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I righted a terrible oversight and watched the 1949 movie, "The Third Man" for the first time today.

The Criterion Collection DVD is a real treat for fans of literary adaptations. The treatment by Graham Greene was written in novella form and is read aloud as an audio track option.

Keepers of Harry Potter fan sites were invited to a conference call promoting a new movie starring Daniel Ratcliffe, who plays Harry in the Potter movies.

Of course they're going to feel flattered and write about it -- a lot, and probably rave. Really smart. Find the bloggers who care and give them access. So much better than astroturfing nonsense that tries to create community rather than find and tie in to existing communities. So much smarter than working to thrust crafted marketing messages on carelessly chosen lists of bloggers. Expellimarus, Bacon's!

NYT story on two new movie services launching today.

Skeptics are grumbling about the price, saying online prices should be less than DVDs. Sure, but that's easy to change. It's not going to discourage anybody for the rest of their natural lives. Let the market talk.

After commenting on my OPML blog yesterday about Les Orchard's brain dump post on outlining projects, I went off on a tear about Amadeus.

Mozart

When Les talks about not yet having committed to "paper" some of the work held in his brain, it reminded me of a scene in Amadeus. Simon Callow's character, who is producing The Magic Flute as a low-class vaudeville, demands the score and first is delighted to hear Mozart say it's finished. "Where is it?" he asks, and Mozart points to his head. "Here, it's up here," he explained. "Now it's all just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling and bibbling and scribbling."

Not all of Amadeus was factual, but that aspect was, according to authoritative biographies. He was able to hear complete new works in his head, not just piano pieces or string quartets but full choral and orchestral pieces. Then it was only a matter of writing them down as though taking dictation.

The ability is shown or mentioned three or four times in the movie, the most thrilling one when he recruits Salieri to be his stenographer for the Requiem. Mozart is impatient that his nemesis can't scribble fast enough. That scene is an encapsulation of the whole plot of the movie (earlier a play): Salieri in obsessive and destructive awe of Mozart's complete originality. At one point Mozart describes that an instrument section (don't remember which) should map to a theme sung by the tenor section in the chorus. Salieri first doesn't even get it because it's so out of the box. Then you see the recognition dawn on his face. He sees what is meant. Beat. He's blown away by the genius of it. He's honored for the opportunity to be present at the creation, but all the while it's also about Mozart being what Salieri knows he never can be.

Can you tell I kind of like that movie? Now I want to watch it today. Want to come over?

I love my OPML blog. So much that I tend to post non-OPML things there. I'd just blog there exclusively, except that I want to find out more about what permanent hosting arrangements there will turn out to be.

I'll start trying to cross-post a few non-OPML items here. Ironically, Les sometimes has the same problem with a preference for posting to his OPML blog over his "real blog." I think part of the appeal is the ease of posting, and another part is the sense of community here. It's like a network of bloggers.

Couldn't sleep. An adaptation of an A.S. Byatt novella is on Encore. I'd never even heard of it. Looks odd and erotic. Angels and Insects.

You know when I was blathering about the animated West Wing and remembered that the actors who play Leo and Santos were both on L.A. Law? I mentioned a 2002 reunion movie. I got it from Netflix and could barely finish it. Please don't bother. It's a "Fox Original." Pretty cheesy. Nice to see the actors 10 years hence. But something was missing. Not that much of a story. The writing wasn't as smart as the series and the characters almost were caricatures of themselves,

I'm almost embarrassed to have wasted my time with it. Especially after seeing Amélie again just yesterday. Life's too short to fill it up with garbage.