The film veers from near-comedy (the hunting of rats with improvised weaponry) to anguish (lots and streets rendered virtually uninhabitable), from hearty first-person observations (including extended ride-alongs with a rat-extermination officer) to sharply detailed historical investigations.
The real tragedy is this: The money is sorely needed in Japan's congested cities. There, narrow streets render Japan's famous just-in-time inventory system useless by trapping delivery vehicles.
Meanwhile the lingering frames and loose dialogue conveys a fly-on-the-wall intimacy, and the fluid choreography as the skaters surf the streets renders their movements in elegant, sun-flared slo-mo.
Jacobs's retail domain stretches across several blocks of Bleecker Street, rendering the surrounding area a kind of Marc Jacobs theme park and, naturally, a prominent stop on "Sex and the City" bus tours, which regularly crawl along the cobblestones, shuttling young women to the Magnolia bakery to sample the cupcakes favored by Carrie.
At the same time, by concentrating on America's image, it attaches far too much importance to the mood of the Arab street, rendering U.S. policy dependent on their judgment rather than ours.
Tourists to this virtual Cambridge will be able to click their way along a Brattle Street rendered in realistic detail, and move through the computer-generated interiors of dozens of nearby shops and institutions.
After the announcement, Wall Street rendered its verdict in after-hours trading by sending the shares down another $5.30, or 32.5percentto to $11.00, below the 52-week low of $12.75.
The designer wisely decided not to shut off the space from the street beyond, so that one can actually see the hot-dog dealer on the other side of Forty-second Street, rendered by the veiled light and scrims as plaintive and pointillist as a Hopper drawing.
2. Wall Street rendered HTC essentially valueless.
