Tomato-basil bagel Gorgonzola cream cheese on one half, sun dried tomato and garlic spread on the other (i.e. what some Americans often mistakenly call "bruschetta") Parma ham Salame Milano Thin slices of fresh Parmesan Cucumber slices
Washed down by the leftovers of a bottle of Cab that had to go. *hic*
Office Space gets minus one star for reminding me of everything I loathed about living and working in America and curing me of any homesickness I felt (well, for the time being anyway, probably until I watch a baseball game).
It also gets minus one star for curing BoE of any illusions of wanting to live there.
It gets seven stars for being awesomely funny.
(I had only seen clips of it until now and never saw the whole thing.)
Caught the opening game with the Braves on tape delay on NASN with the kids, and though we missed the opening innings (where the Nats jumped ahead 2-1) it was a great game -- great way to break in the new stadium, particularly with Zimmermann's walk-off homer to win the game 3-2.
While Gloriana was decked out in her Nats ballcap and was swinging a Nats kiddie bat, the Confessor interestingly enough didn't want to wear his Nats or his Braves gear...until the Braves tied the game on an error by the Nats catcher and sending a runner home, when I asked him out of curiosity which team he wanted to win. The Braves, he said. (Em is now grinning ear to ear.) Shortly after that, the Nats got the winning run, and he was a bit unhappy about it...oh well, kid, welcome to baseball. :-)
Em and liberaltarian reminded me of this movie, which happens to be one of my favorites.
Here is a trailer:
If you want to understand modern Germany, you have to see this movie. Far from the jokes about militarism or Pickelhauben oder wanting to invade France again, this movie captures Germany's and particularly Berlin's essence in a remarkable way.
It is melancholy like the endless, sunless iron grey of a German winter sky. It portrays the helplessness of angels unable to do much except try to silently provide comfort where none can be given, helplessness against the passage of time and of events much greater than you or me.
Yet it is also bittersweet, with moments of great tenderness and affection and intimacy. Germans have their wall of formality to ward off feelings, but when the wall cracks open and someone is let inside, the raging emotions that are exposed are overpowering. There is nothing more tragic or romantic than a German friendship.
The symbolism of the angels is fascinating. The angels are unseen, except by children, or in dreams, or by the insane. They are immortal, but virtually powerless to affect what happens around them. They have no sense of smell or taste or even of color (hence the dominant black and white aspects of the movie). They don't even have much in the way of control over their lives, being moved about at will by an unseen and distant Fate, which is God.
This is how the Germany of the Cold War viewed itself. Sad, powerless, lashed to the fates of others, wanting to do good but unable to do so, being carried on a powerful river to places unknown. And no place embodied this more than West Berlin, itself an isolated island in a hostile sea, and littered with angels from times past by -- the Siegessäule or the Quadriga on top of the Brandenburg Gate, once symbols of victory, but pockmarked by war and stained by the polluting fires of industry.
Even now the reunified Germany has much of that feeling to it. It is more dynamic, flashier, a touch more confident than before, but ultimately it is still fearful of its own nature as well as of what comes next.
To indulge in some generalizations, the contrast to can-do Americans couldn't be more striking. Americans adopt new technology happily and without an afterthought; Germans do so only after skeptically turning it over in their hardened minds (but once they do, they do it to perfection, for fear of getting it wrong). Americans try first and perfect it later; Germans perfect it endlessly, rather than risk having it go wrong, as things went so badly wrong so many times before.
Berlin itself has changed a lot since Wim Wenders made the movie, but it is still Berlin, with layer upon layer of tragic past building up like strata of rock, and new strata being added with each passing decade. Many of the landmarks in the movie are gone -- not least The Wall -- but they are still there in spirit, like ghost pains from lost limbs or old wounds. Even now the course of The Wall is detectable in the layout of streets and the weirdly preserved pre-war subway stations of East Berlin.
Which is why the American remake of Der Himmel über Berlin, City of Angels, fell so flat in comparison. It was a good effort, but in the end Los Angeles lacks Berlin's ashen sky and the muscle to carry the story built by bearing the leaden weight of history on its broad shoulders.
Which is what separates Berlin from the other cities of the world. New York has wealth, London has culture, Parish romance, Los Angeles glitter, but Berlin has Fate itself.
If you want to understand Germany, you must see this movie. Even if you don't, it is worth seeing anyway, if only to see how good City of Angels could have been.
Meanwhile I was disgusted by Disney's flagrant attempt to bait family fathers by having a babe-a-licious Poke-me-hotness in the movie, and to demonstrate this I watched the movie 4,325 times while only visibly drooling once.
