Wednesday, March 9, 2011

And so it begins...

"CAIRO  (AP) — Eleven people died in overnight fighting between Christians and Muslims in the suburbs of Cairo... The clashes broke out during a protest by several hundred Christians over the burning of a church in the village of Soul last week ..."

It's a day off and the stew is slowly stewing, the coffee has just finished making, the laund'ry should be finished drying soon, and Dean Martin is singing on TV. I had forgotten daytime TV. I'm seeing it now as an accident of timing. Of course, like everything else that was once good and/or wonderful, you have to pay extra to get it even though it used to be free. Dewey Martin! Dewey Martin is in this movie! Wait. Dewey Martin in a suit and tie? That's sooo wrong. The wonderful thing about having this movie, whatever it is, running on tv is that it is in the proper frame ratio and has been excellently restored. Rich Technicolor colours. Most of the outdoor scenes seem to have been filmed on a sound stage. This was just an everyday picture. A little story (usually very little), a little romance, amazingly good looking people, an occasional song and dance. It is not special. I doubt that it won any accolades (including at the box office). Well now, those shots were definitely filmed outdoors in Rome. Yikes - that set is so tacky that it must have been borrowed from Universal. Sudden whoa! - Triumph of design and scene composition time. Sigh, you always could count on MGM.

Well, as it turns out, my clothes are still wet. I have to do another 2 hour drying cycle. Way my days go.

The thing about the movie on tv is that it is entertaining. And the star is an entertainer, not solely an actor. Which makes me wonder, where are the entertainers today? They seem to be few and far between. So much now is big bucks blow 'em up action adventure scifi fantasy (and gawd, how I love it) or low budget alleged reality. And in real reality, the Muslims and the Christians are at it again. In CinemaScope, Technicolor and Stereophonic Sound. Now That's Entertainment.

1 comment:

Austan said...

I just can't absorb all that's happened in the past two days. Everything is just too much.

Gods help us all.