Saturday, May 10, 2008

The Nearest Book

a meme for the helluva it...
Cinema Styles, he of the terrific blog banners, tagged me --well, I interpreted it that way because everything is about me...
  1. Pick up the nearest book.
  2. Open to page 123.
  3. Locate the fifth sentence.
  4. Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
  5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged me.
So here goes. Cruddy by Lynda Barry was literally the nearest book. It was under my fingers as I moved the mouse, somehow serving as my pad. My desk... a pitiful mess.
He invented it, and it worked so good the fish were practically begging to be hooked. And then they celebrated with plenty of hugging and a big bottle of Whitley's and Leonard was thinking it was love. Some would call it perverted, he knew that, but for him it was true love at last.
I'm kind of a Lynda Barry nut. Love her comic strips especially. Oh the greatness of Marlys! Let's try our "Cast This!" book club selection... The Curse of Chalion. (This is an odd meme because nothing makes sense out of context)
Musicians and dancers stopped for breath after a brisk roundel, and Cazaril joined the smattering of applause led by the royina from behind her screen. A completely unexpected voice spoke next to his ear.
_____"Well, Castillar. You're looking more your old self!"
Who is Castillar/Cazaril? What exactly does his old self look like? Whose voice would be so unexpected? Have you picked up this book up? Are you going to play along on May 29th when we throw actors and actresses at it, willy nilly?



And one more for good measure. Let's try the tome beside the bed. I keep hoping it will cinematize my dreams but it hasn't (yet). Here's Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of New Hollywood by Mark Harris. We land on a passage about the director shuffling on a pre production Doctor Dolittle (1967). I can't imagine John Huston directing that, can you? Nevertheless he'd been offered...
Jacobs got his way, but not before an overture had been made to Huston that had to be retracted with embarrassment and a collectively agreed-upon lie. The fib, Richard Zanuck decided in a cable to Jacobs, would be to tell Huston that "we have run into certain legal difficulties with basic material and have decided not to proceed until we have resolved those difficulties. Please tell Bricusse to stick to this story."
I rented Doctor DoLittle whilst reading this fab book but I'm scared to watch it for fear of being able to think of nothing but hosed down sets, Rachel Roberts barking like a dog, anti-semitic out of control movie stars and giraffes tripping over their own penises!

Mr & Mrs Crazy, Rachel Roberts & Rex Harrison

They've already remade the movie but I'm quite certain that what somebody should do is an HBO miniseries chronicling the R rated hellish production of this notorious Best Picture nominee. Genre: Horror. Who could they get to play Rex Harrison? Discuss.

Oh, and I'm tagging J.D., E Dot, Gabriel, Middento and Nick (anything to get that one typing again)