Another inspired choice, if I don’t say so meself! The dilemma in selecting a movie for a Friday, is that it needs to be funny but, being MovieNight, it can’t be fluffy. I really wanted to huddle up in the bunker and watch Adolf go completely nuts, but I don’t think that would have flown. Thanks to all who came out on such a very very very cold night!

In Bruges was actually my second choice, but I was unable to acquire a DVD of my first choice (no clues about what that was, but suffice it to say that it’s not available on Netflix or the other, stupid place) from Mondo Kim’s on St. Marks Pl. Why? Because Kim GAVE his entire collection of 55,000 DVDs and video tapes to the mayor of a town in Sicily. (read more about this in the NY Daily News) We (the MovieNight community) missed a golden opportunity. All we needed was 3000 sq. ft. of space to house the collection… oh well. Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

We have been wanting to show this epic masterpiece for quite some time, and this year the time seemed right. The snow was just a little late in coming, but at least the effects of global warming were unnoticeable and it wasn’t 70 degrees outside! Thanks to all who turned up for what would inevitably be a long, long movie. It was a tribute to Mr. Lean that there were many Russians among our number. Of course, the movie had more than a little taste of soap, but it also did a great job portraying the start and the early consequenses of the revolution.

Thanks so much to Michael, Kamilla, and Karlis for the delicious mulled wine! Of course, the thing about mulled wine is that it’s a comfort-drink, and at one point some of our guests were snoozing like babies. Jet-lag and fatigue were also partly to blame, but it was still nice to see people being able to relax so.

It was a dark and stormy night. The first mate turned to the captain, and said, “Captain, tell us a story!” So the captain, he began. “It was a dark and stormy night. The first mate turned to the captain, and said, ‘Captain, tell us a story!’ So the captain, he began. ‘It was a dark…’ ” Etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.

Well, it was indeed a dark and stormy night. The rain beat against the skylight over the heads of our MovieNight guests. Our thanks to those of you who braved the elements, setting aside convention to be in the audience of this darkly beautiful film. I had more than one female guest come to the bar during the movie in immediate need of a stiff drink. As a man, I felt squeamish enough at certain points in 4,3,2 and can only imagine how a woman might feel.  I first watched this film with my eighteen year old daughter and oddly, I hadn’t remembered how long the image of the aborted fetus languished on the screen. At MovieNight it seemed like a lifetime. Fortunately, the folks who would be most disturbed by the shot had long since departed. Not many left, mind you. A couple of Russian boys were the first to get ants in their pants.

Once again, I found something odd in the film, and would love for someone to enlighten me. The character Gabita’s surname was “Dragut”, and each time her name was given to someone who didn’t know her, the other person expressed surprise and/or amusement. Surely this can’t be a reference to the Ottoman admiral Turgut (also pronounced Dragut) Reis… He died in 1563, and I can’t imagine him being that important to Romanians in 1987.  Anyone?

By the way, I sloppily stated on the MovieNight page that the language spoken in this movie was Romanian. Moldavian would have been a more accurate description. Who knew?

For the moment, my thirst for angst-ridden, thought-provoking cinema has been slaked, and next week’s Christmas special will be much easier to sip, albeit rather lengthy!

Why can’t we find movies like this every week? Because they don’t exist in quantity. Because Americans wouldn’t go to see them.  When someone dies in a Fatih Akin film, it matters. We connect with the death of that character. It’s not just bang-bang-someone’s-dead-big-deal like it is in so many Hollywood flicks. Incidentally, Fatih is filming a comedy at the moment. We can’t wait!

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen this film, and plan to, you might want to skip the next paragraph.

Mystery Book
Having watched The Edge of Heaven a few times in the past two weeks, I’ve become interested in the book that Nejat gives to his father. “What’s it about?”, asks dad. “Just read it.” answers Nejat. The book then gets one of its two lingering, full-screen close-ups.  Later on, the father, Ali, puts down the book, with tears in his eyes, as if something he has just read has caused him to have a revelation; one which I assume makes his life unlivable. We know that there are a few Turkish speakers on the MovieNight mailing list. Can anyone shed some light on the book “Demircinin Kizi”, by Selim Ozdogan?

Gay Money?

Thanks to Ieva for blessing us with this Lithuanian bank note. These guys seem to have a special thing going, and in some circles this bank note is worth more than its face value. She paid for her beer with US dollars, by the way.

The MovieNight Contest
To bother, or not to bother… that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous lack of interest, or just stop doing the contest altogether… to die – to sleep, no more: and by sleep to say we end the heart-ache. OK! It’s not as dramatic as all that (sorry Mr. Shakespeare) but we are quite curious as to why nobody played this past week.

Of course, Tory submitted an almost-perfect set of answers, as she often does, but was not officially allowed to enter, due to her previous week’s win.

Oh Cheese!
Yes, the old box of cheese came out aprez. After all, “Cheese is a kind of meat. A tasty yellow beef! I milk it from my teat, but I try to be discreet. Oh Cheese! Oh Cheese!” What?
When the last of our guests left, heading for the stairs which wind their way around the out-of-service elevator shaft, one proclaimed, “Your hospitality is almost Islamic!” Given the circumstances, that was a lovely compliment.

We managed to break into the nineties for a minute with this difficult-to-catagorize flick. One reviewer described The Girl on the Bridge as the hypothetical product of a dream-team collaboration between Godard and Felini. That describes the look, but not the feel. It’s so much more approachable than the work of Godard and quite a bit more straightforward than Felini. A love story, in the end, and as such, not without a great big serving of cheese! We loved it.