Last weekend my wife and I had a rare chance to go out.  Being that both of us are introverts, we didn’t paint the town red but simply went to see a movie.

Which one?  I had no interest in the new Spiderman but we did catch the immortal classic, The Tragedy of MacBeth.

This is my review of Oliphant Brewing Squall Me Squishmael Fruit Sour:

During my senior year in high school MacBeth played a rather large role.  Not only did I take an elective theater course where we had a class trip to see a live showing of the play, we spent a lot of time in my English class reading it.  My teacher took a particular liking to the play, and made the class on it memorable.

The movie itself starring Denzel Washington as the title character was actually done pretty well.  It was casted well and filmed in a misty black and white that fits the story nicely.  The first three scenes took place on a beach, and I assumed the sand was the stage but they later moved onto other sets so that threw me off a bit.  The scene I was particularly interested, was the Porter scene.

This is Act 2, Scene 3–the scene after MacBeth murders the king, Duncan in his sleep.  This scene exemplifies the trouble modern audiences have with Shakespeare, in that the language evolved enough they cannot always relate to what is going on.  There are two purposes for this scene placed between a gruesome murder and another with more killing, in a play with an awful lot of killing:

  • introduce the “hero” MacDuff and,
  • comic relief

The latter often has to be pointed out to modern audiences because it simply isn’t funny.  It is this scene where directors tend to get creative in order to get a laugh out of the audience.  For example, in the kiddy diddler international fugitive 1978 Roman Polanski version the Porter was drunkenly falling over and even urinated in the corner before he opened the door.  I was curious how they were going to do the scene here.

The porter danced, when he mentioned France he picked up his robes and pranced like a girl in a dress, and finally he slipped and fell over.  Pretty meh.  But since the scene was dark it was hard to see who the actor was.  It was later on when I finally figured it out.

“Is it not thoust that hands my stapler?”

This got a chuckle out of me, so I have to concede:  well done.

All in all this was entertaining.  A rarity from an industry in its death throes because it no longer has ideas.

 

This is my first review that I can recall from Oliphant so I probably should have picked a style I tend to like but the artwork on the can was compelling in of itself. Keep in mind I am no fan of sours. The flavor notes have a few things I like but also everything I despise, bananas in particular.  I was hoping it would be a screwball traditional take on a Saison since those tend to have overlap with “sour” but it was just screwball all its own.  Its also nutty from the coconut and almond.  Overall the flavor profile is complex and a lot of people will probably find it pleasant but others might find something lost in translation.  Oliphant Brewing Squall Me Squishmael Fruit Sour: 2.2/5