Ins Kino

In Seattle, I made regular cinematic pilgrimages, but here in Köln most of the movies aren't English-friendly. The Metropolis Theater in Ebertplatz, however, has three screens devoted to American films shown in the original English. Thursday evening Kelly and I went there for our first movie in Köln, The Bourne Ultimatum, which only opened in Deutschland last week. Natürlich, lieben wir den Film.

Additionally, as we walked toward lunch on Wednesday, my classmate Machiko stopped to check out what was happening at the Japanisches Kulturinstitut, housed near the Universität zu Köln. (Me, I woulda figured Tokyo the more practical location, but apparently culture-hungry Japanese don't mind the commute. Maybe the rent's cheap....) Lo and behold, they're running a hot film series there, and to my great surprise, half the films are scheduled to play with English subtitles. The films range from relatively underrepresented 1950s classics, like Twenty-Four Eyes and Floating Clouds, to 1970s cult avant-garde fare, like Funeral Parade of Roses and a program of Shuji Tereyama shorts, and films like The Insect Woman to bridge the gap between. These start late this month, and I'm looking forward to catching five or so.

Finally, we got a TV!!! Not a 50” plasma-screen, but free from our landlords - yay! So far we can only pick up two channels, but we're tweaking with it. We brought my region-unrestricted, DiVX-supporting DVD player with us to Germany. As always, there's some research and accessory-purchasing to do before we can hook it up, but once that's done, I'll be kicking off a Chantal Akerman marathon over here. Good times!