movie review time

got a chance to sit back and watch two new dvd's last night.

passionada - no big name stars in this, although the romantic lead is the actor who played mel gibson's nemesis in "patriot". a romance set in the portugese fishing community of new bedford, new hampshire, this movie is enjoyable to watch, but more for interesting aspects of its parts, than the sum of them. celia, a fisherman's widow, lives with emmy, her teenage daughter who is determined that her beautiful mother should move on with her love life while she is still young. this proves a difficult goal since celia refuses to date and is, as a friend comments, "the most married person around." enter charlie beck, charming, down on his luck gambler, and immediately smitten with celia after hearing her sing souful portugese love songs at a local restaurant. charlie and emmy each have something the other wants - he can teach her how to card count, and she holds the secrets to wooing her mother, so they strike a deal to help each other. the movie's an interesting peek into the colorful and tradition bound portugese community of new bedford. charlie and celia are each attractive and intriguing characters in their own ways. you end up wishing more time was given to their interaction and less to needless and unexplained subplots....why DOES emmy want to become a gambler? one of the most interesting things on the dvd is the chance to watch the original, but eventually abandoned ending, while listening to the director and cast commenting on it. not perfect, but a cozy evening's worth of a film.

goodbye lenin! - wonderful german film just out on dvd. i loved this movie. set in 1989 east berlin, this is a love story, but not romance, the love for family and the lengths that love will drive you to. alexander is a young man disillusioned with his country's socialist system, but feeling powerless to change it or anything else about his life. his small family consists of his mother and his sister, their father having abandoned them years ago for life in the west. after a massive heart attack, his mother spends eight months in a coma before miraculously waking up. this immediately presents a great problem. She, a devout believer in the east german socialist system, has no idea that while she slept, communism has crumbled, the berlin wall has come down and east germany has been giddily embracing capitalism as fast as possible. warned that even the slightest shock could trigger a fatal heart attack, alexander sets out to recreate the former east german world in his mother's room and keep her in the dark about the massive changes just outside her window. as we watch him bribe neighborhood children to serenade her with old communist party youth songs, empty gourmet western foods into salvaged old east german brand boxes and jars, and fill her tv with videotapes of old communist newscasts, the story swings smoothly between comedy, farce and pathos. as alexander learns the old lesson that small lies just keep mulitplying into bigger and bigger lies, he also falls in love, reconnects with his long lost father, and finds out that even his mother had some secrets of her own.

here's your chance to help

rick and beth need a name for the baby...and you can help! drop by http://www.nadadventist.org/ret/170801bethsbabynames.html and add your input.

congratulations, it's a .........blog!

hmmmmm.....not a very auspicious start, took me forever to tweak the template and now i'm on the run and only have time to christen it with a few sentences. that's ok, we all know i'll not be at a loss for words later. let's keep on trying to stay in touch, as hard as it seems to be. feel free to post here to keep us all up to date. john k.'s got a date with gall bladder surgery friday, i'm off to nashville for labor day weekend, and doug's memorizing the farmer's almanac for his election year trek to south dakota in a couple weeks. and remember ladies, girl's night out thursday, september 9, starbucks til they kick us out!