SLEUTH (1972)
dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Utter Despair Community Theater's Summer Season Comes to an End
The Summer is waning down. This means an end to the wonderful menu of delights that The Utter Despair Community Theater served to a hungry populace starving for the arts this past July and August.
There were several highlights including a production of Neil Simon's THE ODD COUPLE performed by the Gillespie Twins Edward and Larry. It was a surreal version due to the fact that you could not tell which was Felix and which was Oscar ... except for which one was wearing an apron and carrying a feather duster AND which one was wearing a ball cap and wearing a dirty sweatshirt. They would change roles each night, but who could tell? It was weird, but somehow seemed to bear a strange existential quality about the duo components of one's personality. THE FUTURIST! loved it.
And there was a production geared for children based on the little French school girl Madeline series of picture books by Ludwig Bemelmens. It was an adaptation loosely played with entitled MADELINE AND THE INVASION OF PARIS 1940.
The Community Theater Director Peter Wilkie is very avant garde and loves to challenge the audience. Wilkie's production of 12 ANGRY MEN cast with 12 mannequins, who spoke through off stage voices, was stultifying ... as was his OF MICE AND MEN wherein he substituted a drugged circus bear in the role of Lenny. This production proved to be terrifying to THE FUTURIST! who has a fear of bears ... and it was, also, stopped on opening night when the bear urinated on the audience in the first row seats.
Wilkie's most talked about production was some French spoken psycho drama that played only one night. It starred a cast of four and the Douglas Sirk film ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS was projected over the actors.
The trouser removal stirred the audience and was the highlight of the night.
And finally, there was the rendition of Mozart arias by 14 yr old Robin Schlotz. Robin received a lot of applause and kudos for his vocal technique. THE FUTURIST! must nod to Robin's talent for tonal gusto, but is not as enamored as everyone else since he lives two doors down from THE FUTURIST!'s abode AND his nightly rehearsals erected a roadblock to nocturnal rest for THE FUTURIST!.
Here's hoping the Autumnal offerings are as fascinating.
There were several highlights including a production of Neil Simon's THE ODD COUPLE performed by the Gillespie Twins Edward and Larry. It was a surreal version due to the fact that you could not tell which was Felix and which was Oscar ... except for which one was wearing an apron and carrying a feather duster AND which one was wearing a ball cap and wearing a dirty sweatshirt. They would change roles each night, but who could tell? It was weird, but somehow seemed to bear a strange existential quality about the duo components of one's personality. THE FUTURIST! loved it.
And there was a production geared for children based on the little French school girl Madeline series of picture books by Ludwig Bemelmens. It was an adaptation loosely played with entitled MADELINE AND THE INVASION OF PARIS 1940.
The Community Theater Director Peter Wilkie is very avant garde and loves to challenge the audience. Wilkie's production of 12 ANGRY MEN cast with 12 mannequins, who spoke through off stage voices, was stultifying ... as was his OF MICE AND MEN wherein he substituted a drugged circus bear in the role of Lenny. This production proved to be terrifying to THE FUTURIST! who has a fear of bears ... and it was, also, stopped on opening night when the bear urinated on the audience in the first row seats.
Wilkie's most talked about production was some French spoken psycho drama that played only one night. It starred a cast of four and the Douglas Sirk film ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS was projected over the actors.
The trouser removal stirred the audience and was the highlight of the night.
And finally, there was the rendition of Mozart arias by 14 yr old Robin Schlotz. Robin received a lot of applause and kudos for his vocal technique. THE FUTURIST! must nod to Robin's talent for tonal gusto, but is not as enamored as everyone else since he lives two doors down from THE FUTURIST!'s abode AND his nightly rehearsals erected a roadblock to nocturnal rest for THE FUTURIST!.
Here's hoping the Autumnal offerings are as fascinating.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Saturday Music for the Traditional End of Summer
Beautiful weather is here this weekend in Utter Despair, N.J. It's Labor Day weekend and every year we think of this weekend as the END of the Summer season. It isn't actually ... the Summer ends around the 21st or 22nd or so of September. Most likely because school starts again for many and the weather starts to change very slowly, people think of it as the end of good times in the sun, a return to work and encroaching cooler weather.
Places visited and new people met in the Summer become the past ... to return as memories. Some people develop relationships that impact their lives to such a degree that it changes them forever ... in their thoughts, maturity and the way they interpret Life. THE FUTURIST! thinks of the film GOODBYE, COLUMBUS based on the novella by Philip Roth when he thinks about the end of Summer. It's about a young man who meets a girl during the Summertime and how their relationship changes his Life. It's about how a Summer love can make us think differently, perhaps act differently, and blind many. The season ends, the relationship ends and so does the blindness of our emotions. We see the falsity, the way things really are and how Life operates ... yet, we can still remember the brightness of the warmth of feeling in our memories.
This is the title tune to the film adaptation of the novella. It is performed by the quintessential 60s "elevator music" group THE ASSOCIATION. It is a pop tune ... very "of its time" and playful ... but it has the feeling of one of those songs you heard long ago in the sun, smiling and in a distant state of mind.
"Leaving the old world behind."
Listen:
GOODBYE, COLUMBUS
performed by The Association
from the film GOODBYE, COLUMBUS (1969)
Places visited and new people met in the Summer become the past ... to return as memories. Some people develop relationships that impact their lives to such a degree that it changes them forever ... in their thoughts, maturity and the way they interpret Life. THE FUTURIST! thinks of the film GOODBYE, COLUMBUS based on the novella by Philip Roth when he thinks about the end of Summer. It's about a young man who meets a girl during the Summertime and how their relationship changes his Life. It's about how a Summer love can make us think differently, perhaps act differently, and blind many. The season ends, the relationship ends and so does the blindness of our emotions. We see the falsity, the way things really are and how Life operates ... yet, we can still remember the brightness of the warmth of feeling in our memories.
This is the title tune to the film adaptation of the novella. It is performed by the quintessential 60s "elevator music" group THE ASSOCIATION. It is a pop tune ... very "of its time" and playful ... but it has the feeling of one of those songs you heard long ago in the sun, smiling and in a distant state of mind.
"Leaving the old world behind."
Listen:
GOODBYE, COLUMBUS
performed by The Association
from the film GOODBYE, COLUMBUS (1969)
Friday, September 3, 2010
Silent STAR WARS
THE FUTURIST! tips the hat that he never wears to the wonderful
THE BIOSCOPE for the knowledge of this creative oddity.
Comedy Record Titles
Today, THE FUTURIST! was taking to a friend
named James about what he was having for lunch.
The friend was going to a fast food chain to satisfy his hunger.
James then asked THE FUTURIST! what he was having to eat.
THE FUTURIST! replied that he had prepared a sandwich at home
of leftover chicken with fresh garden tomatoes on a hard roll.
The chicken, THE FUTURIST! explained, was from a supermarket
that sold pre-cooked small roasters that were seasoned with
delicious herbs and spices. THE FUTURIST! said that he loved
these chickens because they were enhanced for
the ultimate in taste sensation.
THE FUTURIST! and James then talked about James'
boss who had returned from Las Vegas on a vacation.
This boss, who James detests, had claimed he was going
to Las Vegas to win oodles of money because he had devised
a perfect way to win at craps. He said he was going to become rich.
THE FUTURIST! said that one could, perhaps, win at 21 or another card
game if one was a "card counter", but craps involves dice
and the only way to win would be with "trick" dice or loaded dice.
The casino provides the dice and even if you did substitute
the dice with your own dice, the gangsters who owned
the casino would kill you.
THE FUTURIST! said, "Two guys named Tony and Lou would
take that idiot for a drive out to the desert at night, beat him up
and then put two bullets in his head and bury him under a cactus."
James liked that idea. But, the boss had arrived back this week
totally unscathed with no evidence of an organized crime beating.
James then saw the boss walk down the stairway nearby.
He said, "I'd love to kick his ass down those stairs."
THE FUTURIST! then said, "Yes. Then put two in his head."
They laughed as people do when they express outrageous
violent fantasies about work superiors.
James then said that he thought that THE FUTURIST!
should record a comedy album.
THE FUTURIST! scoffed at the idea.
James said, "No no, yes, it would be great!
And I know the title of your first album ...
I LIKE AN ENHANCED CHICKEN !"
And James continued,
"Your second album would be called ...
TWO IN THE HEAD !"
This was conversation was the highlight of
THE FUTURIST!'s day today.
It made him happy.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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