LuckyDan
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Posts posted by LuckyDan
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9 minutes ago, Allhallowsday said:
Back in the day, I only owned 4 or 5 vinyl albums of LENNON, and knowing this album now, I am so very glad I did not spend money on it. Plus, I must confess, ...Yoko : Oh no!
My first thought was, she's an acquired taste, but then, has anyone ever acquired a taste for anything she has done? I have never heard of read a soul who said anything like, "What a unique talent. I always enjoy seeing what she's up to."
Aside from having the business sense to buy multiple units in The Dakota, I can't think of anything she's done that is the least bit impressive.
(Even as I type this I can imagine her reading it and asking, "Riiiiight ... And you are ....?")
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On 2/21/2021 at 7:42 PM, Vanessa17 said:
I'm not saying that Allen should not be allowed to publish his book. I quoted you because you theorized that Allen's book would be a bestseller, which is not possible. .. It could be that they feared backlash from publishing Allen's book, but it could also be an entirely monetary decision. They already had a relationship with an author with a steady output who recently released one of their biggest hits. Woody's book doesn't make that much of a difference in their bottom line, so why not ditch him for the guy that is making them more money and has more potential to release another book in the future.
Re-reading this exchange I see I may have misconstrued Vanessa's position. I took her to be saying Hachette essentially rejected Apropos because it would be a loser, not out of concerns for social backlash, and I responded while misunderstanding the premise.
Let me take it again.
Topbilled seems to be saying Hachette should have stayed with Woody and made money on both his and Ronan's future books, but they feared a #MeToo backlash. (He called it the #MeToo "crowd" which I took as an unwitting tribute to Rush - made me smile).
Vanessa replied, essentially, that maybe they feared a backlash but more likely they feared losing the stronger writer after Ronan gave them a "him-or-me" ultimatum.
I take the proper question then to be, did they simply prefer Ronan? Or did they fear social justice punishment? ("Backlash" I think isn't the best metaphor since signing Woody to begin with wasn't analogous to cracking a whip at anyone.)
So if I now have the question properly framed, I see they are both correct. Hachette feared Social Justice Inc., and they feared losing a potential money-making author. ("New Shimmer is a floor wax and a desert topping!")
I just felt Vanessa might be discounting too strongly that Hachette had signed a deal with Woody, so any decisions about keeping Ronan happy should already have been made. It wasn't like Woody knocked on their door that morning offering them a 500 page manuscript and they said no.
. . . . .
I remain very curious though about how Arcade, the eventual publisher, got the finished product to market so fast, just a matter of days really. It is a rather thick volume, so did some needed editing go undone? Did Hachette have a finished product ready to print that they just handed over to Woody? ("You see how it is. Here's your book, all nice and corrected. Don't sue us, ok?")
That question was put to Arcade's owner, Jeanette Seaver, in a brief Q&A here but the reporter fired a salvo of five concurrent questions about the process and allowed her to answer only vaguely. She did say, proudly, that she had Woody's signature in a matter of hours after the news broke.
Finally, I saw a statement by a Hachette guy who said Ronan works with one imprint, Little Brown, and Woody was working with another, Grand Central, and their labels don't really interact, and that's why Ronan was unaware until the public announcement.
I don't know, but Hachette looks pretty goofy after all this. That they could not have seen what they were going to be dealing with, then dealing with it as spinelessly (ahem) as they did ...
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23 minutes ago, Vanessa17 said:
It could be that they feared backlash from publishing Allen's book, but it could also be an entirely monetary decision.
They feared backlash. The monetary decision to publish had been made. Pub date was set for April 2020. Hachette announced on March 6 they were backing out. I don't know how fast things move in the book publishing world, but I'm guessing they were pretty far along in the process when they got nervous.
And Allen's book seems to be doing well enough to make money, if not a top ten item.
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17 minutes ago, Capuchin said:
As I stated in my post: "They ended up not using my story, . . ."
It is not word building. It is worldbuilding. If you place the story in 1880s Laramie, 1930s Chicago, or 1960s LA, the reader automatically knows what the streets and buildings look like, what people wear, and even the music coming from an open window. If you place the story on a moon of Rigel5 in the 27th Century, you have to supply those details. More importantly, you need to know a lot more about that world, and its people, than will ever be put on paper. Everything from the electrical grid to weather forecasting to where sewage treatment plants are located are going to be different from Earth's because conditions and available materials are different. Most of these elements won't become part of the story, but readers (especially sf readers) will spot inconsistencies and (greatest of all sins) contradictions. Those take a reader out of the story. They also lead to bad reviews. It is, therefore, highly important for the writer to have mapped out, at least in their mind, all the elements which come into play coincidental to the action. Example: a city in a desert where it never rains more than an inch a month isn't going to have storm drains big enough for your hero to use as an escape route.
Wikipedia entry on Worldbuilding.
An online community for Worldbuilding.
Oh. My mistake. I'll read more closely next time. Thank you for your reply
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33 minutes ago, CinemaInternational said:
A rebuttal to the series: https://toisto.net/2021/02/16/allen-v-farrow-hbo-documentary-series/
This is very well done. Thanks for posting it.
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On 2/20/2021 at 2:05 PM, CinemaInternational said:
BTW, Sinatra isn't Ronan's father. Nancy Sinatra said her father had a surgery that made his fathering children impossible long before Ronan's birth in 1987.
Tina Sinatra told Showbiz 411 (whoever they are) that her Dad had had a vasectomy. (The reporter, too cutely, includes Tina's remark that Ronan looks just like Mia's late brother.)
Ronan for his part once tweeted, "Listen, we're all *possibly* Frank Sinatra's son."
Another source documented health issues Sinatra was experiencing in the mid 1980s which suggest strongly that siring offspring probably wasn't going to be a thing for him anymore, vasectomy or not.
Something else I read yesterday had Woody saying he and Mia were into a platonic stage well before Ronan was born. (My word, not his, but that's the gist.)
I never thought the Ed Begleys looked much alike, but now that the younger is up in years, I see it very clearly. Still it is doubtful Ronan will ever resemble Woody.
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5 minutes ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
L.A. Times columnist Robin Abcarian ... says that she used to be "taken" with the Allen film Manhattan, but now "all I feel is deep discomfort and disgust".
I took this as more messaging: You not only have to believe Allen is guilty, but if you enjoy any of his work, ,,well,,, something is wrong with you.
My POV: I don't know what happened and I don't really care as it relates to how I view Allen's work.
Manhattan was about a middle aged man dating a 17 year old girl when Robin was taken with it, and it's about a middle aged man dating a 17 year old girl now that she feels discomfort and disgust. Allen didn't change a thing.
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21 minutes ago, Capuchin said:
In 1986, a tv production company optioned the broadcast rights to a short story I'd written. Their series was in the same genre as my story, but that's where any similarity ended.
Did they air your story? And what are word building elements?
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52 minutes ago, MovieCollectorOH said:
My expectation, not that many people are going to have that many original ideas. So after they exhaust their own concepts, they go on to editing each other's ideas, then they come up with an internal boilerplate approach to writing their episodes.
Or building on established premises. Soap opera writers had to do that day to day, just keep stringing a story out until finally somebody just had to die.
But building on prior plot lines is a great way to develop characters and advance stories, especially noticeable in the shows I mentioned.
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I'm a big fan of Barney Miller, and I've read several pieces over the years about how those episodes were made. The creator, or show runner as they say in the biz, Danny Arnold was an old hand in the TV industry and well-connected. He would meet with free-lance writers through their agents, and hear them pitch ideas. If he liked the ideas he would order an outline, and then maybe a full script. Even if he didn't put them into production, he paid for them. One pair of writers were paid for an outline Danny told them he didn't like, then a few years later they saw their ideas used on the show.
Then I read more recently that writers who start work on an established show are given the show "bible" to refer to for continuity. The bible lists established facts about the show's characters, their histories, their quirks. The Frasier bible is said to have been enormous, including a long list of Maris's various ailments.
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6 hours ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
As for noir: I still say there are a few color noir films that were made during the "classic" noir cycle; 1941 - 1959 (of course these years are subject to endless debate).
The film I mentioned: Leave Her To Heaven was released in 1945. If I was writing a book on noir of the classic period I would include this film as an example of a film that pushed the boundaries of what is noir, that was made shortly after Laura by 20th Century Fox.
I just read the wiki page on LHTH and I don't recall seeing it, though I'm sure it made the TV rounds back when TV stations ran old movies. I see it references mythology and Shakespeare, or at least the novel it came from did. It is on YT. I will have a look soon, not to judge whether it is noir or something else, because ultimately that's academic, but just to enjoy it. Looks good.
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Hiroshi: Have you not heard? The monster is having most distressing gastro-intestinal issues.
Haruo: Of course I have heard. It is all over Tokyo.
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22 minutes ago, txfilmfan said:
You can have blue eyes without having blue-eyed parents.
Ronan's grin, though. The jaw line. Look at that photo and cover the top half of his face. I still see Frank.
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Just now, jamesjazzguitar said:
The film I mentioned: Leave Her To Heaven was released in 1945. If I was writing a book on noir of the classic period I would include this film as an example of a film that pushed the boundaries of what is noir, that was made shortly after Laura by 20th Century Fox.
And boundaries are pushed when new trends develop from existing ones. You'd be correct to include that title for contrast.
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On 4/7/2020 at 7:19 PM, jamesjazzguitar said:
Nothing new. The Farrow family complained to the publisher and they canceled the deal. Woody has a new publisher so the book should be out soon.
I didn't hear that the Farrows complained but I know that the employees at the original publishing house walked out over the plan to publish. One piece I read quoted workers saying stuff like, "I have a friend who is very distraught that he knows someone who works for a publisher who enables predators" and crap like that.
I know from first-hand experience that corporate life has become adult daycare but caving to that was pathetic.
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Just now, jamesjazzguitar said:
Paul Newman?
Paul and Mia. Hmmm....
No. No I don't think so, but #HeToo is a more viable candidate for paternity than the Wood Man.
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On 4/7/2020 at 3:05 PM, spence said:
Not vindictive here, but she also insisted RONAN FARROW was SINATRA'S son all over the media
I think he is. Woody himself asked in a piece he wrote, where did those blue eyes come from?
Nothing of Woody at all in these features.
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On 2/18/2021 at 2:29 PM, jamesjazzguitar said:
I agree. Of course everyone can have their own view of what is or what is not "noir", but I don't use such a narrow view for most definitions related to art. E.g. at the jazz website too much time is, IMO, wasted with discussions of; is person a jazz musician, or is this song "jazz".
Your jazz analogy supports your position well. Since I read it, I've been thinking musicology can illustrate my position, too.
Think of the classical guitar and it's history and literature. It consists of transcriptions of music written for other instruments; Renaissance music written for the lute or vihuela; Classical era music written by Sor and Carcassi on the smaller bodied baroque guitar; and music written since the advent of the modern classical guitar designed in 1850 by Antonio de Torres and advanced by Francisco Tárrega.
Let Tárrega and his students stand in for what I call the canonical noirs of the 40s and 50s. Yes, Tárrega transcribed centuries-old lute pieces, but he also composed works on the modern guitar and gave the instrument not only borrowed music but it's own literature, which combined elements of the Romantic style of his day with Spanish folk music. He taught a certain playing technique, including posture. Call it the Tarrega school.
As decades passed, we saw the rise of Andrés Segovia, who popularized the guitar like no one before him, and commissioned works that have become standards for the instrument alongside Tárrega's. Julian Bream did the same in my own lifetime.
Can we say then that any music written for the modern classical guitar, including works for Segovia written by Villa-Lobos, or later pieces for Bream by William Walton or Benjamin Britten, are part of the Tárrega school? It's the same instrument. Those works are every bit as musical, as complex, and require the same degree of dexterity and musicianship. What about the earlier lute works and organ works Tárrega himself transcribed?
No. We can't. Tárrega's school is confined not only to its own time and it's own instrument, but to its own style, and it's own members. Later players and composers can borrow from that style, can trace their lineage to it in many cases, can be great interpreters of it - Bream thought himself more understanding of the Spanish style than the Spanish were precisely because as an outsider he saw things they didn't - but they cannot be part of it, any more than we can say Tárrega was a Baroque guitarist because he transcribed Bach, or a classicist because he played Sor.
In film, the techniques of the German expressionists of the 20s and the gangster pictures of the 30s influenced the noirs of the 40s, which themselves were based on a style of contemporary pulp fiction, and were created and shown during a time of great turmoil. Earlier films may have predicted some elements, and later films may imitate them and build upon them, borrow from them with a wink and a nod, even poke a little fun at them, but they cannot be one of them.
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14 hours ago, BingFan said:
You're right -- I should have been more careful when I posted the 12/9/73 Peanuts strip containing a Kane spoiler. Sincere apologies if my post ruined a mystery from that movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. But at the same time, I think the strip might (or might not, I'll admit) be interesting to folks who've seen the movie, so I've left it in my earlier post with SPOILER ALERT added -- which I should have included from the start.
You didn't spoil the ending. The rosebud thing really isn't the point. It's a device employed as an excuse to tell the story in the way it is told, a reason for the reporter to interview Kane's associates. It's a nice ironic touch in the ending, but it isn't the point, and the last frame certainly isn't a twist in the sense of being a sudden revelation that provides a meaning. It's more a discovery the viewer can make, but the characters cannot. Cute, a nice little bow on the gift box, but not truly relevant.
It mattered only to the reporter, and as we follow him while he looks for it's meaning, we learn who Kane was, where he came from, how he rose, who he touched and changed, and why he ended the way he did - mostly things everyone we meet along the way already knew, including the reporter, but it's all news to us. There are people who watch it and don't make the rosebud connection at all but still enjoy the story.
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David Kellner (1670 - 1748) was a German-born composer and theorist of the Baroque era. (Remember that circle of fifths diagram from your music lessons? He did that.) He was a soldier for ten years in The Great Northern War before he settled in Stockholm where he worked as an organist. He was among the last virtuosos of the lute.
Alexandra Whittingham is a British guitarist who has won wide acclaim. You can hear and see more of her here
Run time is 5'44
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52 minutes ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
... and Martha looked very beautiful.
As she tends to do
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Lilian Bond
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Truly a girlfriend-from-hell song here
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1 hour ago, LsDoorMat said:
Woke folk do make me anxious because they naively feel like they are at the peak of human moral superiority. Like Bill Maher said - and I can't find the exact quote - 20 years from now the woke of today will be horrified by what they once considered normal.
"No matter how woke you think you are, you are tolerating things right now that will make you cringe in 25 years." It's at 4:30 here
It's a good spot. I liked, "You can't believe people in old movies smoked? They wouldn't believe we put the cell phone in our pocket next to our nutz."
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Yoko and the Captain. Yes.
Imagine a marquee that reads, "Tonight only: Captain Beefheart and the Lost Planet Airhead!"