Back in the steamy Taipei of August

It's Day 2 since I landed and I'm up bright and early. It's been kind of exciting to be back in Taipei, as if exploring a new place again, after the details of it blurred a bit in my mind, layered over by all the places I visited on my trip.
Thanks again to my family and everyone I saw over my brief weeks in Canada. It was a truly lovely (and needed!) vacation and I feel full of great new memories and conversations. ;-)

I watched two great movies on the plane, and definitely recommend both.

1. Oceans
Filmed in over 50 countries by the makers of "Winged Migration," I thought it was really interesting to watch a nature documentary that's quite different in style from BBC's Planet Earth, but no shortage of "is that real?" incredible scenes. In fact, a lot of the time I wasn't even sure if I was watching real footage, or computer animation. I think this may partly come from them getting in really close to many animals, where you as a viewer, really spend time with their faces and I found them both very alien and humanoid at the same time.Warning: there is a pretty disturbing part about 2/3 of the way through - guess what about? Humans wreaking havoc on the oceans, of course... At the very end, there was a sentence en francais on the screen that I translated to mean: "No animals were harmed for the purpose of making this documentary; all the massacre scenes were re-enacted." I found that difficult to believe, but maybe what it really meant is they didn't stage any deaths, just found them happening and filmed them. Very sad.
If you're not shy about downloading, I have found one link online, but no English subtitles, although there is minimal talking and the visuals would be more than powerful enough on their own
.
Also, check out their cool (all in French) interactive website


2. Men in the City (or Männerherzen in its native deutsch)

Althought IMDB gives it a pretty low rating and it's true, it's all a bit simplistic with stories set up so we watch lives quickly fall apart, then wrap up neatly again with a feel-good ending, I thought this was a totally enjoyable watch. Very funny, clean enough for the whole family and great editing that really helps the stories weave in and out of each other, finally incorporating just about everyone whose face you've seen onscreen.
The plot is set around a bunch of men, strangers at first, who go to the same gym, their love lives and successes (or lack thereof) and how we can all step up and be the better people we can be.