And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate".
As Harry Rabbitt" Angstrom knows only too well, "after you've been first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate".
As Harry Angstrom, John Updike's basketball star turned car salesman, says in Rabbit Run: "Once you've been first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate".
The work is second rate at best, and like Valance himself, who dies in World War I and becomes a cult figure, it's a little mysterious.
But Butterworth's nightmare vision is beautifully articulated in Ian Rickson's hectic production and the ensemble playing is first-rate … At 26, Butterworth already knows how to rhythm a play, write cracking dialogue and build tension: I just pray the movies and cop series don't bag him before he goes on to develop as a dramatist.
But while much of the show is first-rate and at times even inspired, it has also been tasteful in a way that is on some level numbing.
Within those limits, the book is first-rate.Mr Shiller looks carefully at the factors—structural, cultural and psychological that have powered Wall Street to its recent levels.
The staff is first-rate, as is the food at Goyescas, the hotel's fashionable tapas restaurant.
The cast is first-rate, especially Ms. Fisher, who is superb at simply listening in defining her character, and Howard Witt, as a rueful soft-core pornography director (2 00).
It's third-rate at best — fifth if you take my teeth into consideration.
