2015 — 11 January: Sunday
It was cold enough, last night, to persuade me to close the little window in my bedroom1 and manage, as it were, on my own exhaled CO2.
I survived.
It looks...
... pretty bright and cloudless out there this morning. +3C into the bargain. How about a cuppa?
My Oppo BD player...
... several times failed to load, and several times stalled and moaned2 — even after I'd checked for new firmware — about "Wrong disc", before finally settling down to let me re-enjoy...
This was after first having begun watching "The Horse Whisperer" but quickly ejecting my DVD. I decided I'd rather get a BD of it to watch than put up any longer with the relatively fuzzy image presented by my venerable low-resolution "widescreen in a 4:3 window" early flipper DVD. Get up halfway through a film to turn the disc over? Do me a favour! (Even my last LaserDisc player could play both sides of a disc without human intervention.)
Cerys on 6...
... will see me nicely through breakfast, methinks. On with her show.
One that got away?
Not the 1957 film of an escape by a Luftwaffe pilot that Christa watched (without me) a while back. No; this one's a Tony Richardson film of Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark:
Nabokov, at the time a penniless Russian exile in Berlin, admitted that he wrote the book with an eye toward a screen sale. This finally happened in 1969, thirty years after the novel's release, when Tony Richardson directed an adaptation that moved the story's setting from nineteen-thirties Berlin to the swinging London of the sixties. Richard Burton was set to star but was fired a few days into shooting, for inebriation, and was replaced by Nicol Williamson (himself no teetotaler)... Unfortunately, the film has since been removed from distribution, has never been shown on television, and is unavailable anywhere, including in MOMA's rare-film archives.
IMDB hosts a link to the original review of it — "beautifully colored proof, literal and figurative, of the abnormality of some seemingly normal human animals" — in the New York Times of 12 May 1969.
Mad, profligate...
... chap that I still am, I've once again recently taken a minor gamble on some potentially-interesting titles for my future entertainment:
- Blue Jasmine
- Oliver Stone's "Untold History of the United States" after watching some network episodes in past months
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Her (on BD to replace my DVD copy)
- Such Good Friends (based on Lois Gould's novel)
- Love Exposure (a 4-hour Japanese oddity on BD for a fiver)
- Gefährliche Begierde (aka "Suspension of Disbelief"; a Mike Figgis film)
- The Horse Whisperer
- two copies of a new edition of the Roy Lewis book "Evolution Man" (thus freshly replenishing my 'gift' stock)
Fingers crossed. Except in four five of the cases.
Much as I enjoyed...
... last night's film, I realise — having just finished re-reading Sagan's original 1985 novel — how much richer and more complex it is than the Zemeckis film. 'Twas ever thus. Blimey, it's 14:06 already. No wonder I'm starving hungry. And, by the way, what's happened to all that nice sunshine? [Pause]
Yossarian gorged himself in the mess hall until he thought he would explode and then sagged back in a contented stupor, his mouth filmy with a succulent residue...
Given the day's..
... relative coolth, I've just treated myself — this evening, that is — to a second hot meal. Such decadence :-)
It now remains...
... to be seen if I can pick out some equally warming entertainment.
As you can see, my efforts in assigning a more granular set of genres have yet (at about the 15% stage) to be crowned with much success. Still, at least I've basically expunged the unhelpful "Television" as a sub-category. [Pause] My first thought was "Dead Letter Office" but (to my delight) I discovered this Australian gem has now been issued on an NTSC DVD which is shortly therefore going to be winging its way across the Pond. So... what else should I try?
In 1997, Hollywood...
... did a surprisingly good job of distilling the subject of the Tintoretto(?) portrait on the cover of Margaret Rosenthal's scholarly3 biography — every bit as insightful on the rôle and limited options available to women as anything by Jane Austen...
... into the spirited and intelligent portrayal depicted in "Dangerous Beauty". The fact that it contains several laugh-out-loud sections and a couple of poetry duels with Oliver Platt is simply extra gravy on the cake, as it were.
"City Life" is
... an interesting piece by Steve Reich. (Link.) Too long since I last played my CD of it. (The BBC gives "Proverg" where I really think they should have "Proverb"!) On that, erm, bum note... G'nite.