I just slept for 12.5 hours! No way! Only slack adolescents do that .... LOL!
Spent the morning trying to get the stupid wireless system to work here at the guesthouse.
PIC. I can see it, I’m connected but it doesn’t let me use it. ... ‘Found out later it’s new and still got bugs.
Beautiful weather again. They have the BEST weather, sort of like permanent late summer or early autumn, hot but not oppressive. Went out strolling after lunch at Rick's. They make the best hamburgers! They've never even heard of words like ' vegetarian, nutrition, cholesterol...!
Pasadena seems anchored around Colorado boulevard. As you head east you come to ‘new’ Pasadena: all white crisp buildings, boutiques, offices, heritage churches, classy restaurants, aloof middle class types, manicured lawns, hedges clipped into geometric slavery, distant fashionable designer yuppies with just a hint of chin stubble!.... BUT as you head west, over the rise and down the hill you come to ‘old’ Pasadena: narrower roads, loads of chatting people spilling onto the pavements, smells, cheap shops, buskers, beggars, straggly beards and baggy pants, music in disreputable pubs and.... the APPLE SHOP. I like old Pasadena!
The college and the biggest cathedrals are in new Pasadena. Seems a fitting metaphor for where you find western Christians somehow! The stats back home in Melbourne show that for the last 100 years, Christians flee the poorer and messier suburbs for the peace, order and heaven-on-earth safety that middle suburbia bring. Where do I as a Christian feel most at home? If god were one of us, surely he’d hang with the comfortably well off!Hey guess what? Film Guru!! Are you listening?
I went to see ‘MUNICH’ tonight after tea! This is destined to be one of the big films of 2006.
It is Spielberg’s latest epic. Music by John Williams – all-star cast and almost three hours long.It is impressive and disturbing. It deserves its ‘R’ rating here – I’m not sure I’d recommend this version to under 18s...or even anyone plder looking for 'wholesome entertainment'. but it is very powerful. Eric Bana is at his best – deserves an Academy nomination for his portrayal of Avner, the ‘hero’. Geoffrey Rush does well as the gruff old general to whom Avner reports.
Spielberg has done well, a very well crafted film. No dull spots, no Spielberg schmaltz, not just shallow action.
The pre-publicity made me assume it was just a rehashing of the 1972 massacre at the Munich Olympics – when a squad of Black September terrorists kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes – and then it all went wrong and kidnappers, and the kidnapped all died in a fiery shoot out. I thought it would be kind of a moralistic documentary... But it isn’t , it has a thought provoking political agenda.
The ’72 massacre acts as the backdrop and motive for the characters here... The Palestinian radicals who want to capitalise on the publicity and increase their resistance to the state of Israel, seeking retribution and land for their ‘family’; and the Israelis’ who are mortified, angry and want to strike at their enemies for the sake of their ‘family’
The plot centers around a top secret Israeli assassination squad contracted to ‘takeout’ the 11 Palestinian heavies behind the massacre. Avner (Bana) is the team leader of the squad – and there is plenty of well scripted espionagesque action and suspense on the squad’s journey.
What makes the film interesting is Avner’s emotional and mental journey.
What is justice? What happens when you make your ‘family’ your measure for righteousness?
There is a scene somewhere in the story where Avner and a colleague – black faced for camouflage - are running through the night from the scene of one of their executions – and the light catches their wide red eyes in the gloom – and you realise the demon-hunters have become the demons! This becomes disturbing because we live in a world where our loyalties are not to absolute moralities but subjective. Our friends, families, quality of life, expediency, feelings, or social context have become the guide. Dehumanise another as a personal threat to life – and any anything is justifiable – you gain life but lose your soul! This film will generate a fair mesure of controversy. What do you think?
