Last Friday night was simply a beautiful evening in the hood. We popped open champagne and just chilled at home, avec more pizza … but of course. It was so good, we did the blessedly same thing on Saturday night to boot.

I then headed to a superb 5-day training on advanced leadership and coaching while G made a great pizza bianca and on Tuesday night, met up with Ironwoman Laura to see the latest version of So You Think You Can Dance (US) Tour at the Air Canada Centre.

A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy sees the very first pairing of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow before they married. Based loosely on William Shakespeare’s play but morphed as only Allen can do, it is lighthearted fair. Woody stars as wonky professor Andrew Hobbs who, not surprisingly, is having a challenging time with his wife, Adrian (the always great Mary Steenburgen). When the pair invite friends – a very old philosophy professor Dr. Leopold Sturgis (Jose Ferrer) and his very young fiancee Ariel (Mia Farrow) and a horny doctor Maxwell (Tony Roberts) and his nurse Dulcy (Julie Hagerty) – to their countryside cottage all manner of sexual intrigue ensues. While not acknowledged as one of Allen’s greatest films, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy is a joyous take on sex with plenty of classic Allen humour, some great romps in the woods, subtle magic, and a musical score courtesy of Mendelssohn that fits perfectly with what’s on screen. I never tire of watching it. My rating 8 out of 10.

Mayerling
Directed by Anatole Litvak, Mayerling recounts the tragic, real life, love affair of Archduke Rudolph, the son of Emperor Joseph (played by Jean Dax) and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his mistress, Marie Vetsera, a minor noble. This 1936 effort is based on Claude Anet’s novel and stars Charles Boyer (as Rudoph) and the beautiful Danielle Darieux (as Marie). Filmed in the classic style the French New Wave directors so loved to hate, Mayerling captures the liberalization so rampant within Vienna at the time as it efficiency spins the tragedy of Rudolph and Marie. When his father demands he break off the affair, the couple spend one final weekend at Mayerling, the royal hunting lodge. There, early on a cold January morning in 1889, the crown prince shoots Marie and then commits suicide. Roll the ‘fin’. With no heir, Rudolph’s cousin becomes crown prince only to be assassinated with his wife in Sarajevo, an act that ignites World War I. Rich and engaging and for highlighting one of the last century’s enduring mysteries, my rating 8 out of 10.