Well, dear readers, let’s just start the new week with 150%!!! And so, today begins our final two days of the campaign, as it ends on Wednesday somewhere around eleven in the morning. So, these two days are the big puuuuuuush to the finish line. Not the Finnish line, mind you, but the finish line. I’m hoping we can go higher so that we can put more stuff on it. We’ve already decided on at least one extra that’s a little pricey, but we can do it. But I have lots of others waiting in the wings to make an entrance, so let’s let them enter, shall we? Still great perks, many of them real bargains, so check ‘em out one last time and let’s get this as high as we can and make this a Blu-ray to beat the band. Here’s the handy-dandy link.
Otherwise, I am sitting here like so much relaxed fish, listening to Andre Previn’s marvelously marvelous soundtrack to The Subterraneans. It’s a combo-platter of great score cues and great jazz, and no one did that better than Mr. Previn. And prior to that I watched a motion picture entitled Jack the Giant Killer, which was a motion picture about Jack the Giant Killer. It’s a stupid title to a movie that so wants to be The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, so much so that it has the same star and director, as well as the same villainous villain. What it doesn’t have is Mr. Ray Harryhausen or Mr. Bernard Herrmann and that is why it fails almost completely. It’s also not very well written. The rip-off element is beyond belief, actually, and I don’t think the film was much of a hit. Mr. Harryhausen was the best at this stuff and Mr. Herrmann knew how to elevate this kind of film into a whole other territory. The Jack the Giant Killer score is actually terrible. The composers, Sawtell and Shefter, have done some okay stuff, but here it’s just loud and really unattractive meandering stuff that serves neither film nor story. Much of the film is optical work and not great optical work at that, but the transfer is reasonably okay, with decent color and detail.
But it’s the extra on the Blu-ray that makes it worth having. Somewhere around 1970 someone got the bright idea that they could turn Jack the Giant Killer into a kiddie show matinee musical. And so, Moose Charlap, the composer of Peter Pan and Whoop-Up write the music and co-wrote the lyrics with singer Sandy Stewart, to whom he was married. It’s pretty bad stuff any way you slice it. And what they had to do to make the songs work is so hilariously awful that it’s high comedy. Especially the ballad, where they keep repeating the same lyrics over and over again along with the same optically blown-up shots of the two actors. It’s must-see TV, folks. I saw it on TV back in the early 1980s and taped it, because no one believed that such a thing had been done. I was very surprised to find that Mr. Charlap died in the early 1970s at the age of forty-five. Anyway, that was my viewing.
Yesterday was indeed a ME day. ME woke up after nine hours of sleep, ME answered e-mails, ME did no work, ME was happy to see we went to 150%, ME called Island’s and ordered a Big Wave cheeseburger with bacon, medium well, and fries, which no longer come with the burger but have to be ordered separately. Don’t know why, since they lowered the price of the burger so that that total amount comes out to around the same. I also told them to make sure and put a little cup of their season salt for the fries.
I picked it up, as told to, fifteen minutes later. I was home one-minute after that. No season salt, burger somewhat cold. One bite told me that medium well had become medium rare. In other words, everything they could do wrong they did wrong. I intend to call the manager today and have a chat about it – I feel they owe me a meal, frankly.
After that, I sat on my couch like so much fish and dozed off for about forty minutes. Then I watched the motion picture referenced above. After that, I went and put gas in the motor car – $65 didn’t fill it up – it would take two more gallons and cost $75 to do that. It is such an outrage, but no one wants to take on these reprehensible oil companies. Then I went to Gelson’s and got stuff for tuna sandwiches – onion bagels, cheese, and onion – and got some Diet Coke, cream cheese, and Mexican cheese for my tortillas.
Then I played on the computer and began listening to Previn. The rest you know.
Today, I’ll try to be up by eleven, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll begin the big last two days puuuuush to take this puppy home, I’ll write liner notes, I’ll eat tuna sandwiches, I’ll decide about the May Kritzerland show (I’m supposed to hear on Wednesday what Vitello’s plans are for reopening), and if it makes sense, I’m hoping we might be back there in June – that would make all of us so happy, I’ll eat, cheerlead, and the at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is liner notes, and I do think we’ll do project two aka Revenge one more time, most likely on Saturday and I hope that will enable all dear readers who missed it, which were a few, to watch it. Undecided about doing a Q&A, but if enough people want it I’ll try to see if the cast can take part again. I think I may try to have a lunch this week, just to actually go sit in a restaurant for the first time since last summer. And, of course, the big puuuush on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, where I hope we have some last-minute action. Still thinking about whether to put up a couple more perks. We shall see.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, do whatever needs doing, begin the big final two days puuuush for the Indiegogo campaign, write liner notes, eat, decide about the May Kritzerland, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite movies in the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad-type genre? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have hit 150% and ready to take this puppy home to bigger and better heights, onward and upward, to infinity and beyond.