Jul

28

Open-Air Cinema II

Filed Under Announcements, Family & Friends, Films, Life & Leisure, Special Events, Travel/People & Places | 2 Comments

And it’s that time of the year again. That is, to go online, check out the movie listing of the Open-Air Cinema in Nidau, and buy a ticket online.

This year’s open-air cinema program is as follows (taken from the Outnow-ch website):

24.07. 22:00 Young@Heart [E/d/f]
25.07. 22:00 No Country for Old Men [E/d/f]
26.07. 22:00 Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis [F/d]
27.07. 22:00 Ratatouille [E/d/f]
28.07. 22:00 Shine a Light [E/d/f]
29.07. 22:00 Juno [E/d/f]
30.07. 22:00 Sex and the City [E/d/f]
01.08. 22:00 I Am Legend [E/d/f]
02.08. 22:00 American Gangster [E/d/f]
03.08. 22:00 Into the Wild [E/d/f]
04.08. 22:00 The Simpsons Movie [E/d/f]
05.08. 22:00 What Happens in Vegas… [E/d/f]
06.08. 22:00 P.S., I Love You [E/d/f]
07.08. 22:00 Keinohrhasen [D/f]
08.08. 22:00 The Kite Runner [E/d/f]
09.08. 22:00 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [E/d/f]
10.08. 22:00 The Bucket List [E/d/f]

I was able to watch some of the featured films in the past — e.g. Ratatouille (funny and inspiring), I Am Legend (scary), American Gangster (forgettable despite the stellar cast), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (still exciting with the same old formula, but you see a much older Indiana Jones) — but I’m keen to watch The Kite Runner and The Bucket List.

I’m delighted to learn that the film The Kite Runner will be shown in English as well (my husband misinformed me days ago that it would not be). My heart did a somersault when I saw on the website the cinema language code [E/d/f], which stands for “English/Deutsch/francais,” beside The Kite Runner title.

I don’t particularly like summer — the summer heat gives me terrible migraine headaches — but the Open-Air Cinema event is something I look forward to, year after year. There’s something about watching a nice film in an old castle, with the glittering stars above you and the cool summer night temperature soothing your skin, that makes me…happy, as juvenile as this may sound.

Jul

18

ABBA Musical

Filed Under Family & Friends, Films, Life & Leisure, Music | 5 Comments


We originally planned to watch Kung Fu Panda to mark my 38th birthday last Wednesday. But somehow, after my husband’s last-minute revelation that what he really wanted to see was Hancock, we ended up watching the musical comedy Mamma Mia as a compromise.

And we didn’t regret our decision. Not one bit.

Mamma Mia, the film adaptation of the hit ABBA stage musical, tells the story of soon-to-be-married Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) who, after reading her mother’s old diary entries, discovers that she has not one but three possible fathers. She secretly invites them to come to her wedding set in a beautiful Greek island, where her Mom runs a tourist villa. That’s when all the chaotic fun begins.

The cast, led by the multi-talented Meryl Streep as Sophie’s mother, did a great job fleshing out ultra comic roles that required them to sing and dance to hit songs of the famous Swedish pop group. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard, who played the three fathers, were simply hilarious in the “Waterloo” musical number that capped the film. Not to be forgotten are the lady sidekicks of Meryl Streep, played by Julie Walters and Christine Baranski, whose outrageous performances provided great comic relief.

The film is truly LOL funny. I’ve never laughed so loud and repeatedly at that inside a Swiss cinema before — Swiss moviegoers, I’ve observed, are usually reserved and I always try not to laugh so hard when watching comedy films so as not to disturb the peace and tranquility in the moviehouse (”Swiss integration,” my dear friends). But with Mamma Mia, I literally had tears in my eyes from too much laughing, sequence after sequence. I couldn’t help it.

This is the kind of movie you don’t have to carefully critique for its cinematic elements — it actually has a thin plot — and technically digest for Oscar-like reviews. Mamma Mia is, after all, one wacky comedy that encourages its viewers to loosen up and take its brand of humor seriously.

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