PLEASE STAND BY: A PREHISTORY OF TELEVISION by Michael Ritchie is a fascinating book from 1994 about television before 1948 in the U.S. and Europe. Amazing technical and show biz angles are covered in great detail with personal interviews with the people who made it happen, not flies on the wall like a Ken Burns doc where some professor speaks of 1861 in the present tense. I had always thought it was only the war that stunted TV’s growth in the 1940s but a major factor was the resistance of Petrillo, president of the musician’s union, to the use of live licensed music on TV. Once a deal was struck with him, it lead to variety on TV (with more than just amateurs singing unlicensed public domain music), which led to Milton Berle, and to TV’s domination over radio, movies, and all other night time leisure.
HERE’S JOHNNY by who else, Ed McMahon is a 2005 love letter to his late boss and friend, Johnny Carson. Fluff, not enough detail, all heart. The best reprinted gag from Karnac the Magnficent:
KARNAC: The answer is Hasbro.
ED: The answer is Hasbro.
KARNAC: The question: How did Tito Jackson get into show business?
SPIDERMAN 3
Tobey Maguire can act and that’s what makes S3 superior to the current Superman franchise. The love story still doesn’t sizzle enough for me but he and Kirstin Dunst make a cute couple. There’s a dangerous flirtation with camp when Peter shows his dance moves, but that would only upset people who don’t like to be entertained.
2 DAYS IN PARIS
My wife likes the Angelika Film Center and she likes Julie Delpy since she saw BEFORE SUNRISE/BEFORE SUNSET, so she dragged me to see 2 DAYS IN PARIS, which Delpy wrote and helmed. A woman takes her Amercan boyfriend to meet her folks in Paris. A lot of real life infuses the goings on—Adam Goldberg, the boyfriend, is Delpy’s former lover. Her parents play her parents. She really is French and so on. The characters are unappealing and the source of their attraction is not made known. I don’t believe that common interests are necessary for a couple but chemistry is a minimal requirement. Their sex life is mediocre, they seemed like a couple who had been married for forty-nine years. Perhaps Delpy was showing a marriage in reverse time. It's Annie Hall without the laughs.
BRA SHOPPING WITH MY WIFE AND LUNCH AT OTTOMANELLI’S
Ladies, Intimacy at Madison and 90th is the place to go for the hard to fit woman. If Dolly Parton were a New Yorker, she’d go here. I’m told the service was excellent and my wife will probably become a return customer. Before we went we had a delicious lunch at Ottomanelli’s on Lexington and 93rd. She had the spaghetti and meatballs and I had the pecan chicken salad. A two-pint glass of watery Coke [that’s how I like it, with lotsa lemon slices] completed our prelude to Intimacy.
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