Recently Viewed: Revolver, directed by Guy Ritchie. Whereas I quite enjoyed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (the latter, I felt, was brilliant), Revolver I found utterly lacking in almost all departments. It should have been right up my alley: a darkly humorous, neo-noir gangster thriller threaded through with poststructuralism, neo-Freudianism (Jungianism too), eastern mysticism, and homages to everything from the Usual Suspects to Kill Bill to The Killing. But somehow this film is just a bit too full of itself. In the end it sags under the weight of its own pretensious (and preposterous) claptrap, finally ending up a tedious mess that loses track of its own identity and, worse, its story. And the ever watchable Jason Statham, one of Britain's best baldies, wears a wig of stringy, greasy, brown hair. Whazzup wit dat? Grade: C.
Before you pick up that hatchet and chop off your big toe, remember that the universe contains such treasures as these: (1) Dave's Killer Bread. Oregonian baker and former convict Dave Dahl started a bakery when he got out of the joint. He now makes one of the best loaves of bread in the country. Try the 29 (count 'em!) grain whole wheat. And visit Dave here: **. (2) Nina Simone's version of "Sinnerman". A true tour de force, and used beautifully on that nifty little remake of the Thomas Crown Affair. (3) Huckleberries--those found in the midalpine regions of the Pacific Northwest of North America, mind you. Far far different from the common blueberry to which the name is sometimes misapplied. Bright, tart, purple packages of perfect pungency. (4) Secret family recipes, such as for the huckleberry/apple pie my mom used to make, or the fantastic buttermilk pancakes K makes: the acknowledged protectionism that accompanies them and is respected by all. (5) Peacock feathers. Is there anything more captivating to the mind of a child? Rainer Maria Rilke described it exactly in this lovely poem, translated from the German by M.D. Herter Norton:
Peacock feather:
peerless in your elegance,
how I loved you even as a child.
I took you for a love-token
which by silversilent ponds
elves in cool night hand each other,
when children are all gone to sleep.
And since good little Grandmama
often read me of wishing-wands,
I dreamed, you delicate of air,
there flowed in your fine filaments
the crafty force of the divining-rod--
and sought you in the summer grass.
Before you pick up that hatchet and chop off your big toe, remember that the universe contains such treasures as these: (1) Dave's Killer Bread. Oregonian baker and former convict Dave Dahl started a bakery when he got out of the joint. He now makes one of the best loaves of bread in the country. Try the 29 (count 'em!) grain whole wheat. And visit Dave here: **. (2) Nina Simone's version of "Sinnerman". A true tour de force, and used beautifully on that nifty little remake of the Thomas Crown Affair. (3) Huckleberries--those found in the midalpine regions of the Pacific Northwest of North America, mind you. Far far different from the common blueberry to which the name is sometimes misapplied. Bright, tart, purple packages of perfect pungency. (4) Secret family recipes, such as for the huckleberry/apple pie my mom used to make, or the fantastic buttermilk pancakes K makes: the acknowledged protectionism that accompanies them and is respected by all. (5) Peacock feathers. Is there anything more captivating to the mind of a child? Rainer Maria Rilke described it exactly in this lovely poem, translated from the German by M.D. Herter Norton:
Peacock feather:
peerless in your elegance,
how I loved you even as a child.
I took you for a love-token
which by silversilent ponds
elves in cool night hand each other,
when children are all gone to sleep.
And since good little Grandmama
often read me of wishing-wands,
I dreamed, you delicate of air,
there flowed in your fine filaments
the crafty force of the divining-rod--
and sought you in the summer grass.
R.M. Rilke:
Bye,
JBF
1 comment:
Rilke makes me cry (nearly always).
As does Guy Ritchie, albeit for different reasons. Since Snatch he's just been "Guy Suckee."
(sorry. I forgot to add "Mr Madonna" :-)
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