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[bk]

Well, you've read the notes, you've searched for the point, you haven't found it (or have you - if so, be sure to pass it along) and now it is time for you to post until the pointy cows come home.

[Charles Pogue]

BK, I agree...nothing better than holding your own published book in your hand.  Proudest day of my life.

[bk]

Here's a topic to get things rolling: Cinerama - when was the first time you saw it, what was the film?  Not fake Cinerama, though (like Mad World and 2001 - those were 70mm films) - the original three panel Cinerama.

[S. Woody White]

Towards the end of yesterday's posts, our esteemed BK responded to a post of mine with:

Posting at another site???  How unseemly.  

Well, it was a site about food, nothing in direct competition with this site.  And I did use a napkin.

[bk]

We're not a food site?  You wouldn't know it from our various and sundried endless postings about mouth-watering foods.  

[bk]

Since we're talkin' about food, what is the consensus on garlic bread.  It seems to have fallen out of favor.  I love it, especially the garlic cheese bread at The Smoke House.

[Tomovoz]

This Is Cinerama, Cinerama Holiday, Seven Wonders Of The World, Windjammer, South Seas Adventure, How The West Was Won.  Saw them all as they came out. Gave up at about the Bros Grimm time I think.
I would assume we got Cinerama here in OZ about 18 months after the USA.

[S. Woody White]

This isn't exclusively a food site.  Everything is fair game, or harvested from the field, here.

I was bringing my Rehoboth Beach Restaurant diary up to date over at eGullet.com.  

While updating the diary, I was able to advertise next weekend's "Yappy Hour" at Aqua, a place that has an extensive patio.  The last Saturday of every month, they're trying to hold an event with the Delaware Humane Association, geared towards letting people meet dogs who need homes.  We'll be taking Zeus with us on the 30th, and maybe Fletcher as well (because he loves to meet other people and dogs).

[George]

I have never seen a true Cinerama film shown in a genuine three-screen Cinerama theater, although I have seen movies shown at the Cinerama theater in Seattle.  It has a huge curved screen and even non-Cinerama films are a wonder to behold!  When "Star Wars" (a.k.a. "Episode IV:  A New Hope") was re-released, we saw it there and it was wonderful.  I wish I lived closer so that I could see more movies there, more often.

As for garlic bread...love it!  Costco sells the best garlic bread (actually, it's more like a big giant square roll with garlic butter and whole roasted garlic cloves) that I've had in quite a while.  To die for!

[S. Woody White]

Oh, how I wish I had the Smoke House recipe for their garlic-cheese bread.  It's so danged tasty, and I want to know how they get it that florescent shade of orange.

Me, I love garlic bread, and I'm pretty sure der Brucer does, too.

I'll have to research this a bit, to see if I can find some decent (or decadent) recipes.

[S. Woody White]

Like George, I can't say I've actually seen a Cinerama film on a Cinerama screen, but for a different reason: my parents were cheap.  Like the blazes they were going to spend good money on a film in a theater, when if you waited a proper amount of time you could see it in a drive-in theater.  That took care of paying for the parking, too!

Thus, I remember seeing HTWWW at a drive-in, which cut down rather drastically on it's impact.  I almost think it was in a strange pan-and-scan print, too, because I can remember the lines where the three film elements came together moving from side to side on occasion.  Still, I was young, and I loved it.

[bk]

So why do we think that garlic bread has fallen out of favor?  At most Eyetalian restaurants they give you some bogus bread or stick to dunk in some oily junk, which I hate.

[bk]

My goodness, this is the first time in ages we've had us some late-night denizens.

[George]

As for the homecoming dance that I helped at:  I and my friend Margo made and served punch and handed out the bottles of water...all three hours that we were there.  Those kids never stopped drinking punch or water!  But no one got out of hand (but there were lots of hands on butts ).  All I kept thinking about  most of the night (other than panicing at the thought of kids yelling NO PUNCH as I was making it as quickly as I could!!...no one did) was that they're so darned young!  And they think they're so mature...and they're NOT!  Well, to me, at least.

[George]

Well, I'm going to pull the Wussburger act and say good night.  Tonight is my last night at the house where I'm house-sitting (and the last night on the world's slowest computer still in existance!) and I want to get up early enough to do laundry before they come home...they didn't tell me when that would be.

So good night!  The next time I post to (or even just read) HHW will be on my much, Much, MUCH (that's three muches) faster computer!

[Panni]

I'd think that part of the reason garlic bread has fallen out of favor is that everyone in this country is on some diet or other. Most restaurants now ASK if you want bread -- plain bread. And many diners decline. So I'd say the call for garlic bread is not nearly what it used to be.

[Panni]

I was off to bed an hour ago. Got lost on the way, I guess. I'm trying again. G'night.

[S. Woody White]

Well, how about this theory:

Italian Garlic Bread isn't really Italian!

I'm digging into David Rosengarten's It's All American Food again, paraphrasing as I go.

The first wave of immigrants from Italy came in the 1880s and 1890s.  What these people had known in Italy were dinners that consisted of appetizers and primi (usually pasta), both usually meatless courses.  Secondi, what we would call the main course, had maybe a little bit of simply cooked fish or meat to round out the meal.

This changed when the immigrants came to America.  Some things were abundant.  Others, common ingredients in Italy, were nowhere to be found.  So, the pasta course became very important, the center of the meal.  And, while in Italy the pasta would have been simply, scantly sauced, here the sauce was poured on by the ladleful.

In other words, Italian-American food is NOT what you would find in Italy.

Now for the bad news.  We Americans have discovered Italian food, as it is eaten by Italians.  Oh, how wonderful, these new dishes that are so much lighter and have so many different flavors than their counterparts in the red-sauce joints.  BUT, in the process, we are abandoning those red-sauce dishes that are a part of OUR heritage.

And garlic bread is part of that heritage.  What we're being served in the Italian restaurants now is part of the new Italian wave.  Dipping bread in olive oil is more in keeping with what takes place in the boot.  But the American tradition of garlic bread is disappearing.  And I think that is a shame.

[S. Woody White]

I'm off to wussburgerland myself.  I'm going to dig through a couple of cookbooks, see what they have to say about garlic bread, and sleep sweet garlicky dreams.  Then I'll try to get back online tomorrow (move over, der B!) and report on what I find.

It's nearly four-thirty in the morning here!  

[Jrand73]

HOW THE WEST WAS WON was my first Cinerama film and it was BIG -whew!

Then we saw THE BROTHERS GRIMM - which was....but it was okay.

I loved Cinerama.  There was a Cinerama Theatre in Indy that showed regular or BIG films as well....The Greatest Story Ever Told was there for a LONG time.  Not sure what the building is now, probably gone.  I know it was downtown, as was the fabulous Circle Theatre and Loew's.  Now all gone!

[Jrand73]

Thanks for the link yesterday DRJANE....hmmmmmmm.....we didn't even make the list!  I guess nothing short of nuclear destruction of the Isle would put us in contention.

[elmore3003]

Yes for garlic bread! Yes!

We made the trek to Cincinnati, in 1956 perhaps?, to see THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD, my only Cinerama experience.  After that, I saw HTWWW, which I liked, and THE BROTHERS GRIMM, which I didn't, in non-cinerama theatres, but I still remember the seams in the picture, which divided the three screens.

Dear Friend BK, when you were holding the box with the dead rat, did you feel like Jane or Blanche Hudson?

[Jrand73]

I heard one track from Neon Philharmonic.....as other DR's did on a Warner Bros record sampler.  You could get a coupon on a WB LP inner sleeve - by sending in two dollars you got a double album back.  The album was a LOT of stuff - individual tracks by mostly artists I had never heard of.

Sometimes if you find an old WB album from the late sixties - you can still get the coupon on the inner sleeve.  I wouldn't recommend that you send in the two bucks though.  

[elmore3003]

I watched two Bollywood films yesterday, courtesy of DRMichael Barnum, followed by the new DVD release of DAMN YANKEES.  I confess that Bollywood eludes me, much like Kabuki.  I feel I'm watching conventions I'm totally unfamiliar with and it puts me out of the loop.  I think, though, that I will give them both another try, maybe next weekend.

After the discussion of DAMN YANKEES, which I hadn't seen in several years (on fullscreen video), it was a treat to see the letterboxed film, which I never caught in the theatres, and to see Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse do "Who's Got the Pain?"  I thought Tab Hunter was wonderful, too pretty to be real, p'raps, but he's the one ballplayer who's synthetic.  I also thought his film background was an asset since some of the actors are still playing to the back of the Broadway balcony.  

Well, it's really not a very good film, is it?  I've been trying to analyze the reasons, so I'll offer a few here:
  1.  The score and story aren't as good as THE PAJAMA GAME.
  2.  The main characters, Shannon Bolin and Robert Shafer, don't photograph well, and she's droopy and he's sort of a jerk to sell his soul and leave her, even if he does repent.
  3.  Rae Allen, who in 1971 gave the best performance of the Old Lady in CANDIDE I've ever seen, is much better in WHERE'S POPPA.
  4.  A little bit of Jean Stapleton and her sister go a long, long way.
  5.  As an advocate and supporter of period musicals, particularly ones from 1900-1940, and their often flawed logic, I'm still bothered in a post-Rodgers-Hammerstein era when a character sings a song that's a lie: I love "A Little Brains," but Lola sings about ruining knights and Samson, yet we learn before "Two Lost Souls" that she's only 170 years old and the ugliest woman in Providence, RI.
  6.  I've always loved Ray Walston, but it's painful listening to him wander around pitch on "Those Were The Good Old Days."

On the plus side, I loved the numbers, and it was great to see cast members I know only from recordings, like Nathaniel Frey and the other ball players, and Gwen Verdon, never a great beauty, made me laugh, cheer, and believe she was the most beautiful seductress in the world.  

[Jay]

Since we're talkin' about food, what is the consensus on garlic bread.  It seems to have fallen out of favor.  I love it, especially the garlic cheese bread at The Smoke House.

I like authentic garlic bread but the color of whatever it is they serve at The Smoke House frightens me.

[Jay]

Here's an item from today's L.A. Times that will be of interest to at least one Dear Reader.  I wonder if it comes as news to him.

*************************************

ARTS NOTES

A 'Fly' on the wall of L.A. Opera

By Mark Swed
Times Staff Writer

Oct 24 2004

That operatic opening flourish in Howard Shore's score to "The Fly" evokes Puccini's "Turandot." But operatic allusions pretty much end there in David Cronenberg's 1986 horror film, in which Jeff Goldblum turns into an oozing insect as Geena Davis watches in disgust.

Now, though, it turns out that this monster might well stalk the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Los Angeles Opera general director Plácido Domingo has invited Shore and playwright David Henry Hwang to make an opera based on the film. And with the popular success of Shore's "Lord of the Rings" Symphony — an evening-long synthesis of his soundtracks to the Tolkien trilogy that has been performed by dozens of orchestras in the U.S. and abroad — opera seems like a natural next step for him.

So far, the project, which would premiere in 2007, is in the final negotiation phase, but composer and librettist have both signaled their willingness to come on board. Would Cronenberg direct (or perhaps have a walk-on role as a gynecologist, as in his film)? Would the human fly sing and vomit at the same time? Would the Davis character give birth to a slimy larva, as she does in her movie dream? Stay tuned. It's been a long while since we've had an intentional good scare at the opera.

*************************************

[Jay]

Confidential to Dear Reader JRand 54:

I didn't realize how much you packed into that itty-bitty videotape!

I made it through the film last night.  I am shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that this cinematic delight is not held in higher esteem, alongside such greats as Giant and Shenandoah and (dare I say it?) Gone With the Wind.

Or maybe not.

I hope to get to the TV portion of the tape this evening.

[td]

Point by point, so to speak:

HOW THE WEST WAS WON - I did indeed see it on a true Cinerama screen, several times as a child.  At the then named Stanely-Warner Theater in downtown Pittsburgh (a theater which still had that same deeply curved screen in the 1970s!)
I was indeed wowed with HTWWW, and can honestly say it started my appreciation for several of its performers:  James Stewart, Carolyn Jones, Ms. Baker, Russ Tamblyn, Agnes Moorhead and Debbie Reynolds.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM bored me into sleep.  I wonder if I would like it now.  Part of my problem was the Buddy Hacket factor, though, believe it or not, later I liked him in a movie with Pat Boone and Barbara Eden.

I have garlic bread at the restaurant every morning when it's fresh out of the oven; dieting, I also believe is the cause of less garlic bread - many of my customers insist on no bread of any kind, including croutons.

Oh, DR elmoore, I'm one of the ones who likes the filmed DAMN YANKEES!

I'll grant you that it's definitely not Stanley Donen's finest hour as a director, though.

Isn't a soul at stake a higher "rick factor" than seve-and-a-half cents?  I'm not even a baseball fan (dough, baseball been berry berry goot to me) but find DAMN YANKEES has a more "fun" factor that PAJAMA GAME.

That said, I also find it one of the ugliest looking musicals to come out of the 1950s, as if Warner was really filming it on the cheap side; which brings me to a positive:  there are many single take shots in the film, it has that theater quality to the performances AND we get to have many of the Original Broadway Cast re-creating their roles on film.  It's not often enough that we get that kind of respect for theater artists. (Was Ellen Greene the last time that this occured?)  

Since it was a Warner film, I have often wondered how YANKEES would have looked and been cast had it been an MGM film.  Any body have any casting suggestions?
I'd go with Ann Miller in Rae Allen's role.

[Matt H.]

Loved garlic bread. Love all bread, frankly, and I have the waistline to prove it. I really have no self-control when a basket of rolls, breadsticks, or bread is placed on a table. I try not to keep any around the house.

[Matt H.]

I have seen all the Cinerama productions which were run continuously at the Carolina Theater here in Charlotte, and once Cinerama went to 70MM productions like THE HALLALULAH TRAIL, 2001, and MAD WORLD, I watched them, too. Hard to describe the experience to those only familiar with the multiplex. Sadly, only the shell of the old Carolina is left in downtown Charlotte. Every time I walk by it, I grieve a little thinking about all the hours of entertainment that venue provided for me as a kid.

BTW, I don't think WINDJAMMER was Cinerama. It certainly was booked into the Carolina and treated as though it was another of their travelogues, but I don't think it was.