An Post

The United States Postal Service has a creed: "We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever."

The Irish Postal Service (An Post) only delivers mail Monday through Friday but they do so in some of the most unpredictable weather imaginable. Bicycles are one of the methods of transportation that I see most in my neighborhood and thankfully it's been a summer of mostly pleasant weather (not much rain, or snow, or sleet, or hail) for making their rounds.

Plaza Suite

A 1968 Neil Simon play brought to life by Ireland's Rough Magic theater group at the Pavillion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire.

I'd never seen this play before and found it to be quite contemporary and very funny.

Basically three one-acts, each story is set in Room 719 of New York's Plaza Hotel.

The first story concerns a wife trying to put a spark back in her marriage by bringing her husband to this, which was their honeymoon suite more than two decades before. The night doesn't end so well as her suspicions are confirmed regarding her husband's liaisons with his secretary.

The second one-act centers on a successful Hollywood producer who is in town and has intentions of seducing a star struck classmate from high school that he once had a crush on years ago.

And finally, the slapstick finale, occurs when a husband and wife try to cajole their soon to be married daughter out of the bathroom that she's locked herself into.

The seasoned actors were, in general, all excellent and there was not an empty seat in the house full of laughter and joy...

The Tree of Life

"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

-Job 38:4,7

Art.

That's truly what this film is. Flawed, beautiful, transcendent...

You must give credit to what Terrence Malick has accomplished with this film and with the grandness of scale that he's reaching for here. Only his fifth film in the last 38 years, he has given us a work of art which makes us think long and hard about faith, evolution, science and spirituality.

Equal parts of small town family story combined with thought provoking imagery, music, and voiceover of how and why mankind exists, you can't walk out of this film without a strong feeling one way or the other. One way if you are a believer in something greater than us and quite another if you are not...

Set in a small Texas town in the 1950's, a father (Brad Pitt, representing nature) and mother (Jessica Chastain, representing grace) raise their three children in what can be considered a time of innocence, of Eden. Jack, the eldest (who we sometimes see in middle age represented by Sean Penn in a more current time) represents some of the struggles evident in family life and in growing up.

Both epic in the grand issues it's addressing and minute in the family dramas that we can all relate to, Malick has given us a film that is just short of greatness.

I will leave you with some transcendent words of wisdom from some of the mom's voiceover:

There are two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace... The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by... Nature only wants to please itself... It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. No one who loves the way of grace every comes to a bad end... Help each other. Love everyone. Every leaf. Every ray of light. Forgive.

Hereafter

I quite enjoyed this.

Three intersecting stories meet to give one something to truly ponder regarding the concept of afterlife.

Directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) this is the story of George Lonegan (a psychic portrayed by Matt Damon), Marcus (a British boy whose twin brother just died), and Marie (a French journalist who just survived the tsunami).

Similarly structured to films such as Babel or Crash, the film cuts back and forth between these three stories, each one addressing in its own way the concept of death, an afterlife, and is death really the end? George has a gift that he considers instead to be a curse, Marcus only wishes to communicate with his twin brother and is experiencing a terrible void in his young life since his twin died suddenly in a car accident, and Marie had technically drowned in the tsunami before being revived by locals.

The way the three stories intersect in the end may be a bit too coincidental but it is easily forgiven in this story which in sum is greater than its parts...

More... Wife Carrying World Championships

As promised... our video.

Photo Shoot

My wife got an opportunity to enjoy her anniversary gift, to have her photo taken by photographer Barry McCall (the Annie Leibovitz of Ireland).

Isn't she beautiful?

Grafton Street

Back in Dublin I came across this stationary wind-blown street performer in city center...

Finlandia

Jean Sibelius is a national treasure in Finland and is instrumental in forming a national identity for Finland. His "Finlandia" heard here is Finland's national anthem and was written in protest of encroaching censorship by Russia. As moving and stirring as "The Star-Spangled Banner" it was featured in the film Die Hard 2 (directed by the Finn Renny Harlin).

Helsinki

- Sibelius monument

- Finland's favorite son, composer Jean Sibelius

- wife and husband in Sibelius Park

- Excellent seafood restaurants... this is one of them

- Rock Church (carved in rock and with a copper ceiling)

Amores Perros

I saw this film when it was originally released ten years ago and recently had an opportunity to see it again. I rarely revisit films but made an exception for this one as it was (and still is) one of my favorite films.

It's raw, it's engaging, and it's cinematic art.

Set in Mexico City it centers on three separate stories that by chance bring everyone together in one horrific car crash that opens the movie.

The title translates to "Love's a Bitch" and though violent and gritty, this film does address love in all of its many forms. Dogs frequent the film and you can usually tell the type of person someone is by how they treat their dog.

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriago; this is the film that brought this talented pair to the attention of the rest of the world.

This duo later collaborated on 21 Grams and Babel.

16th Annual Wife Carrying World Championship

My wife and I headed off to Finland to compete in this year's Wife Carrying World Championships. I'll have a video for you in a later post...

We were in a city 6 hours north of Helsinki. It never got dark and it was surprisingly quite warm (30 degrees Celsius).

Needless to say, good fun was had by all...