Bits and Pieces

Sometimes one must go back to go forward. I simply could not get on with lesson 20 last week, so over the weekend, I went back to 16 to do some review and get the grammar down better. Today, I’m finishing the review on 19. It’s going well. Very well. Hopefully, it’ll continue in this manner. After all, I’m thisclose to being finished with the course!

About The Edge of Love… I very much like Sienna Miller as Cat. In fact, I thought the casting was superb. As with all movies about little snippets out of a person’s life, it leaves you wanting more (ideally), so I’ve been reading up on Dylan Thomas a bit. Very interesting. He should, if he could, consider himself very lucky to be played by the incredibly sexy Matthew Rhys (my motto: one more good reason to say something in Welsh!!), because even with the extra slobby pounds packed on, Matthew looks better than the soft, pouty poet ever did. He also has a better voice, as proven by a recording I was able to listen to on BBC Wales the other day, read by DT himself.

Our Celtic dinner was wonderful, although about half the guests didn’t make it this time. And yet, there was plenty to eat and lots to laugh at. We exchanged recipes, tested our way through a variety of mets, ciders and Drambuie, and learned that Breton fairy tales are probably best appreciated after smoking a good doobie or two… because the ones we read aloud seemed to have been written after exactly that kind of activity.

On Sunday, I nonchalantly jetted down to GAP for the day to go hiking and to dinner with the hubby, and Monday, being a training holiday, I lazed around the house and got caught up on my magazines. In other words, it’s all good. Tonight, I’m hooking up with Daniel Craig and Sienna Miller in Layer Cake (rented after I saw that it was classified as a thriller), and I promise to upload the pics from the brew course pretty soon.

Kinotag: The Boat that Rocked

When a good movie comes along, one you really enjoy, it would be a crime not to recommend it. That’s why we’re here today. On Saturday, I watched <em>”The Boat that Rocked”</em> at the wonderful foreign-language theater Corso in Stuttgart-Vaihingen. The story is simple: in the mid-Sixties, rock’n'roll was taking over the world. It was the music of the masses, the voice of the young, yet conservative BBC Radio dedicated only a tiny slot of its daily programming to the rock revolution. So, groups of DJs literally took to the high seas and began broadcasting from ships moored in the North Sea: pirate radio was born. As short-lived as the phenomenon was, it signaled the beginning of private radio and fulfilled a need by providing a 24-hour music channel to Great Britain.

Our group of musical outlaws faces a tough challenge in Minister Dormandy and his go-to man, Twatt (a wonderfully sinister Kenneth Branagh, supported by sexy Jack Davenport in his usual straight-man role), who do their very best to discover any and all legal loopholes they may use to disband Radio Rock. The cast is simply fabulous; one has to experience the mystery of Midnight Mark, marvel at the stupidity of Thick Kevin, wonder at Dr. Dave’s success with the ladies and suffer Simple Simon’s heartbreak when his wife of 17 hours leaves him for the foppish Gavin. “Boat” boasts three A-listers who complement each other so well, it is a joy to have one of them on screen all the time. Rhys Ifans as dandy Gavin is incredible, and Gavin’s rivalry with Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s American DJ “The Count” is over the top. But if Hoffman’s character is the Count of Cool in the music world, in real life this title clearly belongs to Bill Nighy (Quentin) whose humor is drier than the Sahara and who is a pleasure to watch every time.

Naturally, the music is (still) hip, all ends well despite the inevitable catastrophe, and at the end of the film, you’re ready to go for a second round.

Official Website