Samuel Smith

Players
$1.99

Street Scene (1989 English National Opera Cast)
$38.98
Quite a few years back I played the part of Charlie Hildebrand for the LOC's performaces at the Fulton Opera House. After those shows, I followed my phillosophy on not looking back at the past, so the shows faded from mind fairly quickly.

Fast forward to 2004. I become reminded of Street Scene thanks to another mention of Weill and put it upon myself to look up "Street Scene" on cd. No store carried it locally, but got a copy through special order.

The performace and recording is top notch. And Charlie is still my favorite character, for obvious reasons. Street Scene is probably one of the greatest overlooked operas around.

Four stars for the cd set, one star for nostalgia.

Presents of Mind by Samuel Patrick Smith
$39.98
A wonderful and amazing feat for holiday shows! Display a set of jumbo cards, each with a different holiday picture (candy cane, Santa, snowman, candle, gifts, ornament, angel, etc. ). Two spectators think of any picture. You roughly sketch the pictures you think they have mentally selected. Place your sketches on a stand, and when you reveal your drawings, you have correctly guessed the pictures they chose! Note: Absolutely NO artistic skill is required! (Uses the same great principle as Samuel Patrick Smiths DEJA ZOO effect. )Wonderful artwork by Selina Frederick includes a card with a manger scene for use in church or other appropriate programs. Thanks to Terrie Basko for coming up with the name, Presents of Mind, for this neat new effect. Complete set includes cards, card stand, and marker.

I Am Legend [Blu-ray]
$35.99
Will Smith is simply brilliant as the sole survivor, Robert Neville. Will delivers movingly and convincingly on a script that really focuses on giving us a picture of "what it would be like" ... to be the last man on earth, living off the land in NYC. This is the real strength of this movie: there's really not a lot of blood or gore or zombie scenes at all. Yet I was riveted as Robert goes through his "typical days" in NYC. Every moment was full of pathos and full of menace, too. And occasionally we got some relief from Smith's trademark humor that blended seamlessly with the rest of his performance to give us "what it would be like" with a powerful delivery that just leaves me almost breathless.

There's an effective use of flashbacks that partly tell us the story of how we got to where we're at in this grim New York City; and the flashbacks also serve to give us an overwhelming contrast between Life Before and Life After the apocalyptic disaster wiped out the city. Yet use of flashback was sparing, which I found all the more effective.

Cinematography was excellent throughout, the storyline and script are brilliant, the use of a dog, Samantha, as a key actor was perfect to show us both Robert as companion and Robert as lonely, isolated survivor.

I won't give away the ending, but think it was satisfying as far as it goes, but not nearly as appealing, from my angle, as the foregoing material. That brings up my one complaint: the title. By the end of the movie, we have some sense of the meaning of the title. Yet it still seems to me to feel cheesy and really unworthy of the movie.