Before the Fall

Summer '23 is unofficially behind us. Technically, the first day of fall will be September 23 this year (23 for '23), but let's face it, Labor Day is the last three day blowout before we are inundated with pumpkin spice this, that and every bloody thing until Xmas rolls around and...we're done here for another year.

While not a big fan of summertime (with the exception of Gershwin), this year's season between there and here was actually pretty sweet, despite the fact that the rest of the world was either on fire or on strike. The best possible reason for rave review stemmed from the fact that I got to spend some quality time with the fam, part of which I chronicled here in the post DADA DAY IN DENVER. What's missing from that post are two separate and superb bookended evenings with my son and grandson, respectively. This damn fam o' mine sends me to the moon and back. 

While in Colorado, I finally met my friend Melanie Roady face-to-face after almost ten years of communicating only online. Mel was the theater angel who got me to write the first play I'd written in way too long a time and produced said show. The following year, we did it again. Our origin story can be found in  A FROG BLOG. 

Speaking of which, one of those plays in question, MURDER-THE FINAL FRONTIER, was produced by CAST Plays in Douglasville, Georgia, possibly making it the most popular show in my catalog, which is only one page, but at least front and back. If you can't read the fine print, the show went on the boards (as we show folk say) back in April. I didn't learn about it until I received my royalty payment from my publisher in June. 

Managed to attend two-count 'em-two movies, a very big deal in the life of me since the experience had been pretty much obliterated by the damn Pandemic, much like almost everything else I used to love. Takes a bit to get me out to the cinema again, but since the films I took in came from two of my favorite filmmakers, I set forth to satisfy my craving headed into the dark once again.

ASTEROID CITY: Nobody makes films like Wes Anderson. After this and THE FRENCH DISPATCH, I'm getting a bit concerned. It pains me to admit that ASTEROID CITY is even too Wes Anderson-y for me. He overreached and couldn't attain any honest connection with his own work when he became too bogged down in design. It's not a wash by any means, containing enough delights that will be bring me back for a second viewing. But this time around, he went for big themes and emotions so far out of his reach because he was distracted by the next shiny object. "Ooh, look! A stop motion roadrunner!" The magic act didn't work for me this time, even though I was so glad to experience it on the big screen because it is a beautiful, however frustrating object. 

OPPENHEIMER: I had been looking forward to Christopher Nolan's latest epic all year. Naturally, since procrastination is my middle name, I waited until Labor Day to catch it. The enormity of the production, a total sensory experience, overwhelms much of the time, almost relentlessly, though it doesn't become bombastic enough to obliterate the drama or the performances contained therein. I have a problem, as many others have, with the dialogue recording since Nolan doesn't believe in ADR, so I lost some key elements and pertinent info along the way. (Maybe I require sub-titles as I do at home these days) The cast is superb, though Nolan nearly falls into the same trap as Wes Anderson. Critic Judith Crist used to call these vehicles with all-star casts a "Hey, look!" movie and OPPENHEIMER has a bit of stunt casting here and there.. "Hey, look! There's Gary Oldman as Harry Truman!" Overall, a fine achievement and the best time I had in the movies all year. That's three times if you're counting at home.

Add to this some swell TV viewing with the return of RESERVATION DOGS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS and a limited series revival of JUSTIFIED to the mix and summer '23 turned out pretty damn nifty. It was all wine and roses, disregarding being sold down the river by an unnamed entity, but that's what the fall is all about...and hopefully, a fall from which I hope I can recover. (Cryptic much?)

Now if you'll excuse, I have to store away all my white clothes until next year. Do undershirts count?