Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! I hope you have a great day and I wish you much success with your art and your career in the coming year. :) I hope you still read this blog occasionally (though I wouldn't blame you if you don't, lol). It's the only means I have of communicating with you and I miss the days when our communication was a regular thing. I hope to see you on Facebook again, too. I miss your posts and your photographs. I'm only speculating here, so please forgive me if I'm wrong, but if you are feeling discouraged to any degree, great or small, by being stuck at your job when you were used to having your time as your own, devoted to your art and to advancing your career, please do not despair.
I have said it before and I will say it again : your career will take off, and you will spend your life as an Artist, in music, film, photography and in any other way you choose to express yourself. I am certain of this or I would not have been saying it all this time. All you have to do is believe in yourself and keep working your talents and your imagination. Keep making professional contacts and don't give up. In fact, you aren't allowed to give up! (though I know you wouldn't even consider doing so).
I just say all of this because I haven't seen you around, and I know you are working these days in a regular job. Please know that you are just going through a tunnel and (cue the cliche) there is light at the other end. But the cliche is true.
Please remember all that you have accomplished. Please remember that your life is your own. Please remember to keep your focus on your Intent (what you want your life to be) and don't succumb to what you don't want it to be.
Everything will turn out fine. Just keep creating. Keep your hat in the ring. Good things are coming.
Happy Birthday! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Well, tonight I watched a truly crazy and unique movie, courtesy of director William Castle. It has the charming title of "Homicidal" (1961), and a plot somewhat reminiscent of Hitchcock's "Psycho" from the previous year, but if ever there was a film of which I don't want to reveal too much, it is this one. So I will give a slight synopsis.
The action takes place in the picturesque "Danish replica" town of Solvang, California. Solvang is located slightly inland from the California coast, north of the city of Ventura, another location in the movie. A brother and sister stand to inherit a fortune from their deceased father just as soon as the brother turns 21, which will happen in two days. The sister runs a flower shop in Solvang. Her brother has just returned from Denmark, where he has been living, to prepare to collect his inheritance. During his years in Denmark, he met a woman named Emily. She is tall, striking and attractive. We meet her at the beginning of the film. Emily lives in the family mansion that is mostly empty since the sibling's father died. She works as a caregiver to an elderly wheelchair bound woman whose relationship to the family is not immediately clear. Is she an Aunt? That's what I thought.
At any rate, you have a Danish Connection between the country of Denmark, where the brother had been living, and the "replica" town of Solvang, California, where the sister lives and works. Her boyfriend runs a pharmacy a few doors down from her flower shop. A hotel in Ventura figures into the plot as well. But getting back to Solvang, my Dad took us there as kids and I think we have a picture or two of me and Chris standing on a sidewalk there, in 1966 or so. Solvang was a tourist destination in the 1960s. For us it was only an hour up the road (but it must be remembered that, for Californians, or for me at least, an hour's drive is a Big Deal. Whereas a Midwesterner might drive for 200 miles as if it were nothing).
Okay, so we have covered a little bit of the plot, and we have covered Solvang. But there seems to be something going on with Emily the caregiver. She checks into a hotel in Ventura at the start of the film, meets a bellboy, offers him money to marry her, and the next thing you know......
We are back in Solvang at the sister's flower shop.
Look, there is no way around the fact that you are gonna have to see "Homicidal" for yourself. Blame William Castle for the shocking title, but keep in mind that the year was 1961, when cinematic psychosis was in vogue. I've reported that Castle is no Schlockmeister, and he is proving this more and more with each Castle-directed Horror Film that I've seen. "13 Ghosts", then last weekend's "Mr. Sardonicus" (which was beyond weird on it's own), and now tonight with his strangest film to date, "Homicidal". One thing to note about Castle's films, be they Western or Horror, is that they are very well shot. This is especially true of his black and white horror movies, which have a crispness to their look. Every grey on the Grey Scale, and every black and white, is delineated. There is nothing to blur the lines in the Mise en Scene. Every wall in every set, and every object in the frame, every actor and every shadow, is properly lit and each stands out, or recedes, as required by the tension of the moment.
According to IMDB, "Homicidal" has a cult following, and after you see it you will undoubtedly become part of the cult. There is no way to see this movie and go "Ho Hum" when it ends.
Two Huge Thumbs Up, then, for "Homicidal". It has a William Castle introduction and then he butts in again, ten minutes before the end of the movie, with one of his patented William Castle gimmicks. Suddenly a clock is displayed over the picture. Castle's voice is heard, warning the audience that the most terrifying scene is approaching. He announces that he is giving the squeamish 45 seconds to leave the theater. The camera pauses on an unopened door as the overlaid clock ticks away the time.
Castle's horror gimmicks were highly publicized to attract teenage audiences, but more than 50 years later, what strikes you is that his movies not only hold up, even despite the gimmicks, but that his Horror Films are some of the weirdest and most original ever made, and all expertly shot and put together. So see "Homicidal", whatever you do. ////
And Happy Birthday again to Elizabeth. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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