More Clear Nights

In fact, I'm swamped in clear nights.  Tonight (Friday) is cloudy, so I can get my life back on track, briefly.  I just had a can of beer, my first in about two weeks.  It's been a busy time.  So this will be a brief message, again.  Once the moon takes over the night sky, I'll be back with my regular columns, which I know you are all awaiting with extreme impatience.  Sorry about that.  Usually by this time of month I've read at least 4 books.  However, I haven't even finished my second one yet.  Such is life.  Practicing is suffering, too.  But I've enjoyed some glorious nights at the eyepiece of my telescope!  Thus proving that life is a series of trade-offs.

 In movie news, Deb chose Monsoon Wedding, an Indian film from 2001, and Casa de Lava, a Portuguese film from 1991.  Monsoon is a big family drama, centered around an arranged marriage.  It's a good movie, high budget, and the acting is very fine.  There are also numerous street shots of Madras that keep the film set in India rather than in an upper class home and garden.  Definitely worth sitting through, though no revelations will come out of it.  It handles some touchy subjects really well.

Casa de Lava takes place on Cape Verde Island.  The story tells of a young female nurse who accompanies an injured labourer back to his home, and more or less gets herself involved in the weird life of the natives and Portuguese who live there.  The young actress is quite good, and though the film, like Zama a few weeks ago, is often incomprehensible, it is hard to stop watching once begun.  Mariana makes friends, though she thinks of herself as among the dead.  When her patient returns to life, her grip on reality fades even more.  A definite catch, if you can find it.  It leaves criterion at the end of March.

Leaving Criterion on March 31st.  

Also leaving Criterion on March 31st.  

 

My first choice for this week was an oddball British film starring Peter Sellers, called Only Two Can Play.  Sellers, a quiet librarian, is married and has two (or maybe three) children.  He is on the prowl for some female action outside of his marriage, and lands himself in the big time when he meets lovely and influential Liz, a woman who finds him attractive and can help him earn a promotion.  The movie is half drama and half comedy farce.  Sellers is quite brilliant in his understated portrayal of a man looking for stray sex, but is never able to actually achieve it.  Sexist by modern standards, of course, the film can probably only be appreciated by an older audience, of people who grew up thinking this was quite normal behaviour.  Not that there aren't any amount of men like Sellers' character still around today, but our tolerance of them has dropped to an all time low.

Leaving Criterion March 31st.  

 

There are so many films that we want to see that are leaving this month that all of our choices so far have been taken from the leaving file.

 

I am hoping to finish my Harry Harrison novel tonight, and move on to Kenneth Bulmer.  Tomorrow I am hoping to get reacquainted with my piano, and my treadmill.  We did manage to play another chapter of our latest PC game, Dear Esther.  We made it out of the cave!  Looking forward to wandering the island some more. 

 

Mapman Mike