Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle cracking wise. So, yesterday I told you I watched the American remake of The Secret in Their Eyes and thought it fairly dreadful. Last night I watched the original, which I haven’t seen in quite a few years. Happily I’d gotten the Blu and Ray at some point. And it is every bit as great as I remembered it being. Everything that stinks about the remake works beautifully in the original – that’s because they don’t dumb anything down – not only does the remake do that to extremes, but they change characters and cheapen everything. The original has incredible performances, good direction, an excellent script that always holds the interest and which, unlike the remake, is fairly complex in its themes. But as long as lazy Americans don’t want to be bothered with those scary old subtitles, I suppose we’ll keep getting these wretched remakes. And sadly, the people who see them and of course don’t like them don’t even know it’s a remake. The original is highly recommended by the likes of me and the transfer and sound are aces.
I got about six hours of sleep and was quite the groggy Jew for over an hour. I answered e-mails and attempted to have a telephonic conversation. Otherwise, I worked quite a bit at the piano and then on the computer. I had a brief but nice visit with composer Pete Anthony, who was picking up some Betting On Zero CDs. After that, I picked up some packages, then I stopped at Taco Bell and got a few things for my main meal o’ the day, came home, and ate it all up whilst listening to two of our upcoming releases. I also had some great news about a title that I thought was ours, which suddenly wasn’t, and now suddenly is again. And I should hear about the other title I’ve been waiting on – both will be great to put out and while in the case of one there was an overseas release, it sounded horrible, and in the case of the other, there was a US release from an ancient and second generation tape that sounded pretty bad – for that release, should we get it, they have the original three-track masters and we’re hoping there’s some extra material. So, suddenly there are a nice number of projects in the works and we should have a fairly steady stream of releases from now until the end of the year, both soundtracks and shows, plus I’m doing a few more classical releases because surprisingly, they sell pretty well, with steady orders on Amazon. Then I watched the movie, and after that I did a quick trip to Ralph’s. I just needed something small to eat, but nothing appealed to me and the stuff that was semi-appealing was all way too caloric. In the end I settled on a half roasted chicken that looked good and fresh. I brought it home and since Grant was working late on his book, he came and took half the half and I ate the other quarter and it was quite tasty and of course very low in calories.
Then I listened to some music from a composer new to me, a Russian named Kara Karayev – I’d heard something of his on the radio and really liked it, so I got a couple of really cheap Naxos CDs and I’m enjoying them thoroughly – very film music-like and tonal. The two discs I got contain one symphony each, and one has a violin concerto and the other has two orchestral pieces. I’m especially enjoying the third symphony. I was happy to see two new GEE reviews on Amazon, both fun to read.
Today, the meeting with Kay Cole has been pushed to Thursday, so I just have a one o’clock meeting, and then Nick Redman is paying a visit – I’ll get about seventeen Twilight Time releases, and he’ll get all the CD releases he hasn’t gotten plus his copy of GEE, so that will be fun and I’ll certainly have lots to watch. I’ll hopefully pick up packages, I’ll eat at some point (maybe at home), I’ll do work at the piano, and then I’ll relax and watch a Twilight Time Blu-ray.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, I’m seeing a show Thursday night and I think something is going on Friday but hopefully someone will remind me.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a meeting, have a visit, eat, hopefully pick up packages, work at the piano, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite chicken dishes? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have discovered the roast chicken at Ralph’s – I think I’ll perhaps do that once a week now.