Karaoke at Ego's

What fun!!!  A first for us.  Of course we watched and listened.  It was Karaoke League night with teams competing.  So refreshing to be around performers who sing off key, dance clumsily, are happy, happy and cheer each other on.  A refreshing hour with Austin's young people.  Abe's a trooper for coming along...not his thing at all!

THE FIRST MOVIE/Austin Film Society Documentary Tour

Tonight we headed to the Alamo Ritz to see a film that was made in a Northern Kurdish village in Iraq.  The village of Goptapa was one of many  that experienced the poison gassing that obliterated thousands of Kurds under Hussein's rule.  The filmmaker, Mark Cousins, was born  during the horrific turbulence of Northern Ireland 40 plus years ago.  He lives in Scotland now and his narration is with a blended Irish/Scottish accent that is lyrical and captivating..  He looks through his lens with the eye of a child and he captures the pure happiness and natural joy of the children in this village.  These kids are literate, love nature, know their history, and girls and boys play on equal footing.  They are willing and able to take flip cameras and tell their story.    The filmmaker brings them their first films to view and you share their jubilation  at ET and THE RED BALLOON. 

The Ritz wasn't crowded tonight and  once in a while there were technical difficulties.  So trivial when watching a film that made me even more aware of the power  films have in bringing us closer to a world we know so little about. Even though we hear "Iraq" daily in our conscious lives. Thank-you Mark Cousins for this gift of a film.  Thank-you as well for the beautiful music throughout. And as always, thank-you Chale Nafus for bringing these wonderful films to Austin.

INFERNO (L'ENFER)/AUSTIN FILM SOCIETY

Tonight's film in the Directors Without Boarders series is a doc about a French film.  And why it did not get made.  After hearing Chale's opening comments I knew that we were going to see a film about a filmmaker that Chale loves (his notes he handed out are  5 1/2 pages!)  The doc shows the unbridled and unfocused and unstructured Clouzot driving his actors and crew crazy by his working methods.  The screenplay  is of an obsessive paranoid husband imagining his wife (played by the beautiful Romy Schneider) being unfaithful with men and women alike.  We see the actors working their hardest to meet Clouzot's infinite demands and crew is awakened at 2 a.m. repeatedly to work on Clouzot's latest ideas.  The jealousy scenes with the husband are palpable.  The experimentation with lighting, color, patterns are maddening.  In the end I felt this was a sad commentary about a difficult artist losing a disciplined center needed to create his film.

Audition and La Condesa

I auditioned for the role of Miller, a left wing minister in GODS AND IDOLS.  An audition for a stage reading. A good experience showing me that acting classes really pay off.

Tonight Abe and I ate at La Condesa with a groupon coupon.  LOVELY!  DELICIOUS! GREAT AMBIANCE. 

And tonight I brought home part of my dinner to Liz who is an absolute pleasure to come home to.  Life is good.  Who could ask for more?

QUINTET at the Paramount

OOOH I don't do well with  sci-fi films and I did not know what was going on in this Robert Altman film.  It's post apocalyptic in a new ice age.  The costumes are cool, Paul Newman is always good to watch as is Bibi Anderson.  Abe said it reminded him of an Agatha Christie mystery.  I knew they were playing a game that resulted in gruesome deaths (think throat-cutting).  Abe understood it and liked it.  For further info ask him.

SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE/TRIFECTA ON 3RD

Tonight we went to Trifecta, a sports bar with great martinis and good food (think appetizers, pizza and pannini).  Abe got to watch sports and I got to have someone else cook!  Then we came home to watch SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, with Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich. I'm not much for vampire movies but this movie is so well acted and directed it is brilliant.  It made me interested in seeing the original NOSFERATU.  I enjoyed the image of the filmmaker as played by Malkovich: obsessive, driven, rude, self-centered and in the Malkovich way filled with a comical spirit.  His outrageous behavior always makes me laugh.

THE BOOK OF GRACE/Suzan-Lori Parks

While Suzan Lori-Parks was writing plays in NY she lived in Brooklyn and I always thought of her as Brooklyn's own.  How little I knew until reading her biography tonight.  She spent much of her childhood in Odessa, Texas when her father was stationed overseas.  She attended H.S. in Germany speaking German when her father was stationed there.  Both of her parents were academicians and she spent her childhood reading, writing and fantasizing.  The first play I saw of hers was TOPDOG/UNDERDOG at the Public Theater for which she won a Pulitzer. And tonight in Austin we saw this powerful play set in a boarder town in Texas.  The father works boarder patrol and is one scary guy, his wife is Grace who is filled with grace and humor and his son returns home wounded and angry.  All 3 actors were magnificent in this explosive drama about a family.  And when it was over all 3 actors walked back into the theater in street clothes where Abe, Liz and I sat discussing the play and took hugs, and praise and gratitude from the Moskowitzes of Brooklyn.  A great night of theater.