Million dollar baby and Zoë

I am not a boxing fan, although I do remember getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning with my father to watch the Cassius Clay vs Joe Frazier fight of the century. Was it 1971? But I went with my wife to “Million Dollar Baby“ because it is much more than a movie about boxing. So we went on this Friday late afternoon, to the Angelika movie theater, not far from my favorite Apple store in SoHo (the Angelika is actually in NoHo - North of Houston street).

I have been a fan of Clint since I saw him first as Rowdy Yates in the Rawhide series. I found him really good in the spaghetti westerns from Sergio Leone and some of the Dirty Harry movies. But he was outstanding in “The Bridges of Madison County“ along with one of my favorite actresses Meryl Streep, where he also wrote the theme music and more recently with ”Mystic River“ where he was ”just“ the producer and the director.

In ”Million Dollar Baby“ Clint not only acts, he is the director, producer and the composer of the theme song. The movie is violent, not because of the boxing, but because it confronts people with people and with what they can and cannot (morally) do in life. The tragic ending of this movie obviously impacted the normally lighthearted American audience who typically get up from their seats, as the credits at the end of the movie emerge. Not this time. You could almost hear a hush over the audience and few got up. The absence of a Hollywood ending – Clint is past that now – got the audience in their gut. What greater compliment for Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman could they get? They all gave a stellar performance.

Afterwards, my wife and I walked over to Zoë, a nice restaurant on Prince street and we dissected the movie over a Pinot noir, fried Calimari, Rottiserie Chicken, Steak and a chocolate desert. Suffice to say, we had a great evening. It was cold, it was the night before the snow storm and so, even though the night was still young and Zoë was coming to life around 10 PM, we decided to return to the comfort of our home in Brooklyn.

The Mystery of Rampo

Today, while my wife was having brunch with her parents in the City and doing some shopping for my sister in Holland, I watched the mystery of Rampo, courtesy of our Netflix subscription. A surreal Japanese story where reality and fiction blend when a writers’ (Edogawa Rampo - Edgar Allen Poe) fictional murder story is censored in the 1930s but actually happens in reality. Rampo sensei becomes obsessed with the woman who in his book, but now also in real life, has murdered her husband. He meets her, but she rejects him but later she changes her mind and seeks his help as the people in her village now despise her for the presumed murder of her husband. To save her he has to continue writing his forbidden book and with every page reality and fiction mix, mesh and ultimately collide into a surrealistic ending.

A stellar performance by Naoto Takenaka as Edogawa Rampo. I saw Takenaka-san also in the Japanese movie “Shall we Dance?” where he played the outrageously funny Aoki-san. Great entertainment!

America the prison Society

Today an article was published in the Wall Street journal entitled: “Congress Prepares to tackle Prisoner Recidivism.” If you want to know why the American Society is on its way to a possible implosion, one of the facts you need to know is that 70% of the 650,000 people who are annually released from prison, will commit new crimes within three years. Here are some frightening statistics:

Of the 272,11 persons released from prisons in 15 states in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were re-convicted and 25.4% were sentenced to prison for a new crime.

U.S. tax payers spent no less than $ 60 billion in 2002 on “corrections”.......

There are now 2.2 million people in US prisons, that is roughly 700 per 100.000 population or 10 times more than in the Netherlands. “The U.S. and the Russian federation incarcerate more people than anywhere else in the world.” Source: http://www.newint.org/issue351/facts.htm

Many who are released from prison re-enter society with mental and physical diseases. To reverse this American disease (as opposed to the ‘Dutch disease,’) lawmakers in Washington are expected to introduce legislation that is aimed at helping ex-convicts with their re-entry into society.

Time will tell if the patient can be cured.

Clint Eastwood and the Morning News (NBC)

America is a movie country. New movies are often reviewed with movie stars on the morning news. On the NBC morning news anchor Katie Couric interviewed Clint Eastwood on his latest movie “Million dollar baby.” In the middle of this interview, Clint suddenly refers to Katie’s glasses and the conversation changes from offering the viewers insights into the movie to a personal exchange between the news anchor and Clint. Here is the transcription:

Couric: We don't have to get into that right now. I want to read one review from the Los Angeles Times:

"Eastwood, despite his legendary no-nonsense style, has become a gift to director of actors. It's not just the exceptional work by co-stars Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman that stands out here. It's Eastwood's own performance, in some ways the most nakedly emotional of his 50-year career."

Do you feel kind of liberated that you can be, as an actor, almost freer to expose that side of you, or is that the most ridiculous question you've ever heard?

Eastwood: Well I think what happens, as you mature, you look great in glasses, by the way.

Couric: Really?

Eastwood: Yeah, very good.

Couric: It's that sort of naughty, secretary-librarian-teacher look you know, and the hair up and you think when I take them off and take my hair down, how naughty I look?

Eastwood: Maybe that's it. It's just a little thing.

Couric: Thank you. Thank you.

Eastwood: At this hour of the morning, naughty may not fit, but what the heck.

Couric: Okay. Hey, it works for me. Go ahead anyway.

Only in America.....

Closer on a late Thursday afternoon

Cobble Hill is a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn that also has a cinema that my wife frequents. Go to the first movie of the day and pay only $5! Today we did not go to the first movie and so we paid double that amount because we wanted to follow the movie with a nice dinner in one of the local restaurants. For the movie we chose “Closer.” The reviews are mixed. Either you hate it or you like it. We liked it.

Closer is about 4 people of which two meet by chance and then in turn they cause two others to meet. And then they all meet and their lives intermingle, clash, and relationships get ripped apart. The two men are British and the two women American. There are a few excellent scenes with great dialogue. Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen come together in an intriguing setting in London. I liked the theme song “The Blower’s Daughter” by Damien Rice. I downloaded it for 99 cents from iTunes. Nice and dreamy music. A nice dinner afterwards made for a wonderful evening with my Ife in Brooklyn. “And so it is. Just like you said it would be. Life goes easy on me” (From the theme song.)

Fabulous gospel concert at St. Jacobi in Brooklyn

My wife wanted to go to a gospel concert for a long time. When she saw an ad in the local newspaper we had a date on Sunday at 4 PM in the Saint Jacobi Evangelical Lutheran Church (5406 Fourth Avenue Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York). 

Performing was the Central Baptist Gospel Choir. About twenty people of diverse background, Spanish, Chinese, Afro-American, Caucasian, and unbelievable volume and timbre filled the beautiful and acoustically well designed church with rhythm and emotion. They had just returned from a number of concerts in Tokyo, Japan. Too bad there were few people, only about 25 in the audience, who could enjoy this performance.

Reverend Mary Chang started organizing music recitals after 9/11 to bring the community of largely Spanish and Chinese people together. The concert was free and Mary organizes one concert every month. Keep an eye at her calendar and go if you can!

New Years Day and a House of Flying Daggers

It is New Years day in Brooklyn, NY. So what do people do on this first day of 2005? They eat and go to the movies. And like many others that is what we did. We had brunch with my wife’s parents in the City in what we call “the usual place” a nice French type restaurant (La Belle Vie 184 Eighth Ave. between 18th and 19th street Tel: 212-929-4320).

The place was packed around 1:30 PM. Champagne and Wine was freely flowing. We had a great time and the food was delicious. After a leisurely walk to Union Square, looking at furniture in a few stores, my in-laws went home and my wife and I went to a movie: The House of Flying Daggers. A Chinese movie very much in the tradition of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and the more recent “Hero.” The movie theater was packed, we were just in time to buy tickets and find a comfortable seat.

All you need is a Chinese love story, stunning cinematography, yearning music, spectacular colorful dresses, impossible acrobatics and after 2 hours you feel you have had world-class entertainment of the kind that Hollywood seldom can live up to. At the end, when the melodrama had reached its pinnacle, the woman next to me burst into a waterfall. My wife and I smiled, we loved it from beginning to end. China is rapidly coming to the world stage as an economic as well as an entertainment power: Hollywood is in for some welcome competition.

My wife’s companionship, brunch with her parents and this movie, made New Years day 2005, a happy one.

For the movie’s trailer, look here:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/houseofflyingdaggers/trailer-open.html

Enjoy!