Enlightened Northeast

I'm thrilled that one of my favorite German comedies (and let's face it, nobody does comedy better than Germans), Erleuchtung garantiert (Enlightenmenbt Guaranteed) is finally out on DVD after nearly a decade of waiting. It's sort of a funnier, more profound version of Lost in Translation and perhaps more culturally sensitive. I like it, in part, because it shows Tokyo not just as a weird and expensive place but one with cemeteries, homeless people and ATM machines whee Hello Kitty babbles while eating your credit card and refusing to give a cash advance.

In an early scene, a many almost exactly my age is visited by a feng sui expert who advises him that as someone born in the year of the fire monkey, the Horthest is the favorable direction for him. "Not the South," he explains. "In the South accidents happen for you." Enlightenment guranteed.