Well, dear readers, the Monday miracle I was pretty much assured would happen, happened, but not in the way I was assured – in fact, it helped not one whit and was more annoying than helpful. So, now we REALLY need a miraculous surprise miracle, so send those most excellent vibes and xylophones with vigor – in fact, while you’re at it we could use a pocketful of miracles as well as continued dodging of bullets and merde hitting the merde. January had been, needless to say, a challenge and I would sincerely like to have an easier February.
Other than that frustration of yesterday, it was a decent enough day. I got about six-and-a-half hours of sleep, got up, immediately found that the miracle I was assured of was not what it was supposed to be and that was bad. But, what can you do but mush on, be calm, and know that everything will work out. I answered e-mails, had some telephonic calls, then went to a little café in the Bank of Bur to pick up the proofed manuscript and to meet a new potential pianist. That took about twenty minutes, then I came home and entered all the fixes that were easy, and flagged the ones that need comment from Muse Margaret. But frankly, there were really not very many things, and a lot of them I’d already caught myself. So, I have about twelve things to run by Muse Margaret – mostly having to do with commas – I have a love/hate relationship with commas and I feel that inserting too many in a sentence that’s dialogue will sometimes completely ruin the flow of how your eye reads and interprets the sentence. So, occasionally even though it may be wrong, I leave them out as a style choice.
Then I went and had a Chinese chicken salad (again) and a bagel (again). After that, I came right back home, did some work on the computer and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday I checked out the transfers on three new Twilight Time Blu and Rays – Hawaii, From the Terrace, and Bound for Glory. Two are from the MGM/UA catalog and those are usually older transfers. I thought Bound for Glory, while certainly not stellar, looked very much like a release print would have looked back in the day. We’ve become so spoiled getting 4K transfers off negatives – no one ever saw anything like that in a movie theater, where the prints were usually made from an internegative that was at least a couple of generations away from the camera negative. People profess to want transfers to replicate what they saw in a theater, or what people originally saw – and yet they don’t really want that at all – they want this other thing that bears no relationship to a theatrical print of a film. If they were shown a 35mm release print of Bound for Glory (presuming there’s one that hasn’t faded), I think it would be a real eye opener for people. Hawaii doesn’t fare as well, but it’s still acceptable and frankly I’d love to know what this looked like back in the day. For whatever reasons, I never saw it. But the film has a huge number of opticals – in fact the first shot in the film that’s NOT an optical doesn’t appear until almost seven minutes in. Add to that, Hawaii was shot in 35mm and blown up to 70mm for its roadshow engagement. I can’t imagine a film with that many opticals that was then blown up to twice its image size looked very good. Anyway, it’s certainly not horrible, but it certainly could be better. They also include the complete roadshow version in a transfer that was done for laserdisc. Compare that to the general release version and you shouldn’t have much of a problem – we’ve come a long way, baby. Even though the long version is advertised as 1.0 mono, it sounds to my ears like it’s the faux stereo version from the laserdisc. It may as well be mono. And speaking of mono, this film WAS in mono in its 70mm engagements, one of less than a handful of times that’s ever happened.
I am enjoying Bound for Glory, which I’ve never seen, and I don’t much care for Hawaii, but I’m slogging through it, and the score is, of course, lovely. Then there’s From the Terrace, which looks great. Oddly, the “blue brigade” has been silent on this one even though it’s just as blue as the transfers they say are too blue. I think my constant badgering about that topic has finally made an impact. I’m also enjoying From the Terrace – I’m fond of these soapy melodramas, and the cast is really terrific.
Then I went to a meeting – I lasted about ninety minutes, then took my leave and went to Little Toni’s, where I had there good chopped salad – it’s huge, and I feel quite gross right now, and I’m done with eating like this. I must lose twenty pounds in the next four months and there are no two ways about it. After that, I came home, had a telephonic conversation, and that was that.
Today will hopefully be a positive and okay day. I have to drive something over to Doug Haverty in the morning. I’ll converse with Muse Margaret about the changes I wasn’t sure about, and then enter or not whatever we feel is okay. I’ll eat something light, hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, and then pray for miracles.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, a work session on Thursday, figuring out the Kritzerland show, which I should have done a week ago, seeing Grease Live and a few other things.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, deliver something to Doug Haverty, converse with Muse Margaret, eat, hopefully pick up packages and pray for miracles. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite soapy melodramas? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, praying for that pocketful of miracles.