I’ve been going to the same barber for about 15 years now. He has a tiny 2-chair shop right beside the bus terminal. I like telling people I go to the Terminal Barber Shop. Today, though, I started to feel old. After he’d cut my hair and shaved the back of my neck, he looked me in the eyes and asked, “Eyebrows?” Yuk.
We watched a couple of movies this weekend. Casino Royale (1967) was a real mess. The first of the James Bond spoofs, it had four directors, a whole tribe of writers, and lots of stars, including David Niven, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen, all as James (or Jimmy) Bond. But according to co-director Val Guest, it was purposely crafted as a “psychedelic” film, whatever that was supposed to mean. In this case, it meant that it was often meaninglessly surreal and plotless. And also unfunny most of the time. Woody Allen’s bits were the funniest. You can definitely see that Mike Myers lifted a lot of his ideas for Austin Powers from this film, with better results, too.
After buying the DVD a few weeks ago, we finally sat down to watch Singin’ In The Rain (1952) on Sunday night. Brooke’s seen it lots of times, but she was raised on musicals. I’ve always shied away from them, but to be honest, I really enjoyed this. I have nothing but respect for the hard work and obvious gifts of guys like Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. And the film has been painstakingly restored and looks fantastic. If you’re not sure you’re the musicals type, I recommend you read Mark Bourne’s excellent review over at DVD Journal. It was there that I discovered that in the well-known scene where Gene Kelly sings the title song, he was sick with the flu and had a high fever. And he was 40 years old. And co-directing the film. Amazing.
In other news, we picked up our wedding picture proofs on Saturday, and next week, I’ll be picking up a copy of the proofs on CD-ROM, so I’ll be able to post a gallery here. Watch for it.
