Saturday
Who’s gonna tell these guys not to rally or to wear masks? Bikers gather at the annual event in Sturgis, South Dakota.
If there’s a more amusing headline than this in today’s news, I’d like to see it: “Nude man seen chasing down wild boar after it stole his laptop while he was sunbathing.” It took place in Berlin.
This week’s Friday night movie fix, courtesy of Netlix, was a solid entry from down under, Escape from Pretoria (2020). It’s based on the 1989 memoir of the same title by Tim Jenkin, who is played by Daniel Radcliffe. It’s the story of two young white men working to end apartheid in South Africa. They are arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. They plot their escape, involving another inmate. Fortunately, politics takes a back seat to the plan, which is ingenious. Even though the end result is obvious, there is still suspense. Filmed in Australia, it was directed by Francis Annan, who has been involved in a diverse mix of TV, shorts, docs and full length features. Dan Webber, who played Lee Harvey Oswald in 11.22.63, is intense as Jenkin’s collaborator, as are Mark Leonard Winter, the third man, and Ian Hart as long term inmates. 14,000+ users at IMDb have rated Escape…, forging to a consensus of 6.8 on a scale of ten. It runs less than two hours. It failed at the box office, but it’s worth a look, especially for those fascinated with prison breaks. Here are Winter, Radcliffe and Hart in character:
For the first two hours it seemed it would be a disappointing session for the floating book shop. I reminded myself of the sales of three of my books, which I discovered this morning during my weekly check of my Amazon page. Still, I hate to go through the process of setting up the display without having something to show for it, especially these days when I’m overstocked. Then Monse` bought an audio book of Nicholas Sparks’ At First Sight and the DVD of Burlesque (2010) starring Cher and Christina Aguilera, and it ignited a run of luck. A gentleman selected Desperation by Stephen King, The Overstory, a novel by Richard Powers, and a work of non-fiction; then a lovely young woman in a beautiful summer dress who was doing some stretching while in line at Chase spotted a book on yoga and asked how much it was. Bank transaction completed, she returned and purchased a bunch of other items as well, included Dreams of My Russian Summer by Andreï Makine, a John D. McDonald thriller, two kids’ books and two books on opera I’d been carrying for years. She was followed by an Asian man who has made many purchases through the years. He bought four DVDs, a Bible, a little booklet on Pope Francis, and Wimbledon, a novel by Rider McDowell. And a middle age woman chose a novel in Russian. My thanks to all.
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