Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, still listening to the symphonies and other classical music by Benjamin Frankel, a fine composers, whose symphonies, while certainly “modern,” I find very appealing because they’re very much in the vein of his film music, which I’ve always liked. I first became aware of Frankel in the 1970s when I happened to see a British motion picture on middle-of-the-night TV – So Long at the Fair was the name of it and I just loved it and especially loved the score. I eventually acquired a 16mm print of it. One of the themes was recorded several times and I included it and another piece from it on our British film music two-CD set called The Red Shoes. Then I really enjoyed his score for the war film Battle of the Bulge. Later, I saw Curse of the Werewolf and the Alec Guiness-starrer, The Prisoner, and those scores were also excellent. And I loved his music for Night of the Iguana. He also wrote good scores for The Importance of Being Ernest, Libel, and Footsteps in the Fog. And yet, few people know his name. He wrote eight excellent symphonies, a violin concerto, a viola concerto, and several wonderful concert pieces. Thankfully, recording-wise, we have all of that on CD and also a couple of CDs of his film music. The symphonies are all on CPO and are beautifully performed in excellent sound. So, listening to these again is very pleasurable. Another film composer I like who also wrote several symphonies and a lot of concert music, Humphrey Searle, is also “modern” but, for me, in a completely incomprehensible way. So, I’ll take Frankel any day of the week, including today, Monday. Prior to that on my lazy Sunday, I watched a movie on my Firestick and Amazon Prime entitled Before I Go to Sleep, a thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, and Mark Strong. Right from scene one I realized I’d seen it, but I stuck with it. Then I read what I wrote about it when I watched it on the Flix of Net back in 2015. I thought it was okay back then – but those were the days when I was watching so many crappy thrillers that it probably seemed better than all those horrid films. But, watching it again, it’s really bad. I mean, really, really bad. It’s directed by Rowan Joffe (son of director Roland Joffe), and written by him, too, adapted for a best-selling thriller novel that I’m sure was very much in the “modern” thriller novel mode – you know, the Gone Girl type thing. I find most of these “modern” thrillers to be terrible, but that’s what people like these days. Nicole Kidman plays a woman who wakes up every morning not remembering her past or who she is. We learn she had a terrible accident and suffers from this type of amnesia. Her husband (Firth) has to patiently explain this to her every morning, and there are photos and post-its to help her understand. After he goes to work, she gets a call from a therapist and he tells her that although she won’t remember who he is that he’s been treating her – he tells her to locate a camera in her closet and watch the videos on it, which help her to also understand her predicament. It’s a preposterous set up and plot and given that aside from Kidman, there are only two other characters in the film, both males (there’s also a female friend who shows up two-thirds of the way through), it’s not real hard to figure out that something is screwy with one of them and from there unless you haven’t seen a thriller before, it’s not hard to figure out which of them it is, no matter how many red herrings there are and there are a LOT of red herrings as well as some yellow and blue herrings, and like most herring, they all smell to high HELL. And this director’s idea of notching up the suspense and tension, is to have Ms. Kidman walking and almost stepping in front of a suddenly appearing car, accompanied by a loud sound effect. That might work once, but when an inept director does that three or four times, you know what you’re dealing with. The score is standard issue “thriller” music of the current variety. Kidman and Firth do their best, but I thought Mark Strong was not so hot and a very typical “now” physical type. It’s fairly short, which is a good thing.
Yesterday was a lazy little day. I got nine hours of sleep, I answered a few e-mails and for the second day in a row had no orders, which was not such a good thing, considering we announced two new titles last week. I went to Gelson’s and bought a few things for snacks and meals – more tuna, some flour tortillas, and a package of small Boboli pizza crusts, and some mozzarella and pepperoni. I came home and made a Bobobli small pizza (I mean SMALL, like eight inches small). I used a bit too much sauce, so I’ll know for next time to cut back a bit, but I must say it was very tasty. Here is a photograph of it after I’d cut it into slices. Oops, something is awry and it won’t upload any photos. I’ll update, once they fix the damn thing.
After that, I listened to a couple of Frankel symphonies, and then sat on my couch like so much fish. Prior to watching the “thriller” I watched a 2011 documentary about Jerry Lewis, which I found very enjoyable, and it made me want to watch some of his movies again – I don’t think many are on Blu-ray, but I’ll have to check. I do have a couple for sure. There are lots of adulatory bits from Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Carol Burnett, Alec Baldwin, Billy Crystal, Chevy Chase (more about that guy in a moment), Woody Harrelson, Carl Reiner, Eddie Murphy, John Landis and, of all people, Quentin Tarantino. What can I say about Mr. Chase other than I can’t stand him and find him completely unfunny? And the fact that he constantly copies me and has from the very beginning. I say that with tongue in cheek only slightly. Remember, I was working regularly in television long before he hit in Saturday Night Live. I was doing physical comedy in television long before he did it on Saturday Night Live and then films. Yes, he looked just like me, which is why once SNL became a hit and then he got movies, my career began to suffer a bit. Had Nudie Musical actually been a hit, all this would have been a different story, but that wasn’t what fate had in mind for me. And we’ve aged in exactly the same way. Coincidence? When I finally let my hair go completely gray, he let his go completely gray. Not making that up. When I put on some weight, he put on some weight. And the guy is so clueless about how much we look alike that I stood two feet from him backstage at the revival of Little Me with Martin Short, which I was about to record, and he looked at me directly and wasn’t even aware. I mean, I could not believe it and I so wanted to say something to him. But we differ in several major ways – I have never indulged in or let drugs play a part in my life. And when I perform, I have none of his self-awareness about how funny he thinks he is. He is older than I am, and I don’t think he’s as healthy, probably due to his lifestyle. Anyway, I enjoyed the documentary very much and Jerry seemed in good form in all his interviews for it. But it was the clips – brilliant comedy clips. Like him or not, he was a pioneer comic filmmaker and when he was “on point” no one was better.
Then I watched the “thriller.” After that, I listened to the final two Frankel symphonies, and I made a scrambled eggs, cheese, and onion tortilla thing that was a nice snack, since the Boboli pizza thing was only about five or six hundred calories.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, and then I’m lunching with Cindy Williams unless she cancels, which I hope won’t happen. I texted to double check and haven’t heard back yet. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then at some point I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same and we’ll start figuring out the casting for the reading of Doug Haverty’s play. Then I have a late-afternoon meeting and meal. The rest of the week is meetings and meals – every day.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, lunch with Cindy Williams, hopefully pick up packages, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Miss Nicole Kidman? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a lazy Sunday day and lazy Sunday evening, not necessarily in that order.