Category: Movie

“Our Souls at Night”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Souls_at_Night_(film)

We watched this movie yesterday. Peter and I, we both thought it was a good one.  I read the plot in Wikipedia and it says beautifully in a condensed way everything about the theme of the movie.  I copy here the plot the way I found it in Wikipedia:

“Louis Waters is a widower. One evening he is visited by Addie, a widow who lives next door. She invites him to sometimes sleep over – platonically – talking in bed to combat loneliness. They try it out, and like it. The community finds out, but assume it’s a sexual relationship. After Louis’ coffee shop friends make a joke, Louis walks out mad. Addie’s friend Ruth asks her a few questions. To stop the gossip, the two have Sunday lunch together at a restaurant.

Addie’s son Gene dumps his seven year old child Jamie with her. Louis helps her care for him, sets up his train set and gets Jamie a dog. The boy even sleeps with the elderly couple in a real family setting. After Gene learns of the relationship, he takes Jamie back even though his wife has left him. Louis and Addie go on a trip and get around to having sex.

Addie falls down and ends up in the hospital. Her son wants her to move in with him and Jamie. She decides that family must come first and the couple spend their last night together. Both she and Louis are back to sleeping alone. So Louis sends her the train set and a cell-phone. After getting into bed, she calls him and they start talking as old friends. And the movie ends.”

Cast

. . . . .

“The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2017.[6] It was released on September 29, 2017 on Netflix streaming. ”

Personally I do like movies that deal with relationships among people, be it romantic relationships or family relationships or important friendships. There is some of all of this in this slow moving movie.

I guess there are all sorts of ways to combat loneliness in old age. It seems to me we are bound to feel lonely without some significant personal contacts. 

 

Going non-traditional

This is about the movie “My Happy Family”.

NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2017 – NANA EKVTIMISHVILI, SIMON GROSS: MY HAPPY FAMILY/CHEMI BEDNIERI OJAKNI (2017)

Peter and I watch quite regularly ‘Der Tag’, that is a program on the Deutsche Welle (DW). Today film director Simon Groß was interviewed on that program. Simon pointed out that he made the above movie together with his wife and that to have a close working relationship with your wife may cause some problems.

In the  movie,. the middle aged school-teacher,  who  lives with her husband in an extended very large family, decides she has to move out and live on her own because ‘she cannot breathe”.

This movie is set in Georgia, ” where the language has a special lilt, and where any festive gathering means people will sing, in a rich, resonant chorus. . . .”

Here is a bit more of what it says in one of the reviews to the movie:

“Manana and Soso live with her family, which she’s sick of (and we can see why). They consist of her querulous and bossy mother (Berta Khapava), her brother, her grandfather, her husband, son Lasha (Giorgi Tabidze) and daughter Nino (Tsisia Qumsashvili) and daughter’s husband, augmented on occasion by aunts, uncles and other relatives, as needed. The big squabbles concern Manana’s decision to move into a cheap apartment on her own, leaving her husband and all the rest, but the squabbles themselves show us why Manana would want to take this liberating step. It’s not that she can’t get along with her husband. She can’t breathe.

Her departure is against the wishes of everyone over 25. But it’s a foregone conclusion we’re aware of from the first scene, when she views a sunny if shabby flat in an unfashionable but quiet neighborhood. The price is right, and the decision is made. The objections confirm its validity. But will Manana stay with this decision? Will the tomatoes she plants on the balcony bear fruit? Stay tuned – though the film ends with a question mark, as it should. The conflicts here depicted between traditional and nuclear families, couples and independence, aren’t easily resolved. . . . .”

http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3592

I am intrigued by the questions that come up because of the movie’s ending. Who knows the answers to all these questions:

Is it better to live in a traditional or in a nuclear family?

Is it better if couples live together or is there some benefit to a couple’s relationship if they each have their own place?

What makes for happy families?

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0344144/

 

 

Screenshot 2017-07-15 12.40.13

http://www.simongross.de/

 

“What Alice Forgot” by Liane Moriarty

I, Uta, have already read the book and agree, that it is “infectiously good” and that this novel may be in my head months after I have finished reading it. So I am here  going to copy what was published last year in the Huffington Post about this book “What Alice Forgot” by Australian author Liane Moriarty. This copied review was written by Julia Naughton. While reading this book, I thought all the time that it is very suitable for being made into a movie. I hope, I’ll soon have a chance to see the movie. 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/06/08/quick-read-these-books-before-the-movie-comes-out_a_21392007/

Here now is the copy taken from the above link:

“You mean, you haven’t read the book?!”

09/06/2016 11:37 AM AEST | Updated 15/07/2016 12:53 PM AEST

​The anticipation of waiting for the film release of a book you cherish can sometimes be too much.

What if they cast the protagonist with an actor you hate? Or worse, they change the ending?

Blame it on the two-hour time limit or the soulless pursuit of box office cred, changing the plot happens all the time and sometimes, it’s really not fair.

The good news? These books are not only qualified to be on your cherished list, but you’ll only have to wait a few months for the movie, one year at most.

Sadly, we can’t vouch for how true they’ll stay to the book, but as far as we can tell, the actors already confirmed get our tick of approval.

What Alice Forgot

Amy Einhorn Books

By Liane Moriarty

Movie release: 2017

Imagine if you woke up one day only to realise you’d lost a big chunk of your memory from the past decade? Set in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Liane Moriarty’s What Alice Forgot centres around Alice, whose last memory was being pregnant with her first child and completely head over heels in love with her husband, Nick. Now, years later Nick looks at her with disdain, she’s lost contact with her sister (who is going through her own infertility struggles) and is lost as to where it all went wrong. With hopeful vulnerability, Alice, who is living in the mind of her 29-year-old self surprises her husband, kids and later, even herself as she desperately tries to salvage her marriage. Infectiously good, this novel will be in your head months after you’ve finished it.

 

Eggs Benedict

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/eggs-benedict-florentine

We shared a serving of Eggs Benedict with spinach leaves. They were as bit like the recipe in the above link. but the leaves were not  sauteed, which is all right by me. The hollandaise sauce that went with the poached eggs was just perfect, simply delicious!

We had also some flat white coffee, very good Campos coffee.

DSCN2885

 

DSCN2886

We thought to go to the Campos Cafe for Brunch in the Warrawong Shopping Centre was a good choice. We had left out car for service at the K-Mart Service Centre. This was at 9 o’clock in the morning. We thought we would use the time while the car was being serviced to go to the GALA Cinema. The movie we wanted to see was to start at 10 o’clock. That gave us one hour to have a bit of a bite before the movie started. The movie was “The Zookeeper’s Wife”.

Ein Grosser Aufbruch (German TV Movie)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5082268/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

Peter and I have just been watching the above movie. It was available online.
I found the dialogue in this movie excellent. It reminded very much of a play.
It deals with the issue of whether someone, who has a terminal illness, may be in a position
to decide whether to take his own life, and what is involved when he comes to this decision.

The following is written by anonymous:

After a full life whose end he wants to determine himself, patriarch Holm Hardenberg invites his family and close associates to his picturesque country house on the Chiemsee lake in Bavaria in order to take his leave. Here, Hardenberg’s daughters Marie and Charlotte, his ex-wife Ella and his best friends Adrian and Katharina meet. But the original idea of a harmonious concourse turns into a ruthless settling of scores.
– Written by anonymous

Ein großer Aufbruch (2015 TV Movie)
Full Cast & Crew
Directed by
Matti Geschonneck Writing Credits (in alphabetical order)
Magnus Vattrodt Cast (in credits order)
Matthias Habich Matthias Habich …
Holm Hardenberg
Ina Weisse Ina Weisse …
Marie
Hannelore Elsner Hannelore Elsner …
Ella
Katharina Lorenz Katharina Lorenz …
Charlotte
Edgar Selge Edgar Selge …
Adrian
Ulrike Kriener Ulrike Kriener …
Katharina
Matthias Brandt Matthias Brandt
Create a character page for: Create » ?
Produced by
Wolfgang Cimera … producer
Silke Schulze-Erdel … producer Music by
Marco Meister
Robert Meister Cinematography by
Martin Langer Film Editing by
Eva Schnare Production Design by
Thomas Freudenthal Sound Department
Richard Borowski … sound re-recording mixer
Felix Roggel … sound designer
See also

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/tv-kritik/tv-kritik-zum-film-im-zdf-ein-grosser-aufbruch-13914073.html

Another Trailer of Bridge of Spies

http://fanboynation.com/bridge-of-spies-clips/

It’s been three years since a Steven Spielberg film last graced the silver screen, and, dagnabbit, our long wait is nearly over. The legendary filmmaker is reuniting with Tom Hanks for the Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies. The political films of Spielberg, in my ever-so humble opinion, are a mixed bag — Lincoln was well-acted but felt too procedural and Munich‘s tension was sometimes undercut by some heavy-handed choices — but I’m still amped up for the Cold War paranoia that Bridge of Spies is teasing, and we have two new clips from the film that focus on Hanks’ character James Donovan and the moral quandary of having to defend an accused Soviet spy in open court. There’s also an ace in the hole for Bridge of Spies, and that’s the fact that the screenplay is co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen, alongside Matt Charman. Think about that for a second — the Coen Brothers and Spielberg working together on the same movie. It almost sounds too good to be true.

Co-starring with Hanks in Bridge of Spies is Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan, Sebastian Koch, and Alan Alda. The film opens in theaters on October 16th. Be looking over your shoulder when you enter the theater because you don’t know who’s watching you watch Bridge of Spies.

American Justice

Free a Traitor

The official synopsis for Bridge of Spies:

In the 1950s during the early stages of the Cold War, tensions are rife between the U.S. and USSR, so when the FBI arrests Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet agent living in New York, the fear and paranoia only escalate. Charged with sending coded messages back to Russia, Abel is questioned by the FBI but refuses to cooperate, declining their offer to turn on his country, and is detained in federal prison pending trial.

The government, in need of an independent attorney to take on Abel’s defense, approaches James Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer from Brooklyn. But Donovan, a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials and highly regarded within the legal community for his profound skills as a negotiator, has little experience with allegations of this magnitude and isn’t eager to get involved. Advocating such a deeply unpopular defense would make him a public figure and could subject his family to scrutiny, disdain and even, potentially, danger.

Bridge of Spies

Today we saw this movie by Steven Spielberg with Tom Hanks.

Summary in Google:

“During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers’ only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks), recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man’s freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court.”

In Wikipedia is explained why the Glienicke Bridge is called the Bridge of Spies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glienicke_Bridge

“Because the Glienicke Bridge was a restricted border crossing between the Eastern Bloc (namely Potsdam in East Germany) and territory affiliated with the Western powers (namely the American sector of West Berlin), the Americans and Soviets used it for the exchange of captured spies during the Cold War. Reporters began calling it the “Bridge of Spies.”
The first prisoner exchange took place on 10 February 1962. The Americans released Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel in exchange for American spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers captured by the USSR following the U-2 Crisis of 1960.
The next swap took place on April 1964, when Konon Molody was exchanged for Greville Wynne.
On 12 June 1985, there was a swap of 23 American agents held in Eastern Europe for Polish agent Marian Zacharski and another three Soviet agents arrested in the West. The exchange culminated after three years of negotiation.
The final exchange was also the most public. On 11 February 1986 the human rights campaigner (refusenik) and political prisoner Anatoly Shcharansky (now known as Natan Sharansky) and three Western agents were exchanged for Karl Koecher and four other Eastern agents.”

The above movie refers only to the first prisoner exchange. Spielberg’s movie eerily brings back to me what it was like to live during the “Cold War”. These Cold War years seem to be very much in the past. However, I think it is of great value to relive a bit what they were like. As far as I know there’s no talk right now that we have cold war years again. I wonder, what sort of war is going on instead?
With so many refugees all over the world we cannot honestly say that we live in times of peace, can we?