Bloggin' On: A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That....

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Hi, Dear Reader, and welcome to another installment of Bloggin' On, the blog-within-a-blog where I don't write reviews (at least, not full-blown ones) or delve into politics. Think of this section of A Certain Point of View as the department of "stuff" or "miscellaneous essays" touted on the blog's home page.

Well, I usually write my blog posts in the morning, but I'm off to a late start today. Right now, it's mid-afternoon here in my corner of Florida; the temperature outside is 65℉ (19℃) under partly sunny skies, which isn't too bad, all things considered. It's nice and cool without being bone-chillingly cold, although it is advisable to wear long-sleeved button-downs or light jackets if you're going to venture outside (I hardly ever do, although I should) on days like this.

If I do decide to go out for a stroll, I need to do it before the sun sets; as the day's light dies and gives way to night, the temperature will drop to 63℉ (17℃) by 5 PM. Again, that's not the coldest temperature I've ever experienced; I went to Colorado in mid-winter of 2000 and saw lots of snow and felt chilly winds. In Florida, my home state, we have had Arctic blasts at least once every winter, and even in Miami (my hometown), I've endured temperatures that hovered below the freezing point of 32℉ (0℃). But with the coronavirus bug going around throughout the world, I'm not taking any chances.

Anyway, I didn't sleep in this morning; I woke up when the sun is still not above the eastern horizon and Good Morning America is still a good half-hour away from its start time. I even pondered writing a computer game review, and I even started one. But the words simply did not flow, so I deleted the draft post and decided to walk away from the computer for a while. I didn't want to just sit at my desk, puttering uselessly on Facebook or playing a session of Strategic Command WWII: World at War or Unity of Command II. 

 So, instead of sitting all day in my study, as is my wont, I went out into the house's common area and decided to watch my latest acquisition on Blu-ray, Garth Jenning's 2005 film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This was the last incarnation of the Hitchhiker's multi-media franchise that creator Douglas Adams worked on; he was writing the screenplay for the movie, which stars Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Alan Rickman (voice only), and Stephen Fry (voice only), when he died suddenly in May 2001.

Based loosely on the first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel (and the BBC-TV adaptation), the movie (which was co-written by Adams and Karley Kirkpatrick) is funny and enjoyable, even if it loses much of its "Englishness" by virtue of the inclusion of many U.S. actors (including Mos Def and Sam Rockwell) in the cast. Many HHGG purists scoff at the film's divergences from the novel (and the radio series that spawned the franchise), and I skipped it altogether when it was in theaters back in 2005. But I decided recently that my Blu-ray collection needs more comedy titles, and I've always loved the  HHGG franchise, so...here we are.

A screenshot of my Blu-ray collection's statistics page on Blu-ray.com. I'm not sure if the genre breakdown is visible here, but Comedy titles account for 2.7% of the 271 feature films and 47 TV seasons that I have on Blu-ray. 

Screenwriter's Update 


My friend Juan Carlos Hernandez reports that he is still working on our film. He is still doing pickup shots (shots he wanted to shoot in principal photography and didn't do, and occasional shots that he did but doesn't like now that he's in post-production). "I had to shoot another shot today," Juan texted last night. "Missed shot. Seven seconds; a couple of hours' work."

Today he should be editing. Per Juan, "The movie is a trim 22 minutes and 55 seconds long," but he's still laboring on the pacing.

I still can't predict when we will have a finished film uploaded to YouTube. I'd like to say it will be done by mid-February, and maybe it will be ready then. Realistically, though, I'm betting on a late February-early March release.

Well, that's all the news I have for you, Constant Reader, so I'll wrap this post up now. So until next time, I'll catch you on the sunny side of things.

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