All the Old Knives - brief film review

 

A brand new spy movie just out on Amazon Prime – All the Old Knives (USA 2022, directed by Janus Metz Pedersen), based on the eponymous novel by Olen Steinhauer (2015).

Couldn’t say anything bad about this movie. Filming and acting – the stars include Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne und Jonathan Pryce – are competent, and the plot, convoluted and meandering between past and present as it is, ultimately makes sense and keeps up the suspense. However, the film is more a somber, ponderous drama – with some sex and nudity thrown in for good measure – about the consequences of a highjacking gone wrong in the past than an action-packed thriller.

Product placement is quite obvious – I wonder how much a particular car brand had to pay for everyone to drive shiny new vehicles with the three-pronged star.

Would I recommend watching this film? It’s all right, but there’s no need to rush and get Amazon Prime just to see it. It strikes me as one of the many that come and go without leaving much of an impression.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Slow March

When I posted the preceding haiku, I realized that I had not posted a single thing in all of March.

Guess I didn't have anything to say that couldn't wait 😃. 

However, I also went on a trip for a week, being on the road in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Of which the above photo is witness.

Taken in Chur, Switzerland. Leica R4 with 50 mm Summilux-R on Silberra Color 100 film, scanned from negative.

Much more of my photo work can be seen here (Tumblr) and here (Unsplash).

The unfashionable haiku

    

  Dedicated to my dear wife

“No-one except you
wears wide cord pants – I don’t want
to be seen with you!”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

How to become a Bitcoin millionaire

It’s actually quite easy! 

Have faith in the Bitcoin mails in your spam folder that arrive from all the generous and anonymous benefactors that miraculously deposit amazing amounts in your account – every day without fail! 

Why are they doing that? No-one knows. Maybe they’re just lovely people, unlike most that send spam.

Simply have faith and look for Bitcoin in the mouth of every gift horse that gallops along.

Here’s one of these wonderful notifications that make you rich (in Spanish no less – ¡Ay caramba – qué maravilla!):

One of us is lying

 

Melissa Collazo as Maeve in One of us is lying (2021)

Mystery drama from 2021 (developed by Erica Saleh, based on the young adult novel of the same title by Karen McManus), currently showing on Netflix.

Suspenseful high-school whodunit with well-developed characters, decent acting and good cinematography.

Now that we know (or think we know) who done killed loathsome Simon at the end of episode 8, a Simon says text message throws a cloud of smoke that announces more to come in future series 2.

The don’t take toilet breaks haiku

Went to the toilet. Came
back – a job had come and gone.
Lucky someone else.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
Once again: the truth and nothing but.
In today's fast-paced always-on environment, going to the toilet for a minute or two can make the difference between getting and losing out on a job.
And I didn’t even go golfing! (Reference to Gary Kildall of Digital Research, developer of CP/M, an early PC-age rival of MS-DOS. Supposedly he turned down a meeting with IBM because he preferred to go golfing. The lucky winner was Bill Gates of Microsoft, who did have time for IBM and sold them on his operating system. This is the story as I remember hearing it in the 1980s - veracity not guaranteed.)

The quarantine haiku

 

Cat’s going crazy
from being cooped up. So am 
I – in inner ways.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
My own personal quarantine is over, thank God. However, all the restrictions still apply – mask, green pass, uncertainty, rules that keep changing at the drop of a hat without much rhyme or reason. Will this ever be over?

The Tender Bar

 

The Tender Bar (2021, directed by George Clooney, starring Ben Affleck, Daniel Ranieri, Tye Sheridan, Lily Rabe, Christopher Lloyd)

Whatever rode George Clooney - whom I generally respect both as a director and an actor - to direct and produce this seemingly endless bore of a movie?

Nothing about it feels original or genuine - it comes off as a refurbished parts store. When you enter, you know you've seen all the parts (people, situations, locations) somewhere before, many times, in a variety of places and constellations from Hollywood or TV.

A collection of stereotypes and a waste of acting talent (it's not like Affleck etc. don't perform well).

I did not last through to the end. Maybe I've seen too many movies. But go ahead and see for yourself.

The corona haiku

 

Life dictated by 

fever and saturation 

readings – sheer terror.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
Some reality from my battle with the virus. A bloody oxygen reading of less than 90%, so the doctors say, means you should be hospitalized.

I’m doing nearly nothing

Ab Har Ho Bhola Nahin Bane - Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur

Fourth day of dreamily

listening to Mallikarjun Mansur -

always the same songs.

Nothing much is happening – 

I’m not listening attentively.

The music is flowing into me.

It feels like a conspicuous momentary

constellation – Mallikarjun Mansur singing

and me doing the equivalent of happy nothing.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)