Well, dear readers, I suppose it is time to write these here notes, but why hurry when the site has been laggy and not working properly – some posts taking over twenty seconds to go through and some not going through at all. Our hosting guy had just landed at LAX when he got my text, then had to wait thirty minutes for his Uber. He’s checking things now and hopefully by midnight he’ll have it working properly again. In other news, I did manage to watch another new motion picture last night, entitled Locked. The plot? A young man owes people money, can’t get his van back, and is habitually missing picking up his daughter at school. This is our hero. He does tell the kid he loves her, and she loves him. He sees a very fancy-looking SUV in a parking lot. We’ve already seen him trying locked car doors, hoping he’ll find one that’s open. Well, this fancy SUV’s door IS open. He gets in the car, sees there’s nothing worth really stealing and goes to leave but finds the car – wait for it – locked. He can’t get out. He tries kicking the windshield – nothing will get him out of there. People outside can neither see or hear him. He happens to have a gun with him. He tries to shoot out the window, but the bullet ricochets off and into his leg. Ouch. Then the car screen lights up – a phone call – the screen says answer me. After ignoring it, the young man finally answers. Who’s on the other end? The car owner. Oops. It’s an old man bent on teaching this whippersnapper some life lessons. The voice is instantly recognizable – Sir Anthony Hopkins. That’s basically it. Things go from bad to worse for the young man and basically we’re in the car with him for around an hour. Then the car starts up and we have some driving scenes until the film ends. It’s ninety-six minutes, but really around ninety-two sans end credits. It’s well directed in a today sort of way, it has the usual stinko score, Mr. Hopkins is always fun to hear and then to finally see, and the young man, Bill Skarsgard I think is his name, is fine. It’s repetitious, of course, and would work better at eight minutes. It does sound like the concept is fairly original, though. It probably was back in 2019 when the original film on which it is based came out from Argentina. Yes, another American remake of a recent foreign film – that version was called 4×4 and it, like the new one, is on Amazon Prime for free. So, I began watching the original with subtitles – they forego all the plot stuff about the van and owing money and the deadbeat but loved dad that takes up the first ten minutes of Locked, and get the guy, without any character background into the car. I don’t know yet if they’ll introduce all the other stuff but I will as soon as I finish it.
Prior to that, I did get eight hours of sleep, got up at eleven-thirty, answered e-mails, ordered some penne pasta with Eyetalian sausage, which arrived pretty quickly and was excellent – from Maria’s Kitchen, then I did some futzing and finessing and ended up having to rewrite several pages because I got a detail wrong – so that took quite a bit of time. I had some telephonic conversations, wrote a bit more, watched the movie, wrote a bit more, and then noticed our little site was misbehaving and you know the rest. I just heard that it should be fine now, so that’s good.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven at the latest, I’ll shave, and then I have a lunch meeting at noon-thirty at a nearby eatery. After that, I’ll come home, futz and finesse, write at least eight to ten pages – must start doing that every day – and then at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I’m having a meal with Robert Yacko, probably around one-thirty or two, and then I think I’ll be seeing a play. Sunday will be an all-writing day, and next week is super busy with all manner of things.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven at the latest, shave, have a lunch meeting, come home, futz and finesse, write eight to ten pages, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray/streaming player? I’ll start – who knows? Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping that the site will no longer be laggy, that I won’t be logy, and I certainly won’t be leggy.