Well, dear readers, it is late and therefore I must write these here notes in a hurry but I can do that because, really, I did a whole lot of nothing yesterday. Well, that’s not entirely accurate, I did have small moments of doing little amounts of something. Once again, it took until about four in the morning to fall asleep – I have so much stuff going on in my head right now, with this project and that project, and trying to parse out the time to do all of it and do it well. So, I only got about four hours of sleep before she of the Evil Eye arrived. I did a jog, then went and had a cheese and onion omelet (barely any cheese in it) and a bagel. After that, I picked up one packages and then came home. Once home, I answered e-mails, chose the final song for the show and now everyone has everything they’ll need and they actually have four full weeks to learn the material, although one thing that rarely changes is that some people simply don’t look at it until it’s much closer to rehearsal. As long as they show up prepared it’s all okay with me, but it’s nice to be this far ahead on this show and I’ve pretty much decided what October is going to be, too. I had a few telephonic calls, then wrote the opening patter for the Kritzerland show. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, starring Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox and Jon Voight. Now, I know you will find this impossible to believe, but I’ve never seen one frame of this film before. I can’t really tell you why, but it’s not something I ever got around to viewing. I’m surprised I didn’t see it back when it came out – maybe the trailer didn’t appeal to me. I’ve owned it in every video format and yet never put it on to watch. So, it’s fun to come to a movie that you’ve never seen. I’m sure it was much more visceral back in the day, but it still packs a punch and it’s really a terrific movie, with wonderful direction and writing, and great performances from everyone. The best scene for me was the Dueling Banjos scene – that was just magical. In the extras, shot in 2007, Boorman says he and his assistant were responsible for finding that strange person who plays the banjo. Unfortunately for them, I’d just watched the Marion Dougherty Casting By documentary, in which she states unequivocally that she was the one who found him. Boorman kept screaming that he wanted an albino, but Dougherty found this kid and all it took was one look on everyone’s part and he was cast. The infamous scene with Beatty and the interlopers was hard to watch but done really well. And the pace of the thing is just great. This was recently reissued on Blu-ray in different packaging with a new look back shot more recently, but the transfer is the same as 2007 and surprisingly no one has a problem with it. They should. They should have done a new scan and a fresh transfer, as this looks like something done in 2007. It’s not bad, it’s perfectly fine, but it would be nice given the film’s classic status if they brought it up to date.
After that, I decided to do a second jog, then I buckled down, Winsocki and wrote the first half of the commentary, which took most of the rest of the evening. Then I read a little.
Today, I have no real plans other than jogging and eating and reading and relaxing, not necessarily in that order. I’ll also try to finish the commentary. It would be great to have that completely out of the way.
This week we’ll have a major production meeting, Sami’s back so we’ll get together once or twice in advance of rehearsals, just to get her back into work mode, and I have a few other meetings and meals.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat, read, write, and relax. 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, happy to have done both a large amount of nothing and little amounts of something.