VIOLENCE

I emphatically do not recommend the movie, Shadowboxer, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Helen Mirren. The opening scene is of a small boy taking up a gun with a silencer while listening to a man and and woman—presumably his parents—in a physical altercation. After the credits run, things don’t get any better. My husband turned it off when it became evident that there would be torture of a sexual nature.

Instead we watched While You Were Sleeping, without a doubt my favorite Sandra Bullock movie. It does get a bit draggy in the middle, but Glynis Johns and the late Peter Boyle head up a great cast of supporting players. The most violent thing in the movie is when Peter Gallagher’s character falls onto the train tracks and Bullock’s character has to save him from being run over.

The word of the day for January 18, 2007 is “violence” — Pronunciation: \ˈvī-lən(t)s, ˈvī-ə-\ Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 a: exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse (as in warfare effecting illegal entry into a house) b: an instance of violent treatment or procedure. 2: injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation : outrage. 3 a: intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force [the violence of the storm]. b: vehement feeling or expression : fervor ; also : an instance of such action or feeling. c: a clashing or jarring quality : discordance. 4: undue alteration (as of wording or sense in editing a text).

Our quote for today is from Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost, 1934:

When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us.

;^)