Lawrence, Omar and Ben
Nov. 15th, 2012 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosLast night we saw the new digitally restored Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen. What a spectacle! Normally I just enjoy the pace of older movies, but during the first half I actually started to grow impatient. Masses of warriors were on the move, and it seemed endless. But I caught myself, intentionally relaxed into the powerful cinematography and enjoyed it as a work of visual art. Few movies have achieved such a sense of vast scale so convincingly without much use of special effects. The main story is the austere beauty of the desert landscape. World War I is only a subplot. Apparently the movie took longer to film than Lawrence's actual Arab campaign.
An aged Omar Sharif gave a brief greeting at the beginning of the film presentation. It was nice to see him. As a young man he was close to my ideal of beauty, intensified by those fierce and vulnerable eyes.
Before the movie we went for dinner at Ben Thanh Thai and Vietnamese restaurant in Cambridge. For $44 we enjoyed a gluttonous feast for two. I knew ordering even a small pho would get me into trouble. As I know how to make this Vietnamese beef noodle soup, I really should stick to doing it at home. Mine even tasted better: more oxtail and spices in the broth, I suppose. We also had a wrap and roll platter and another dish with shrimp, far too much food but delicious.
The highlight for me was a supposedly Asian cocktail, not alcoholic at all but sweet. The whole range was based around exotic fruit and strangely-named jellies. I ordered a lychee with ice: seven preserved lychee fruits floating in sweet cherry syrup with gelatinous leaf-green sprays tasting vaguely of grass, and topped with a drift of chopped ice. It was lovely to taste and behold, like snowmen drowning in a submerged cherry orchard.
An aged Omar Sharif gave a brief greeting at the beginning of the film presentation. It was nice to see him. As a young man he was close to my ideal of beauty, intensified by those fierce and vulnerable eyes.
Before the movie we went for dinner at Ben Thanh Thai and Vietnamese restaurant in Cambridge. For $44 we enjoyed a gluttonous feast for two. I knew ordering even a small pho would get me into trouble. As I know how to make this Vietnamese beef noodle soup, I really should stick to doing it at home. Mine even tasted better: more oxtail and spices in the broth, I suppose. We also had a wrap and roll platter and another dish with shrimp, far too much food but delicious.
The highlight for me was a supposedly Asian cocktail, not alcoholic at all but sweet. The whole range was based around exotic fruit and strangely-named jellies. I ordered a lychee with ice: seven preserved lychee fruits floating in sweet cherry syrup with gelatinous leaf-green sprays tasting vaguely of grass, and topped with a drift of chopped ice. It was lovely to taste and behold, like snowmen drowning in a submerged cherry orchard.
