Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, still a little nauseous, listening to Charles Tournemire’s seventh symphony, which, at ninety-something minutes is a good forty minutes longer than any of his other symphonies. So far, it’s very appealing, as were the six that preceded – his musical language evolves stylistically as he gets more into the twentieth century, so that’s fun to hear. The music becomes a bit more impressionistic, which I enjoy. I did finish watching Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival, which is truly horrible in every way, save for one performance by a Spanish actress playing a doctor. For me, it’s certainly the worst cast Woody Allen movie ever. For me, there isn’t a single joke that lands and Mr. Wallace Shawn is so unappealing and weird and off-putting – how do you survive that. He might be fine in short doses, but not when he’s the lead as he is here. The dream parodies of films just lay there without any real comic point. I think it’s wonderful that anyone Woody’s age is still working and making films, but one does hope that somehow he makes a good one soon. This looks very good, certainly but it’s a real stinker. Then I watched a motion picture that didn’t get very good reviews when it came out in 1993 – don’t know why I didn’t see it back then, but I may have not known who directed it and I probably didn’t think the title sounded compelling – The Pelican Brief, from the novel by John Grisham. No one’s gonna ever accuse Grisham of being a great writer – he’s serviceable, certainly, but his plotting is kind of derivative and ordinary. But he does write the stuff that makes the best seller list, for sure. There’s nothing very original about the plot in The Pelican Brief – we’ve seen it a million times before. But since the director is Alan J. Pakula, I thought it would at least be interesting. But I found it more than that – I really enjoyed it – it’s well cast (Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, John Lithgow, Robert Culp, and lots more), and really well directed. It does go on a bit too long at two-and-a-half hours, but I really enjoyed it, and it probably plays better now than it did then. The only serious misfire is a seriously bad score by James Horner. It’s a shame that Mr. Pakula’s composer from all his great 70s films didn’t do it – Michael Small – that’s exactly what the film needed and doesn’t have.
Yesterday was sort of a day. I think overall I got eight hours of sleep. Once up, I was happy I wasn’t as nauseous. I did a few things on the computer, had an irritating text, did some prep work, and then went and got Taco Bell. It was good. Of course, now I’m nauseous again, but it wasn’t that, because that was eight hours ago. I had some telephonic calls, my voice is pretty much back to normal, and then I began my viewing. The rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up by eight-thirty and out the door by nine-thirty. The shoot is only about fifteen minutes from here, just a couple of blocks from our old home at The Federal. We have two songs to shoot and about three hours, so that’s plenty of time. We have a little dolly so I can do some moving shots, which will be good for these two songs. After we wrap, I’ll grab a bite to eat, then come home. Once back home, I’ll prep Monday’s shoot, just figuring out the coverage and all that. At some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, we have a full day of shooting and Kerry O’Malley joins us as mom. After we wrap, I’ll stage the duet we do on Wednesday. Tuesday is also full, and Cindy Williams joins us. Wednesday, we have three numbers to shoot in a green screen studio, and then Thursday we shoot at Vitello’s. And then all that will be left to shoot are Cindy’s Face Time calls, which I believe we’ll do the following Monday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eight-thirty and out the door by nine-thirty for a ten o’clock call. Then we shoot two songs, I’ll eat something light and that won’t make me nauseous, I’ll prep, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be back shooting the new web series.