I saw a 21st-Century movie

June 17th.
The Watergate break-in was 47 years ago today.

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     I began this Monday by getting a surprising surprise:  I watched a movie made in 2019 that I had never seen before, and I loved it.

     Now, that is weird.

     Or maybe should say, "unusual."


Murder Mystery,
on Netflix.

     Netflix is an interesting and exciting and scary phenomenon.  They are kind of creating a New World, so to speak.  An Alternative World -- an Extra World.

     As the movie progressed this morning, I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is like a soufflé with aspects of 'Murder, She Wrote' and 'Get Smart' and Agatha Christie blended and whisked to a riveting peak!"

     Reading a review of it in The Guardian online, I saw that they had noted influences borrowed from Game Night (2018 movie), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1994 Woody Allen movie, recently script-streamed here), and Clue (classic board game and 1985 film).

     Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston play the lead roles.


     Adam Sandler seems to be a person who just keeps making more movies and isn't open to freaking out over what critics say about his work.
     I don't know about his other movies, because I haven't seen them except for one in the mid-nineties and I can't remember it -- but Murder Mystery is good.

     Even the title:  not giving it individual identity, just saying to the audience -- "This is a murder mystery.  Murder.  Mystery.  Murder Mystery..."
     Kind of like it's to pay homage to all great murder mysteries that came before it.

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living

------------------ [excerpt] ---------- Harriet Rubin, who would later become one of Jackie's editorial colleagues and is now a successful author, described her impact on the company:  

"Her becoming an editor was a tremendous vindication of the struggling book business.  I think she regarded books as a form of magic.  

Temples are built upon scrolls and sacred texts, and she was going to produce modern magic formulas for opening people's minds, for revealing hidden wisdom."

{Vanity Fair.  "Jackie O, Working Girl."  By Greg Lawrence.  January 2011.}

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"Yaga Zuzi, She Wrote"

Yesterday on Hardball with Chris Matthews, an observer said that President Trump has a pattern when he explains his actions:  first he lies; then he deceives, and then he admits it and says everybody does it.

What is the difference between lying and deceiving?

Dictionary:

lie (noun) -- an intentionally false statement

deceive (verb) -- to cause someone to believe something that is not true, typically in order to gain some personal advantage; to give a mistaken impression

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     When you listen to the George Stephanopoulos interview with our president...

------------------------------- There's a "Bewitched" (Season 2, episode 5 - 'The Joker Is a Card') where Uncle Arthur teaches Darrin how to cast a spell.  Darrin would like to get back at his mother-in-law for all the times she has turned him into things and cast spells on him -- so he tries it out on her.

He has to chant an incantation and then rattle a cowbell and toot a duck call, and Endora is supposed to disappear.

"Yaga zuzi, yaga zuzi, yaga zuzi, ZIM!"

(Ding-ah ding-ah -- clankety-clank ----- mlaaaat!)

He tries the spell a couple of times, in front of Samantha and Endora, who stare at him like he's crazy.  Getting really wound up, he hollers, "Don't try and stop me, Sam, she's been asking for this for a long time!"

Samantha says to her mother, with sublime incredulity, "Mother, have you been asking for this?!"

----------------- Lately when our president speaks, all I can hear is,

"yaga-zuzi, yaga-zuzi, yaga-zuzi, ZIM!"

And I think,
"My fellow Americans -- have we been asking for this?!"

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"Bob Dylan, She Wrote"

     I find it really interesting sometimes to notice and appreciate how people express thoughts in English when it's not their first language.

     It's like you get a different perspective.

     Watching "Murder, She Wrote" on You Tube, there are Comments -- read this one:


Usman Shafqat
I am into Murder She Wrote and Columbo series now a days from Pakistan .. Thanks fr uploading .. What a time that was .. Fabulous acting, strong expressions, captivating stories .. They don't mk such stuff anymore now


     That resonated with me.  I felt for a few moments like I was a Pakistani citizen watching American TV mystery episodes on You Tube and commenting, carefully and enthusiastically, using my classroom English. ...

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     I went on Netflix yesterday and started scrolling gently, slowly.  Netflix apparently reads our minds to find out what we might like to see.

I recently watched Under The Influence, a documentary with Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) discussing blues music.

Yesterday Netflix placed in front of my eyes Rolling Thunder Revue.


I gasped.

Bob Dylan.

     1975 concert tour that I didn't even know about until after it had happened.  When I was in college I bought a book about that tour, and went through it many times.  It was an over-sized paperback, with good quality paper and many photographs.

     The tour I never saw.  And now I can see some film of some parts of it, in this Martin Scorsese documentary.  (Martin Scorsese has been popping into my life and consciousness with Bob Dylan stuff, starting in 1978 -- The Last Waltz, No Direction Home... A sort of surreal parallelism...)

     The Guardian-UK ran a review of Rolling Thunder Revue.  BTL -- "below the line" -- Readers Commented, ranging from this particular film to All Things Dylan...  One of his less well-known albums, John Wesley Harding, was touched on in discussion:


kandaharkenny
John Wesley Harding, always feel it's overlooked, up there with his best stuff, stripped back sound, pared back lyrics.  Outstanding


Drust
Yep, my favourite Dylan album, not a duff song on it; sounds like it was recorded with one mic in a toilet but that doesn't matter to me.


dylan37
It's a remarkable record, like many of Bob's.  Recorded quickly, 18 months after Blonde on Blonde, but couldn't sound more different.  Songs of biblical allegory,  mystery and deceit.  No choruses.  Strangers and outlaws from the shadows of that old weird America, and an almost off-kilter unsettling sound.  Wonderful.

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---------- [Chronicles, Bob Dylan] ------- ...Being there and seeing him [Mike Seeger] up close, something hit me.  It's not as if he just played everything well, he played these songs as good as it was possible to play them. ... The thought occurred to me that maybe I'd have to write my own folk songs, ones that Mike didn't know.

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"Noir, She Wrote"

     Speaking about film noir recently -- and then watching a bunch of "Murder, She Wrote" episodes ... there was one MSW episode where I recognized the influence of three different film noirs! -- The Postman Always Rings Twice; Mildred Pierce; and another one, can't remember off top of my head...


     It had to be so much fun making that show!  I mean, I realize working in TV, music, and movies is "work" -- a "job" like any other where you have to be there and do your best, etc.  (Brad Pitt has said people ask him what is the hardest part of being an actor -- and he answers, like any other job -- getting up in the morning...)

     However -- making those murder she wrote episodes had to be FUN.  (I'm sorry, I'm not retreating from that position.)  

They got so many actors -- great actors, interesting actors, actors from Hollywood's Golden Age -- to guest star on that show.  They could incorporate noir influences, classic 1930s gangster picture influences -- hard-boiled detective movie inspirations -- remember Harry McGraw, portrayed by Jerry Orbach?

     Man, I thought those episodes were fun.


     I could imagine how lovely it was for some actors and actresses (we're supposed to call them all "actors" now, but I'm not used to that, yet) to come out of semi-retirement and work with Angela Lansbury.

     One episode was an homage to Arsenic and Old Lace.


     (Could I write something like "Murder, She Wrote"?  I wondered.)

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     The sheer number of episodes with thunderstorms in them -- and always at night.  That's to create, or reinforce, atmosphere.  And I find lately the word and concept, "atmosphere" keeps coming into my mind at various moments.

     A reviewer of one of Beyonce's albums highlighted the atmosphere of the song collection; Reader Comments about Tarantino movies said The Hateful Eight had a very atmospheric soundtrack; AMC states that Laura (1944) is one of the most "moody" film noirs ever made -- for me, moody is another word for atmosphere, or ambience...


     Turning the idea over in my mind that atmosphere is maybe an important part of stories I want to tell.

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"Murder, She Wrote"

Watching "Murder, She Wrote" episodes on You Tube.

(Now, there's a theme song that's hard to get out of your head.)

That show!

The repressed passions!
The nighttime thunderstorms!
The fashion scarves!

I love how often they use a thunderstorm at night, for atmosphere.  A person could go through all the episodes and count how many thunderstorms there are....  Some kind of record, possibly.

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Farmer Johnson says it's either too wet or too dry

United States Capitol water fountain

the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.




Sitting on the front porch
Rain is pouring down
News comes on the radio
There's trouble all around


That's the way it's always been
And the way it'll always be
I thank the good Lord I've got you,
In times like these




The rich keep getting richer
The poor barely get by
Farmer Johnson says
It's either too wet or too dry

Jobs are scarce -- down at the factory
I thank the good Lord I've got you,
In times like these



    In times like these
    When it's easy to get down
    You're my inspiration
    You're my solid ground

    In times like these
    Love will pull us through
    Baby, I know -- I can depend on you


We can read about the latest
In the fashion magazines
But that don't change the fact
That we got patches on our jeans

Everybody's needing money
Even the preachers preaching on TV
I thank the good Lord I've got you,
In times like these


    In times like these --
    When it's easy to get down,
    You're my inspiration
    You're my - solid ground

    In times like these
    Love will pull us through
    Baby, I know I can depend on you


It costs you forty-five cents 
For a nickel candy bar
And a dollar's worth of gas
Won't even start your car

Yeah, we got problems
Here in the land of the free
But there's no place I'd rather be --
In times like these

I thank the good Lord I've got you
In times like these...

In times like these, baby
(Baby)

In times like these --

In times like these.

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"In Times Like These"

Barbara Mandrell

written by Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan.
Producer:  Tom Collins.
MCA
Released - April 1983

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"I walk slowly, but I never walk backward."

~ Abraham Lincoln

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