Well, dear readers, what a difference eleven-and-a-half hours of sleep and a ME day makes. I can’t say I’m feeling completely to rights or even lefts, but I definitely feel more like a human being. I think another day or two of good sleep will do the trick, just as I think the trick will do another day or two of good sleep or vice versa. I even slept for two hours in the evening, from seven to nine. I also watched two things on Amazon Prime. The first thing on Amazon Prime was entitled The Sound of 007, a documentary about the music of the James Bond films. It’s not a great documentary, but it’s fun and gives full due to the man who shaped the sound of Bond, John Barry. They go into many of the great and less-great title songs, there are lots of interviews and it moves along at a steady clip. What’s fascinating are to watch the clips of the Connery Bonds and then the clips of the Craig Bonds – they’re a world apart – for me, the Connery Bonds are fun and unique, whereas the Craig Bonds are over-serious, dour, dank, and not much fun. I know many people swear by the Craig Bonds and that’s fine. I thought a couple of them were okay. Then I watched a motion picture entitled Ambulance. Simply put, I should have known better, since it’s a film directed by Michael Bay. Of course, it’s based on a foreign film, a Danish film made in 2005 that runs 76-minutes (probably 70 without the end credits). It has a very simple plot. This version changes just about everything but the basic idea, runs 136-minutes that seem like 180, and is so preposterous and so unrelentingly stupid that any normal person would end up yelling at the TV screen. They say it cost 40-million and I don’t believe a word of it, given the number of cars demolished, explosions, and all the other wasteful stuff on the screen. But even if that is what it cost, it was a complete financial bomb, which the Wikipedia article blames on the pandemic. Sorry, but in the year 2022 you can’t blame everything on the pandemic and there have been many big box-office films so far this year. Jake Gyllenhaal stars and is the only name in the film, so they certainly saved on cast salaries. The action scenes are so ludicrous as to be ludicrous, the attempts at one-line character development are laughable, the LA geography hilarious, and Mr. Bay is who he is, which is, for me, completely lacking in even the most rudimentary storytelling skills. Anyone who read this script and then thought it would make a great movie should be put out to pasture. The “music” is simple relentless drums, and then sometimes we get some “tender” music – random notes over chords – it’s just dreadful. The actors having to play this inanity have no chance. I have no doubt the Danish film plays better because the motivation of the characters is clean and easy to understand. In this abomination of a film, the motivations are stupid, as always. The police should sue for defamation of a police department apparently so stupid that even though they are two inches behind the ambulance, somehow the ambulance ends up on a dead-end street and magically the police aren’t two inches behind them, and when they arrive, despite the stupid ambulance being right in front of them, do they box it in? Nooooo, they crash through the END sign and their cars are obliterated. It gets worse as the film goes on. A surprising number of idiot critics actually enjoyed it and forgave it its trespasses, and if that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the state of film criticism, nothing will. They nitpick and criticize good films, while elevating junk like this. Zero stars and NOT highly recommended by the likes of me.
Yesterday, as mentioned, was the day I needed it to be. I got up around noon. One good thing about this past week is that I’ve been so zonked that I’ve been in bed by one at the latest, which is what I need to start doing anyway. No more of this three or four in the morning malarkey. Once up, I answered a few e-mails, saw the first pass at a shooting schedule and moved a few things around, then sent that to Cindy Williams to make sure it works for her, had a telephonic conversation and that was pretty much it. I had a Cobb salad from Stanley’s for food and that was very good, and then I began my viewing, taking the two-hour sleepy-time nap in between.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up and hopefully after another good night’s sleep, then I’ll deal with stuff, start prepping our shoot for next week, lock in our locations, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, with some meetings and meals happening, as well.
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, deal with stuff, start prepping our shoot, lock in locations, eat, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think of the films of one Michael Bay – which have you seen, which have you liked, and which have you loathed? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have gotten a wonderful night’s sleep.