Saturday, June 12, 2004
Of beautiful Italian women, strange Icelandic men, Johnny Depp, and Beast Men
Last night Dad and I watched Nick of Time a great thriller (I've seen it before) starring Johnny Depp. In it, Christopher Walken kidnaps his daughter in order to get him to kill a woman. Tension follows.
Afterwards we watched L'Avventura an Italian movie filmed in 1961. It follows a group of rich men and women who go on a cruise and visit a small, rocky island. One of the women mysteriously disappears in the middle of the day, and her former lover and friend end up falling in love. There isn't much in the way of plot development in the movie, but director Michelangelo Antonioni manages to keep things interesting with his beautiful black and white cinematography.
The night before we watched Nói albinói (or, in English, Nói the albino), a popular movie that came out of Iceland last year. Nói is a smart kid, but prefers not to get involved in school more than he has to. He lives in a pretty pathetic little fishing village out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, most of the movie is cast in that pale blue light you see during a snowy winter. The movie follows Nói through this slow paced, but interesting dark comedy. No one takes Nói seriously. Once, he tries to rob the local bank, but the owner just exclaims what a silly boy he his and takes the gun away from him. Will Nói ever leave this hell hole?
Yesterday I started reading The Island of Dr. Moreau, by H.G. Wells which is a damn fine example of how good writing used to be. They don't make classics like this anymore. It's a short book, so I'd recommend it for summer reading.
On Sunday the library is closed, but hopefully on Monday morning before I leave for London, I'll post some of the pictures I've been taking this summer. Ta-ta.
