Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Malcolm Arnold’s eighth symphony – not my favorite of his, but it’s still very much him. The sixth and seventh were very much to my liking and I recall really liking the ninth, which is coming up in about twenty minutes. Earlier, I did manage to watch a motion picture entitled Last Moment of Clarity, a film that received no theatrical release and went directly to streaming. Brian Cox has a small role, and the rest of the cast was not known to me. It was directed by two people, which is astonishing given its ineptitude. It runs ninety minutes, but sans end credits it’s only eighty-six and let me tell you, it is a VERY long eighty-six minutes. The Amazon Prime description of this thing calls it a “tense Hitchcockian thriller.” There are hundreds of other purported thrillers that are also called Hitchcockian by idiots who apparently have never seen any Alfred Hitchcock movies, or they wouldn’t be so ignorant as to call their movies Hitchcockian. Unlike these particular amateurs, Mr. Hitchcock was a brilliant director who knew how to actually tell a story and imbue it with tension and suspense when called for. In order for there to be tension and suspense, the plot has to be carefully laid out at the beginning of the movie. We have to understand the characters and then what sets the plot in motion. In this film, what they call the “inciting incident” in how to screenplay books is only shown elliptically. We have no idea what’s happened or why, really, and it’s only slowly revealed as the film goes on but not in a way that works. So, one simply sits there and says, “Yeah? Okay, now what?” The plot, if you want to call it a plot, is basically one cliché after another and the final fifteen minutes the whole thing just devolves into utter stupidity. Brian Cox has perhaps seven or eight minutes of screen time and is fine in a nothing role. One of the two leading ladies is okay, the other is fair. The leading man is just awful – wooden, unconvincing, and boring. Interestingly, he is now a former actor, because in 2021 he was arrested for running what was a ponzi scheme, getting investors for a production company – said investors were lied to about everything – no movies were forthcoming, despite the investors being told that deals were firm with HBO and Netflix. They raised $650 million bucks, produced some lousy low-budget films none of which made any money, they got more investors to invest and used that money to pay back the first investors. But mostly, he apparently used funds for his lifestyle – you know, private jet, expensive cars, expensive residence in Beverlywood, former neighborhood of one Benjamin Kritzer. He was convicted of one count of securities fraud, sentenced to jail for twenty years, and ordered to pay restitution of over $200 million. So, we won’t be seeing him on the screen for many years. And THAT story is ever so much more interesting than the Hitchcockian thriller, which is NOT highly recommended by the likes of me.
Earlier, I had a lovely birthday lunch with dear reader Jeanne at El Cholo in the Monica of Santa. Now, the real deal El Cholo is, of course, on Western near Olympic and that location is great. I’ve only eaten at the Santa Monica location once before and had been very disappointed that it just wasn’t as good as the original. Yesterday was really no different. The guacamole was fine, the beef taco’s beef was a little tough (should have ordered the ground beef) and the cheese enchilada wasn’t bad, other than the sauce was a bit strong. Don Cuco’s it wasn’t. We had fun conversation, and I gave her the new book and the two latest Kritzerland CDs. We were there about two hours. When she made the reservation, she was told that it was the busiest day of the year. I walked in at two-thirty to an almost completely empty restaurant – just Jeanne, me, and two or three other diners. If that’s the busiest day of the year, one does wonder how they keep the jernt open.
After that, I came right home, caught up on e-mails, had a Macy’s e-mail that this was the last day of a Memorial Day sale, so I bought a couple of polo shirts and some sleeping shorts – really cheap, amazing prices, including a ninety-dollar pair of sneakers for twenty-four bucks. Macy’s has become my favorite store. One just has to wait until there’s a sale. Then I watched the movie, had a telephonic conversation, and now the last of the Arnold symphonies is playing and it’s really good, just as I remembered.
Today, I’ll be up at eight, then she of the Evil Eye will arrive and I’ll be on my way – first a stop at the bank, then on to the storage place to look for a few things. After that, I’ll come home, read some pages to prepare for the telephonic meeting with David Wechter, eat something amusing, have the phone meeting, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow and Thursday will be casting and choosing songs for the June Kritzerland, Friday will be a day I’ll talk about after it happens, and then the weekend should be pretty open – just a few things to attend to.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up at eight, do banking, go to storage, come home, read pages, eat, have a phone meeting, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What’s your favorite Mexican food dishes – an old topic but one I enjoy. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I’m quite certain I shall have a Hitchcockian dream.