Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish wondering how half this month could be over already – more than half because, as we all know, February, for whatever stupid reasons, is shorter than every other month. Yes, some month person decided that February would be shorter than every other month. Why? Just to be cute? To be different? To annoy everyone? Damn them, damn them all to HELL. In other news, I have finished the nine-episode limited series entitled Inventing Anna. First of all, what is this bushwa “limited series” malarkey. Who makes this crap up? Second of all, nine episodes is about five episodes too many, especially as most of the episodes ran well over an hour – so, that’s ten hours to tell this story. Which means a LOT of repetition. The story is, of course, fascinating, the real story of Anna Delvey. But there’s as much fiction here as fact, so what IS the point, really? A lot of smart ass cliched “now” writing, a lot of forced drama – what, the real story isn’t interesting enough. I know nothing of Shonda Rhimes and Shondaland other than she has a lot of deals. If this is an example of her work, I think I don’t need to see anything else. I loathe this kind of facile writing, but that’s just me. The direction (many directors) is terrible – cutesy “look at me” directing 101 of today – it’s really a bore. There’s not a single original moment in this ten hours, either visually or script-wise. The one completely successful thing in the ten hours is the performance of Julia Garner, an actress totally new to me, as I’ve never seen one second of whatever Ozark is. She’s very funny, has great energy, and best of all, doesn’t mumble. She’s let down constantly by the writing and directing, but that’s not on her – she’s really excellent and I must tell you that in all the jail footage and courtroom footage she is the spitting image of ex-dear reader Adriana Patti, whose first name I borrowed for the Adriana Hofstetter mystery series. Uncanny, really. Some of the supporting cast is interesting. But, for me, the other lead, the lady who plays the journalist who wrote the original story is all schmacting and I found watching her difficult because she just made me want to yell at the screen, which I did in two instances. If she can do four quirky facial tics/expressions at the end of a line, she’ll give us eight. It’s just a wacky performance that I didn’t believe for a second. Also, the writing of the character is terrible. I don’t know why the husband would stay with her, she has a baby two thirds of the way through and then proceeds to never see the kid save for two short shots, she’s obnoxious – well, the writing and the acting combined certainly make a Razzie possible. As with all these “hip” little limited series, there is a ton of needle-drop rap crap that everyone thinks makes them cool. But the Anna Delvey stuff makes it worthwhile watching and is the only reason I stuck with it.
Yesterday was another weird day or, as I like to think of it – a day that was. I did get nine-and-a-half hours of sleep, answered e-mails, did stuff on the computer, pushed the Zoom with David Wechter to this morning at eleven, had some mediocre carbonara from the mediocre Sherman Oaks location of Marmalade (and a SMALL portion, too), then had an hour-long Zoom production meeting that went very well. I think we cast the lead woman role, so that still leaves us the lead man and another woman and man. I have never in all my days had this much trouble casting a show – it’s absolute insanity but we mush on. After that, the rest of the evening was consumed with Inventing Anna, a terrible title, in my opinion. At some point, I ordered in some Wor Won Ton soup. I should have ordered the small but got the large and it was way too much, and I only ate a little over half that. It was fair.
Today, I’ll be up by ten-thirty, I’ll have a Zoom with David Wechter at eleven, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat something really light, I’ll do whatever else needs doing, and then I have to update the LA Now and Then script and get the Dropbox with the charts and mp3s ready to send to the cast, so they have a few days to get familiar with the stuff. Then at some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be prepping stuff for our rehearsals, and then on Wednesday we begin learning the music and on we go from there.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten-thirty, have a Zoom with David Wechter, hopefully pick up some packages, eat, update the script, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What is currently in your CD player and you DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, nothing. Blu-ray, nothing, but I’ll be catching up on more Netflix stuff I’ve missed over the past few years. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, not having much to say about the day that was.