Aviator

'Aviator' is the kind of spectacle that hasn't been seen much since the golden days of Hollywood. The movie plays like a sense memory with Technicolor skies, ravishing and silver planes and celebrated nightspots like the Coconut Grove with big-bands and showgirls.

But it is, first and foremost, the story of Howard Hughes (DiCaprio)...aviator, filmmaker, industrial pioneer and a man with many beautiful women in his life. He was the richest man in America in his day, but he took outrageous risks with his money, pushing his fortunes to the breaking point and beyond. As his fame and reputation grew, his personal demons did, too. He suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, was phobic about germs, and as his success grew, so did his paranoia.

Last night, another couple came over to my girl-friend's house for some wine and cheese. The guy had a really bad cold but after I mentioned that once in a while my girl-friend would get upset with something I say, he shook my hand to congratulate me with the fact that 'once in a while' was much better than he had to deal with with his girl-friend. After they left, the door hadn't closed yet, or my girl-friend was instructing me to wash my hands and take some flu medicine, assuming that I surely would get sick after touching his hands.

According to some sources, germs phobia can be triggered by myriad benign events like movies, TV, or perhaps seeing someone else experience trauma. So I maybe should refrain from showing the Aviator DVD to my girl-friend..

Dogma

Kevin Smith, a churchgoing Catholic, uses Dogma to explore a wide range of church-related issues. The film comes to a head at a church rededication in Red Hook, N.J., conducted by a cardinal who is interested in updating the way Catholicism markets itself in the modern world.

This Christmas Eve I attended a service in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. And allthough the 'Our Father' prayer that we recited is still applicable today, I suggest that the Catholic church considers using these modernized guidelines for its followers to read and reflect upon:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R's:
- Respect for Self
- Respect for other's
- Responsibility for all your actions
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Don't' let a little dispute injure a great relationship
6. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
7. Spend some time alone every day.
8. Open arms to change but don't let go of your values.
9. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
10. Live a good honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
11. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
12. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
13. Be gentle with the earth.
14. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
15. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds the need for each other.
16. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
17. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Beautiful Girls

In this entertaining drama, bar pianist Willie leaves New York City for Knight's Ridge, Massachusetts, to attend a high school reunion. He's unsure about his job and whether or not to commit to Tracy and finds his working-class buddies in a similar funk. Tommy plows snow for a living and is caught in the crossfire between his lover and a passionate affair with his married ex-girlfriend. Paul has just been ditched by Nan for a butcher and is mad that the women in town don't match the pin-ups on his wall. It takes three women to get these confused men straight about love relationships.

Natalie Portman steals the movie as a wise-beyond-her-years 13 year old. Uma Thurman lets the boys know what women really want. And Rosie O'Donnell demolishes the unreality of the typical male view of female beauty. Populated with colorful characters, this comedy hits the spot with its wry observations on sexual politics.

So what comes it all down to? Women seek love, men seek respect. Women want relationships, men want sex and love, women want commitment, men freedom. So men are sometimes reticent about getting into a relationship. Eventually though, most guys want to settle down. I think I'm ready to settle down..

Divorce Italian Style

Other than an amusing comedy, Divorce Italian Style is one part decadent nobility and two parts Bluebeard the ladykiller. Marcello Mastroianni proves he's a master of clever characters in the role of a self-style smoothie who intends to get rid of his pest of a signora and live to romance the girl next door. Divorce is unthinkable in Catholic Italy, but for this hot-blooded Romeo, where there's a will there's a way.

In the movie, our Romero is parading his wife around town in her most sexy outfit. He is hoping that this will induce the interest of other men resulting in one of them having an affair with her.

Over the last couple of weekends, I attended some holiday parties with my girl-friend. She dressed up as well and received a lot of attention. This weekend we're planning to go to a Christmas service in a Catholic church in San Francisco. This time, I'll ask her to not dress up..

Winged Migration

Do those who consider themselves free, think much about birds? It may only be after time stuck in a classroom, an office, or a prison, that someone watches them seriously.

The documentary "Winged Migration" follows five years' worth of bird migrations around the world. European turtledoves, jungle macaws, booming sage grouses in Idaho, Vietnamese black-headed ibexes: these and several dozen other species are observed, following the curve of the globe in the search of food and warmth.

The last 2 weeks of November, my parents were visiting me here in the US. As my mom really likes birds, I started to watch them more consciously when we were visiting places such as Año Nuevo State Park and the Pinnacles National Monument.

As birds are the ultimate representation of freedom, does the fact that I'm noticing birds mean that my relationship is showing long-term potential?

The Motorcycle diaries

Before he became the Marxist revolutionary icon known as "El Che," Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was an Argentine medical student tired of school and itching to see the world.
So on January 4, 1952, the 23-year-old Guevara and his friend Alberto Granada jumped on an old motorcycle and embarked on an eight-month journey across South America.
The trek is chronicled in the movie The Motorcycle Diaries.

Traveling splits many moments in two: melancholy for what is left behind and excitement of entering a new space.

Similar moments occur in relationships and currently I'm in a new space. But as I'm so excited about this new place, melancholy is not part of the equation.

Pillow Book

This weekend I saw the Peter Greenaway movie "The Pillow Book". The film is about a successful model who revives memories of her calligrapher father by having her lovers give her pleasure by writing on her body. An affair with an Englishman leads her to start writing herself, using others as her paper.

This weekend was my girl-friend's birthday and I wanted to surprise her with a trip to Mendocino. As a friend also invited me to a Halloween party this weekend, I had to decline the invitation. My friend answered "wow! Already spending bday together! congrats. You have such good karma or something you did in a past life (or this life!!) is bringing you great luck w/ girl-friends". I was so proud of my good Karma, that I forwarded the message to my girl-friend.

I missed one minor detail though - the email also contained my original message saying that I wasn't able to make it because I was going to Mendocino. So by forwarding the email, my girl-friend knew all along where we were going. Even some of her friends that I met before the trip were in on it.

We still had a fantastic weekend. But in order to not give away any suprises in the future, maybe writing on bodies instead of email isn't such a bad idea after all

In the mood for Love

This weekend I watched "In the Mood for Love", a romance melodrama which tells the story of a married man (played by Tony Leung) and a married woman (played by Maggie Cheung), living in rented rooms of neighboring apartments. They fall in love with each other while grappling with the infidelities of their respective spouses whom they discover are involved with each other. It’s a beautiful movie by any standard: the colors, the mood, the story, the acting, the soundtrack.

This weekend, I was also staying at my girl-friend's house. We were ready to go to bed and when I came out of the bathroom, the lights in the house were already out except for one candle in the bedroom. I considered it very thoughtful of her that she lighted a candle so I could find my way to the bed and I blew it out after I got there.

Wrong move... the candle wasn't intended to help me find my way. My baby was in the mood for love and my little blow did turn off more than just the light..

Meet the parents

'Meeting the parents' has gotten a whole different meaning over the last 3 weeks. My new sweetheart has never introduced any boy-friend to her parents because if she would, they would expect her to marry the guy.

Yesterday, we went out bowling with some friends. Arnie, a family therapist was there as well. Other than 'the parents', the number '6' is weighting heavily on our new relationship as well (see previous posting). So my sweetheart suggested that we should talk to Arnie about this number six and how every time I would mention it, she would gets hip cramps.

The only professional advice that he could give me was short and sobering: "Take a second job; do you know what college education is costing nowadays?"

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

Set in the '50s, 'The Prize Winner of Defiance' is the true story of one woman's effort to keep her family of 10 afloat under difficult circumstances with winnings from jingle contests. Applying her remarkable resourcefulness and an uncommon wit, she finds her own way in the profitable jingle contests popular in the 1950s and '60s. The result is a bittersweet comedy-drama.

One of the perks that comes with working at the SF Film festival is a free membership of the SF Film Society. This enabled me to see a prescreening of the movie in San Francisco. Following the 'contest' theme of the movie, there was a free raffle before the screening.

I couldn't believe my luck. Not because I won anything in the raffle because I didn’t. I felt lucky because my date for the movie is turning out to be a winner in every way imaginable.

Update: my beautiful date read my palm this weekend and concluded that we would have 6 kids. Guess I should get into the contest business as well.