Run Lola Run

So I'm sad that Borders is going out of business. I have spent many, many hours there.
I spent several hours yesterday and today reading. I found Dragon Ball Z manga which took me back to my childhood. I read all the way up to Cell, if anyone remembers the series.

I was going to buy a few books as the store was about to close but the line was so long I decided to come back in the morning. It'll give me a chance to make sure I want to buy them. I think Jeff and his family have left for Africa for 2 weeks. I was going to borrow the Harry Potter series from him but never connected with him. I looked for them at the library but I swear I couldn't find them. Whatever, I should finish LOTR first anyway.

I talked myself out of buying another German film, Run Lola Run, and I'm glad I didn't buy it because I found the whole movie on youtube. It was really good but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't watch it too many times. I wish it were easier to find German movies (you're lucky to find a German book section at all) and I think I want to buy anything German, but I am trying to be selective. There are two other movies on youtube I have queued up that are German. Although I'm not sure how much dialogue is in Vampyr by Carl Theodor Dreyer. I will watch The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum tomorrow, hopefully.

Run Lola Run was a good movie. The actual plot is simple, but the creative structure is interesting. Essentially Lola receives a panicked call from her boyfriend Manni, who has lost 100,000 DM, accidentally leaving the bag on the subway. He is a small time criminal and the money was from a deal, and his boss is expecting him to deliver the money in 20 minutes. Lola runs to the bank where her father works for help.

The movie plays out in three different runs, with subtle but significant changes between them. The first time her father throws her out of the bank, saying he feels unappreciated at home and is running away with his mistress. The second time Lola holds her father at gunpoint and robs the bank. She escapes when the police mistake her for a customer who is oblivious that the bank is being robbed. However, when she reaches Manni, he is run over by an ambulance. The third time she misses her father as he leaves the bank, so she bets all her money on a game of roulette at the casino. She wins and runs to meet Manni. Manni meanwhile has run into the homeless man who stole his money from the subway and caught him. Lola sees him leave his boss' car, having delivered the money. The movie ends when he asks what she has in her bag.

It's a pretty clever multiple universe movie. If it were just one run, it wouldn't be much of a movie, but the way it's set up it's like three movies in one. It was cool but I'm glad I didn't buy it, since I already have so much stuff. I really shouldn't be buying anything else, but with Borders going out of business, everything is on sale.

My thoughts on this are that I already have too many things. When I get my own place I don't want to have boxes and boxes of movies and books to move. I made a desert island list once and will expand it, but I know I have more than I need.

The only movies I will buy are foreign films, because I can try to find most other movies online, but finding foreign films with subtitles is almost impossible. I will go back to Borders tomorrow to buy a book or two to add to my philosophy collection, and one or two fiction books. I have read a lot in Borders. I think I get very distracted at home and that keeps me from reading so much. (Like tonight I wanted to read more LOTR) I like philosophy books but I go directly to primary sources. I want to grapple with the text of the authors as a whole first, then I will get help clarifying what I don't understand. I already have plenty of philosophy books, but there are so many influential books. Tomorrow I might get: Sickness Unto Death and A Critique of Pure Reason. For fiction, I read part of Steinbeck's last novel, The Winter of our Discontent. I love Steinbeck. His plots are loosely structured and they meander, but his dialogue and characters are wonderful. I only wanted one fiction book but I saw The Tin Drum for $4, so I might as well buy it. I read several chapters a few months ago in Borders. Well, I should stop rambling. Good Night.