First day of Italian class, Under the Sand by Francois Ozon

Allora, my first day of Intermediate Level Two wasn't too bad. Yes, I would start speaking in Italian then switch to some bizarre combo of English and Italian. After six months of no classes, it will take a while to get up to speed.

I really like my Professor, Laura (pronounced laawh -rra). She is from Northern Italy and has been in the U.S. for only a few months. She moved here with her American husband. I understood 90% of what she said, which is pretty good. My former Professor was from Genoa, but he lived in Rome for years. I notice when I would take classes with subs from other parts of Italy I had a hard following their accents. There was one professor from Milan who spoke so quickly, I was completely lost most of the class.

We spent a majority of the class on grammar and of course it was....the dreaded congiuntive (the subjective). A verb tense rarely used in English, but important in Italian. I think I finally got it, well at least how to use it in the present. My class is small, five of us and we are around the same level. There is one big director in my class. We were talking after class. He mentioned a book I like and he is going to direct the adaptation. I have to say he was very down to earth during the class and not stuck up. I knew his name and credits, but not what he looked like.

UNDER THE SAND by Francios Ozon. This is the fourth film of his I've seen and like the others, I enjoyed it. Charlotte Rampling is fantastic. She plays a women who's husband disappears while swimming at their country house. However, she pretends he's still alive much to the dismay of her close friends.

Thank god for foreign films and filmmakers or else Charlotte Rampling, Dame Judi Dench, and Helen Mirren would not be working. This Hollywood fascination with vapid pretty non-actresses, like the Jessica's (Simpson and Alba), is boring. I'm still salty about the last Oscar ceremony, where a celebrity like Alba (granted she looked pretty in her dress and was in Us, People etc. and I hear she is very nice) was selected to present, but an oscar nominated actor who is routinely hailed as one of the best cannot. I have to remind myself I work in a business and get over things like that.