Well, dear readers, I am not sitting here like so much fish, listening to music of the spheres, but I am sitting here like so much fish listening to silence and that tap-tap-tapping of the wireless keyboard, which, by the way, has no wires. I have nothing to say because I did not watch a motion picture last night but did watch several openings of motion pictures on the free streaming service Tubi, just to check out the transfers, most of which are terrible. Oh, wait a minute, I DID watch a motion picture last night – with all the hubbub going on I completely forgot. It was a motion picture shot in 1970 but not released until 1973. That should tell you everything you need to know. It was entitled A Reflection of Fear, and it stars Robert Shaw, Mary Ure, and Sondra Locke. It’s a supremely odd motion picture directed by cameraman William Fraker, who should never have graduated to directing and certainly didn’t stay there long. The problem was/is that in this film he had no aptitude for how to actually tell the story – it’s all about his hazy photography and he totally blows what might have been an interesting picture with a good director who understood storytelling and especially pace. This was a long eighty-nine-minute slog and the big reveal at the end was blown so badly that some people might have even missed it – that reveal, by the way, makes the already odd and off-putting film enter a whole new territory in terms of how it colors everything that came before. Had a director been on the set, perhaps that director might have said to Miss Locke to perhaps not be so one-note in her line delivery. Then again, since it sat on the shelf for three years, perhaps the studio chopped it to pieces – I doubt it, however. It was released in LA on October 10, 1973, on a double bill with The Creeping Flesh. A handful of second-tier theaters and it was, needless to say, gone with the wind in a week. Kevin Thomas gave it a scathingly bad review, as have I.
Yesterday certainly was a day. I was up at nine-thirty after six hours of sleep. Kay Cole arrived an hour later, and we filmed her doing her little staging thing for a song, and then she filmed me doing my little staging for a song. That took about forty-five minutes. Then I sent that off to the person who has to learn it – it’s really simple stuff. After she left, I had several telephonic conversations throughout the day and evening, all having to do with the web series, getting our press release right, and then learning how to see and notate the agent submissions we got late yesterday, about which more in a moment.
I decided on the little Marco’s pepperoni pizza, which I hadn’t had in a couple of weeks – that was very good and not too filling. In fact, I’m actually rather hungry right now, but I shall try to be strong and not do anything about it. I had to then choose sides for the self-tapes we’ll be getting, and then I was shown how to log onto the site that has our submissions. It hit the agent breakdowns late, so we know there’ll be many more, but already we have over 500 submissions and unfortunately, no one’s weeding out the people who aren’t right, so that’s all going to be on me, I’m afraid. Then I watched the movie and that was that.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven, I’ll do whatever needs doing, and then I’ll begin going through the submissions, which will probably be an all-day affair. But one has to do what one has to do. Also, I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up two important envelopes, which brings me to my next point – did anyone notice that it’s the final day of August? These months are flying by, like a gazelle with monkeypox. That means, of course, that tomorrow begins a new month, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that September will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. At some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be more of the same plus a Zoom thing with David Wechter, and the rest of the week and weekend will be making a show order, writing commentary, looking at submissions and then self-tapes when they come in.
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, go through submissions and mark the folks I want to have read, eat, hopefully pick up two important envelopes, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, girding my loins to go through a lot of submissions.