2007-11-18

Still feverish and in pain with the earache, I chose to remain home from church today. I hope fervently that I may be well enough to go next week!! Missing church is far from my preference.

However, the day was just wonderful. The weather outside was quite chilly, but I was in all day, so was able to admire the incredible color of our burning bushes and the golden rain of the ginkgo leaves in our back yard. Their habit is to fall all at once, and by nightfall, not a leaf was left on the tree and all the leathery gold was collected in a pile along our back boundary, where those trees are.

As Mick and I so often do on Sunday, after the house was clean, we watched three movies. It was a fairly good week at the cinema in our living room! No spectacular hits, but no flops either.

We saw “Loving Annabelle” first, a lesbian love story which ran along formulaic lines – the rebellious wealthy student, the lonely, conflicted teacher and the jealous ex-lover. However the cinematography was gorgeous and the acting from Erin Kelly and Diane Gaidry was excellent. The elegiac pace was suitable to the subject and the whole production was harmonious with the story line. Gustine Fudickar was quite outstanding in her portrayal of a mean-spirited brat; one loved to hate her. Watch out for this actress! She has a lot of intensity.

Then we took a trip back in time to enjoy the film noir “The Good German”. Its story line was muddled and concerned the veniality of various of the characters as they searched for the eponymous good German. Everybody except George Clooney’s character seemed to die by Act V! Cate Blanchett made a wonderful heroine for black and white, with her pale skin and dark eyes and hair, and so did Clooney, with his trademark black-lashed eyes and strongly marked features. I could hear Humphrey Bogart saying some of the lines, and the last scene was reminiscent of “Casablanca”, where the heroine escapes the struggle in a DC-3.

Our third film, “Home of the Brave”, was a well-done soap opera about the woes of returning veterans. It was hard to watch as the film, as all of the ensemble did a great job with their roles and their agony was everywhere. In addition to Samuel L Jackson, Jessica Biel, Brian Presley and Fitty Cent Jackson all did fine jobs.

Mick offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.