Atonement

Atonement Trailer
Vidéo envoyée par FocusFeatures

Wow! What a wonderful film. It was Merchant Ivory with added depth. It was Bridges of Madison County with less schmaltz. It was Saving Private Ryan with less gore. It was just brilliant.

The cinematography is excellent and the leads, James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, very easy on the eye.

Not sure why I missed this one when it first came out but the lovely people who organise and run cinema in France regularly put on a season and this one is of 53 films released so far this year at only 3€ a pop! Later in August there is going to be another week of 4€ tickets for new stuff. Makes you proud to live in France where cinema is known as the septième art after Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Dance and Poetry.

Pyrrhic Eurovision Victory?

Couldn't resist this but sometimes schadenfreude can be such fun and it is an opportunity to post this picture...! For some reason only known to a greater power than me, I found myself checking on the success of the winning Russian entry to the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest, Believe by Dima Bilan. It appears that not that many did despite heaping points on the song on the night. It has been atop the Russian charts ever since perhaps to be decreed a permanet feature but the only other world chart it has managed to creep into is - some irony here surely - Sweden! And there it peaked at number 28.

Take it away Dima! Watch the video here

Have a wonderful weekend all my readers - both of you!

81: Home

We just got back from a long weekend/short week in Lippstadt in Germany: my place of birth. Is it something to do with getting older or do I love it more with every visit? As a child I spent a number of summers there staying with family and it was always a bit of a chore, a bit exciting but a bit nerve-wracking having to get by in another language. I even spent some time on the road with one uncle who was a lorry driver - now sadly deceased. These days when we go it is to stay with my first cousin in her delightful flat near the centre overlooking some very well kept ruins - NO I refer not to myself but a wonderfully preserved abbey.

I saw not a trace of doggie doo on the pavements and only a tiny amount of litter, fabulous facilities for cyclists and pedestrians alike and lots of people waiting for the green man even when the road was quiet.

On the Sunday we took a summer fete in a tiny village where we were unexpectedly serenaded by a group singing celtic songs rather beautifully. The place was called Gut Hauswinken and was in the middle of nowhere. A small grouping of renovated typical farm buildings containing a cultural centre of some repute. Unlikely but very lovely. The sun blazed from a cloudless sky that day. I remember it well because it was the last time we actually had any sunny weather!

We traveled (there and) back by train - a practically incident free journey - ladened with essig essenz, pflaumenmuss but no new Birkenstocks. I have to admit checking out estate agents....