Word: pattered
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Sometimes they sound like catty old fishwives. But this is a very male form of gossip -- verbal machismo. With their edgy patter, the guys test themselves, their friends, their victims; every conversation is a pop quiz with life on the line. And when they do shut up, it's often to blow someone away, or do drugs, or sink into edgy pensiveness. In Tarantino's film there are no comfortable silences...
...decades the powerful New York baseball press has engaged in what James calls "a Rizzuto Exaltathon." By now the "Holy Cow!" boy is better known for the sprung poetry of his patter on Yankees TV broadcasts -- and for his call of "backseat petting" on Meat Loaf's hit song Paradise by the Dashboard Light -- than for his great-field, great-bunt playing days. But even then, James persuasively argues, he didn't have the numbers or the earned renown of Pee Wee Reese, a Hall of Famer, or of George Davis and Vern Stephens, who are faint memories...
Consider the 911 tape released last week, which should have had the unambiguous effect of bringing the most die-hard O.J. fan to his senses. Instead of the silky-smooth patter of the blue-blazered N.F.L. sportscaster, the self-deprecating wit of the motivational speaker, here comes the coarse rant of a man who owns his ex-wife. He rampages through her home, breaking down a door, and you can hear how terrorized Nicole is, even as she begs her ex-husband to hold his voice down to keep from frightening the children...
Kirstein never lacked for accomplished or famous people in his near vicinity; Mosaic records the steady patter of dropping names, starting with his father's lawyer (Louis D. Brandeis) and running through most of Bloomsbury ("Maynard Keynes guided me to a show of Cezanne's water-colors at the Leicester Galleries") and a Who's Who of 20th century artists, writers and performers. This recitation seems forgivable. Kirstein recognizes that some of these big names were "glad enough to suffer rich idiots like myself," but he genuinely knew, learned from and helped many of the others. His own youthful dreams...
Tarantino's guilty secret, which the international critics should have noticed, is that his films are cultural hybrids. The blood and gore, the cheeky patter, the taunting mise-en-scene are all very American -- the old studios at their snazziest. But Tarantino's hard guys also reflect a European sensibility, reminiscent of the existential gangster films of Jean-Pierre Melville; they talk all night about everything except what matters. With this marriage of Hollywood and the Continent, Pulp Fiction, which will open in the U.S. this fall, showed Cannes that the power of movies is all about energy, visual...