Word: barley
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Vegetable, Beef, and Barley Soup...
...boozy Barley Blair (Sean Connery), a fringe English publisher. With the help of a Soviet citizen named Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer), he is supposed to spirit out of the U.S.S.R. a manuscript by a dissident scientist that supposedly has large strategic implications for the West -- or at least the portion of it that is loath to give up the cold war habit of mind. The two operatives naturally fall in love, and since old Barley's interest in geopolitics is minimal at best, his primary goal switches from smuggling documents to protecting his lady...
This is more than understandable, given Connery's inherent stalwartness and the entrancing shyness and sexiness Pfeiffer commingles in her performance. But given glasnost and whatever undertakings the producers made in order to be able to shoot on location in the Soviet Union, one never feels that Barley and Katya are deeply menaced by any counterespionage agency. Where are the spooks in leather trench coats? Where are the deep-shadowed alleys just waiting for a chase? Where is the hope for some kind of cinematically pleasing action to interrupt the endless rounds of talk that preoccupy this film...
French officials hear that many Iraqi factories are closed or working half time; the nation's largest textile plant is said to be operating only eight hours a week. Egyptian laborers returning from Iraq report that bakers are being forced to mix barley with scarce flour to make a tasteless bread. As if to confirm such reports of hardship, Saddam Hussein's government last week decreed the death penalty for hoarders of wheat, barley, rice, flour and maize...
...export total. The embargo came as painful news for producers, since world prices for rice had fallen 28% during the previous year. Nor are rice growers the only farmers feeling the pinch. Before the invasion, Baghdad was buying $350 million worth of other U.S. grains annually, including wheat, corn, barley and soybeans...