The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Watching this exquisite crime movie, I wondered: Who wrote the story for the script. So I did some research and discovered that it was indeed a Swede to wrote the story. Frequently, writers live rather boring lives. Not so in the case of Stieg Larsson. According to his partner of 20 years, Larsson’s witnessed a rape when he was young and never forgave himself for not trying to stop it. In real life he tried to be a journalists but apparently did not have the social skills and personality to fit into a news organization. Larsson worked tirelessly to counter radical right wing activists in Sweden. This endangered his life. Larsson and his partner never married because the address of a newly married coupled is published in Sweden and Larsson’s would have been more easily targeted. The hero, Mikael Blomkvist (Craig Daniel), and the heroine, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), seem to be an amplified version of Larsson, but not in a way that this would became in any way tedious.
Motorbike from Japan travels across the Pacific Ocean
I could never imagine that sea currents are strong enough to wash a motorbike across the entire Pacific Ocean. Read this amazing story.
TOKYO (AP)—It must have been a wild ride. Japanese media say a Harley-Davidson motorcycle lost in last year’s tsunami has washed up on a Canadian island about 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) away.
The rusted bike was found in a large white container where its owner, Ikuo Yokoyama, had kept it. He was located through the license plate number, Fuji TV reported Wednesday.
“This is unmistakably mine. It’s miraculous,” Yokoyama told Nippon TV when shown photos of the motorcycle.
Yokoyama lost three members of his family in the March 11, 2011, tsunami, and is now living in temporary housing in Miyagi prefecture (state).
The motorcycle is among the first items lost in the tsunami to reach the west coast of North America. In March, an Alaska man found a football and later a volleyball from Japan; their owners were located last week using names that had been inscribed on the balls.
The Maltese Falcon
Four short year after the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, this detective flick was produced in San Francisco. Humphrey Bogart plays a private detective. He is retained by a beautiful women, who under false pretenses has Bogart’s partner shadow a man, who allegedly has let her sister to run away with him to San Francisco. Before we know it, two people are dead. The plot turns fast. While the themes of the film (greed, love, passion) are eternal, the film did not age as well as the Golden Gate Bridge, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. I had more fun with African Queen, another old Humphrey Bogart film. But the writing is very good.
Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown
When I saw Women on a Verge of a Nervous Breakdown almost twenty year ago, I did not find it very funny. In fact, I was bored by it. Perhaps I was simply too tired. But the film (or I) aged well. Almadovar in 1988 build into his film a refernce to Islamic terrorist. After September 11, 2001 this reference has gained a lot of poignancy. If you have a woman in your life who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, this comic film will help.
A Few Good Lines by Samuel Beckett
“Where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
“My mistakes are my life.”
“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.”
“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.”
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The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games is a real surprise. Who would have thought that a film effortly makes connections between the Roman empire (bread and games), Thomas Hobbes’ life in a state of nature, George Orwell’s 1984 nightmare of total government control, and our age’s infatuation with reality TV shows such as “Survivor.” After having seen this amazing film, I am not surprised that the author of the story sold millions of copies. I am not going to say more about the film. See The Hunger Games if you are hungry for a different movie experience.
Supreme Court is back at the center of attention ruling on “Obamacare”
Not since the Supreme Court stepped in and gave ruled in favor of George Bush and against Al Gore in the 2004 election is the third branch of government at the center of public attention. Will the strike down Obama’s signature legislation. Here is some useful background information that had me wonder: how would the conservative judges argue against the individual mandate to buy health insurance? June will bring the answer.
Obama’s insurance requirement not the only mandate
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | Associated Press
The insurance requirement that the Supreme Court is reviewing isn’t the first federal mandate involving health care.
There’s a Medicare payroll tax on workers and employers, for example, and a requirement that hospitals provide free emergency services to indigents. Health care is full of government dictates, some arguably more intrusive than President Barack Obama’s overhaul law.
It’s a wrinkle that has caught the attention of the justices.
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