22 posts tagged “movies”

- Agi and I feel like we've been having a solid social life up here in Portland.  On Friday night we watched "Thank You for Smoking" with my sister and Mark.  On Sat morning we had brunch with Jeff and Anne S and Kalen and Melissa F on 23rd Ave then later that day went with Kalen and Melissa to the cool and dog-friendly Lucky Labrador pub in Multnomah Village for a pint of "Scottish Holiday."

- Sunday evening we accompanied our neighbors Justin and Kim to dinner at a cool restaurant they recommended:  Toro Bravo.  It was superb Spanish tapas plates--including calamari and polenta--an awesome culinary experience all around.  The ambience was funky and I ordered a martini and Agi ordered a lavender drink.  We normally don't eat out that often but if some friends want to do it we're there.

- Monday night I helped brother in law Mark pick up a free piano someone donated off of craigslist.  Their kids should be playing Mozart in no time.

Where does the time go?  My parents, sister Laurel and brother Matthew drove up from Calif and braved the snowstorm coming up (I think it took them an extra 10 hours or so once they hit Oregon!...)  But we had a great Christmas together and I'll need to get caught up and post some pictures.  Little Jake and Will had a lot of fun, as did the adults.  Two highlights for me were going to the Blazers game with Dad, Laurel, Melissa, Mark and Mark's dad and  a few days later seeing what has become one of my favorite movies of all time: Slumdog Millionaire--about a poor kid in Mumbai.  The story, photography and music were all brilliant.  Someday Agi and I hope to visit India (won't be any time soon though).

We also enjoyed some bowling with the family one afternoon and the kids did some sledding!  It was a bummer that our church service at Intown was cancelled prior to Christmas though due to the snow.

My parents gave me two great books and I recently finished one, which was superb:  The Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin.  I want to read it again as it's packed full of remarkable insights.  Josh is a high achiever:  a world-class chess champion and world champion martial artist.  His writing style is accessible and he communicates like a helpful coach without being cocky.

We brought in 2009 with Melissa and Mark and amazingly enough I just turned 36 on Monday.  Life is short and there's much to do.

Our excellent local library--within walking distance--has a great dvd selection.  The librarians have good taste (at least what we like) and we've seen three good movies recently:

- "Osama"  One of the best and most moving films I've ever seen.  Was the first movie made in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.  It was made by an Afghani director and featured kids who grew up under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.  Agi and I were very moved by how much people suffered--made us want to do something to help.

-- "Two Days in Paris"  Julie Delpy (French woman) has an American boyfriend and they spend two days in Paris.  Agi and I laugh a lot at these "international couple" movies and we both could relate a lot to different and stereotypical "Euro" and "American" behaviors:  how the Euro woman says she still keeps in touch with her 6 ex-boyfriends;  how the American goes to a burger joint to deal with his culture shock;  how the Euro parents live very differently than typical American families (in a flat and spend all their time talking about art).

-- "Good Night and Good Luck"   Very enlightening portryal of how journalist Edward Murrow took on McCarthy in the late fifties.  George Clooney did a great job directing.

Agi and I watched a great movie last week: Bella.  It was very well done--great acting and well filmed--and had a fantastic, uplifting and refreshing story.  It hit on the themes of bad luck, redemption and how to choose to love others and make a huge impact on their lives.

We checked out San Francisco's new beautiful Academy of Sciences.  Despite the Disneyland-level crowds, the aquarium, rainforest experience, albino alligator and absolutely amazing Imax/planetarium show were world class.  Highly recommended.

Funny quote I want to remember that Kim S shared with us this weekend:  Kim's sister in law Bethany was traveling in Turkey. A Turkish guy called out to the attractive, blond Bethany--make sure to imagine the accent--and said, "Where are you from... heaven?"

Wanted to add for the record:

- We watched the Untouchables about Al Capone last week with our good friend Gabi and really liked it (Costner, Connery & de Niro were all excellent).  And in honor of our recent trip to Salzburg with my sister Laurel, we watched the Sound of Music and it was fantastic.  I had seen it before but it was truly a remarkable experience seeing it with new eyes as we had walked through most of the spots in the movie.  The scenery in the Sound of Music is beautiful but reality was about 50 times better.  Agi also was entertained as I sang along to most of the songs--my parents played the soundtrack a lot and I still know all the lyrics.

- A materialistic dream of mine is to own either the redesigned Audi A4 (2009 version looks awesome) or the new Q5 cross-over.  We owned a 1998 A4 for a year before we moved to Hungary and our daily transportation was simply on a different, higher level.  I especially love Audi's AWD quattro system and have fond memories of driving through the snow in Tahoe--without chains--as we passed both an Explorer and a Subaru that had run off the road and into a ditch.  Could have been a commercial.

- To go with the Q5, I'm hoping some day to be the proud owner of what I believe is the most beautiful dog in the world: the Hungarian Vizsla.  A copper-colored and smaller relative of the German Weimaraner, vizslas are very energetic, short-haired and loyal.  One of my favorite tshirts is one Agi got me that has a big picture of a vizsla on it.

We've been keeping busy working on getting a new website together.  It's not ready yet, but feel free to check out what we have so far with Turbo Review.  It's an editing and proofreading site for both businesses and students and we're taking a lot from what we've learned with the Essay Institute to make this our version 2.0 site. 

We've also visited a number of Agi's family and friends and we had a good time playing some beach volleyball last week with another couple.  I'm leaving pretty soon, in fact, to play some tennis with Agi's brother Miki right nearby at "Sportmax."

I recently finished a good book written by one of Hungary's most accomplished modern authors--"The Door" by Magda Szabo.  It was a very moving portrayal of the author's relationship with an older woman who has had a very difficult life, but despite all that has a huge positive impact on everyone around her.  My new book is "Rob Roy" by Sir Walter Scott.  I'm 30 pages into it and love it already--I think Sir Walter is my favorite author of all time.

We've been enjoying the Olympics and I was pumped up to see how the US men's swimming relay team beat France out just yesterday with an amazing comeback.  It's great that the frogs talked trash initially and that makes the victory all the sweeter.

We've also seen a number of movies over the last several weeks, most of them good:  Patton (about the General was fantastic);  Wall E (I really liked it and the Eva character reminded me of my high powered wife quite a bit); Wanted (too gory and flippant about violence, but had a cool & funky feel to it); Roma by Fellini (see it after you've visited Rome--a great, memorable tour of the city & its people);  Himalayas travel video with Michael Pallin--very interesting.

We arrived here yesterday--Wednesday afternoon--and it's great having a place of our own that we can immediately settle down in.  I saw "Fool's Gold" and "The Bucket List" on the plane.  The former had some very nice beach and yacht scenes and a pretty goofy story but it was a fun plane movie.  The Bucket List was highly recommended by my parents and I liked it a lot--great actors and a great message.

My sister Laurel is joining us for about ten days starting this weekend.  She's currently having a marvelous time at the beautiful Greek island of Santorini.  Apparently they're sleeping in some kind of cave hotel tonight.  She's a teacher and can take these monster vacations (though we're all feeling the pain of the bad exchange rate with the dollar).

We borrowed this movie from my sister and brother in law yesterday and were very moved by it.  In fact, it is officially one of my favorite movies of all time.  "The Diving Bell & the Butterfly" is a true story about a hot-shot French editor of the magazine Elle who is living fast and loose until he has a catastrophic seizure at age 42.  He is completely paralyzed except in one of his eyes.  After dealing with his anger and self-pity (which he can't really express), he agrees to let one of the compassionate nurses at his hospital help him communicate.  By blinking his eye to signify a particular letter he's able to slowly talk to others. 

He also decides to write a book--all by the excruciatingly slow process of blinking his eye for each letter of each word.  Despite his horrendous condition, he doesn't give up, and this is very profound.  I don't think I've ever seen a better portrayal of the reality of the human soul. The movie is incredibly well-filmed and acted and has a very inspiring message.  I'd like to read his actual book someday soon.

(Note: I was also proud to learn that the director was an American--even though the film is in French with French actors.  He was awarded "Best Director" at Cannes in 2007).

Agi and I saw this movie last night and definitely recommend it.  It features Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law in a "not so distant" future world where everyone is evaluated by their genetic make-up.  Ethan was born without the benefit of having his traits screened and pre-selected (a so called "faith birth") and ends up with a heart condition.  In this world, everyone's DNA is examined before being given a job and so Ethan is doomed to a life of low achievement since he's automatically excluded from desirable work.  He becomes part of a cleaning crew where the elite astronauts train for trips to space.

The tagline of the movie is that "there is no gene for the human spirit" and Ethan decides to take it upon himself to change what his genetic overlords view as his "destiny."  He ends up surpassing his more genetically gifted peers due to sheer intensity and force of will.

Good message and it reminded me a lot of Huxley's "Brave New World."

We rented and watched Gone With the Wind a couple days ago and we both liked it a lot.  I think I had seen the movie years ago but I didn't remember much--except Rhett Butler's famous line to Scarlet at the end.  However we really enjoyed the story, the characters and above all the beautiful way it was filmed, both indoors and outside.  Truly a great film and a great achievement.  American films are the best.