I am off to watch a Fellini.

Eventually last night's film – Spiderman 3 – turned out to be a shallow and uninteresting one. It was simply bad. I had the feeling the film is not going to satisfy me at all already before watching it, or be a a glorious cinematic achievement, but because I watched the first two films, I felt obligated, just as in the Pirates of the 3 case, to watch the third one as well. The budget of this film was $300 million dollars, and I guess the special (computer) effects were a significant part of the budget (together with the salary of the main characters, not mediocre actors and actresses at all, well some of them are, but they all suffered from an undeveloped character, which rather sucks for in that way the audience might think they are pathetic actors. Yet, one should note that the all actresses are extremely pathetic). They should have just donated the money to the starving people of Darfur instead, because it was probably a waste of money to create such a meaningless, farcical, predictable and generally disappointing film. I mean, I watched worse films in the past, but their budget was not $300 million dollars. The first Spiderman film was quite good, relatively to the genre of course, the second was creative in a way, but the third one was grotesque in its nature. The worse part is that the film is not building up into something worthwhile or substantial. Throughout the film I always had the feeling that if the end is not going to mean something, I am first going to throw stones on the screen, second fly to the USA, third going to buy a gun, and fourth and last, going to…I should not continue, I have a sick mind, and maybe the FBI is reading this (just to clarify, as the FBI may read this, and they probably employ dimwitted people - I am not intending to kill anyone or to buy any sort of weapon while staying in the USA in the next 4 years). But really, don't watch this film, even if you cared to watch the first two films. Many things are happening all the time, but the film is not progressing towards something. And the main question was why the bad guys are so nice. Why do they have such a cute look on their face and why do you want to see them winning? I mean, you never want Spiderman to lose, but the bad guys were just too good to lose. Venom was so not frightening, dustman was so miserable, the "New Goblin" is actually Harry so he should not be too bad deep inside. So, out of three bad guys – and two are getting "clean" towards the end, the dustman just going with the wind (as sand of course) and the "New Goblin" is fighting with Spiderman in order to save the idiotic MJ – only one could be describe as bad, and even he has his reasons. And wait, the worse part is that there are so many romantic scenes, or semi-romantic scenes, or just oh-we-are-Americans-so-we-have-to-put-some-moral-lesson-scenes, that the taste for some action is being lost. Forever. Oh, and the humour is poor as well…

Hopefully I am going to watch soon better films. There is a film-festival in southern Israel, starting tomorrow, so that should be interesting. It was suppose to be in my town, just like in the past 6 years I think (more or less), but they relocated it due to the rockets, to a nearby city, which is far enough from the Gaza Strip and the rockets. After that I am hoping to start going again to the Cinémathèque in my town. It is showing mainly quality cinema, and not Hollywood trash films – there is good cinema in Hollywood as well though - or films like Spiderman, which are not trash but are not really "quality" either. I hope it is still open, because in the past I was going to watch films there all the time. It is such a great place in a town like Sderot. Later tonight I am going to watch "La Strada" of Federico Fellini. Should be an interesting film, from what I have read about it before. I never got the chance to watch it and tonight is the ultimate night commit myself to such masterpiece.

It is fun to watch films with my Israeli friends again, though the Hebrew subtitles in the bottom are distracting, and sometimes I am commenting in English and not in Hebrew, and then my friends (like yesterday) look at me in a "WTF?" face. I guess it is part of coming back home – rebuilding old friendships (and languages) once again. I still need to meet many other people, because until now I met only about five. The rest did not come back home this weekend from either the army or the national service (and the weekend is over for us- Sunday is a normal day in Israel, unless you are a Christian Arab, and then you are free).

As I wrote yesterday (two days ago actually) I met my Mishpucha today (yesterday actually), and it was quite lovely. I missed my Grandmother and Grandfather, and all the political and general debates my aunts and uncles are having when we are all meeting each other. Well, a "debate" would be a rather polite way to describe the scene, so let me describe the actual event, as it happened today: Imagine many Jewish people. Everyone is sitting next to the lunch/dinner (we started eating around 15:30) table, starting to pile up the (excellent) food my grandmother cooked. We are blessing on the bread and enjoying drinking some glasses of wine (actually today we drank champagne for some reason) and other, non-alcoholic, beverages. Suddenly, someone is raising a topic of discussion (for example, one of the topics today was: 'Are there starving children within the boundaries of the State of Israel?' in a connection to a different discussion that was initiated earlier about the social-welfare system in the Nordic region). It is starting when everyone is calm. The points are being clarified by the person who started the discussion. Then the reply – still polite. And then, the first person is starting to yell in order to emphasise why his points are correct. Then another person is joining, trying to be heard so he is yelling even louder, and then the second one is yelling as well, and the fourth one is mumbling something like 'Let me eat in silence', my grandfather can't hear anything in a way, so he is discussing a completely different topic from his place, and then a second debate is starting, and then more roars are being heard and, yes, I believe you got the point – this is the way Jewish people discuss. Maybe not Jewish, but Israelis are for sure to engage a discussion in such manner. It is quite amusing until it stops when my grandmother asks everyone to be quiet for they are giving her a headache. It just reminded me when I showed Ted during Reading Week a sports' debating show, and he asked 'Why are they all yelling?', and I told him something like: 'They are not yelling, it is the way we debate in Israel'. In my opinion it is quite charming though, because eventually everyone understands that they are yelling too much, and then ask the other person to stop yelling, and then suddenly the discussion returns to his calm start, until the internal Mount Vesuvius everyone has erupts once again. Interesting. You must see it before you die, so you should drop by Israel someday. I met some parts of the other side of the family as well (my father's side). His mother and father are both dead, so we are not having a "united" gatherings any more on the Sabbath, which is sad. I met, though, my favourite aunt and two of my father's brothers, both of them are in the hospital right now (and one of them is really funny, we could not stop laughing with him today. He broke his leg, while the other one has more serious problems right now).

I also went to a nice pub today to watch the game of Israel vs. Macedonia (we won 2-1 in Macedonia). It was a bad game, but the Baileys was nice, and we won, hence we still have a chance to qualify to the European Championship in 2008. A small chance, but at least it still exists. We probably are going to win against Andorra on Wednesday. Assuming that we will have 17 points, and we will probably be in the second place because Croatia (first – 16 points now, 2 above Israel) and Russia (second – 14 points, but better goal differences, which is our worse problem, just like in the qualification matches to the World Cup, when Switzerland qualified instead of Israel, because they had better goal differences) are going to meet. England is in the fourth (!)^th place right now, with 11 points, but 6 games (Russia also played only 6 games as well, unlike Croatia and Israel – 7 each). In the next round of games – September – Israel will meet England in the new Wembley Stadium (0-0 in the first match played in Israel), and that would be a difficult game for me as I will not know whom to support.
One month after the encounter with the English, Israel will meet Croatia in Zagreb (3-4 to Croatia in the match played in Israel). The last two games will be in November – Russia in Israel (1-1 in Russia in the first match) and a home game in Macedonia. Hopefully Israel will get some points in Croatia. I am a bit optimistic because the last time Israel lost abroad in an official match was in the Euro 2004 qualification campaign (lost 3-0 to France in a really pathetic ending to a pathetic campaign). Since then we had a draw with France (0-0), Ireland (2-2), Switzerland (1-1) and Russia (1-1) and victories against Cyprus (2-1), Faroe Islands (2-0), Estonia (1-0) and now Macedonia (2-1). So 8 games, 0 defeats, which is quite impressive, though we never managed to win against the "Big Teams".

Tomorrow I am going to the library to take out about three books. I need to read something, as I finished the Dubliners by James Joyce during last night (after coming back from the film). It is indeed a masterpiece in my opinion, and I am happy I finally read it. So many different points of view over the growth of the Irish national identity, the socialisation of the people at the time and the individual struggle with life. The protagonists in the different stories are all similar in the way they are trying to be complete, "normal", one can say "socially adjusted". However, they all fail nonetheless and surrender to a some sort of temptation or an immoral "value". The book also attempts to reveal us the changes the Irish society went through through the eyes of its, primarily, urban people.

I am also about to finish something I have read for quite a long time "The Two Germanies since 1945", a very wide-ranging description of East and West Germany from 1945 to 1987, when the book was published. Too bad I know some more details of (rather crucial and important) events that happened after 1987, but I was obviously unable to read it when the book went out for I was not born yet. In a way it is not the most complete historical book for our time, but it is appealing as it can adds to the individual's knowledge about the Western Perspective of the separation and the creation and growth of the two countries.

Tomorrow – bored again, as all my friends, and by saying all I mean all, will go back to their national duty. I think I have some younger friends, but I think I am too old right now to hang out with them. I'll check out what is happening with my Israeli UWC friends (I have 3 good friends from there), so maybe we could go out this week. I am also going to start looking for a job. It will help my wish to fly to Jon's birthday, and with a bit of help, eventually I think we will manage to come up with enough money to buy the ticket. However, I need to find a job first…

Wednesday – the Première of my sister's film.

The rest is open for books and films.

I am off to watch a Fellini.

Moshe.

p.s. I think I am no longer going to write in my blog. It seems like I can write the same things here, so it does not make sense to have two blogs. I should make a post there that announces that. Oh, and I am sorry for writing lots in the this post and in the one before it. I am just getting carried away when I have time and because I am enjoying writing things to you all.