Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Amazing trash...

I watched Attack of the Giant Leeches and The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues...and tried to watch The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes, but that one was too self-important to be trashy fun and the opening monologues bored me. The first two had some amazingly bad acting and ludicrous scripts, not to mention hysterical monsters -- the leeches looked like men in Hefty garbage bags with donuts along one side -- but they were quick and merciless, and they reconfirmed my belief the most important parts of a film are its script and actors.

So to clear my mind of them, I watched a special program on Acorn about David Suchet's years as Hercule Poirot. It discussed how he's played the little Belgian detective in adaptations of all 70 of Agatha Christie's books and short stories, including a darker version of Murder on the Orient Express. It was a lovely little program, and I've seen some of his work in the series; he does do well as Poirot.

I'm enjoying Acorn. I signed up to watch the new And Then There Were None and stayed on, since it cost me $5 a month and I've seen some interesting mysteries -- like Vera, with Brenda Blethyn playing a Detective Chief Inspector who's anything but lovable -- and some that were questionable -- like their take on Miss Marple having modern sexual mores worked into the plots -- and one that was awful -- the reworking of The Witness for the Prosecution. But they've all been well-produced...probably on minimal budgets.

I also printed up a copy of The Alice '65 -- 246 pages, 62,000 words. Having a printed copy in front of me usually helps me settle the story. I'm not working on it till Saturday, but it's important to me to actually see something tangible to show how much I've done...and here it is. Next comes the slashing and trashing and gnashing of teeth...

...which I think calls for a bottle of wine...yes...

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