March 27, 2015
Dear Everyone:
I “finished” the new Website for the
Mt Diablo Chapter of
ARMA
International and sent out a link to the Chapter Board members.
Everyone proclaimed that they liked it immensely.
And everyone promptly began making suggestions to improve it.
Ditto pointing out spelling errors.
(Hence the quote marks around “finished”.
Truth is, it’s never finished.
It’s a Work In Progress.)
The trick is to not take it all personally.
And, more importantly, to realize that when someone else makes a
suggestion, especially when they have no idea what they’re asking for,
it doesn’t mean you have to kill yourself to try and oblige them.
Sometimes the best answer is, “Great idea!
Let me see if there’s a way to do that.”
Period.
In other news…
Now that I’m “unemployed”, it occurred to me that I was free to go to
the movies whenever I felt like it.
Or, at least, when I felt like it and the theater was open.
So I went last week to see the new film version of
Cinderella. This is a
“re-imagining” of the 1950 animated
Disney classic, which was itself
“inspired” by the
Charles Perrault fairy tale, which, like
Little Red Riding Hood,
Sleeping Beauty, and others,
was based on even earlier folk tales.
The earliest version, as far as we know, “Good Girl Gets Reward for
Being a Good Girl”, was published shortly before the birth of Christ
(no, seriously, circa 7 BC in Ancient Egypt).
Another well-known account is the fabled story of
King Leir of Britain.
The Good Girl, daughter
Cordelia, was renounced by her greedy
sisters, married the king of France, came back at the head of an army,
rescued her father from his ungrateful offspring, and they all lived
happily ever after.
Shakespeare’s audience, when seeing his version, with a completely
unexpected twist at the end, must have been as shocked as
Alfred
Hitchcock’s audience was by the infamous Shower Scene in
Psycho.
As for this new version, directed by
Kenneth Branagh (Henry V,
Dead Again,
Thor), it follows the familiar
path. Good Girl, Ella, has
loving parents at first, imbuing her with the virtues of “courage and
kindness”, but one by one, they fall victims to the whims of fate and
Ella is stuck with her not-so-loving stepmother,
Lady Tremaine, played
with great relish by
Cate Blanchett.
And, yes, Lady Tremaine does have a cat, named
Lucifer, but it’s
strictly a cameo appearance.
The birds are still there, but frequently supplanted by butterflies.
And the mice are included, especially the favorites,
“Gus” and
“Jaq”, but they don’t talk, let alone sing.
More importantly, the
fairy godmother is portrayed by a delightfully
restrained Helena Bonham Carter, a favorite of director Branagh.
The set decoration is to die for.
Late Eighteenth Century as it would be filmed in the 1940s and
1950s… Think
The Prisoner of Zenda with
Stewart Granger and
Deborah Kerr in 1952.
Ditto the costumes.
And, of course, the glass slippers.
I understand that the famous crystal producers of
Swarovski made
multiple versions of the shoes, some of which could even be worn for
very brief periods of time.
And the blue ball gown, “loosely” based on the one in the animated
feature, literally seems to float through the air (possibly with a
little help from the special effects people).
I remember an actress at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival one year who
played the Queen of France in a production of
Henry V.
She stated: “I drive
the dress.” Her costume
alone weighed 35 pounds.
Those hoops skirts may be ferociously romantic, but I can’t help
thinking they must be problematical in the restroom.
Ella and the Prince meet, fall in love, separate,
slipper-slipper-who’s-got-the-slipper.
And so on. Absolutely
delightful and sure to show up in next year’s
Academy Awards Nominations
List for various non-acting fields.
As for the music. Certain
directors tend to like certain composers.
George Lucas and
Steven Spielberg both favor
John Williams.
James Cameron frequently uses
James Horner (they both won Academy
Awards for
Titanic.)
Branagh, like Ron Howard (Cocoon,
Willow,
Apollo 13,
Ransom,
A Beautiful Mind, etc.) prefers to use
Patrick Doyle.
Doyle even lifts a
bit of fluff that he originally used in
Branagh’s
Much Ado About Nothing,
while giving a nod to
William Shakespeare as the original “lyricist” of
the piece.
Nevertheless, it’s a lovely way to spend a couple of hours in
air-conditioned darkness, with popcorn, of course.
And Helena does get to sing the signature song,
“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”, but only in the closing credits.
Love, as always,
Pete
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