Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, not listening to music but simply enjoying the silence, since most of the day was anything but silent due to the idiot monstrosity builders across the street. They were up and at it at seven, so I only got five hours of sleep. And usually they’re gone by noon or one, but they worked late into the afternoon, which meant no nap for the likes of me. In any case, I was up too early but answered e-mails and then continued doing some research for the new book. It was frustrating because I only found a tiny snippet pertaining to what I was looking for, but after a couple of hours I searched it in a different way and found exactly what I was looking for. So, I got that all written down, then wrote a few paragraphs, stopping short of using what I’d found. I’ll do that today and it will probably take a couple of pages. Then I was out and about for a while – bank, mail place, some errands and whatnot, and for food I went to Subway and got two six-inch small sandwiches – one spicy Eyetalian and one pastrami – so basically one footlong with two different halves. Which is better than the halve nots. I came home and ate the two halves, and they were pretty good. I hadn’t had Subway in quite some time. Then I watched the new movie Saturday Night, which I had to watch on the computer. I found it dreadfully dreadful and pretty much dreadful in a dreadful way. It tells the story of the ninety minutes prior to the first show airing. They could have done it in real time rather than the 109-minutes it runs. Basically, it’s just a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s pitched high and pretty much stays there. I found the direction really poor, I don’t enjoy movies where actors have to play well known celebrities, especially when they’re SO well-known but also because there’s no depth to anyone in the movie. It’s mostly the Lorne Michaels show but very one-note. The female cast members of Saturday Night Live are almost like extras. And there’s just way too much BS in it – there is NO way it was like they present it with ninety minutes to airtime. It’s laughable. It may be that people’s memories just make stuff up, but it’s just a whole lotta fiction going on. The jokes fall flat, several characters are horribly presented, and despite the freneticism, it’s never catches fire. Of course, there were many positive reviews – I swear, reviewers who should know better seem to be pandering to the lowest common denominator now and they seem to have lost their critical faculties. There were some pretty bad reviews, though, and they pretty much said what I’ve been saying.
After that, I watched another new movie, one that actually out yet – it opens next Friday – entitled September 5. It’s about the terrorist attack and hostages at the Olympics in Munich, but told completely through the eyes of ABC Sports, who was covering it and who refused to give it to the news department that was not there. It’s pretty riveting, really well directed, the cast is terrific straight down the line, and most of it takes place in the control booth and the hallways and offices around it. It all seems very real and very immediate. For a film about a real-life thing, they put Saturday Night’s flailing to shame. THIS is how to do a movie about things that really happened. No need to fabricate.
Then I started to watch another new movie entitled The Performance, which takes place in the 1930s about a tap dancing act that goes to Germany just as Germany was becoming the Nazi nation. I only watched the first fifteen minutes because once they did the first tap number it was everything you’d expect – fast cutting, not showing the feet at all, disembodied feet, just a bunch of random cameras set up with no thought as to how a musical number should actually be shot. I don’t know that I’ll finish it, frankly.
Then I began a movie from 2021 that I’d never heard of, based on a book I’d never heard of entitled Strange but True. I’ll stick with it just to see where it’s going, but once again we have every cliché in the book – narration at the top while the camera shows us leaves – you know the kind of narration, the kind they use to start any number of movies. Then suddenly we’re in a forest, with quick cuts of a young man on crutches running from something. Gee, we haven’t seen THAT kind of opening before, like a zillion times. Usually, it’s a woman doing the running, so that was different. And of course, that is immediately followed by the ubiquitous “TWO DAYS EARLIER.” I’m talkin’ every screenplay and directing cliché. Will see where it goes. I also got a screener of a French movie set in Mexico, called Emilia Perez. Jacques Audiard is the director and it sounds interesting and apparently is some kind of musical crime trans picture. We shall see.
And that was pretty much the day and evening. I did doze off for forty minutes or so at some point.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, still waiting to find out about seeing a show, I’ll write a page or two using the research I found, I’ll eat something amusing, I may put gas in the motor car, even though there’s slightly over half a tank – want to be full when I go to the doctor for the physical on Tuesday. I’ll call the mail place and see what’s what, and then I really just want to watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I may go to storage and try to find the Drat! The Cat! charts, and if so, I may eat around there, then the rest of the day can be a ME day. Monday is totally a ME day so I can get in the proper head space for the physical. Happily, I was wrong about the time of the appointment. It’s not until four o’clock, so I’ll leave here around two-thirty and hopefully getting over the hill won’t be too bad. They say the appointment will take about forty-five minutes. I don’t want to drive home in bad traffic at that time, so I’m thinking I’ll either go to Farmer’s Market for food or maybe even Genghis Cohen. The rest of the week is busy.
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, maybe hear about seeing a show, write, maybe put gas in the motor car, eat, check with the mail place, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Were you a fan of Saturday Night Live? Are you still? Frankly, I rarely watched it – maybe two or three episodes. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a nice movie night and that I saw one really good movie.