Man, that Dodger game......too nerve wracking. If I had watched the whole thing I'd be a basket case right now. I've gotta stick to my policy of turning it off the minute the Astros get a base hit. It's just too much I tell ya. I can only watch sports when I don't have an emotional stake in a game (i.e. when I don't care who wins meaning none of my teams are playing).
Yeah, I know, SB........sports. But on the other hand.......sports!
Sports are a lot of fun, just so long as I don't watch, and my team wins. :)
'Twas another nice hot one today, 98 degrees. How awesome is it when I can go on a (almost) Hundred Degree Hike one week shy of November? You know the answer : "It is quite awesome indeed".
I drove out to Corriganville this afternoon and had a very nice leisurely hike, nothing strenuous. I had not been there since about April or so - as you know I do not get out to Simi or Santa Clarita as much as I used to - but I had to go to Corriganville because it is almost Halloween, and I always go out there at this time of year to visit The Tree. If you are familiar with my FB photos since 2014 or so, you might know which tree I am talking about. In the past I have posted a picture of it during Halloween Week. It looks like it has been struck by lightning in the past, or has suffered some fire damage. As a result, it has a striking look. At a certain angle, you could say it looks like a demonic figure, or even........The Devil.
You can call it The Devil Tree if you wish. Me, I just call it The Tree, and I always go to see it close to Halloween. I am always happy to find it still standing.
Tonight's movie was "The Invisible Man" (1933). I saved the best for last, the original film, and one of the greatest of all sci-fi or horror films, or any movie really. In recent blogs I have described to you all of the sequels, all of which were well done and I enjoyed each sequel very much, but this first film is a cut above. That is probably because it was directed by James Whale, the atmospheric genius who made "Frankenstein" and "Bride Of...". He got a career-making performance out of Claude Rains in the lead role. Rains is most famous, perhaps, for "Casablanca", but his first American role was as "The Invisible Man" and he plays him as Evil Incarnate. It's an angry performance and I think it remains shocking 86 years later. The four sequels to "The Invisible Man" were entertaining, and fun, and each one hit the mark in it's own way, but the original has an energy to it, urgent and aggravated. Director Whale is also a photographic master who can set a black and white close up, in this case of the fully bandaged "Invisible Man" with his sunglasses on, going on a diatribe, that conveys an undercurrent of something just beyond our reach......this guy knows something we don't, but on a subliminal level, not overtly. And he's got power.
The Ten Point Grey Scale in James Whale's classic Monster movies is perhaps the best ever put on film, and again, this Grey Scale is in full effect throughout "The Invisible Man", and it adds to the definition you see in his bandaged face, with it's Black Sunglasses on top. He is speaking in these scenes, and you can see his lips move beneath the bandages. The definition is all important, because it makes him look Otherworldly. And the anger sends him over the top as a character to be reckoned with.
Whale understood all of this on an intuitive level. You can bet David Lynch is a big fan.
When you see and hear something in a film that is affecting you as an undercurrent.....you know it is happening as you are watching. It's not the plot or the dialogue or scene, but something in the way that the sound and picture combine with the actor's performance in a specific segment, maybe just a half minute long, that can strike you in a very big way and leave an impression that always remains with you. Such are the close-ups of a bandaged and enraged Claude Rains in "The Invisible Man".
True Horror that gets deep into the Human Psyche and classic filmmaking on the part of James Whale.
That's all the news for today, except for that I got my ticket for the Judas Priest concert that is coming up in April 2018, and I got it today which is also Glenn Tipton's 70th birthday.
We've got a lot of older guys still rocking nowdays - witness Russell Mael's age-regressing performance at last week's Sparks shows - but I think we will be seeing something new in the case of Mr. Tipton, who will be performing supreme heavy metal next year, on tour at the age of 70.
Judas Priest music - those guitar solos - and pounding songs into the ground, at that age.
In the old days, say the 1950s or 1930s, 70 years old was an Old Geezer. Hell! - even the great Buster Keaton, who was in phenomenal shape as a young man, looked like a Traditional Old Guy in his 60s. And he died at 71.
But now, guys are playing Judas Priest music, live onstage, at age 70.
Weird.
See you in the morn.
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