesterday, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Map to the Stars, a David Cronenberg film, but one written by Bruce Wagner, who, I gather, some people like in terms of his writing.  I believe the intention was a satire of Hollywood – I think that was the way this was being sold.  So, let me start by saying I didn’t crack a smile once.  I must have missed the satire part, and if it wasn’t intended to be satire, what exactly was it intended to be.  What it is is a smart-ass Hollywood movie, the kind populated with not one likeable character.  Well, I suppose on character might be more likeable than all the loathsome characters, but that’s not really saying very much.  I mean, this is not a David Cronenberg horror movie, like his early classics, and yet it IS a horror movie of sorts even though there’s no actual horror genre elements.  But honestly, spending 113 minutes with these characters was about 110 minutes too much.  The actors are, I suppose, fine, and some of them are asked to do really dreadful things on screen.  Mr. Cronenberg’s direction is very stately, which I always appreciate.  He’s aided by the photography, the music, and the production design, all of which are top-notch.  But I could simply not get past the smart-ass writing, the horribly irritating characters, and the obvious potshots at the movie industry – not that they aren’t deserved.  I cannot really recommend it, unless you’re someone who enjoys seeing what Cronenberg is up to these days, or if you really want to see that Julianne Moore will do just about anything on screen.

After that, I moseyed on over to our theater and attended the performance of our show.  We had a wonderful and fairly full house, and I knew lots o’ folks in attendance, including Michelle Brourman, Will Mackenzie and his ever-lovin’ Patty (he directed a staged reading of the show a couple of years ago), Eileen Barnett and her ever-lovin’ Bruce French, Shelly Markham (back for his second viewing), Mary Jo Catlett, LACC’s Al Rossi and his lovely better half, Susan Watson, and others I’m forgetting.  The show itself was quite good if a little loose in terms of the staging, so I will fix a couple of things before tonight’s show, because the one thing I can’t allow is any of the staging to become loose.  The audience did seem to enjoy themselves.

After the show, Doug Haverty had everyone over to his nearby house for a little mid-run party.  That was a lot of fun and there was some tasty food, too.  I left at eleven-thirty, hence the lateness of the notes.

Today, I’ll be up early, then I’ll go do stuff and return around noon.  I’ll get everything ready for the stumble-through, then we’ll do it at three, I’ll probably do the usual little nitpicky notes and run a few things, then I’ll go eat something.  I’ll probably go to the theater, clean up a couple of things, then stay and see the show and come right home after.

Tomorrow I’ll relax until it’s time for sound check.  Then we do our show.  Monday, we’ll ship CDs and I’ll finish casting the next Kritzerland show, then the rest of the week is meetings and meals and prepping a new release of some sort.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do stuff, hopefully pick up some packages, have a stumble-through, eat, clean up some blocking and then see a show.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films about Hollywood?  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a nicer day.

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