Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to a movie theme album from 1963 on AVA Records. Its calling card was one soundtrack cue from Lord of the Flies – there are actually two versions – one with an adult chorus singing, and the film version with children’s chorus. Otherwise, we get cover versions of Irma La Douce, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Girl Named Tamiko, Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, Two Weeks in Another Town, David and Lisa, Mutiny on the Bounty, Period of Adjustment, Cleopatra, and The Rat Race. All in lovely stereophonic sound. This has sadly never been released on CD, but I made a vinyl transfer that’s quite nice. As you know, I grew up loving movie theme albums – I had so many – Percy Faith, Don Costa, Ferrante and Teicher, Mantovani, David Rose, Felix Slatkin, Pete Rugolo, and many others. I have many on CD now, which is nice. I also managed to watch two motion pictures on the Flix of Net – Miss Congeniality, which I’d never seen, and its sequel, Miss Congeniality II: Armed and Fabulous. I mostly like Sandra Bullock and I really knew nothing about the film, other than it had done well. It’s entertaining in a cookie-cutter way – fish-out-of-water movies were all the rage when this was made, and it follows that template but not always successfully. Its problem is, of course, one of tone. It had some very funny moments, but in the end it wants to have it all ways from Sunday and it just can’t. Once the actual villain is revealed and the reason for the villainy, it’s just too silly to take seriously and that seriously hurts the film. Also, the beauty pageant stuff is too close to satire, rather like Smile in that regard, and so you don’t take that seriously either. Its leading man is weak, which isn’t helpful, but Michael Caine is in it and that’s very helpful. It wants its laughs but it also wants to tug at the heartstrings like all these kinds of films, but it doesn’t really earn that. The director, who I know, was good at this kind of lightweight stuff. Five years later came the sequel and it certainly would be in the top ten worst sequels ever made. In this one, everything is so unrelentingly stupid, including its bastardization of the Sandra Bullock character, lame comedy, Hee-Haw villains, and a run-time of close to two hours. It has a different director, who’s kind of inept, the horrid script, and the entire debacle must be laid at the feet of its leading lady, who was also the producer (as she was on the first film) – here, it seems like she had much more input and perhaps she should just stick to acting. The director was a TV guy and his four films are all pretty terrible.
Yesterday was a perfectly adequate day. I got six hours of sleep, got up, had to answer a lot of e-mails, and then had to scurry and hurry to a lunch meeting at the California Pizza Kitchen, which was mostly about making a rough schedule for the web series. After that, I ascertained that there was nothing at the mail place, so I just came home, caught up on things, had a telephonic conversation that will continue on Sunday, also regarding the web series. Then I watched the two movies, after which I had a nice BLTA from Mel’s Diner – light and airy. I’d had the tiny personal pizza and salad combo at CPK earlier – pizza only four very small slices and a small side salad, so I felt a BLTA would be fine for the evening.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll continue choosing songs for the anniversary Kritzerland show, I’ll hopefully hear from more of the folks I’ve asked to do the web series, I have to call the agent of one of our guests – she’s out of town and she thinks it’s just easier to go through the agent. I hate doing that, frankly, because their job is to make everything more difficult than it needs to be. But here, there’s no purpose to do any of that because we’re on a very specific SAG New Media contract that requires no payment to the actors, even though we ARE paying them a stipend just because I think that’s the nice thing to do. In terms of billing, that will be guest star in the end credits and alphabetical if there are other cameos in that particular episode, which there may be. So, hopefully that won’t be an ordeal or unpleasant. The person already said yes and we even figured out that shoot date and time. I’ll eat at some point, check to see if there’s anything at the mail place, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, and then there’ll only be a couple of things to do on the weekend, which will be good, since I need to get back to normal, whatever THAT is.
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, choose songs, call an agent, eat, check to see if there’s anything at the mail place, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite sequels, and which sequels do you feel are complete betrayals of the original film? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have mused on when sequels go completely awry.