Well, dear readers, I have breaking news, a bombshell update: It is August. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it is August. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you find such information? As regards August, it is my fervent hope and prayer that August will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. Let us not have the wails of August, let us have the happy tales and trails of August, let us scale the highest scales of August, let us find the Holy Grails of August. And I am sitting here like so much August fish, listening to the final movement of Malcolm Arnold’s delightful guitar concerto, which will be followed by his concerto for not one but two violins. I have no memory of it, so it will be fun to hear it. And I did manage to watch a rather nasty and vile movie last evening, entitled The Poughkeepsie Tapes. When it came up in a list on Amazon Prime, I just assumed it was yet another true crime documentary – I figured one more wouldn’t hurt and I’d never heard of this one, about a serial killer who left behind hundreds of videotapes of his dastardly deeds and victims. Five minutes into it, I realized it wasn’t a real documentary, it was one of those found footage things, fiction, and just a movie pretending to be a documentary. How did I realize this in a mere five minutes? The terrible actors who were playing FBI agents, coroners, and detectives. And then the “found footage” which looked like no VHS tapes that I’ve ever seen. So, we have to endure eighty minutes of what is basically torture porn. The film was meant to come out in 2007 after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival. And it did – for about a week. Then it was pulled, released as a video on demand for a month, and then really disappeared for a decade, until a Blu-ray came out. I wouldn’t be surprised that it was planned so that all the horror FANatics would start urban legends about it and build it up into a classic that no one had actually seen. Because that’s what happened. It has not a single legitimate review, and user ratings in the imdb range from many one-star reviews from people who understood just how bad it was, to drooling raves from people who apparently love this sort of thing. While I’m sure that if one set their mind to it there might be an interesting “found footage” film to be made, I haven’t liked any of the ones I’ve seen. And this one is a real fetid piece of work. Oh, and the icing on the cake is that it’s yet another brothers act – two brothers who think they’re filmmakers, a trend I will never understand.
Yesterday was a nice day. I got seven-and-a-half hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, showered, and then the Darling Daughter arrived at noon o’clock. We yakked for an hour, catching up, then I showed her the Indiegogo stuff and we downloaded the spreadsheet they provide – she said working from that will be easy for her and she’ll get me an easy-to-understand list of who get what perk, who has to be e-mailed, and all that. So, that will be very helpful.
She had a hankerin’ for that small Marco’s pepperoni pizza, so I ordered each of us one and they arrived a while later. She really liked it and so did I. Then we I showed her a bunch of videos that were in my YouTube favorites – we watched on the big boy TV. She’d never really seen any ballets by the masters, so I showed her a few Jerome Robbins things, which she loved, and the Balanchine Gershwin Who Cares thing, which she also loved. Then we watched a ton more videos of all kinds. Then I showed her the glories of newspapers.com and we searched her grandfather on her mother’s side and found out one fascinating thing that happened in the 1950s that was as amusing as my father’s peccadillos that I’ve found. She left at six-thirty.
Then I watched the horrid movie, after which I did stuff on the computer, locked in the Kritzerland rehearsal schedule, and then I listened to music whilst trying to still puzzle out the form of episode nine. As mentioned, the first sequence is fun, but after that I’m just flailing. I know it will come to me, just hope it’s soon.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven and I’ll either go do banking then, or after the noon o’clock work session for the Kritzerland show, which shouldn’t take more than forty-five minutes. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat something reasonable, then I’ll write, and I will damn well finish episode nine and move on to episode ten. At some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, with some meetings and meals, then we have our first rehearsal on Friday, our second on Sunday, our stumble-through on Tuesday and the show is on Wednesday. Reservations are VERY light, which is NOT good, but I do know there’ll be more coming this week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, bank before or after the noon o’clock work session, hopefully pick up packages, eat, write and finish episode nine, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What “found footage” movies have you seen and which have you enjoyed? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we welcome in the scales and Grails of August.