REVIEW POTPOURRI: Recently watched

Keanu Reeves

by Peter Cates

Recently watched:

John Wick is a 2014 film noir starring Keanu Reeves as a former, very skilled hitman for the Russian Mafia’s New York City kingpin. After one massive contract for his boss, he is allowed to retire to civilian life, since he had fallen in love (Blue Bloods actress Bridget Moynahan did good work here as his wife ) and gotten married.

A series of unfortunate events occur (due to space limitations, I won’t go into them), which ignite Wick’s very dangerous wrath and he is on the warpath with perpetrators of those events. They include his former boss – portrayed with sparing understatement by Michael Nyqvist (1960-2017) – and, even more of a villain, the boss’s spoiled rotten son.

Unfortunately, the film descends all too often into yet another series of nasty martial arts vendettas, although moments of relief are provided by the contributions of actors Willem Dafoe as a watchful former colleague of Wick’s and Ian McShane as the owner of a luxury hotel which caters to the criminal world as a sanctuary where any deadly activity against individuals is met with execution of the malefactors.

And a lovely moment at the end occurs when Wick adopts a pit bull puppy who had been caged in a euthanasia facility.

Handel’s Messiah

Lovro von Matacic

YouTube has a very good 1967 performance of Handel’s Messiah featuring the Croatian Maestro Lovro von Matacic (1899-1985) conducting the NHK Orchestra of Japan and a top notch chorus and soloists. I have at least 20 different Messiahs, all of them scoring individual points, and recently listened to those conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham (from 1947), Raymond Leppard and John Alldis, each of which are also accessible on YouTube.

But Matacic brought a vibrancy and eloquence uniquely his own. Highly recommended!

Elizabeth Coatsworth

Elizabeth Coatsworth

The poem Winter Splendor, by Nobleboro’s own Elizabeth Coatsworth (1893-1986):

“This is a day to be compared with lions
if one considers the yellow-maned, round-faced sun,
or with an eagle for its icy glare;
or with a stag for something tense and proud
(and perhaps the antlered thickets enter in).
If men were chosen, I’d choose Charlemagne
for what was Northern in him, haughty, clear;
horns would find here their cold and proper echoes;
“magnificent” is perhaps not quite the word
but I can come no nearer. Such a day
towers above its fellows, passing by
with chargers, ermines, pennons, and with spears.”