Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish sucking on a Nips caramel thing. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you read such an opening salvo as THAT? Nowhere, that’s where? Sitting like so much fish sucking on a Nips caramel thing is peculiar to this site and this site only and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise because it will be a bald-faced lie. What exactly IS a bald-faced lie? A lie on a shaved face? In any case, I’ve now finished sucking on my Nips caramel thing and can finally write these here notes, because one simply cannot write notes mid-suck, as it were.
So, yesterday morning, I awoke after a mere six hours of sleep. I got ready, my pal Adrienne Visnic arrived (she was in the production of Inside Out that I directed, as well as several Kritzerland shows) and we moseyed on over to the Disney studios to see, with some irony, the new Disney/Pixar film, Inside Out, which bears no relation to the Doug Haverty/Adryan Russ musical of the same name. While I cannot say that I’ve loved every Pixar film, I most assuredly have loved most of them, especially Wall-E and Up, all of the Toy Story films, The Incredibles – well, just about everything except Cars and its sequel and Brave. I’m kind of over female empowerment movies, if you must know. As a genre, I really wish it would go on hiatus for a decade. But I will see ANY Pixar film because there is so much talent in that group of people that even when they’re not, for me, firing on all cylinders, even the stuff I don’t love is 100 times better than most of the other animated stuff I see. But when they’re firing on all cylinders they’ve created some of the most unique films in the history of cinema. They were a game changer from the very beginning and their success is incredibly well deserved. But the high bar they’ve set makes me nervous every time I sit down to watch their latest. But I’m happy to report that with Inside Out they have, shockingly, at least for me, surpassed themselves with a completely unique, quite brilliant, funny, touching and beautiful film entitled Inside Out. Yes, there’s a pre-teen girl at its center, but its not about female empowerment at all – it’s about emotion – the lead characters are the inner emotions of the pre-teen girl – Joy, Anger, Sadness, Envy and Fear. How they’ve imagined those emotions is the film and I’m not spoiling any of it for anyone other than to say it’s kind of a masterpiece and certainly will rank high among this best films of this year – in fact, I’ll be surprised if I see a better film this year. The voice casting is simply perfect straight down the line. And the score by Michael Giacchino has a by-God THEME, a memorable theme, not just piano meanderings over held chords. And you know what having a memorable theme accomplishes? Well, I’ll tell you what it accomplishes – it means that when that memorable theme appears you actually feel – wait for it – EMOTION, as you should with any film score, but so infrequently do these days. The animation is as good as it gets – the sound is as good as it gets – hell, the whole damn film is as good as it gets, and therefore there is nothing else for me to say but this is highly recommended by the likes of me. I know I’ll be seeing it again and I can assure you I will be the first to order the Blu-ray.
After the screening, we met up with Adryan Russ, who was there with a couple of her friends. Adryan thought it would be fun for us to dine in the Disney commissary, and that’s exactly what we did. I hadn’t been in the Disney commissary since I shot The Apple Dumpling Gang back in the 1970s. Well, it’s probably the best commissary around, with all kinds of different food stations – Mexican, salads, a grill, pastas, and something called Global. We all opted for the pasta station. They ask you what you want on your pasta – you can have sun dried tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms and other vegetables, you can have shrimp or chicken or sausage (or all three), and you can have marinara, alfredo or pesto sauces. You have your choice of different kinds of pasta – bow tie, penne, and whole wheat. And there’s fresh grated cheese, too. There’s all kinds of liquid refreshments and plenty of seating both indoors and out. We opted for outside and it was a beautiful day. Of course I was on the lookout for stars, but sadly Pluto or Donald or Mickey were nowhere to be seen. The food was terrific. It was just a wonderful morning start to finish, and I entered through a gate I’d never been through before called the Zorro gate. Since Zorro was one of my favorite childhood TV series, I rather liked that and felt like Guy Williams.
After that, I dropped Adrienne at her car, then went and did some banking and other errands. Then I came back home and looked at the little adjustments I’d made to the Sami script – didn’t like most of them, put it back the way it was, and finessed the changes I did like. I definitely focused and made clearer one monologue in particular, but I also did some other small changes throughout – sometimes losing a word for better rhythm, or changing a word, sometimes getting rid of an unnecessary sentence, and sometimes adding a few lines to make a point better. The script is the exact same length it was, and I’m happy with these small changes and any further changes will happen during our three weeks of rehearsals. After that, I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finished watching Far From the Madding Crowd. It’s not a perfect film, and I don’t quite like it as much now as I did back when it came out, but this transfer is so superb (this is a UK disc and is 1000% better than the Warners Archive Blu-ray), a new 4K restoration supervised by the film’s director of photography, Nicholas Roeg. The cast is superb, as is the score, and it just looks so damn good. There are a few new interviews in the supplements, including Terence Stamp, Nicholas Roeg, and screenwriter Frederic Raphael. After that I watched the first ten minutes of a rather horrifying staged concert version of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, done in France. The staging is so ham-fisted and awful it just was making me want to vomit on the ground. And the leads all have those hideous mics that run down the side of the cheek and practically embed themselves in the singers’ mouths. The leading guy, rather than the charming innocence of the film’s leading man, is more like a strutting peacock. The Catherine Deneuve gal is pretty and sings well, but they’ve also cast Madeline as a blonde and they look too much like each other. Michel Legrand, the composer of the score, conducts and the music sounds good. I’ll do my best to finish it but I have the feeling it’s going to be a slog. After I finished with my viewing, I did a mile-and-a-half jog.
Today, David Wechter is coming over in the morning, and then we’ll go to the home environment of my engineer and do the final finessing of the mix of David’s song. That really shouldn’t take more than an hour, and then we’ll go have a fun lunch somewhere. Then I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, then I must relax for the rest of the day and evening.
Tomorrow I’ll relax until it’s time for our stumble-through at six. I’ve told everyone that if they like they can stay and watch the Tony Awards here, since our rehearsal will end only thirty minutes before the start of the show. If people stay, I’ll order some pizza from nearby Quickie’s. Monday is sound check and show, then the rest of the week is busy with planning the July show, casting it, meetings and meals, and lots of other stuff.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, finesse a mix, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Julie Christie? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have seen the new Disney/Pixar film, Inside Out.