Doings this weekend: First, a high-class record release party and string quartet performance sponsored by Other Minds, the city's New Music (read: classical-slash-experimental) cohort. I'll always remember how I took a date to their annual festival last year and how it was the death of the budding relationship. So tonight I'm going with Katia, whose friendship with me runs deeper. And her girlfriend.
Then to the ridiculous. The Castro Theatre is screening It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World [slow-loading page], one of the funniest movies ever. I saw it at my small-town movie theater when it came out in 1964 when I was 8, and I certainly appreciated the slapstick. Now I appreciate the slapstick even more. In fact, sometimes when the world seems dark and doomed, the only thing that will lift me out is slapstick comedy.
The film can also be appreciated for its all-inclusive cast. Just look at this single still -- clockwise, from top left, we ahve Milton Berle, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Dick Shawn (you'll remember him as the hipster Hitler in "The Producers"), some starlet, and Ethel Merman. That's 5 for 6. Joining many of them in this still are Sid Ceasar, Pater Falk (in the Yellow Cab cap), Spencer Tracy, Phil Silvers and Buddy Hackett. I could go on -- Jim Backus. Mickey Rooney. Jimmy Durante. Jerry Lewis has a cameo. It's just unbelievable.
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