Well with Jack and Gill I came to the second one in this sketch challenge that I had heard of, and with this being on the top ten list of most generic nursery rhymes I was not looking forward to it… Then I read the next two verses.
Well this week I ended up doing films about hitmen.
The first on my list was John Woo‘s classic, The Killer starring Chow Yun-fat. Chow plays the titular killer who during his latest hit is responsible for the blinding a beautiful singer. His guilt draws him closer to her and wanting to leave the business. But while doing one last job he’s seen and the Triad boss wants him dead.
But as he is hunted by the Triad he is also hunted by the police with the lead Detective played by Danny Lee and the chaos of the hunt brings the two together first as antagonists and then as allies.
This film is a hyperkinetic romp of ultaviolence with multiple gunfights but at the same time strangely lyrical and a lot of woo’s signature style starts here, things like the doves and point blank standoffs. While these can almost feel silly after a while it’s all well done fun.
Woo was inspired quite a bit by Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samouraï so I thought this would be a good second film. At first glance the plot is very similar, with a single hitman doing his job, a hit at a night club and his employers want him dead, but from there the similarity ends.
Where The Killer is a fast paced, Le Samouraï is slow paced and methodical as the hetman plans his alibi which after he commits the hit is airtight despite the police’s best efforts. The ensuing cat and mouse game is almost a meditation.
I won’t say this illustration of poem #7 in The Annotated Mother Goose, “When I was a little boy”, is another dud, but it did not inspire at all.
The only things I can say about it, beyond filling in the basic specs of the rhyme, is since I know nothing about childhood in historical England (beyond it being an invention of the Victorians) this is the first sketch where I didn’t even try to keep in period.
Also I threw in the mouse as a desperate attempt to keep things interesting.
For today’s Rhapsody we have Hibernian Rhapsody… Which is an instrumental variation of Bohemian Rhapsody by Irish folk band De Dannan. But still nice.
Well with the ninth rhyme in this sketch challenge, Oh Rare Harry Parry, we come to yet another one I’ve never heard of, and another that asks the question, “were these ever meant for kids?” wiith the subject being what could either be Noblesse oblige or just basic cuckoldry… I went with the cuckoldry.
The annotation claims that later version change the final verse to “and dance and sing all night”… gee I wonder why.
Well I just started my new sketchbook with “Pussy Sit’s by the Fire” and I am feeling nicely smug. This is definitely my best one yet, and considering I said that yesterday this is a good sign for the rest of the challenge.
In honesty’s sake I have to admit I cheated, the first two numbers I drew were more rhymes about months and weather and frankly I was tired and didn’t want to start the new sketch book with puzzling over abstract concepts and make a mess.
This interested me in a linguistic sense wondering about how pronunciation changed over the centuries from a time “now” and “do” rhymed.
