Z/Web

What a crazy, amazing game! It had everything. A mistake by Jens Jeremies gave Nigerian Victor Agali an in on goal and he dribbled around Oliver Kahn to score in the first half. Jeremies’ mistake was that his clear hit Agali and bounced forward, the exact thing Jeremies was trying to prevent! But seconds later, defender Sammy Kuffour equalized for Bayern with a terrific header, and ironically, Kuffour was being poorly marked by none other than Agali! Good for Kuffour, who’s still most famous for his mistake in the 1999 Champions League final that gave the trophy to Manchester United. In the second half, Rostock was back with fantastic goal from Salou, who dribbled through what seemed like half the Bayern defense to score! Amazingly, on the hour mark Bayern gave up another free kick near the box and Jakobsson put in a leaping header on the cross to put Rostock up by two. But Bayern cut the lead when Jeremies ran from midfield straight through the defense and beat the keeper. Elber missed a great chance for the equalizer late in the game when he had the ball at his feet in front of an empty net but somehow couldn’t get the shot off in time. Rostock held on and held on through all sorts of drama, and then, in stoppage time, on a Bayern corner kick, goalkeeper Kahn went forward. When the cross came in, he inexplicably punched the ball to score (obviously the goal was disallowed)! I know Kahn’s Germany’s national goalkeeper, but doesn’t he know that keepers are only allowed to use their hands in their own penalty box??? Incredibly stupid! He was given his second yellow card and ejected from the game! (He’ll also get at least a one match suspension too.) Wild! A few more seconds passed, during which a field player played goalkeeper for Bayern, and then it was over, with Rostock beating the perennial champs! Final: 3-2 Rostock.

Why haven’t you heard of this film? It’s very good. It’s basically a retelling of Flowers for Algernon with a woman as the lead, but well done. (If you aren’t familiar with Flowers, it’s about a retarded man who becomes smart through a medical experiment and then slowly becomes dumb again.) Elisabeth Shue gives an excellent performance — by the end of the film I’d forgotten it was her and was thinking of her as Molly. A film like this could come across as overly sentimental or forced, and I was prepared to not like it, figuring it was just another “disease of the week” movie. But Molly is very well done, appropriately low-key, with lots of humor and very little melodrama. Quite remarkable, really. I’m surprised it didn’t get more press. One of the things I liked best about the film was its realistic portrayal of the caretaker, Molly’s brother, as he deals with feelings of guilt for neglecting Molly and the struggle to form his own life. Molly, as a character, is wonderful: she’s 28 but has the mind of a child. She’s not self-conscious at all and reacts to situations exactly like a child. For instance, in one classic scene, while watching a play of Romeo and Juliet, she gets up and runs onto the stage to slap Juliet to wake her up and show Romeo that he shouldn’t kill himself because she’s only sleeping. A big part of the story is the way Molly’s love of life infects everyone she meets, including her brother. Best line of the film: at a restaurant, where during a moment of quiet, Molly suddenly screams, to everyone’s horror. “There was a silence,” she calmly explains. “I screamed for everyone.” Wow, that’s good, really good. Very deep. Two thumbs up for this one. It’s sweet but not saccharine, occasionally profound, and often moving. Well worth 87 minutes of your time.