Well, dear readers, let us just lay the cards on the table, shall we? Sometimes in life, one simply must lay the cards on the table and such a time has come for the laying of the cards – The Laying of the Cards – that’s the title of my next novel. So, the cards are now on the table and I, BK, will admit here and now as well as now and here that last evening I partook of the pie. Yes, you heard it here dear readers, I partook of the pie. Not only did I partake of the pie, I partook of the pumpkin pie, for which I had a sudden hankerin’. The pumpkin pie partaking was accompanied by the spritzing of the whipped cream on top of it and all around it and anywhere else where the spritzing was appropriate, because we simply cannot have enough appropriate spritzing of the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie of which we partook. I simple to understand argot – I had some damn pie and it was damn good. And now that we’ve had the laying of the cards on the table and the partaking of the pumpkin pie with the spritzing of the whipped cream, I can now actually write some damn notes. For example, last night, I watched two things on Amazon Prime. The first thing I watched was entitled Hollow Man, a film I have never had an iota of interest in seeing, directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Shue. I’ll tell you why I watched it: Because a bunch of people on a Jerry Goldsmith page were all saying how great it was and how underrated a gem it was, with one of Jerry’s best scores with an incredible, haunting theme. Yes, I was goaded into it. Well, there’s a reason it has a 22% raring on Rotten Tomatoes – it’s a ridiculous film. Think The Invisible Man with some Verhoeven blood-and-guts thrown in and you have it. But when people who were young teens when they saw this stuff then there is no dissuading them that everything they saw in the 1990s was underrated and a gem. Certainly, Mr. Bacon seems to be having fun, Bacon in full Ham mode. Elizabeth Shue is fine, and Josh Brolin is fine, too. It’s competently directed, the effects are okay, but the writing is horrible and, you know, hard to get past bad writing. And the score? I don’t make much secret that I don’t care for much of what Mr. Goldsmith did in the 1990s or the 2000s. Yes, there was the odd score that I thought okay – Basic Instinct, I suppose, although he repeated that score a lot, including this very film. I must have missed the haunting theme – the theme I heard was similar to five or six other Goldsmith themes of that era. But one simply is not allowed to say even the slightest criticism of Mr. Goldsmith, so after I finished, I did not go on to that fan page and say, “Thanks a lot, fellas.” I just kept my trap shut.
The second thing I watched was entitled 2:22 – yes, the very same title as the play I just saw at the Ahmanson, although the film title came first. I watched it because the Amazon Prime blurb said, “NOW IN THEATERS!” – and since I saw a 22, I assumed it meant NOW IN THEATERS!. Funnily, NOW IN THEATERS meant THEN IN THEATERS, meaning THEN circa 2017 – the film was made in 2016 and carries that copyright date. I always like a good story of things fated and/or reincarnation (sorta kinda), but this was really just a load of twaddle from start to finish. I now know that when a film starts off with its leading character spouting pretentious narration (“When I was a kid, my dad taught me an important lesson” – you know the kind of thing) that the film isn’t going to be good. This was an Australian film in which all the Australian actors pretend to be New Yorkers. Of course, everything but some exteriors was shot in Australia. It’s not too long, which is a good thing, the score is terrible, and the acting is all right in an okay way. We’ve seen these kinds of stories a zillion times already.
Yesterday was a pie day – well, a pie evening, at least. I got over nine hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, had a couple of telephonic conversations, changed my original plan of going out to eat to having fried catfish delivered from Uncle Andre’s – it was very good and my two sides were a tiny corn-on-the-cob thing and potato salad thing. They were good, too. Then I began my viewing and after Hollow Man I ordered some groceries from Ralph’s thanks to a big savings coupon and a great sale on Diet Coke. I got three twelve-packs, the pumpkin pie, the whipped cream, plus some Kroger Rocky Road ice cream for partaking at another time. I had a slice of the pie and it was just right – and pumpkin pie is the lowest calorie pie you can have. Then I watched 2:22 at 9:02.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll definitely make a show order, which won’t be that hard, and then it’s a ME day straight down the line. I’ll eat, and of course, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
This coming week will be Kritzerland show stuff, plus watching a lot of kid vids for the January show, which I have to cast now.
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, make a show order, have a ME day, eat, 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, now that we have had the laying of the cards.