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So I just had to check this out, and it isn't a simple case of air-brushing. The poses are slightly different, esp. the lady's feet, so they must have taken two (or more) shots during the session, knowing that the bare-breasted one might be too much.

I saw the Borodin Quartet in town last night. They were going to do Shostakovich String Quartets 3 & 5 and Tchaikovsky's Quartet Movement in B flat. The first violin and maybe one other member were fairly ill, and having a bit of trouble keeping it together (even coughing between movements and once during a movement!). I salute them for doing as well as they did. They dropped the Tchaikovsky and did two encores instead. The Scherzo from Shostakovich's 1st Quartet and something else by Shostakovich. I think it was a bit of film music, but hard to track down so far. I thought they did a nice job and I'm glad I saw them. But Pacifica was definitely better when I saw them, particularly in that ultra-tricky ending of the 3rd Quartet. So they really will be my go-to ensemble for these pieces, though I'll still listen to the Fitzwilliam recordings as well.

That is a very good deal. Again, sometimes late adopters can get these amazing bargains. OTOH, my children and I have enjoyed the cartoons for years in the meantime, so it isn't a total loss.

To be honest, I am a little more interested in the Decca set that is coming out at the same time, covering an earlier part of Abbado career: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Claudio-Abbado-The-Decca-Years/dp/B00BN1QV1M Though even here, I might settle for this 2 CD set that focuses on Prokofiev, Hindemith & Janácek: http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Australian%2BEloquence/4806611 (A little bit harder to find than I thought on Amazon.com -- it is here). I don't have nearly as much Abbado as other conductors, but I do have his Mendelssohn set on DG, which is still quite reasonable: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005ONMP/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I should probably take the Abbado a bit more seriously, but I am about done with replicating the standard repertoire (I did make an exception with the Steinberg EMI set but mostly because of the recordings with Nathan Milstein). So the boxes that I have ordered lately have mostly been of lesser known Russian composers or in a few cases famous string soloists doing their thing. As far as Bruno Walter, I recently purchased the slimline Walter conducts Mozart and from way back I had the Sony OJC set of his stereo Bruckner and Mahler recordings. So by passing on this set, I am basically passing on another Beethoven and Brahms cycle, and a handful of other recordings. I am sure the new set is a really nice one, but I think I'll be ok without it. Just trying to show some restraint here.

Ebert was a different week, but two big deaths in the same day always squeezes one out. If I am not mistaken, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died the same day and MJ got all the headlines. I suspect it will be the same today with Thatcher dominating (naturally ).

Not aware of Hoberman. Absolutely not a fan of Rosenbaum. At one point, I was reading and disliking his work on a regular basis (so an anti-fan of sorts), since I felt compelled to read all the reviews in the Chicago Reader. The Reader has fallen on hard times (and Rosenbaum may have moved on) and I am not in the city anymore, so he has completely fallen off my radar screen.

What I thought was somewhat interesting in the Zara piece (aside from the hyperbole) is 1) how generational it all is and 2) how sad it is that there probably won't be another figure (in reviewing or more general column-writing) as influential as Siskel or Ebert or Kael or even Sarris. 1) I simply never related that much to Royko or even Studs Terkel. They were before my time. Most teens will think the same about Ebert. I hope I don't get too offended by that and keep telling them that they are missing out on the critics that really mattered. My track record with regards to pop music isn't too encouraging. 2) I think the more influential columnists (in the U.S. at least) have had to go the television route to stay relevant. Movie reviewing is in this weird limbo where the television review shows have degenerated to mere hackery/flackery. Ebert was trying to re-launch At the Movies via Kickstarter when he passed on, and it is hard to say whether they will succeed now. But there is something about the nature of movie reviewing in the age of Rotten Tomatoes where it just seems to have become so diffuse and at the same time more democratic that it does seem unlikely that another figure like Ebert will arise. And that I feel was the main lament in that piece. For whatever reason, I think political columnists like E.J. Dionne, George Will, Clarence Page, David Brooks and Thomas Friedman and maybe Paul Krugman have a broader visibility. Perhaps that isn't true outside the NY-DC nexus (and I just happen to read these papers and think they remain influential). I do think it is true that Chicago and L.A. are not producing columnists that are part of this conversation, and that didn't use to be the case.

You seem awfully ready to pull Ebert off a pedestal, Larry. I really don't know what your beef is. I guess you really want to focus on the feet of clay of St. Ebert. I would certainly agree that at his prime, Royko had far greater influence within Chicago, but by the time I made it to Chicago he was a crabby shadow of his former self, and it is this crabbed, narrow mantle that Kass has (unfortunately) taken upon his righteous shoulders. Ebert's influence continued to grow substantially through his blogs (and perhaps Zara is referring to the many blog posts he wrote on non-movie topics such as the worrying rise of creationism and anti-intellectualism -- that would put him roughly in the same sphere as a public moral philosopher). Still, I doubt Ebert would have put himself in the same class as Sartre or Kant... And despite his poor health, he reviewed over 300 movies in the past 12 months! And if anything his vision got even more humane and good-natured at the end. Compare that to the dwindling output of Royko after he moved to the Trib, and I know who mattered more to me and who was ultimately more inspirational. If you narrow things down to people who care about cinema as an art form (100,000s of people worldwide), then of course they revere him and are broken up over his passing.

Finally wrapped up Kerouac's On the Road, much of it read on sitting at the back of a public bus, which is just a bit pathetic... Anyway, I really started to dislike the Dean/Neal character as the book went on. I found myself so out of sympathy with these folks and their crap behavior (esp. towards their wives and girlfriends) that it made reading a chore. I don't recall that from my previous reading, but it was a loo-ong time ago. Just starting Michael Crummey's Galore, which is kind of interesting. It's hard to judge the tone, since the story kicks off with a man being rescued from the belly of a whale. And other miraculous and semi-miraculous things occur, but I can't quite tell if Crummey is saying that God is still around us and miracles do occur, or if he is just indulging in magic realism. I'll know more after a while. It seems well-written anyway and moves at a relatively quick pace. At the other end of the spectrum is Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow, where God has literally died and his body is towed back to earth. I didn't think the rest in the trilogy were as good, but the first book is definitely worth a read. If you like SF mixed with Nietzsche, so to speak.

They certainly aren't hard to find, but most people haven't gone to the trouble of getting them. The irony is that the only Blu-rays I have are region B, because Masters of Cinema started these DVD/Blu-ray combo sets. So if I ever take the plunge to Blu-ray, I'll have to find one that can play region A and B!

I replied too hastily/carelessly to Larry's post, but the larger point is that Ebert didn't need to keep sucking up to either Coppola or Scorsese at that point. I say he actually enjoyed the film. He gave it 4-stars, and I simply can't believe he would have done so as part of a career move. 3 stars perhaps. An even stranger case is Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, which really did seem pretty sucky, and Ebert has gone ahead and stuck it into his list of Great Movies (one of his best 365 movies of all time)! It's not like he didn't already have 4 Altman films in the list. But something really struck a chord with him apparently. Most likely he was influenced by the fact Altman passed away shortly after Prairie Home Companion was released, so in that sense Ebert was probably really responding to Altman's entire career and not this particular movie. But he did have some fondness for its elegiac and gentle tone, to be sure.

Yeah, I guess for me the price differential is important, as well as having a box that is somewhat compact. The R1 sets are totally ungainly.

I have to say I am considering it, especially as I comes down even a bit more if you aren't in the UK and don't pay VAT. Other R2 goodies: Clint Eastwood - 35 films for 49 GBP http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clint-Eastwood-Films-Years-DVD/dp/B003IHU5H0/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1365310361&sr=1-1&keywords=clint+eastwood+35+films+35+years Pretty amazing collection, though in the end it may be just too much Clint (and still manages to leave out some of the classics). There are also these are slightly more cohesive R2 collections: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clint-Eastwood-Film-Collection-DVD/dp/B000R34358/ref=pd_bxgy_d_h__text_z (the Spaghetti Western trilogy plus Hang 'Em High) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rider-Outlaw-Josey-Wales-Unforgiven/dp/B003ILBDEK/ref=pd_cp_d_h__1 (Pale Rider, The Outlaw Josey Wales, & Unforgiven) -- this is the one I'd be most likely to pick up, since I already have the Spaghetti Westerns) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clint-Eastwood-Collection-DVD/dp/B0058OACUG/ref=pd_sim_d_h__3 4 films, including Coogan's Bluff and Play Misty for Me Woody Allen Collection - 20 films for 37.75 GBP http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007W21JZO/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE I've been on the fence for a while on this one (Woody Allen), mostly because I have a fair number of these in R1 DVDs. It's this crazy thing where I almost certainly would have ordered had Husbands and Wives been included (I think I was just looking for an excuse not to order it) -- am I crazy or is this the last really good Woody Allen movie? (I never got all the raves about Midnight in Paris, though it is sort of an amusing triffle.) But I think I will order it after all, perhaps hang onto the R1 version of Manhattan and Annie Hall and sell off the other movies.

It's always hard to tell how sincere anybody is, but I certainly liked Bringing Out the Dead, and I don't find it impossible that Ebert genuinely found something of interest in it. (Not that I had a straight line to his thoughts, for sure.) But Ebert certainly didn't feel that he had to follow the crowd, and definitely by the time that particular review came out he wouldn't have had any need to suck up to Coppola.

Would it really be so difficult for Verve to do a follow-up compilation of the JATP material after 1949? I realize that a number of the PD companies are stepping into the breach, so to speak, but they left a lot to be desired (rarely any liner notes, duplication between companies, etc.). Just seems like a missed opportunity to be sure.

People can do their own thing for sure, but I would never buy an LP if there was a CD with the same content (some labels are now putting out double-LPs with bonus material over the CD, which is quite a twist). And if the LP cost more than the CDs, it wouldn't ever cross my mind to go that route.

Yeah, I saw this as well. Well, one can only hope that he totally embarrasses himself (why would he be any good at swimming, particularly at his age) and finally drops out of sight for a while.

Guess I'm not terribly, terribly surprised, but am very sorry to hear this. I really liked his reviews and agreed with him maybe 75% of the time. I thought he had really good insights into what made certain films work, in contrast to the critic for the Chicago Reader (Rosenbaum?) who insisted on viewing all films through a political lens (his reviews were boring and predictable, though he did have a soft spot for Tati). I particularly like the Great Movies vol 1, 2, and 3. I saw Ebert one time at the downtown Borders, where he was doing a book signing. This was after he had started losing weight, but before all the problems with his jaw. I actually lived in his neighborhood for a year or so (or maybe just a few blocks over) but never saw him around. I am glad that he got around to writing his memoirs and the really personal blog spots, but I wish he could he been with us for several more years. Anyway, RIP and thanks for everything.

The price is definitely right. I am just wondering how much I would actually listen to it. What are your thoughts on Disc 11? That looks kind of interesting.

>> Blues in Chicago 1955 Has this been issued on CD in any form? It looks like some of the other 1955 and 1956 concert dates have come out on Fresh Sounds but not this one.

Everything shipped out on Thurs. Thanks again.

About halfway through Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. Only a few sections have me laughing out loud, but Twain was an accute observer and he has some interesting things to say about the vagaries of fate on the lives of men. He watched the decline of the riverboat trade, brought about by the Civil War and then finished off by the railroads and essentially the industrialization of river-borne shipping.

I like a lot of Kurosawa films, though a few of the really early ones are hard to take. If I thought that someone was only going to see one film by him, I would probably go with Ikiru. So I'd start with that one, and then see if they wanted to continue with High and Low and then some of the samurai films, probably Hidden Fortress as Quincy suggested. I actually was working my way through the Kurosawa box but got really derailed last year. Am penciling in a couple of weeks this summer to try to wrap that up. I then hope to repeat the exercise with my son, but probably in a couple more years when I think he is ready for some of the more violent scenes.

Maybe she's a private person who doesn't want her email or home address splashed across the internet? Or maybe Allen doesn't trust certain folks from not spreading said info around?