first one of the season

We're finally getting our first thunderstorm of spring. Ever since I was little I've enjoyed thunderstorms. The louder the thunder, the better. I like how quickly it gets dark and the flashes of lightning and the rumbles from overhead. The claps have always freaked me out but only a little bit just because they are so sudden.

In my humble opinion: One of the best movies of the year so far is definitely Walk On Water. It's directed by Israeli director Eytan Fox. He also directed Yossi & Jagger, a film about two army men who form a relationship while in camp on the Israel-Lebanon border. The new movie, Walk On Water tells the story of Eyal, a hardened hitman living in Israel who is charged with befriending a young man and his sister in order to get information about their grandfather who is responsible for some crimes during WWII. Eyal bugs the apartment in order to find out what, if anything, the siblings know about their grandfather. Eyal acts as a tour guide and the three of them visit several attractions such as the Dead Sea.

Axel, the young man, it turns out is gay and Eyal finds this out as the film progresses and when Axel returns home to Berlin, Eyal is forced to travel there in order to attend a birthday party for Axel's father. The final scenes in which Eyal discovers Axel's criminal grandfather and the moment when Axel realizes Eyal is not who he has seemed, provide some wonderful quiet suspense. The movie also uses a lot of music to correspond to the characters shifting moods and their slowly changing ideals. Of course any movie that uses Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love, one of the few Boss tunes I really like, has got to be good. The tunnel in this movie is not necessarily a literal one, instead it's the tunnel the characters go through to reach the other side.

One of the best scenes is a scene in which Eyal, a total straight man, and Axel sit in a gay bar and Eyal gets a brief instruction on gay sex. It's not played for laughs, however, the fact that the characters are genuine and not stereotypical, does offer the scene some chuckles. Definitely good chuckles. It's a MUST SEE.

That's all for now, enjoy your day..........

paul