I watched the police block off a street during yesterday morning's apartment fire, but I didn't feel like getting very close to the building. I felt like I knew what these people were going through. The people living in the adjacent buildings would have problems, too. I had my morning cereal and watched the first hour of CBS This Morning. I saw a segment about people who were too fat to serve in the military. I walked outside and saw the smoke still rising from the fire. Someone asked me what I thought of the new Dancing with the Stars cast. I didn't know anyone other than Melissa Gilbert and Martina Navratilova. On Twitter, Scott Sizemore's wife seemed unhappy that she was going to miss the chance to go to Japan. Checking my bank balance, I saw that my tax refund had come in. I bought some groceries. When six o'clock came around, I went over to the record store, where there were two young women performing their songs. I caught the end of Allison Weiss' set. I listened to a bit of Rachael Cantu. I thought her between-song patter was rather awkward, and she sounded like one of The Bangles. I think it was Susanna Hoffs. She also had a lot of Sinéad O'Connor in her voice. I thought of buying CDs of John Lennon or The Meters, but I ended up with The Black Keys' "El Camino" and The Roots' "Undun." I sat at home listening to the Merle Haggard double album of "Mama Tried" and "Pride in What I Am" before walking out to the theatre. The old man in the A's jacket was back, the first one in the theatre. I was the second. The Debbie Reynolds song "Tammy" was playing over the sound system, and it took me a few moments to make the connection. We hear Debbie Reynolds' voice in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." I read that director Terry Gilliam was friends with Carrie Fisher, who talked with her mother about contributing her voice to this movie. Our host Jason came out to ask us trivia questions about Terry Gilliam. The audience was able to name most of his movies, but they forgot about "The Fisher King." Jason's voice sounded rather weak from a cold, and he asked the audience how many of them were sick. Quite a few people raised their hands? What were they doing in public, spreading their germs all over the place? The movie had a trailer attached to it, advertising a feature with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez called "Out of Sight." The sound was out of sync on the trailer, so we were a little concerned that there would be a problem with the movie, but the print was quite impressive, looking clean and clear. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is not a movie for everyone, with its humor centering on drug use and obnoxious behavior. It's something like watching Dudley Moore in "Arthur," only with two Arthurs, and adding a whole wide variety of drugs. I last saw this movie just a year ago, on March 24, according to my journal. During this viewing, I think I made only one new observation, and that was that the model of the car in the early flashback was a Ford Maverick. I had forgotten all about those cars. Part of the audience laughed all the way through, but their reactions weren't as raucous as they would have been in decades past. Johnny Depp seemed to play Raoul Duke at the same tone all the way through the movie, which is rather monotonous, but I don't know what else you would do with such a character. I think the two moments from Depp that I liked the most were the dust in his beer, and his wobbly legs walking into the hotel. I thought that Benicio Del Toro's gut was the most massive and impressive since Robert De Niro in "Raging Bull." To me, there's not enough of a contrast between Duke and Gonzo. They're both snorting cocaine and being irresponsible. You can watch two guys out of their minds in a drugged state for so long before you get restless and want to see something else. Benicio's singing of "One Toke Over the Line" was hilarious, though. I thought the list of stars who appeared in this movie was impressive. Tobey Maguire certainly was different than in the Spider-Man movies. I had forgotten that Christina Ricci was also in "Sleepy Hollow." One of her Barbra Streisand portraits showed a hairstyle that I wasn't sure had been since before in 1971. I think one of the trapeze artists was Karen Price, a former Playboy Playmate from the 1980s. I'm not sure that I noticed before that Debbie Reynolds asked her audience if they were ready to rock and roll, which was funny. The song that followed her introduction was "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Perhaps my favorite was Ellen Barkin as the waitress at the North Star Café. I hadn't seen very much of her after "Sea of Love," and I wished she'd had a scene with Cameron Diaz. The sight that I found the most sickening was Gonzo in the bathtub with the dirty water. The most interesting serious moment, of which there were a very few, had Duke reflecting on San Francisco in the mid-Sixties. The soundtrack had many good tracks, and I've always liked hearing "Jumpin' Jack Flash" at the end of the movie. I also really loved Booker T. and the MG's "Time is Tight." I laughed here and there at different points in the movie, but I can't say this is one of my favorites from Terry Gilliam. The audience response at the end seemed lukewarm. It was 11:14 when I walked out of the theatre. Some young guys yelled out at me for wearing my A's cap. I couldn't tell if he was trying to make some kind of a point. I wasn't about to stick around to have a conversation with him. The Letterman show was a rerun, but it was interesting to see some of the people who had been working with him since 1980. The guest of the show was Howard Stern, but I fell asleep, and so didn't catch any of his act. I awoke to the news that the apartment building that was on fire yesterday was likely to be torn down today. The KPIX crew recognized Gianna Franco's birthday, although no one said what her age was. They gave her a cake that had some Oreo cookies in it. Elizabeth Wenger said she would be working during the weekend. On CBS This Morning, Erica Hill wore a necklace and told us what Barbie's full name was. Three notable March 9 deaths are Charles Bukowski (1994), Fernando Rey (1994), and George Burns (1996). I listened to Brandon Brooks' Rewind segment for March 9. In 1969, CBS cancelled the Smothers Brothers show after they refused to censor Joan Baez's comment about her husband going to jail for resisting the draft. In 1972, "What's Up, Doc?" premiered in New York. In 1974, Bad Company performed their first concert in England.
Like this:
2 bloggers like this post.
