
Why Men Don’t Listen and Women park badly (Warum Männer nicht zuhören und Frauen schlecht einparken
This German comedy is based on the book “Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps” by Allan and Barbara Pease. The film is funny. I cannot speak about the book because I have not read it. The film argues (explains) that the differences in men’s and women’s behavior are largely due to the different roles men and women had in early human societies. Anyone familiar with evolutionary psychology will know these ideas but they are put on display well in this comedy. The film is staged in Berlin in the year 2006. The internet is already a force in hooking up but we are not yet in the era of everyone having a profile on dating websites. The film is quite funny until the end. But the end is not a real end. The film just stops and you are left hanging. What happened to the other characters we got into?

No Time to Die
Sometimes in the 1990s I had vowed never to see another James Bond movie. In my early teens, I watched a James Bond movie every weekend. I described c my teenage love affair with James Bond that came to an end like many teenage love affairs do here: Me and Mr. Bond. But when Daniel Craig took over the role and the producers announced that they would give Bond emotional depth, I wanted to see whether they have achieved this in Casino Royale. They did as I wrote in my review.

Love Hard
Living in LA, a young white journalist writes about the trials and tribulations of finding a partner in the age of social media and online dating. Her recent date conveniently failed to mention a relevant extra-curricular activity: he is already married. Now our heroine is s back on her dating app and soon gets connected to a guy far away in Lake Placid, New York. They are hitting it off well, talking endlessly over the phone.

Dune
I do not count myself as a big aficionado of Sci-Fi movies but Dunes get’s my two thumbs up. A marries futurism with features of the Middle Ages. On top, it puts the old theme of a person being the chosen one to lead humanity out of the darkness and mental superpower skills where you and take over the mind of another human being. The film is based on a 1965 novel that was considered unadaptable for the big screen after early flops. But the 2021 version is a success and I loved the attention to detail and learning about life in an inhospitable dessert. I am looking forward to the 2nd installment.

Two poems: Daily I fall in love with ...
First Poem: “Daily I Fall In Love With Waitresses”
by Elliot Fried
Daily I fall in love with waitresses
with their white bouncing name tags
and white rubber shoes.
I love how they bend over tables
pouring coffee.
Their perky breasts hover above potatoes
like jets coming in to LAX
hang above the suburbs—
shards of broken stars.
I feel their fingers
roughened by cube steaks softened with grease
slide over me.
Their hands and lean long bodies
keep moving so…
fumbling and clattering so harmoniously
that I am left overwhelmed, quivering.
Daily I fall in love with waitresses
with their cream-cheese cool.
They tell secrets in the kitchen
and I want them.
I know them.
They press buttons creases burgers buns—
their legs are menu smooth.