Tag Archives: Paddy Chayefsky

Missing

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Guess what? It’s raining again! 15 days of rain so far. And of course it’s been felt mainly on weekends. Saturday to be more precise.

I did go out for a walk earlier, umbrella close by. Just dreary and damp which doesn’t do my back any good. Stress from work and the crappy weather has been making my back act up.

The other night Bill and I watched True Love, by Nancy Savoca. It starred Annabella Sciorra and Ron Eldard as well as a few character actors from The Sopranos.

An independent film from 1989 concerning Sciorra and Eldard as a young couple about to be married. And they probably shouldn’t. I love Annabella Sciorra.

She played Gloria Trillo on the Sopranos, a fellow patient of Dr. Melfi that Tony Soprano has a fling with. She gets too close to the flame and winds up killing herself. She’s been on many other movies and TV shows so you’ve more than likely seen her somewhere.

Ron Eldard too, has been on countless shows and movies. What comes to mind is Deep Impact where he’s on the shuttle with Robert Duvall to blow up the comet and gets blinded when he looks into the sun.
True Love was a slice of life in the Italian communities in the Bronx, along Arthur Avenue.

Today the news was all about what is going on in Iran and despite the news blackout, information is getting out via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as videos being posted on YouTube.

Some gruesome imagery of people wounded or shot dead in the streets, footage of women being beaten by armed forces with batons.. People that were protesting despite their leader warning them not to lest they suffer his consequences.

And protest they did and the leader sent out his armed goons bashing heads and shooting people.

Here in the states, the right wing, specifically the neo-con artists are upset that President Obama is playing it cool, not encouraging the protesters. Of course these are the same assholes that got this nation into the shit hole that is Iraq, so of course they should be listened to, idiots like Paul Wolfowitz the arch-scumbag.

Today Bill and I watched a DVD of Paul McCartney live. I wanted him to have an idea of what a major rock concert is like, especially one with a former Beatles. Some clips from Rock Show, Unplugged and Paul at Glastonbury.

Bill enjoyed what he saw, had a few questions. Then he was off to do his acting thing and I stay at home with an achy back.

I did make it out to the library and picked up some DVD’s. The Life and Times of Allen Ginsburg, The Fall, which was recommended by Roda and directed by Tarsem.

He directed the Losing My Religion video for REM as well as the Cell which looked good but as far as plot, well…

I also picked up Network which is a classic 1970’s Paddy Chayefsky screenplay, directed by Sidney Lumet.

I saw this with my parents which was uncomfortable for all concerned. It was actually the last time I went to the movies with either of my parents. Network is oddly prescient with how television is today, especially the news.

Julio lent me Slumdog Millionaire which has to be returned tomorrow so I’ll probably watch that and see what all the fuss was about.

That’s about all for another rainy Saturday.

I’ll Keep It With Mine

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Bad news for Wilmington, Ohio. The freight company DHL has decided to stop making deliveries in the US. I never liked DHL. I tried using them a few times but it was always a hassle. The delivery guys are generally nice guys, but the services sucked and forget about using customer service. They were always incompetent. Regardless, DHL’s base of operations is in Wilmington and overall 10,000 people might be out of work throughout the US.

Just wrote that since the news is on and Brian Williams is smugly spewing forth with his nightly bad news. Last night, Bill stayed in Stuyvesant Town with his mom. He was still shredding papers when I spoke with him after 11:00. He will be coming home tonight and I will do my best to make sure he’s stress free and able to relax.

I’m sure a spliff would help him greatly but that’s not his style. I watched True Blood last night and it was very good. Perhaps the best episode so far. Sookie found out that Sam was a shape shifter. The easiest shape for him to turn into is a dog. Tara had an exorcism that seemed to have worked until she found that the exorcist worked part time in a drug store, so her ‘new’ world collapsed and she got real bitchy. Bitchier than usual.

Sookie’s sexy and stupid brother, Jason- is still being manipulated by the girl who played Janis Ian in Mean Girls. Then she killed Steven Root and you know that can’t be good. And Vampire Bill was on trial and since he killed another vampire, the Magister played by Željko Ivanek decided he had to create another vampire which was sad.

You’d know Željko Ivanek if you saw him. He’s a really good character actor and has been in countless shows and movies, sometimes playing a good guy, sometimes a bad guy and last night he was the eldest vampire that all the vampires in North America report to.

I would say True Blood is sort of like Dark Shadows, but we weren’t allowed to watch Dark Shadows. Maybe because it dealt with the occult which was a no no in my mother’s eyes, or maybe because it would cause nightmares which she wouldn’t want to deal with in the middle of the night.

Entourage was good. It’s interesting to watch Entourage since the election of Barack Obama and the selection of Rahm Emanuel. Interesting because Rahm Emanuel’s brother Ari, is the basis of the role of Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven. How close the impersonation is, I couldn’t tell you, though Wikipedia has some ideas.

Then I watched Summer Hills High or some show with a similar title. I think the sell by date on comedies with unlikable characters has passed. And last night, the unlikable characters were all played by the same guy. I guess he’s good at that sort of thing, but like I said- the unlikable characters, the spawn of Seinfeld, has gotten old.

What’s next? Blipverts? ‘I’ll buy that for a dollar’? Sybil the Soothsayer? I guess they will all arrive in due time. Darn that Paddy Chayefsky! And Max Headroom as well as Paul Verhoeven while we’re at it!

Tourists?

Blurry Tourists!

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