Into The Woods - Trailer.

It's taken a long time to get this play to the screen.

Anticipation: Sondheim, Rob Marshall, Musical Score.

Apprehension: Disney Studios.

Unuf said.
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Star Wars Caturday

More later.
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Debbie Reynolds to receive lifetime SAG award

Don’t know how I missed this news from the BBC, Singin’ in the Rain being my favorite musical of all time with An American in Paris coming in a close second. When I was 6 years old the reason for my love of the movie was certainly not Debbie.  No, it was Gene Kelly’s Ass!  Pure and simple. Yes, I most definitely was born this way!  But that’s a story for another time.

From BBC News:

Veteran screen star Debbie Reynolds is to be given a lifetime achievement award by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the organisation has announced. The 82-year-old, whose credits include Singin' In The Rain and TV sitcom Will and Grace, will receive her accolade at the SAG awards ceremony on 25 January. 

Reynolds, mother of Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher, has also headlined a show at her own casino in Las Vegas. The award is the highest honour bestowed by the actors guild. It is given out each year to an individual who represents "the highest ideals of the acting profession". 

SAG president Ken Howard called Reynolds, who has been in showbusiness for 66 years, "a tremendously talented performer with a diverse body of screen and stage work". "Her generous spirit and unforgettable performances have entertained audiences across the globe, moving us all from laughter to tears and back again," he added.
Reynolds kick-started her career at the age of 16 by winning the Miss Burbank competition, where she was spotted by film studio executives.She had apparently entered the contest with the hope of winning a blouse and a scarf. 

The performer went on to appear in more than 50 movies, making her official screen debut in 1950. She was nominated for an Oscar for her lead role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, while her other notable roles included The Tender Trap and, later in her career, as Liberace's mother in Behind The Candelabra (2013). 

Reynolds also established a collection of Hollywood memorabilia containing hundreds of items, which was displayed at her Las Vegas hotel before being sold off to private collectors three years ago. 

Anticipating retirement in 1979, she also opened a facility in Hollywood where performers could rehearse in comfort, which has been used by Cher, Michael Jackson and Johnny Depp. But the performer continued working, stating in a 2011 interview that she intends to keep going until she "kicks it". 

Other figures who have received SAG's lifetime achievement honour over the years include Rita Moreno, who collected the award earlier this year, Shirley Temple, Elizabeth Taylor and James Cagney.

I am puzzled by something omitted from this story and that is, there is no mention of her Broadway musical “Irene” opening in 1973 where she had a three year run before the show went to London in 1976. An old friend was in that show and in the photo below. It is the original cast of Irene reunited for some reason. Friend Dennis is in the back row, second from the left. He's artistic director of his own theater company now. (As you can see, we share the same hairdo nowadays, too.)  I am so proud of him I could burst.

I've mentioned this before;  Dennis and I were born a few hours apart on the same day, same year, and until our mid-teens lived 10 houses away from one another in the same cul-de-sac, in New Orleans. 

And so it goes.

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Movie Memories and Music

OK, this is going to be one of those “Brain Fog” posts, so do try to keep up, or at least hang on as long as you feel it’s worth it.

Death has taken away some very special people recently, including Sir Richard Attenborough. Now you may have thought I'd be thinking more of Joan Rivers, but no, my friends. It’s Sir Richard for me this time round.

A brilliant character actor, dramatic actor, great clown, and one of the finest directors the film world has ever seen.  I was reading an Obit penned by his naturalist brother, Sir David, who is a genius in his own right, and putting the 2 together made me think of (hang on here) the original Dr. Dolittle film which starred Rex Harrison as Doctor D., Samantha Eggar, Anthony Newley, and Sir

Richard who played a jovial chap with an extraordinary animal in his company.  The famous “Push-me-Pull-you” as seen above (you had to be there).

Anyway, Attenborough provided a brief and sparkling presence and as I remember, larger than life, even for such a far fetched concept.  You believed.

Apropos of nothing.  Leslie Bricusse (Anthony Newley’s writing partner of many years) wrote a very touching song for the film that suddenly gave me an ear-worm. It's a love song.  Here is a cover of that song by Linda Eder: 

Beautiful, no?  No ifs, ands, or buts, about it. Well, now here’s the song from the soundtrack of the film sung by the Doctor, Rex Harrison.  Guess who he’s singing to and for whom the song was originally written?  You’ll hear it at the very end of the song; the last phrase.

Beautiful, just beautiful. Dear Sophie. 

Isn’t it strange how our chemo-saturated, addled brains toss thoughts about like small boats in a swift moving stream? Just another trip through the Pointless Forest, sans Oblio & Arrow. How my choo-choo-train of thought brought me to this place is beyond me, but I’ve enjoyed the trip.  I hope you did, too.

And so it goes.

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Masterpiece Caturday

The resemblance to Derek Jacobi is amazing, don't you think?

More later.
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R.I. P. Elaine Stritch.

One of the very best has left us. I first saw her in Sail Away, then, of course, in Company (3 times!) She was everything and all that she put out there and her gay fans ate her up. Two friends attended her last 5 shows at the Carlisle, and said she did a different show each and every night. That takes guts and a certain rapport with your audience. As least I have “At Liberty” on DVD and can see her any time I wish.  But not tonight.  This is so sudden and so sad.

Variety:

Actress Elaine Stritch, star of Broadway hits including “Elaine Stritch at Liberty” and “Show Boat,” who was nominated for multiple Tonys and Emmys, winning three of the latter, has died. She was 89.

Stritch made her stage debut at New York’s New School in 1944. The actress understudied Ethel Merman for “Call Me Madam” while simultaneously appearing in the 1952 revival of “Pal Joey”; later she starred in the national tour of “Call Me Madam.”
Her professional relationship with Sondheim lasted decades. She made famous Sondheim’s sneeringly witty tune “The Ladies Who Lunch” in 1970’s “Company,” sang his enduring “I’m Still Here” in her 2002 solo show and performed in a 2010 revue of his tunes called “At Home at the Carlyle: Elaine Stritch Singin’ Sondheim…One Song at a Time.” The actress appeared in Garth Drabinsky’s smash hit “Show Boat” in 1994 and in Edward Albee’s play “A Delicate Balance” in 1996.
In 2010 Stritch replaced Angela Lansbury as Madame Armfeldt in “A Little Night Music” on Broadway.
The actress was profiled in the 2013 feature documentary “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me” (photo above), directed by Chiemi Karasawa.

Read the rest HERE.

And so it goes.

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Happy Bastille Day!

Life goes on and on. Play it again, and again.

More later.
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Dino Killer? We Are Doomed!

Christ on a cracker.  Literally thousands of dumb-asses on the Interwebs think this prop shot is REAL.  That in 2014, Steven Spielberg really and truly shot and killed a dinosaur that's been extinct for 66 Million Years!

It's deep in the land of stoopid for us all. One comment is embedded with the photo.  As usual, Click to embiggen.

More later.
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A Free-Wheeling Freberg 4th, and 1776

I did something I’ve not done on July 4th in the 8 years I’ve been alone and on my own.  I listened to the classic comedy album “Stan Freberg Presents, The United States of America" - all original songs and great sketches with big name (at the time) character and voice actors, including Freeberg, who wrote the whole thing. The great Billy May provides the orchestrations.  It’s been a standard of mine for many years.

A radio station in NYC used to play it every year on the 4th as my friends and I would be lying on the beach at Reis Park laughing and singing along.  Great fun and wonderful memories.

From Vaudeville to a little more high-brow:

The second something was to pop in the DVD of “1976 the Musical” which has become a sort of tradition.  I saw the play on Broadway (with pretty much the same cast), fell in love with the show and music and was very disappointed when a few important songs were cut from the film when it opened at Radio City Music Hall.  I mean, me being such a liberal, and all. It pissed me off.

Fortunately, the Republicans lost power and some of those songs and scenes were eventually restored for the Director’s Restored Version of the film on DVD.  This is the one I own.

One of the most important songs cut from the film was “Cool, Cool Considerate Men” perceived as a direct swipe at the Nixon Administration, it was ordered scrapped, even destroyed.  Fortunately for us, that didn't happen...

From Wikipedia:

The song "Cool, Cool, Considerate Men" depicts Revolutionary War–era conservatives as power-hungry wheedlers focused on maintaining wealth. According to Jack L. Warner, the film's producer and a friend of U.S. President Richard Nixon, Nixon pressured him to cut the song from the 1972 film version of the show, which Warner did. Nixon apparently saw the song as an insult to the conservatives of his time, it suggesting that the conservatives were the ones who were hindering American Independence as they danced a minuet singing the song that included the stanza, 

Come ye cool, cool considerate set 

We'll dance together to the same minuet

To the right, ever to the right 

Never to the left, forever to the right 

To further complicate things as mentioned above, the song is anachronistic, because, the terms "right" and "left" in politics were not coined until the French Revolution. Warner also wanted the original negative of the song shredded, but the film's editor secretly kept it intact. It was only decades later that the song was restored to the film.

So: Much praise for secretive, farsighted film editors. 

And: Damn Republicans! Always trying to rewrite history in their image.  Hrumpf!

The film  is long, but never boring, at least to me.  Ken Howard is always delicious to watch, especially with red hair. And, when the courier sings "Mama, Look Sharp" I always cry like a baby...never fails.  Great song, powerful statement.

The 40 year old film, a period piece, holds up very well. There is plenty for the eyes and mind to absorb; historic accuracy be damned.  Yes, the Congress was held in secrecy, but the play is a fly-on-the-wall kind of interpretation of what might have happened given existing records of what was reported as happening. Call it “artistic license” and be done with it. 

Anyway, that’s my story of celebrating the 4th. and I’l sticking to it.  As the film ended I heard the explosions of the fireworks display going off over the ocean a few blocks away.  That was enough for one holiday.

My clothes had dried out nicely, supper was delicious, and I was done in for the day.

I brushed my teeth and went to bed.

And so it goes.

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R.I.P. Paul Mazursky

Many good works, and some so awful they're hard to think about, or even remember. 

New York Times:
Paul Mazursky, an innovative director and screenwriter who both satirized and sympathized with America’s panorama of social upheavals in the late 1960s and ’70s in films that included “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” “Blume in Love” and “An Unmarried Woman,” died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 84.
A family spokeswoman, Nancy Willen, said he died of pulmonary cardiac arrest at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Mr. Mazursky lived in Beverly Hills.
As the nation’s counterculture revolution shattered traditional norms of sex, marriage and conformity, Mr. Mazursky made his most popular and commercially successful films: lighthearted sendups of wife-swapping, yoga classes, group therapy, pot-smoking, midlife crises and other self-absorbed, middle-class indulgences that reviewers said he crafted with even-handedness and generosity.
Some critics complained that his satire wasn’t cutting enough. Others called his comedies crisp at a time when behavior was at its fuzziest. Vincent Canby, in a 1976 analysis in The New York Times, acknowledged: “Mazursky is a tough man to handle critically. He is alternately witty and brilliantly sarcastic, then suddenly, soddenly sincere and self-centered, only to explode unexpectedly as a first-rate social satirist.”
In his most vivid illustration of the technique, he explored the pain and dislocation of divorce, and its liberating effects, in “An Unmarried Woman,” released in 1978 and quickly embraced by the women’s movement. His screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, while the film itself was nominated for a best picture Oscar and Jill Clayburgh for best actress.

More HERE.

And so it goes.

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Netflix vs. Verizon

As mentioned many times in the past, I do not have a television service - neither cable, nor satellite service.  It’s just too expensive; a waste of time and money. If I had that extra $65.00 monthly, I'd sit and watch it. If you get my drift.

I get news from the Web, (The Guardian, BBC, Raw Story, NYT, TPM, Think Progress, etc.), watch movies on DVD and enjoy documentaries and music videos via YouTube, and I’m pretty happy with that setup. I also have Amazon Prime, but never used it and never learned how.

Then when I got sick last Fall, some folks suggested that I sign up for Netflix to keep up with all the new TV shows and movies that I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about. 

They persisted, going so far as to offer to pay for a subscription so I wouldn’t be bored.  I was not bored. I was sick! Besides, the (slow) DSL I have is a standard, set price service for folks like me and I didn’t think the streaming would work to my advantage.  It's slow, but again, I can't afford another $65.00 for the super fastest service, either.

Well, imagine my surprise when I found this in the news this week.  Seems Verizon is pulling their gimme-gimme-greed number and Netflix isn’t taking their shit lying down.  BTW, I didn’t write the headline. 

Netflix Couldn't Give a Sh*t About Verizon's Feelings, Releases Letter Criticizing Their Speeds
Netflix and Verizon have been going back and forth with each other over data speeds on the network.
Just last week, Netflix started posting notifications on their service whenever data speeds starting slowing, with a message putting the blame on the Internet service provider, and not them (see above). Verizon had a problem with this, and the company sent Netflix a cease and desist letter. 

Now, in a letter obtained by Quartz, Netflix general counsel David Hyman had a bone to pick with the ISP (emphasis added): 

Dear Randy,
I am in receipt of your letter dated June 5, 2014. 

Your interpretation mischaracterizes our messaging. The message you cite to in your letter merely lets our consumers know that the Verizon network is crowded. We have determined this by examining the difference between the speed at which the Verizon network handles Netflix traffic at peak versus non-peak times. The messaging is part of our ongoing transparency efforts to let consumers know their Netflix experience is being affected by congestion on their broadband provider’s network. We are testing this type of messaging across the US with multiple providers. 

Furthermore, your attempt to shift blame for our customers’ experience on the Verizon network “squarely to Netflix itself” disregards Verizon’s responsibility to provide its customers with the service it has promised them. Verizon sells residential Internet access to its customers. In fact, it is my understanding that Verizon actually upsells customers to higher speed packages based on improved access to video services, including Netflix. 

Verizon’s unwillingness to augment its access ports to major Internet backbone providers is squarely Verizon’s fault. As an ISP, you sell your customers a connection to the Internet. To ensure that these customers get the level of service they pay you for, it is your responsibility to make sure your network, including your interconnection points, have sufficient capacity to accommodate the data requests made by those customers. 

To try to shift blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you’re the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour.

Read the rest of his letter and the entire article HERE.

I’ll stick with DVDs and YouTube, thanks.

And so it goes.

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Caturday at the Movies

Stop groaning, please. It was better than the original.

More later.
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Hogwarts Caturday

Now, where is that Horcrux??!??

More later.
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R.I.P. - Mickey Rooney

Very sad news, indeed.  Not something I wanted to read or hear about today.  

A legend, genius, and consummate hollywood star dead at 93. I think he was best paired with Judy Garland in all those MGM backyard films and the Busby Berkley Musicals.  At least that’s how I’ll remember him most.

Mickey Rooney, an award-winning actor and Hollywood legend who appeared in more than 300 films and TV programs, died on April 6, Variety reported. Cause of death was not released. He was 93.
Born Joe Yule Jr. in Brooklyn, N.Y., Rooney was only 17 months old when he took the stage in his parents' vaudeville act. After adopting the stage name of Mickey Rooney* at the age of 7, he appeared in his first film, launching a career that would span nearly his entire life.

* He was Mickey McGuire before changing his name to Rooney.

Rooney was still a teenager when he played Andy Hardy in the 1937 film "A Family Affair." The popular character, as played by Rooney, would appear in 14 more films and make him a top star at the box office. During Hollywood's golden years, the five-foot-three cherubic-faced actor worked with many of the silver screen's greatest leading ladies, including Elizabeth Taylor in "National Velvet," Judy Garland in "Thoroughbreds Don't Cry" and "Babes In Arms" and Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast At Tiffany's."
Rooney was the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar in a leading role and received a special juvenile Academy Award in 1938 after appearing in "Boys Town" with Spencer Tracy. He would earn four additional Oscar nominations for his work in "Babes In Arms," "The Human Comedy," "The Bold and the Brave" and "The Black Stallion," and receive an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of his 50 years of versatility" in film. More recently, he appeared in "Night At The Museum" (2006) with Ben Stiller, and "The Muppets" (2011) starring Amy Adams and Jason Segel.
Rooney's work in television was no less lauded. He appeared in dozens of programs from 1954 to 2009, received two Golden Globe Awards and won an Emmy for his tender performance as a mentally challenged man in the 1981 TV movie "Bill."
According to USA Today, Laurence Olivier called Rooney "the greatest actor of them all."

There were many critics who thought that bringing Rooney and Ann Miller to Broadway in the musical "Sugar Babies" 25 years ago would be a disaster. Boy, how wrong could they be.  The musical was everything the late-70s weary New Yorker wanted (needed) to see.  Covered all the bases from vaudeville, slapstick, to dance and Burlesque.  It was a huge hit. Brings back fond memories, too.

You done good, Mick.  Thanks for everything.

And so it goes.

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Moria Caturday

"Fly, You Fools!

More later.
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R.I.P. - Alain Resnais, Filmmaker

A true genius.  His films were complicated, yet simple, slow-paced. Two of his films were the focus of one class in film school.  NIGHT AND FOG (1955).  And his most celebrated film, LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961),

PARIS (AP) — Alain Resnais, the French filmmaker whose cryptic "Last Year at Marienbad" extended its influence across generations, has died at 91. 

Resnais was editing drafts of his next project even from his hospital bed, according to producer Jean-Louis Livi, who was working on the film with him. 

Resnais, who died Saturday, was renowned for reinventing himself during each of his full-length films, which included the acclaimed "Hiroshima Mon Amour" in 1959 and most recently "Life of Riley," which was honored at the Berlin Film Festival just weeks ago. 

"He was a man of the highest quality, a genius," Livi told France Info radio on Sunday, confirming Resnais' death with "enormous sadness, accompanied by enormous pride." 

French President Francois Hollande said France had lost "one of its greatest filmmakers." "He received all the recognition and prizes. But what counted for him was always his next work," Hollande said in a statement. 

"Last Year at Marianbad" is his most influential work, mixing fragments of time and weirdness within a castle. The 1961 film is routinely cited among the highest works of French New Wave artistry, although Resnais' career extended well beyond that period. It has been cited by fans as varied as filmmaker David Lynch and the late Jackie Kennedy, who screened the movie at the White House. 

"I'm a bit surprised to be so shocked by the death of someone who was 91. Usually we take this news with a kind of calm sadness," said Danis Podalydes, an actor and director who worked with Resnais. "But the intellectual youth of this man was so surprising."

If you're interested, I am sure some of his films are in public domain now, so you can probably hunt them up online for viewing on a rainy (snowy?) afternoon.

And so it goes.

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Wicked - Frozen

No, this isn't a post about recent winter weather (although it could be), it's more of a comparison about a similarity of 2 songs.  From 2 very different times, by 2 very different composers, and from 2 different art forms.

Let me explain.  As I was reading all the hoopla over the songs nominated for Oscars this year for Best Song, I happened upon the video of the song from Frozen.  "Let It Go" is a powerful, enchanting, magical, and mostly a song of determination and power.

As I watched and listened, I was suddenly in a flashback and immediately thought of another song. That song, "Defying Gravity" from the Broadway Musical "Wicked" is pretty much all of what I described above about "Let It Go" - at least to my mind.

The single thing the 2 songs have in common is that they are both vehicles for the fabulous Idina Menzel.  When I viewed the Frozen video, though the animated character is physically opposite of the real life Menzel, I could see her singing that song. 

I listened to the songs side by side, eyes closed, and the similarities just wouldn't go away.  Now, I don't know anything about Frozen, so I'm not aware of the context of "Let It Go", but I DO know that "Defying Gravity" centers on Elphaba (the green witch) coming to accept, embrace her powers - for good or evil.

Both songs are mesmerizing in their way, and I'd love to see Frozen (without lots of kids) to finally put my curiosity to rest. 

Here are videos of each song.  Defying Gravity sung in concert by Idina Menzel, of course. I chose this one because it is a solo, without the distractions of other performers interfering with the bottom line - the song.

And here the song Let It Go in context in the animated film, Frozen.  

You decide.  If you don't knoe either song, that's even better. What's your opinion? Any comments and additional insights will be happily accepted.

And so it goes.
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Shirley Temple - R.I.P.

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus at the age of six when my mother took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph." - Shirley Temple

During the depression she kept many people from being depressed and saved her studio from Bankruptcy. 

Hollywood star Shirley Temple has died at the age of 85, her family has said. 
The actress found fame as a child star in the 1930s in films like Bright Eyes, Stand Up and Cheer and Curly Top. 
She died on Monday at home in Woodside, California, from natural causes. "She was surrounded by her family and caregivers," a statement said. 

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26135627 

(This famous number with Bojangles - The Little Colonel - was quite an eye-opener for many reasons.  She kept up with him step or matched step. Love it!)

And so it goes.

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Film as Franchise

I'm curious about when film-making became an investment in what to me, boils down to a TV mini-series franchise mentality. It seems so often these days that whole companies of actors are contracted for a series of films based on one or two books (with the promise of more to come).  Lord of the Rings excluded, because everyone knew it was an original trilogy so it had to be told in three films, of course.  And I give Peter Jackson major props for his attention to detail.

That said,  think of The Hobbit, a small children's book being squeezed so tight to get all the blood out of that poor shriveled up turnip is simply wrong. And it looks like it's showing in box office numbers. I know of few sequels - or prequels - that ever reached the popularity of the original.  No, I won't go into my theories about this.

I also see that these mini-series productions can become even more of a headache when a cast member already under contract - with major scenes already shot, in the can, for the next installment - suddenly up and dies. Two recent episodes come to mind as I read about the financial investments being lost due to this turn of events.

The stupid, accidental death of Paul Walker. 

The stupid, accidently-on-purpose death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

While Hoffman's final scenes may be saved using CG techniques, Walker is another story entirely.  Seems he WAS the franchise.

What good is a committed audience if one of the characters suddenly buys the farm? No good at all. A complete waste of money - up front money, at that. Willy-nilly and gone with the wind, as it were. 

To be honest, I don't know much about "Fast & Furious" (it wasn't my kind of entertainment) whether the book came first or was released after the initial film more than a dozen years ago. But, no matter. 

I was aware of the Hunger Games books, and later, the Twilight series.  My attempts to read the former were frustrated by my annoying ability to predict what was going to happen before turning the page. Except for a few quirky bits perfect for special effects there were no surprises there. Chalk it up to my younger years reading science fiction, fantasy, and post-apocalyptic novels.  

It was only after I began reading Twilight that I learned (the hard way) that the books were written for those reading at a 6th grade level. OK, colour me embarrassed, especially since I had seen older adults clutching one of the series in their hands while in public. Teenage vampires!  Who knew?

To make a film in the past, rights were purchased, scripts developed, casting took place; then shooting, editing, postproduction, advertising, distribution and the finished product was on its own. Sink or swim.  Good or bad. This was before television, to be sure. After TV took off all bets were off and many times theatrical trailers were more entertaining than the actual films they promoted.  But that's a story for another time.

As the old studio system was breaking down, Stanley Kramer wanted Spencer Tracy for a certain film he was planning to make. But Tracy was breaking down, too. His health had been deteriorating for some time and no one, bank or studio, would insure he'd make it through the shoot.  So, in order to make the film Kramer and Katherine Hepburn offered their own salaries as collateral for Tracy's performance.

Tracy made it through the shoot (dying less than 3 weeks later) and the film went on to win quite a few awards.  The film, of course, is "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" - a testament to great filmmaking and the folks who made them. They don't make people like that anymore.

Under the studio system, if a film did well, there was a chemistry between co-stars, and  well developed characters, the studio might bring them together for another film, but hardly ever a sequel. It stood alone with a beginning - a middle - and end.  Period! Same genre, same characters with a new story and set of circumstances. I can think of a number of these, can you?  They're as refreshing and original today as they were in first release. 

With the reels and reels of cinematic drivel in the multiplex these days, I'll keep the $12.00, enjoy films like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Thin Man, and others that serve up crisp dialogue, great camera work, superior acting, and wonderful stories that challenge my mind, if only a little. Car chases and vampires - not so much.

Checking the current listings at my local cineplex there are only two films that interest me.  The Dallas Buyers Club (one showing only late evening) and Saving Mr. Banks.  

Here are the other offerings to whet your appetite for more: I, Frankenstein on 2 screens.  The Nut Job & Nut Job 3-D on 3 screens. Gravity 3-D on 2 screens. Frozen & Frozen sing-a-long on 2 screens.  I rest my case.  Enuf said!

Hope I got my idea and observations across.  It's been a rough few days and the painkillers are the only meds helping me make it through the daylight hours. 

And so it goes.

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Philip Seymour Hoffman - Dead

Wake me when the tired, repetitive personal tributes, and exclamations of shock and surprise are over.

Me?  I can summon only two feelings - Frustration and ANGER!

Mr. Hoffman deserves neither.

More later.

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