Click images for desktop size: "Angel Experiment" by Michael Parkes During the rain storm a large branch was torn off one of the trees on the property. An oak tree.
That sort of thing makes me a bit sad. The loss of something, I guess. Then there's the fear that it could have fallen and hurt someone or crushed the house or . . .
It was a big branch. About 35 feet long and nearly as wide at it biggest spread. I figure it weighed about 120 pounds.
The branch was balanced precariously. It was poised to come crashing down on the neighbors shed. While I was trying to figure out how to untangle it from the other branches and from the fence to move it I ended up thinking about Robert Wise.
I have butterfly concentration. That means thinking intently about a subject then flittering to the next subject with equal intensity. Its a lot like a dog thinks . . .
The thought process eludes some people. I always figured I was pretty normal and that people who couldn't see the world the way I do are the same sort of people who figure I pick all the pictures for this blog at random.
Anyway examining the branch I noticed a section of it was long and straight enough to make a guitar neck. I wondered about the acoustic properties of an oaken guitar. I figured it didn't have much going for it as I'd never seen an oaken guitar.
That made me think of some of the odd and cool homemade guitars I'd seen. Bo Diddley played that home made cigar box electric of his.
With his passing I spent some time considering Bo Diddley. I thought that about the worst Bo Diddley covers I'd ever heard were done by the Rolling Stones.
The last concert I'd seen in LA was at the Coliseum. Guns And Roses opened for the Stones. GNR cut the Stones completely. GNR was great that evening and the biggest response they got from the crowd was their homage to the open E chord with their version of Bob Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door".
Dylan wrote the Soundtrack for the only major movie he acted in, Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garret And Billy The Kid". Dylan was pretty poor as an actor. So were Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson. At least Coolidge got naked. Her breasts were the most interesting things in the movie.

Click images for desktop size: "Anime" by Mota I wondered what prompted Peckinpah to cast all these pop stars in important roles. He was a total pain in the neck maverick, so it had to be his choice. I was trying to figure out what prompted him to cast aging pop stars in the roles, roles that were basically embodying wild west raging teens.
That made me think about Peckinpah's career. I thought it was an auspicious start. He played the Gas Meter Reader in Don Seigel's early masterwork, "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers".
I love the movies Don Seigel made. His genre films never attempted to redefine the rules they just pushed them to the max. "Riot In Cell Block 11", his Ronald Reagan as villain in "The Killers" all did more to establish entertainment as propaganda for humanity than any dry text book.
With all the great movies he made it was still his 1956 sci-fi flic that will get him in the history books. His cynical vision of human beings being replaced by emotionless pods has been remade at least 6 times I know of. It also gave rise to a term popular in LA - "Pod Mall".
In LA there was a time when gas stations weren't being profitable (!). They were shutting down and developers were buying up these little corner lots and building these creepy little mini-malls (their preferred term). These generic cookie stamped cramped emporiums seemed to always have the same stores, the same feel. (A fast food Asian restaurant, a video store and a dry cleaners). The only apt description for them recalled the human looking creatures in Seigel's klazzik movie, the soulless being explaining to you how much happier you'd be when you didn't have to feel, when all your thoughts were the same as your neighbors. The typical Southern Cal developers mantra and the spirit of the pod mall.
I wondered how much inspiration Seigel had gotten from the Robert Louis Stevenson story about ressurectionists, "The Body Snatcher". Stevenson's fictionalized version of the notorious Burke and Hare, Scotland's notorious body snatchers who eventually found it much simpler to murder their corpses instead of wasting time digging them up.
That made me think of the movie of the the story. It was a tour de force performance from Boris Karloff as the title character "Hare". I think it was his finest performance and the only movie where he was allowed to explode and paint a true picture of evil, an evil so human as to care about a little girl and his horse, but self serving enough to murder a little dog. An evil so self aware that he explains in clean simple terms that he feels lowly and miserable but when he remembers he can make a superior man "jump to his whistle" he feels big
Click images for desktop size: "Zombi" by Unknown and needed and as important as any man in the world!
Its an incredible performance and surpasses his astonishing work as the Monster in the first two "Frankenstein" films. He makes you care about the despicable.
And the man who lead him to this astonishing award worthy performance was Robert Wise.
See, how the mind works is easy if you think about it . . .
So I thought about Robert Wise. He had a fascinating career and is another guy who no one thinks about anymore. That's a shame. I think his biggest success is what's lead him to be unremembered. He directed the biggest box office hit of his time, "The Sound Of Music". I have to admit I've never been able to sit still through the thing for more than 5 minutes at a time, so I've never seen it. And Oh, I have tried.
Other directors who've managed that monstrous a hit have developed huge followings. Not Wise and he started his career more brilliantly than most. He directed many of the sequences in Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" then flew to the brilliant "The Curse Of The Cat People". Despite its lurid title "Curse" is an examination of the world, life and death through the limited perspective of a child. He creates a gothic world full of intimidating chirasco and old people who offer a genuine warmth that penetrates their stuffy cold appearance. A beautiful ghost saves the child from a less beautiful daughter who only wants to be loved by her mother.
Its a fascinating movie in every way and Simone Simone is alway worth looking at.
In between creating goth fantasy worlds and examining human frailty expressed through its cruelty Wise and creating the most successful movie musical ever Wise made two science fiction klazziks. "The Day The Wold Stood Still" made a star of Michael Rennie and Patricia O'Neal and gave us Gort, a totally hep robot.
Almost twenty years later Wise made the sci-fi warning film that said the aline invasion might be more of a whimper than a bang. "The Andromeda Strain" was a huge hit, bigger than 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Wise also made the definitive submarine war film with "Run Silent Run Deep" (great title) and the ultimate desert war movie, "The Desert Rats". And in between them the bittersweet Jimmy Cagney Western, "Tribute To A Bad Man".
Some people would be upset if I didn't mention he also directed the first "Star Trek" movie.
Wise didn't make any bad movies, save. possibly his most successful. I don't understand why you don't see any Robert Wise retrospectives. He was a filmmaker who stayed closer to his dreams and purposes than most auteur darlings.
Click images: "Big Guy, Thunder & Maestro" by M Kutsche He crossed genre's at ease and brought a sure deftness to the most important job a movie director has: He told his story and he adapted his style to tell the story as directly and powerfully as possible. Its no small thing. See what he did with the surface appearing trite boxing movie, "The Set Up". He created art just by letting actors act and people be people. Again, its no small thing.
If the rain stops today I have to go and complete dismembering the fallen branch . . . of course, if it stops raining I can take the puppies for a promised treat, a $5 pizza! Which now costs $5.55 . . . plus tax. Don't know if I can swing the tax bit. Have to count my change.
We split the pizza evenly. Its poor pizza but only costs 5 bucks. They cut it into 8 slices so three slices go to the pups and the cheese from one slice goes to my little blind dog (his allergies don't let him have wheat). Then the puppies split up that naked crust which leaves 4 slices for me!
The dogs think that is too much and more than I deserve . . .