No Crying
Friday night’s movie fix was another challenging romp from Wes Anderson. Although I’m not a big fan of his work, I recognize his talent. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) may be a masterpiece. The French Dispatch (2021) is in a similar style, at times using black and white and animation, full of quirky, bizarre incidents and dead pan humor. It also features a stellar cast, some of whom I failed to recognize: Henry Winkler, for one. I wasn’t able to come up with the identity of the man playing the murderous, imprisoned artist, although he looked familiar — Benicio Del Toro. The narrative, divided into five parts, highlights three non-fiction stories done by a Kansas Sunday newspaper supplement: the painter and his supporters, a day in the life of a small French town, starring Owen Wilson, and one about a reluctant student revolutionary, starring Timothée Chalamet and Frances McDormand. I loved the first, liked the third and don’t remember a thing about the second. Then again, this isn’t a film that can be absorbed in one sitting, at least by most folks, including yours truly. 111,000+ users at IMDb have rated The French Dispatch, forging to a consensus of 7.2 on a scale of ten. Those who prefer the conventional should pass. Made on a budget of, surprisingly, only $25 million, it returned $46 million worldwide. Add revenue from DVD sales, rentals and streaming, and the profit likely doubled its cost. “No crying,” is espoused throughout the film. Here’s Del Toro in character, photo from Google Images:
Whenever I see the phrase “Cause of death not revealed” regarding a young celebrity, I immediately think “Fentanyl.”
Fun story from nypost.com by Mary K. Jacob, edited by yours truly: a decommissioned WWII fort in the middle of the ocean is being auctioned off, starting at just $60,000. It was built between 1915 and 1919 for naval defense. Also considered a ship, it housed 200 men. The armor and weaponry have been stripped. It sits in the Humber Estuary of Northern England and looks like something out of sci-fi. Photo from GI:
Here’s something the mainstream media isn’t likely to cover, headline from NYP: “Ignore the greenies: Offshore drilling produces not just oil but fish — and lots of them.” According to the article by Humberto Fontova: “… 70 percent of Louisiana’s offshore fishing trips target these structures.” LOL
From NYP: “Offices in Japan to install ‘nap boxes’ so workers can sleep standing up.” Many work an insane schedule, up to 80 hours of OT per week. Photo from GI:
“No crying,” I told myself as I waited for customers to show at today’s session of the floating book shop. Finally a Latina and her daughters had mercy on me, buying a kids’ book and Some Kind of Crazy: An Unforgettable Story of Profound Brokenness and Breathtaking Grace by Terry Wardle. Then, while I was packing up, a Latino gentleman bit on the homemade CDs and bootleg music videos I was carrying, about ten items total, which I offered to him for a buck. He also bought an Italian-English Dictionary. Then another Latina purchased a bunch of kids fare and works in Spanish, and Dolmen by Marie-Anne Le Pezennec and Nicole Jame — in French. And to cap it off, a young man took home a large print hardcover copy of Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress. My thanks to all, and to whomever purchased Close to the Edge at Amazon recently. I am blessed.
So what’s a Dolmen? A google search reveals it is a “megalithic tomb with a large flat stone laid on upright ones, found chiefly in Britain and France.” Seems like they were built by the same folks who did Stonehenge. Here’s an example:
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