What I did over break

The holidays have come and gone, so it's time for a brief recap of our activities. This year, Kristen and I went home to our respective families, so I flew to Germany. Or tried to, since my flight was canceled due to the winter storms across Europe the weekend before Christmas. Luckily, I made it on a flight the next morning, so I wasn't delayed too much. Kristen fared a bit worse, but I'll let her elaborate on that.
In Germany, I followed a strict regiment of meeting with friends, eating and drinking, and catching up on movies. For example, I finally managed to see the new Star Trek movie (which was actually quite good). In the theater, I watched "The White Ribbon" by Michael Haneke, which has got to be one of the favorites for the Oscar for best foreign picture, and "Avatar" by James Cameron, which could be the "Star Wars" of the 2000's. I also went to see a production of Verdi's "Macbeth" at the consistently good Nationaltheater Mannheim.

Indy

I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull yesterday at the movie theater that shows English language movies. It was also a public holiday here, so it was the perfect occasion for an outing into the city. I won't give away anything about the movie other than to say that it was a perfectly decent action/adventure movie. Two things struck me, however. The first thing that I thought when I saw Cate Blanchett as the evil Russian scientist is that she'd make a good Romulan. Also, was anyone else bothered by the fact that gold is not magnetic? With all the ridiculous and impossible things in the movie, this was the one that I just couldn't get past. Still, it was an entertaining movie, worth seeing eventually if you've already seen the first three.

No Country For Old Men

I finally got around to seeing "No Country for Old Men" this evening, in the one movie theater that shows English language movies three times a week. I was almost expecting to be disappointed after all the hype that's been made about it, but in the end, it was probably one of the best movies of the year. It was definitely one of the most tense movies of the year. So maybe some of the plot points didn't quite make sense, but I'm still digesting and maybe they will after a while. If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend you check it out.

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In other news, it appears as if Italy is actually a country for old men, since they just elected 71-year old Silvio Berlusconi to his 3rd time in office as prime minister. This being a man who owns much of the media, has been on trial several times and during the campaign called for prosecutors to take sanity tests every few years. I haven't followed Italian politics too much, so I'm not sure why a seemingly sane people would elect this man again. Then again...