Crime and Punishment

Mikhail Romanovich Kravitznikov lay in a sickened daze, the fetid wind dragging musty odors from Lebezyatnikov’s rendering plant into this dank chilled hollow-walled gray undersized apartment.  Kravitznikov had stopped eating the day before; the bland tea Sonya had brought to his bedside this morning had long since gone cold.  Mikhail Romanovich turned slowly in his sweat-dinged sheets, the bedframe shrieking for relief. Kravitznikov stared down at the floor where amongst the dark scurrying bodies of starving rats lay a figure he had thrice slain.  Thrice!  First in the burning sunshine of adolescence, then again, hand forced by the pressures of the state.  Finally, a third time, because only a truly great man murders the same form thrice.  Thrice!

Mikhail Romanovich Kravitznikov said to himself, “What foolish cretin of a so-called author writes pages of unending paragraphs of characters talking out loud to themselves (with parentheticals, no less!)?  Is it Dostoyevsky?  Or Dostoevsky?  Fyodor or Feodor?  Curse history, multiple translations, and the Anglicizing of the Russian alphabet!  And what warped individual convinces himself that reading the same novel thrice (Thrice!) proves the brilliant mind of a truly gifted man?  It is I, Kravitznikov, also occasionally written as Mikhail Romanovich in adjacent sentences.  Mikhail Romanovich, I, purchased this particular battered dog-eared besmirched volume once my sweet ailing mother, Pulkheria Alexandrovna, declared great love for her own brittle copy of the tome.  And I, Kravitznikov, thus read this novel, he he he he, having unconsciously disregarded my past experiences with it.  The trudge, the strange suffering in the darkness, was slow and blurred, but yes it was I, a truly profound man like Napoleon, who thus finished it in the late empty hours.  He he he he he.  Then my mind dropped into the abyss of Nyx and opened the ancient wooden doors of dream; not of tortured horses or crumbling societies but of sewage laden Siberian fortresses.  It was a good dream.”

The white sun barely burned through the rotting yellow clouds and pulled angular shadows across the room. Mikhail Romanovich closed his eyes hoping that sleep would once again relieve him of the guilt of admitting that he found pleasure in the resolution of this overwritten book about crime and punishment.

Kravitznikov said to himself, “Mikhail Romanovich, you should recommend this but to only the most masochistic of wounded souls.  But beg of them to never complete it thrice. (Thrice!)”

Happy Friday! Jedi Kittens.

If watching these two videos doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, then you, sir, have no cockles.

A Hard Day's Night review

It bursts onto the screen with the thumping, jangling title song and the great visual homage to the insatiable female pursuit of Keaton’s Seven Chances.  It ends with another Keaton homage, this time as a big British kiss to Cops.  Everything in between zips along like a Marx Brothers movie wherein everyone is Groucho.  It’s one perpetual chase.

(Source)

The image jiggles and wiggles via handheld cameras and setups inside cars and trains.  And if the shot slows for even a moment, the editing keeps pushing momentum forward.  If the viewer mutes the A Hard Day’s Night and just watches it play out in silence, he or she may start to feel a bit of Tony-Scott-style vertigo, as everyone involved in this production seems to be on an espresso-and-amphetamine enema.  But in a good way.  This is all joy.  The worst that will happen is that one may get a headache from the onslaught of happiness.

(Source)

There was precedence for pop music stars in narrative film before 1964.  Al Jolson helped break the cinematic sound barrier.  He was followed by Eddie Cantor and Bing Crosby.  Then Sinatra came along and bared his acting chops in dramatic roles.  Elvis then sent the progress back thirty-one steps as he played roles that were not “Elvis” in name, but were clearly an non-actor stumbling through scripted lines.

But here in Richard Lester's A Hard Day’s Night, The Beatles are playing The Beatles – sexual angst, live-ish musical interludes, wacked-out fans, and all – as an alternate universe version of themselves: The Four Groucho Marxes.

Four Grouchos means four times the non-sequiters, four times the god-awful puns.  The issue with this is the terrible hit-to-miss ratio.  If there’s a "joke" every 10 seconds (I really attempted to measure this), then that means there’s about 880 jokes in the film.  That’s impressive, in its own way.  But once one subtracts the stuff that charming due to its unceasing spill, there’s only about a dozen jokes that are actually funny.  That’s about a 1.4% success rate.  Yes, some of the quips are dated (I wish I spoke ‘60s British), but otherwise the film becomes a very unique experience in absorbing an ocean of words.  Thus the humor is bold in its own way.  Plus if you listen carefully, there are quips about orgies, drugs, producers, PR, trend setters, and television.


My own favorite bits were the visual ones: a silent vaudevillian losing his dove act, shaving on the bathroom mirror, Lennon playing with toys then disappearing into his bubble bath, the end credit sequence, and the aforementioned chases.

Unlike Elvis, the Fab Four fare very well with their line reading.  That’s no mean feat with the bounty of dialogue.  Ringo comes out the best since he’s given the most to do with his character.  Oddly, it’s the professional actors that come off incredibly hammy and awkward.  Wilfrid Brambell, who plays Grandfather, is unwatchable which is unfortunate since he’s in every other scene.  I’m not sure if I should applaud a punk-style actor’s direction, but it takes great efforts by the Four to keep all of his scenes from sinking the momentum.

Different movie, but Brambell's general acting style in A Hard Day's Night (Source)

That’s a mild complaint, though.  The visual energy, constant invention, and The Beatles win out in every scene.

(Source)

Pardon this abrupt change in tone, but I want to close with an observation about the ending, which itself is a shift in palettes.

(Source)

As The Beatles perform in a small auditorium, hundreds of girls shriek out of control, weeping, screaming incoherently, bodies contorting and spasming.  At first it’s irritating, then funny, then frightening.  It’s filmed so intensely that it’s not a visual accident.  I understand that the specific context is dated, but it’s very unsettling.  There’s probably a sociological explanation for it, but what is it?  Hundreds of years of sexual repression?  (Also see: Justin Bieber, Twilight.)  It reminds me of Alan Parker’s and Roger Waters’ vision of a rock band as a fascistic power, working up the mostly male youth to the brink of insanity then setting them loose to destroy in The Wall.

(Source)

Here at the end of A Hard Day’s Night, the young hunting horde has cornered their pop star prey.  But rather than ravishing them like the Maenads of myth, the girls stand in place screaming in a frenzied mass, perhaps hypnotized and unaware of their own sexual power, or just seduced by four boys in bad haircuts.

Single Malt Report - The Glenrothes 1998

Distillery: The Glenrothes
Age: 10 years (bottled in early 2009)
Finish: mixed casks
Region: Highlands - Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

From Royal Mile Whiskies:
The official bottlings are bottled by the wine merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd who offer them as vintages, which is not surprising given their status as respected wine merchants. Their distinctive dumpy bottles are massively popular and have been highly praised. The casks they select, carefully chosen from 2% of the distilleries annual output, are mostly matured in sherry casks with 25% being fresh, and a few bourbon casks occasionally used to provide balance and extra depth. There is absolutely no colouring in any official Glenrothes whisky. It is all natural colour from the casks.

thekrav's notes:

The second 100mL bottle from a three-pack of Glenrothes that I purchased at Royal Mile Whiskies in London.  My post about the first bottle, the Select Reserve, is here.  I also sampled this at the splendid free Scotch Tasting at The Daily Pint back on June 16th.  (The 1998 is very difficult to find in the US, UK, and online.  Per notes I've seen online, I think the '98 was primarily released in Asia.)

I mostly just wanted to post the above pic of the quaint label and the tiny bulb-like dumpy bottle.  Though the "handwriting" is likely digitally printed, it's a nice touch.  I really like the birth and bottling date listings which many of the independent distributors choose to include on their labels as well.

While I understand that providing tasting notes somewhere on the packaging makes for an acceptable tasting guide, listing the "character" so prominently (the top of the front label) strikes me as a bit heavy-handed.  Taste and smell are linked to an individual's sense memory and chemoreception system.  Whisky is a work of art, so the author's intent doesn't matter; everyone takes something different from the experience.  Six professional tasters will generate six different sets of notes on the same bottling.

For instance, the folks who compile the Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch reference lots of orange, toffee, and vanilla in this specific single malt.  Serge Valentin tastes honey, marmelade, apples, and toasted bread.  Those are the pros.

This amateur's notes were:  "HONEY. Honey prominent in the palate and finish. There's even honey in the nose. Looks like honey too. A tiny bit of vanilla. And it shares that butterscotch moment the Select Reserve had. But mostly honey. The jury's out if this is a good thing."  Additionally, the texture is thin and the finish is very clipped.  And yet again, this whisky was not memorable.  I'm thankful for my notes.

It's a half step up from the Select Reserve overall.  Though I wouldn't call that a ringing endorsement.

Pricing - Overpriced! at $55-65
Rating - 73

The George Herman Hitchcock project

(Getty Images)

I've been an avid baseball fan since I was five.  I've been a cinema student for half of my life.  But those two subjects never intermingle.  (Note:  Field of Dreams and Bull Durham are great movies because they are great movies, not because they're about baseball.)

I genuinely enjoyed collecting my 20,000+ baseball cards.  But it was obsession that drove me to buy almost 100 baseball statistic books before I turned 13.  Numbers Numbers Numbers.  My two most prized tomes were the 1988 edition of the Baseball Encyclopedia (Macmillan Publishing, 2875pp) and Total Baseball (1991, Warner Books, 2629pp).  Every day, I'd pour over the thousands of pages, always finding players, seasons, teams, and league leaders that I'd never seen before.

One thing that I would never acknowledge was that George Herman (Babe) Ruth was the greatest player of all time.  Every book said he was.  New metrics kept being introduced into the baseball stat lexicon and each one of them showed that Ruth was the best - SLG, OBP, OPS, OPS+, ISO, Batting Runs, Batting Wins, WAR - individual seasons, prime, and career.  But I stubbornly dug in, looking to prove them all wrong.

Then at some point in high school, I yielded.  I objectively looked at the numbers and comparables.  There's no dispute, there never was.  Ruth is the best, in his time and for all time.

* * * * *

(from allposters.com)

I enjoy and respect Alfred Hitchcock's work.  Rear Window has always been one of my favorites.  Vertigo expands and mutates, changing colors every time I see it.  I appreciate Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, and Psycho, though considerably less than others do.

La Nouvelle Vague worshipped him, as his films helped define the auteur theory.  Major film journals still list him amongst the greatest or most influential filmmakers of all time.  He is credited for sculpting and perfecting cinematic suspense and The Thriller, which is my personal bread-and-butter genre as a screenwriter.

Yet I was never swept up by Hitchcock as so many others were.  Fellini, Murnau, Keaton, Welles, Kurosawa, Polanski, Kieslowski -- these were the directors whose art consistently captured me, intellectually and emotionally.

But as I continue along my screenwriting career, I've found myself being drawn back to Hitchcock's oeuvre......though not to those titles for which he's most famous.  Rather to the films earlier and in between.

Lifeboat was much better than I'd expected.  The Lady Vanishes, great; The Trouble with Harry; warped.  But it was when I was blindsided by the excellent Foreign Correspondent, that I began to reconsider my view of Hitch.  Throwing in The Birds, Rope, To Catch a Thief, and Notorious, that's already thirteen films of considerable quality.  Not only were these movies built around brilliant basic premises, but the execution in each production was consistently spot on.  I began to wonder...

How were all of his other films?  What was his early work like as he began to hone his craft?  When and what was his peak?  Should I go the Full Truffaut and watch all of his available feature films?

(Source)

Because I'm a man of modest means, I purchased one of those ultracheap 20-film Hitchcock DVD packs that are abhorred by films purists (among whom I'm usually counted).  20 films squeezed onto 4 DVDs means that the video quality is nigh abysmal.  But it's $5, man.  And it contains almost all of his British Films.

Sure he'll fumble a bit as he finds his style.  Heck, at the start of his own career, Babe Ruth was a pitcher.  Though a damn good one (curse you, Ruth!).

So, I would like to invite you to join me as I explore Hitchcock's career.  Every Tuesday I will post my discoveries.  I'll watch the crummy films so you don't have to.  I'll recommend the best of the lesser known flicks.  And maybe I can even work in some references to Ruth, comparing their progressing careers.  I don't really know how or if this is going to work, but I'm going to find out.

Single Malt Report - The Glenrothes Select Reserve

Distillery: The Glenrothes
Age: no vintage
Finish: mixed casks
Region: Highlands - Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

From Royal Mile Whiskies:
The official bottlings are bottled by the wine merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd who offer them as vintages, which is not surprising given their status as respected wine merchants. Their distinctive dumpy bottles are massively popular and have been highly praised. The casks they select, carefully chosen from 2% of the distilleries annual output, are mostly matured in sherry casks with 25% being fresh, and a few bourbon casks occasionally used to provide balance and extra depth. There is absolutely no colouring in any official Glenrothes whisky. It is all natural colour from the casks.

---

One tweet:

@kravitz_hubris Glenrothes Select Reserve, 100mL bottle from UK - olive oil color, dried cherries and butterscotch palate, spicy finish. #SingleMaltReport6/5/11

---

thekrav's notes:

Part of a 3-pack of 100mL Glenrothes bottles that I purchased at Royal Mile Whiskies in London.  The other two bottles from this set will be reviewed very soon.

So let's start with the positives!  The design is fantastic.  As per the pictures, the bottles (big or small) are of a squat "dumpy" shape, unique amongst whiskies.  The label looks as if it's been partially handwritten with signatures, tasting notes, and dates of birth & bottling. [I'll have a better pic of it in the next review.]  The Select Reserve has received some good reviews at the '06 World Spirits Competition and also from BevMo's cellar master, Wilfred Wong.  Finally, there's no artificial coloring, which is nice to see since so many of the major bottlers use carmel coloring to manipulate their whiskies' tint.

Despite all of that, I wasn't too crazy about it.  In fact if I hadn't written down some notes, I would have forgotten its flavor entirely.  What I do remember is that its natural color is that of extra virgin olive oil.  The texture is light and smooth.  The nose is sugary but mild.  The palate begins as dried cherries and ends with butterscotch, all followed by a spicy finish.

If those notes don't sound very negative it's because they were written after drinking more than three normal tastings' worth.  One final note reads: "Yeah, I don't need to drink this again."

Compare all of that with this review from Dave of the LA Whiskey Society:

"I was given this bottle as a gift. The gift-giver is no longer my friend.... Some of the worst swill I have ever had the unfortunate experience to try.... My dog has produced better smelling liquids."

There's no actual vintage for this bottling nor description of its makeup.  Glenrothes has been mum on the recipe.  It is the lowest priced of their bottlings and the easiest to find online or in liquor stores.  But the fact that one can purchase a bottle of Macallan 12 for less than this whisky makes little sense to me.

Pricing - Overpriced! at $45-50
Rating - 69

Monday Movie Miscellaneousness

Happy Monday!  Here's a rundown of some movie-related subjects that have surfaced over the past couple of days:

1. i can has blooray?  I birthday-gifted myself the LG-BD670 Blu-Ray player.  I tested its visuals with Baraka and its sound with Fight Club (you don't need a link to this).  I approve, thus far.  But I'm not buying the new Star Wars set (not linking to that, either, but for other reasons).

2. Breaking Bad on Netflix (streaming) - Previously only available on disc, Netflix gained streaming rights to Breaking Bad's last three seasons!  Finally, I can start catching up on that show.

3. The Wire, Season 1 Disc 1 arrived on Saturday.  My wife doesn't know this, but I was about to drop $124 on the entire series.  I've been that desperate to watch this show since its first season.  I'm a total Wire virgin.  But not for much longer.

4. Netflix/Qwikster - In some wider-reaching news, last night Netflix officially announced that it is splitting its DVD service off into its own separate company, Qwikster.  Some background:

Two months ago, Netflix released a press statement that it was dividing/expanding the fees for its disc rental and streaming services.  The statement provided very little explanation.  Their customers who weren't informed until a couple days afterwards, suddenly found their total monthly fees jumping 20-50%.  Online outrage was extreme, as it always is, and the company had to hire extra customer service reps to handle the complaints.  But most effectively, customers actually left.  Then one of Netflix's largest streaming providers, Starz, did not renew their streaming deal.  In its following quarterly statement, Netflix fell short in its revenue and customer estimates.  The stock price followed, losing 24% last week alone, on its way to being the biggest S&P loser of the week.  Then today's announcement was made.

I can't decide if that image is vaginal or ocular. It's a weird design choice, Qwikster.

Before this kerfuffle started two months ago, Wired Magazine was a huge supporter of Netflix's business model.  Not so much since these events.  Here are a few short articles with their takes on the developing issues:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/netflix-dvd-not-dead/
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/netflix-jump-too-soon/
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/netflix-quickster-separate/ (from this morning)

I have enjoyed Netflix's DVD service for years.  Their catalog is amazing.  My queue is perpetually 300+ deep because I keep finding films I've always wanted to see.  And for the sake of the art form, Netflix has brought independent, cult, foreign, classic, and avant garde films to the widest audience yet.

Their streaming library is about 1/4th the size of the disc selection.  That's largely due to the continuing difficulty for any streaming service to get rights to studio owned films.  But the available selection has been growing, especially with full seasons of TV series.  It's great to have so much available on demand on multiple platforms.

But my fee has gone up almost 50% over the last three years without a single alteration to my account status.  I'm not a fan of that.  I'm also not a fan of this most recent price hike and the poor way it was handled.  For now, I remain with Netflix and Qwikster (ugh, crap name).  But the moment I find a better streaming deal with Hulu, Apple, or Amazon, I'll be the next customer to leave.

5. Not Movies - The Glenrothes - And finally, in not-movie news, I'll be reviewing four bottlings from The Glenrothes over the next couple of weeks.