Happy Late Night, SB. I hope your day was a good one. I didn't see you on FB, so perhaps you are busy. Maybe preparing for your trip? :)
A basic workday for me, but I did go to Aliso for a nice hike, and tonight I watched a great movie : "Separate Tables" (1958) with an all-star cast including David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth and Burrht Lahn-cahstah. The movie was my second in a row to be based on a play (as was "Child's Play" from a few days ago). In "Separate Tables", the setting is an out of the way resort hotel in England. It is mostly empty as tourist season is over. Only a few permanent guests remain. We are first introduced to the Niven character "The Major" (for which he deservedly won an Oscar), enchanting Deborah Kerr's youthful spinster character with his tales of wartime bravado. As an aside, I must add that with these movies with mostly English voices, I really think that subtitles might help. Last week I went to see "Dunkirk", an incredible movie on every count. However, the accents were so pronounced in some cases that over the course of the movie many sentences of dialogue went right past me, unintelligible. I was even thinking as I watched, "I am gonna have to re-watch this on dvd, with subtitles". With newer movies that is not a problem, as almost all are subtitled. But with older films, like "Separate Tables", many of the dvds have no subtitles. This one did not, and I had to pause and replay about a dozen sentences of dialogue in various places, spoken by different actors.
It's a minor concern, but a brief tirade was still in order. :)
At any rate, back at the hotel, we are then introduced to a second set of guests, the ex-married couple played by Lahn-Cahstah and Hayworth. He is a year round resident of the hotel. She shows up unexpectedly.
Meanwhile, in a local newspaper, a story is published, and read by the mother of the Deborah Kerr character, about a local court case that has just been resolved. It involves The Major. He has admitted in court to low level (by today's standards) crimes of sexual harassment, in a movie theater; sitting next to women and making unwanted advancements on them. This is described in the film in very carefully worded dialogue to demonstrate two things: 1) That The Major is indeed guilty, basically of putting his arm around women unsolicited, and 2) That in England at the time, there was an atmosphere of extreme repression and, by contrast, persecution of anyone deemed out-of-the-norm. As another aside, it should be mentioned that in those years, gays were persecuted even worse in Britain than they were here. It was a very repressive culture. The Major is not gay but he certainly is troubled, and even by today's standards his behavior is not okay, even if far from extreme. And, as he is presented to us, the viewing audience, he seems to be a good chap overall, just very awkward.
And that is because he has been living a double life. The newspaper article goes on to detail his real military career: he never was a Major, never was in combat but was instead a clerk. His whole persona is an invention. Armed with all this info, Deborah Kerr's upper-crust mother vies to get The Major kicked out of the hotel. Her real motive is to get him away from Kerr, her daughter, who is secretly in love with him. Meanwhile, the plot line with Lancaster (spelled correctly this time for reasons of brevity) and Rita Hayworth is playing out Big Time, and in fact it is the main plot of the movie.
I shall not describe or divulge any more, except to say that some very deep questions about the motivations of love and lust are examined here, in dialogue that was very up front, very forward for 1958. On one hand you have the two repressed characters, The Major and Deborah Kerr, who love each other but are dominated by societal mores and their own insecurities, and on the other hand you have the two extroverted characters, Hayworth (a wealthy man-eater) and Lancaster (of blue collar heritage) who are mismatched in their own minds, because of class distinctions and sexual power games.
All of this is just a broad description of the themes, because playwright and screenwriter Terrence Rattigan put things in such an expertly worded way that the intangibles of each emotional situation are explored and described to the fullest extent possible. Nowdays, everything is up front, but in the 1950s this wasn't the case, and especially in England. Rattigan goes deep and pulls it all up.
I was watching the movie, having trouble with the accents, especially David Niven's, and after 15 minutes or so, I was only paying 3/4 attention (and working on Jazz Chords for the other 1/4, cause I always have my guitar in hand when watching movies or tv shows, but I still pay attention to the movie, so don't worry), but anyway, in the first parts of the movie, it was not grabbing me right away. But once the plot began to develop, the lives of the characters did as well, and for the remaining 80 minutes I was hooked. Not another Jazz Chord was played during that time.
"Separate Tables" is staged like the play it originally was, though in cinematic form, in impeccable black and white. The acting is of the upper echelon, from the starring roles to those in support, played by the notables Rod Taylor, Audrey Dalton and Dame Wendy Hiller, who also won an Oscar for her role as the owner of the hotel. It is she who holds the cast together.
Well, that's basically all for tonight. I was gonna do a Top Ten List of my favorite Metal Albums, just because I read a list that Mikael Akerfeldt (of Opeth) posted today. It is hard to discern the line between Metal and Hard Rock. I have said myself that, for music to be Metal it has to go "chugga-chugga-chugga" ala Judas Priest. If it doesn't go "chugga-chugga", it's not Metal. It's probably Hard Rock.
And then there is the whole subject of Heavy Metal, which is a whole different ballgame from just plain Metal, which is a refinement of Heavy Metal.
I won't delve into it tonight, but I will give my Off The Top Of My Head list of just a few albums that would make my Top Ten list of the Greatest Metal, Heavy Metal and Hard Rock albums of all time.
1) "Screaming For Vengeance" by Judas Freakin' Priest.
2) "Burn" by Deep Purple.
3) "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" by Sabbath Bloody Black Sabbath, which is #1 on Akerfeldt's list.
4) "Powerslave" by Iron Maiden.
5) "Straight Between The Eyes" by Rainbow.
6) "Blackout" by Der Scorpions.
7) "Ace Of Spades" by Motorhead.
That is all I will list for now. It's not set in stone, except for the first three.
Well anyway...........xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo :):)
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