we are sailing

The weather has turned cooler already . I don’t think that’s it just yet for the summer, but certainly the 30+ temperatures we were having aren’t coming back immediately. Just a last couple of posts from those balmy days when Little Jacket was visiting. We were lucky enough one evening to go out with Mr. and Mrs. Cap’n on their sailboat. Apparently we set the record for making ourselves at home on the boat, nestling our own cups in the cup holder on board and pouring the white wine even before the anchor was up…

We did our best to make up for it by sharing (of course!), and after putting our way out into the Oslo fjord and anchoring off an island we served a finger-licking shrimp dinner, with strawberries and cream for dessert. Thank you for having us, Cap’ns!

We sailed back into the city, going by this lighthouse on the way at 10 pm. The night was still young… what did we get up to next? Stay tuned to find out!

after the wedding

I’ve had to write like a demon the last few days at work, but I think myyearonline has helped! The words seem much keener to flow these days. Even so, I don’t quite know what to say about this film, that we watched at home on DVD. Inspector Gadget even took his customary snooze perfectly on cue during the film on the sofa, just like the old days!

After the Wedding showed up on quite a few ‘Top 10 Films of the Year’ lists that I have seen. I’m not quite sure what it is about Danes and unveiling scandals at large family events, but this film worked on similar lines. Jacob (played by Mads Mikkelsen, also the baddie banker with the spooky eye in Casino Royale) helps run an orphanage in Bombay. He is summoned to Copenhagen by a wealthy businessman, Jørgen, who is considering making a large donation to said orphanage. Jacob is subsequently invited to Jørgen’s daughter’s wedding, where certain truths come slowly but shockingly to light.

Without giving the entire plot away, I thought the film had amazing momentum in drawing the characters and the tangle that life had tied them up in. Unfortunately, as soon as the cards were laid out on the table, the film rather lost its way . Despite Rolf Lassgård’s best efforts at being anguished, everyone seemed to spend the rest of the film drifting around resignedly. The dilemma of what you would do in exchange for a huge sum of money loomed large, but none of the characters seemed to question the conditions laid down. This passivity is what ultimately lets the film down. A firework that whizzes brightly for the first half then fizzles out damply for the second. Definitely Das Leben der Anderen which won the 2007 Oscar for Foreign Film deserved it better than this film did.