Well, dear readers, I have breaking news for you and hold on to your hats: Today is Thanksgiving. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, today is Thanksgiving, a day in which we are thankful and to show it we stuff ourselves silly with turkey and ham and gravy and stuffing and CRANBERRIES and yams and mashed potatoes and PIE and liquid refreshment. We eat these things until we feel we’re about to explode and then we continue eating because that is simply what one does on such a day as this. I do hope you held on to your hats, although that begs the question, does anyone still wear a hat? Otherwise, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to the film music of Ryuchi Sakamoto, the Joe Hisaishi before there was a Joe Hisaishi and who led the way in Japan for that type of film scoring. The first time I heard a Sakamoto score was for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, a film I still haven’t seen to this day – I just took a chance on the soundtrack recording and found it really beautiful and then began seeking out everything by him, which included some non-film music stuff. Of course, his score for The Last Emperor is a classic and won him a well-deserved Oscar, but he also did The Sheltering Sky, a horrible movie with a beautiful score, Almodovar’s High Heels, which is also a very good score, and two for De Palma, Snake Eyes and Femme Fatale, which are both fun. A very influential composer and he’s still at it. Prior to that, I watched two motion pictures on Blu and Ray – first was Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises, which, like all these films I’m revisiting, I’d only seen once when it originally came out on Blu-ray. It’s a lovely film based on a true story about Jiro Horikosh, the man who loved airplanes and designed the Mitsubishi ASM fighter aircraft. It was Miyazaki’s final film as director (in 2013) – he retired after that but has since come out of retirement a few years later to plan a new film, which is currently in the works. It was up of an Oscar for best animated film and was an international hit. The Japanese voice actors are, as always, terrific, as is the beautiful score by Joe Hisaishi. I can see that I bought the soundtrack when it came out and I have no idea where it is, and I also know I have every one of these Ghibli soundtracks, which are clearly in some box I haven’t gotten to yet – maddening. The film is beautiful to look at. After that, I watched the new Warner Archive Blu-ray of The Last of Sheila, directed by Herbert Ross in 1973. I saw a sneak preview at the Village Theater because my friend was an executive with Mann Theaters and so knew what all the previews were – that’s where I also saw the sneak of Cabaret, thanks to him. We musical theater people all loved it back then because it was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins. The one or two times I’ve seen it on home video I haven’t liked it as much, although it still has entertaining and good things in it, most especially the performances of James Mason, Richard Benjamin, James Coburn, and Joan Hackett. Dyan Cannon seems to be at sea as to whether to play the Sue Mengers aspect of the role or some other aspect and it doesn’t really work all that well. Raquel Welch seems to be in some other movie altogether and whispers all her lines. Ian McShane is okay. The mystery mechanics are fun and typically Sondheimian, and the Billy Goldenberg score is fun. I have to watch the opening again, because I didn’t hear Anyone Can Whistle being played at the party that opens the film and it was definitely in at the sneak preview, and I can’t imagine why they’d have changed it. Maybe it’s just low in the mix now. The transfer is great and looks better than the film did back then.
Yesterday was another weird sleep day. I got five hours initially, got up for a while, then went back to bed getting two more for a total of seven hours. I don’t know why I’m having these issues but as my close personal friends Barbra and Donna once said, enough is enough. Once up, it was the usual routine of e-mail answering and such, then picking up a couple of packages, and then getting In-N-Out for food – the usual cheeseburger and animal fries. They were good. Then I did a few things on the computer – mostly to do with gathering together everything I need to deliver to the folks who are licensing Nudie and Creature. And then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish and began my viewing adventure. Afterwards, I did a very quick run to Gelson’s – just a few things in case I don’t do a takeout turkey dinner from somewhere. So, I’m covered for foodstuffs for this thankfully thankful Thanksgiving. Other than eating, the only plan is to watch two or three motion pictures.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll be lazy, at some point I’ll either go get a takeout turkey dinner or I’ll have stuff here – I got fresh-cut ham, cranberries, Hawaiian dinner rolls if I want to go that route – or I have pasta and also tuna. I also got some shrimp cocktail shrimp, which was my evening snack last night. So, it will be a nice, quiet day, I suppose, without any stress of attempting to do a long drive somewhere.
Tomorrow, I’ll do some writing and stuff, then I’m attending an opening night, then the weekend is writing and relaxing.
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, be lazy, either get a takeout turkey dinner or have stuff here, and then I’ll just watch, listen, and relax all the livelong day and evening. Today’s topic of discussion: What are you doing for Thanksgiving? And let’s have full reportage on the meals as they happen. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, wishing everyone a cozy and warm and thankfully thankful Thanksgiving.