A good night for vampires…
Last night, Annette went to an event for the undergrad English majors club (really, literature majors club), so Will and I had a “Daddy/Will night” event: we went to see the classic silent film Nosferatu at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. A silent film, you ask? Yes, but with orchestral accompaniment, which included things like this weird wind sound effect machine, lots of other percussion, and, of course, the theater organ. And as an aside here: this is one of those reasons why I like living in this area and why we probably will be moving to Ann Arbor eventually, that it is possible to see classic silent films with music as a special event at a place like the Michigan Theater.
Anyway, it was a dark and stormy night, so that seemed to be a perfect atmosphere for seeing one of the classic (perhaps the classic?) horror/vampire film. Lots of other people thought the same thing; the place was about 2/3rds full, including the balcony.
How was it, you ask? Well, for starters, it was less than scary, which probably suited Will just fine. I’m sure the horror effect was in part diluted by the giggling junior high boys who sat behind us. But beyond that, the melodramatic and dated acting and not great special effects didn’t instill fear. I guess it was scary 80 or so years ago.
But it was still pretty cool to see, at least for me. There’s a ton of stuff in this movie that has been repeated over and over again in countless other movies, and it is one of those things that anyone who has even a remotely serious interest in film has to see. Again and again even Will was able to point out when a “famous scene” came on the screen. And the music was very cool too.
I’d say go see it yourself, but it was a one-shot deal. I guess I would say instead that you should go see another one of the other silent films they show there once in a while.
Daily photo project
This morning via yahoo, I came across this “daily photo” project. There’s a video at the site that shows a time-lapse of this guy’s self-portraits over the last seven or so years, from the time he was 22 until now. I’m not sure, but this seems like a pretty, um, self-involved thing to me. And it doesn’t so much show off the process of aging as it shows the changes in this kid’s hairstyles. Still, it’s kinda cool….
“The Last Unicorn” (Or Bill HD’s 91)
I appreciate that this is kind of an inside joke about Bill’s 91 in golf earlier this year (a round that was gifted to him by a unicorn), but I thought others might enjoy this super stupid video. Boing-boing described it as being like pepto for your eyes. Indeed.
Ask a Ninja Reviews Pirates of the Caribbean
Annette turned me on to this site, askaninja.com. Specifically, this review of Pirates of the Caribbean. Apparently, the Ninja didn’t like it.
More Europe Photos (and Two Movies, too)
Just for some of my millions of curious readers out there: I uploaded some more photos and updated my “Europe 2007” set on Flickr– click here to see the set, or here to go directly to the slide show. Basically, now I include stuff from Germany and Austria.
I also have uploaded a couple of short movies that I took with my camera. There’s this one from Florence, where we’re driving across the river and then come up on the Ponte Vecchio (about 6.3 MB). Then there’s this one from Mittenwald, when a herd of goats came through this touristy lake area. About 4.8 MB. Be sure to note the shepard walking through with his goats.
When I get some time and inclination, I’ll put more of this stuff together into a more complete movie, kind of like thie thing I did for our Museum of Science and Industry trip.
Stupid Americans/Language Skills….
I found this funny little bit of video from a Canadian TV Show— it’s on YouTube, but you can find a link to it and more examples here on boing-boing. It is one of those things that is certainly on my mind while I am here being a stupid American– or trying not to be too stupid of an American.
In Italy– specifically, the very American-heavy tourist center of Florence– just about everyone spoke English well enough to communicate and they were perfectly comfortable doing so, too. I did feel like I wish I would have known a little more Italian, that I would have actually listened to the CDs that I bought and/or taken a class or something. A little would have been better than nothing.
Now, compare that experience with Germany. Where we are at is popular with the German tourists, and some Italians too, but not so much with English speakers. But that’s okay since Annette speaks very solid Germany, her mom is actually German (though she has been in the US for so long that some of the natives here confuse her with an American who just speaks perfect German), and I have some rudimentary German skills. So here’s the thing: here in Germany, we are trying harder to speak German, and we kind of have to try harder since the locals don’t have that great of English skills.
It has been interesting. My most common German phrase is “My Deutsch ist sehr schlecht” (which means “my German is very bad”). However, I have learned that:
- They like it when you try. Often, Germans will say (back to me in German, usually) something like “oh, your German isn’t bad at all.”
- A combination of German and English pretty much will get me by.
- I feel like all those failed years of college German are coming back to me rather quickly, and I bet if I were here for another two or so weeks, I’d be in pretty good shape, Deutsch-wise.
- The Germans sometimes like practicing their English on the stupid Americans. We had a nice chat with a guy in the train station (who worked for the train station) about the automatic ticket machine. Several of the choices on this machine we used to buy train tickets to Innsbruck tomorrow were irrelevant. As I read the instructions (which were in English), I said “oh, that doesn’t matter” out loud. It took this guy a while, but he had a lightbulb moment (“ah– auf Deutsch, sag man ‘machts nichts'”). So I spread a little love, I guess.
I would upload some pictures, but I’m running out of time. I might have one more post before we come home on Monday. The short version: yesterday, we were in Munich, which was okay– too many tourists (again), and just a lot of walking, though we did see some cool churches and a fun market area. Today, back in Mittenwald. Will went hiking with the grandparents while Annette and I shopped a little. I bought a very cool Mittenwald Brauerei hat, and a snowglobe (of course). I suspect there will be some more gifty shopping for friends and family on Saturday, in part because we didn’t get much of a chance to do that in Florence and in part because stuff is dramatically cheaper here. Tomorrow we’re going to Innsbruck; Sunday back to Munich to get ready to get on the plane on Monday.
Andy Rooney is a cranky old man
I don’t know how to embed this video here because it’s from ifilm. But it’s pretty funny.
Free Movies and Such
This might be the sort of thing that would be better posted on my Official Blog, but since I have “signed off” there until we get back from our upcoming trip, I’ll post it here. Besides, it is kind of “fun” stuff.
“Free Movies” is a list of/links to movies that have either fallen out of copyright and into the public domain or are otherwise available online. You’re not going to find the latest here, but (for example) you could watch very famous (and silent and hard to find) films like Battleship Potemkin (which I haven’t seen yet) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In fact, I might watch one of these while Annette and Will watch a different movie in the other room….. Oh, and there’s some totally crazy movies too, like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
I’m thinking of four-letter word that begins with “F”
Okay, perhaps I just need to go to bed, but I thought this was pretty, uh, f-ing funny:
“The Big Lebowski – F_cking Short Version,” via YouTube: