"Saint Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, set the theological foundation for centuries of Christian thinking about faith and redemption—and for as many hundreds of years of implicit (and explicit) anti-Semitism. But what if Paul has been misread?"

I watched a ton of movies this weekend.

The Bubble (aka Ha-Buah).  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0476643/
--Israeli film from 2006.  An Israeli soldier meets his future boyfriend at a Palestinian checkpoint.  It shows the good and the bad on both sides of that phenomenon, if too simplistically in my opinion.  Well-acted, lovely film with a frustrating ending and the unfortunate inclusion of the typical "funny gay roommate" and "funny straight woman roommate" which is just done waaaay too much in gay flicks.  But I did enjoy watching it in spite of all of that and nudged my vote up a bit due to the experience of it.  (4/5)

Hellraiser.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/
Finally saw this.  An extra point for creativity.  But really very badly acted and incredibly pointless.  (2/5)

Criminal.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362526/
Yep, pretty much just another heist movie.  FANTASTIC cast with great performances all around.  John C. Reilly, Diego Luna (probably my biggest movie star crush right now), and Maggie Gyllenhaal.  So yeah, totally worth watching for the pure enjoyment.  Reilly is great as a bad guy (not evil, just bad).  (3/5)

Manhunter.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091474/
I liked this very much.  Tom Noonan is a fantastic creepy serial killer actor...he almost reprised this by playing John La Roche in the freaky X-Files episodes "Paper Hearts."  And after the big finale, I simply have to love Inna Gada De Vida again.

Walk on Water.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352994/
A joint Israeli-Swedish film that takes place in both Israel and in Germany.  Young gay German man comes to visit his sister in Israel.  Israeli intelligence agent doubles as the gay guy's tour guide because it turns out that the German's grandfather was a particularly horrible Nazi leader back during the third reich, and has been hiding out in Argentina.  Different reasons to really love this: it's not a movie about gayness--it's a movie about friendship; the acting is fantastic all the way around; it's got a nice untidy plotline; the actors get to go from speaking Hebrew to English to German -- which I find very impressive.  Really great film.  (5/5)

Time to Leave (aka Le temps qui reste).  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417189/
Of course I had to watch a French film!  Especially with a gay lead character.  Rather snotty gay fashion photographer finds out he has terminal cancer with a couple months to live.  So he reacts by being nasty to people, then mellows out.  I won't give too much away...no point anyway, as it's more a character film than a big ole plot film.  Really nice, and I loved the ending.  (4.5/5)

Metroland.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119665/
Late 90s film starring Christian Bale and Emily Watson with lots of nudity.  But it's fun too.  Film about entering your thirties wondering if you've made the right choices so far.  Is it too late to give up the typical adult lifestyle and be a kid again?  It's a Spanish/French movie but the primary language is English.  In fact, there were no subtitles for the brief scenes that were spoken in French, but it was pretty easy to guss what they were saying.  A bit universal in theme.  Lovely scenery.  Good acting.  (4/5)

Indigo Girls - Live at the Roxy.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1206480/
I had recorded this off of Logo.  They cut off the encore so they could fill up space with commercials and teasers for other shows...actually this is very common for Logo.  It's a cable channel but they censor the heck out of the films they play.  And waaaay too many commercials.  But some good programming now and then, particularly the music-oriented shows (why bother watching Queer as Folk or The L Word on a gay channel that won't show nudity?).  This concert was from a year or two ago, and they had some other musical guests on there, including Brandi Carlile, who fits right in, and is really into the music.  And yep, I danced around during "Closer to Fine." (5/5)

The Embalmer (aka L'imbalsamatore).  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0322725/
Italian.  A middle-aged gay man (I believe he is a dwarf actually), a taxidermist, strikes a conversation with a fashion-model type young guy who expresses interest in learning the trade.  Reading the synopsis, it's about a guy with an unrequited obsession over the young man, who is not gay.  It looked good, but I had trouble with all the dead stuffed animals.  Too much for me at a gut level.

An American Tail.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090633/
That cartoon from the mid-80s.  I hadn't seen it.  I think I'm not in the right frame-of-mind for these kinds of films.  I need an adult element.  Maybe this had it, but the way it started was a bit sickly sweet for me, and then of course the cats are totally pure evil.  Yeah, wasn't in the mood.  Zzzzzz.  You know how it goes.

see

the double

or is it me

I who see

the double

it is the bourbon

i know it is

and i gotta pee

wanna grab you by the shoulders

those skinny shoulders

you're so cute in that jacket

but hell

what is cute anyway?

you and me now dammit.  I'm here for you.

Vulnerable.

Take ad-bloody-vantage of me.

Now.

Listening right now to this one...the Walkman's album "You & Me"



I recommend it :)

Some of you already think of me as nuts or offensive or lovably dotty.

It's about to get worse!

Today my shrink and I, with the help of my therapist...my team!...will work out a plan for me going off of my shrinkydink meds altogether.  I've thought long and hard about this...and won't go into all of the reasons for it...but both of them agree that it is worth a shot.  I'm going to work on techniques for coping when things come up, and new ways of looking at things.  This will be building on previous therapy work I have already done, and incorporating spirituality and philosophy and other fun stuff.

Anyway, thought I'd share.  Hopefully I don't get even MORE nuts or offensive or loveably dotty. Well, the last one wouldn't be too bad!

Peace and all good.