Well, dear readers, we’re up, we’re down, we’re up, we’re down – that’s what’s been happening on this here site for the last twenty minutes. I’ve reported the problem and hopefully they’ll fix it soon. Sometimes posts go through, then they won’t. The main page has been down more than it’s been up, but interestingly it never affects the Kritzerland site, which I’m sure is on the same server. I don’t get it and of course we were down this morning for heaven knows how long, due to a server attack. I’M ready to attack the damn server. But let us not dwell on negative annoyances, Let us instead dwell on the negative annoyances of the motion picture I watched last evening, one that I’d wanted to see but suspected wasn’t going to be good. And that is the new M. Night Shyamalan movie, Trap, starring Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka (Shyamalan’s singer/songwriter daughter), and Alison Pill. Briefly, it’s about a serial killer who the FBI has found out is going to be at a superstar singer’s concert, one Lady Raven. Now, as we all know, Mr. Shyamalan loves “twists.” The twist in this film is that there is no twist, since we know who the serial killer is from the outset, being Mr. Harnett playing the dad whose daughter is a huge Lady Raven fan. The premise could, I suppose, be fun if there was an actual filmable screenplay to work from. But this movie is so stupid, so slipshod, so ridiculous, that it beggars belief, really. So many lucky coincidences and lucky happenstances befall this serial killer that it’s actually laughable. With 20,000 people in attendance, one wonders how exactly they think they’re going to catch this needle in a haystack. One also wonders if Mr. Shyamalan, having set his parent trap, cast Hayley Mills, who starred in The Parent Trap, as the lead FBI profiler. There could be no other reason, since it’s a completely thankless role, although it’s fun to see her on the silver screen again (well, my TV’s silver screen). And just when you think it cannot get any more ridiculous, preposterous, and absurd, we get the third act and that act actually elicits guffaws, at least it did from me. And the little idiotic tag ending tops them all in stupidity. Mr. Hartnett is surprisingly good in it, as is Alison Pill and the teen girl, Ariel Donoghue. But nobody really has a chance because the movie is so relentlessly dopey. As to Shyamalan’s daughter, it’s lovely that daddykins is giving his kids the chance to strut their stuff – his other daughter has directed The Watchers, a movie that’s currently streaming. Apparently, he bankrolls his films himself and I suppose when he sells them to whichever studio, he gets all his money back and then some. The movie was, no surprise, a box-office bomb. Oh, the daughter. Her songs are just like every other singer of today’s songs – those whispery things with tremulous voices. These are neither here nor there, at least for me. I’d say it was a complete waste of celluloid, but it was shot digitally. The score is just what you’d expect and is yet another score by a composer whose name I can neither spell nor pronounce.
I also began watching a movie I’ve always wanted to see but which came and went very quickly back in 1975, which was a very busy year for the likes of me – Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York. I have a first edition of the Gail Parent novel, but apparently the film differs substantially from its source. Jeannie Berlin stars, along with Roy Scheider. I’ll finish it up and report back, but thus far it’s somewhat annoying. Nice music by Michel Legrand, though. Otherwise, I got ten hours of sleep, answered a few e-mails, the dinner that might have been got pushed to this evening, I ate fried catfish for food, I did some work at the piano, and later had some tap tap tapioca pudding with whipped cream, and that brings us current.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, then it’s a belated birthday dinner with Marshall Harvey, after which I’ll come home and complete what will otherwise be a ME day in every way.
This week, I have some early prep work to do on the Kritzerland show, Drat! The Cat! will be officially announced and then I can finally share that news on the Facebook and the Instagram, there’ll be some meetings and meals, several very necessary errands and what not, and then doing whatever needs doing.
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, do whatever needs doing, which will be NOTHING since it’s a ME day, then it’s a belated birthday dinner with Marshall Harvey, and then I can 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, where I hope the we’re up, we’re down, we’re up, we’re down will have been fixed.