After a hellish week at work (including working until 10 pm on wednesday fixing a crashed server) I was pretty happy when the clock hit 5 on friday to finally kick back, relax and enjoy a weekend without concerning myself about anything. But as I drove home my car started making funny noises, so I guess I’ll have to take it to the shop for a $200 checkup plus fixing whatever is broken. And then it got even worse as my harddrive on my workstation quit on me – 50 gigs of data I’m never getting back, and I have to buy a new asap, that’s another $150 right there.
So what does a normal, sane person do when stuff go this bad and it feels like the entire world is against hime? I have no idea, but I know what I do – I turn it off, tune it out and just watch a couple of movies. Which is what I spent saturday doing. One of those movies was “Shawshank Redemption”. I don’t think I can emphasize enough how incredible that movie is! It’s just awesome! And especially when I was feeling like things were really not going my way, then seeing this movie which is basically about just how much a human being can handle and how incredible life and hope is, that felt like exactly the right medicine at the time!
Thank you Mr. Darabont!
Haven’t been doing anything special, spent the weekend doing my best to distract my mind from the vision I saw at the wedding last week…
But I’ve got something great in store for everyone! The Parlor ! This is a short movie that is just awesome. Pretty weird, some nice twists and great dialogue. Totally independant and if it weren’t for the internet, most people would never have seen it!
I had a very good reason for not updating yesterday. I was annoyed. Very annoyed. On tuesday somebody must’ve hit my car when it was parked and busted it up for a good $400! Fortunately I only have to pay $160 of that, the insurance company takes care of the rest. But it is still very annoying having to go through all practical procedures for this kinda thing. So I wasn’t too happy yesterday. But today is a brand new day with brand new problems. But I won’t be bothering you with that, instead I’ll post a top 5!
This is quite simply the movies I think are the funniest ones I’ve seen. To qualify you have to be able to give me one of my infamous laugh-attacks (when people don’t know if I’m laughing or having as asthma-attack!) and also make fun of someboy, or even better, yourself!
# Movie Motivation
5. Amazon Women on the Moon This movie is just weird. But from the very first scene with Arsenio Hall to the last one with Carrie Fisher I was laughing so hard I couldn’t believe it. There’s one sequence that I didn’t laught at though that’s just boring – the funeral. And that even had Robert Picardo in it!
4. South Park – The Movie Another movie that I was laughing my ass off most of the time, except for all the Devil / Hell parts, I never liked those. But who can keep the laughter away with a song like “Kyle’s Mum is big fat bitch”!?
3. Galaxy Quest This movie gave me several laugh-attacks, best one was after Alan Rickman “you broke the ship” and I had to pause to catch my breath. And then came “Tawny vs. the Computer”-dialogue and “the ship is gonna tear itself apart. Just fyi” 🙂
2. View Akewniverse I know this is chicken, but I just can’t decide which of Kevin Smith’s flics is the funniest one. Jay & Silent Bob was probably the funniest one, but if you haven’t seen the rest you’re lost. But sequences like the Star Wars bashing in “Chasing Amy” made me crawl on the floor beging them to stop!
1. Spaceballs – THE MOVIE As far as I care – the mother of spoof-movies! Things like “shit, I knew it, I’m surrounded by assholes”, “what’s the matter Colonel Sandurz, CHICKEN?” were just right on the spot. Still can’t watch it without pausing at the “when is then gonna be now”-sequence! Thank you Mel Brooks!
>Remember my rant about how James Bond never has trouble parking his cars? Well I found out this weekend that atleast Natalie Portman has trouble with that, as this picture shows 🙂
Busy weekend. Work to 5 today, lots of stuff on NP.com, then a wedding tomorrow (although not mine, Markus’ is the lucky bastard that have ensnared Linda) and then a Formula 1 race again. And some Warcraft III… But before I leave, here’s my first “Top 5”. I’m starting easy with a simple one, “Top 5 Best Movies of All Time”. But it wasn’t easy, movies just kept coming up in my head that there simply wasn’t any space for 🙁
Top 5 Best Movies of All Time
This is actually the hardest one of them all. A movie has to live up to alot of things to come in here. Most of leave me changed in some way, have effected my psyche and my opinions. But still, movies are made to entertain, so that’s another thing it has to live up to!
# Movie Motivation
5. Chasing Amy The best Kevin Smith flic to date. It’s got some of the best dialogue ever written. Alyssa’s speech about how hard it is finding that right one that cutting off 50% of the population didn’t seem right is totally unforgettable. As is Holden’s speech in the car. And their fight in the parking lot outside the arena. Not to mention the “Star Wars is racist”-rant in the opening! Simply amazing!
4. Shawshank Redemption This movie may seem long, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it when you’re watching it. It’s a great story about the human spirit, hope and payback. Just see it and you’ll see what I mean.
3. Léon The best movie combining a very taboo romantical story all covered up in an action flic. All the actors were really great, but Portman just rocked as Mathilda! And it had good music too. It’s got such a different story and script that I just love.
2. Schindler’s List One of the best historical movies ever! A terrible but true story, and as long as there’s a movie made about it we’ll never forget it.
1. Contact This movie was just awesome! It asked some really interesting human questions (“are we, as a race, happier because of technological advancements?”), mixes some religious aspects into it, it had a great sci-fi story with amazing creativity and a surprisingly strong scientific background. Then it had some absolutely awesome effects and superb sound! And it also made sure to establish that USA isn’t running the world.
Fortunately, I had taken a vacation day today so I’ve been just relaxing all day, looking at movies. And one movie gave me an idea for a new feature on this site – top 5 lists. Inspired by “High Fidelity”. I know it’s real “wanna be”-style to take after a cool thing from a movie like this, but I really like their quote “it’s what you like, not what you are like”. So over the next weeks you’ll be seeing a lot of “top 5”-lists on this site. Hope you’ll enjoy it.
So my mother thinks I should stop using “So” to start these updates. But you know, it’s like everyone has a word or expression they use abnormally much. Like a F1 commentator uses “precisely” on average 1.21 times per lap, and Juan Pablo Montoya uses “you know”, and Schumacher “to be honest” and Natalie Portman “like” and so on. So I use “so”, so sue me 🙂
And Will Smith and Wycleaf Jean are in town. And boy do we know it, it’s been hyped to the max in the media. Are they really so bored they have to write what these two guys had for breakfast? It’s like a couple of weeks ago when the biggest headline was that princess Madeleine was finally old enough to buy her own alcohol. I can really see that happening, Madeleine buying her own alcohol. Exactly how would that go? In case you didn’t know, we have government control on alcohol so we have a special chain of stores that only sells alcohol, noone else is allowed to. You can’t stop at a 7-11 and buy anything stronger than 3.5%. And these places tends to get very overcrowded, especially around the holidays. So yeah, I can really see Madeleine waiting in line to buy her alcohol. And then being asked about her age and ID card to prove it. As if …
(now all the smart readers are thinking “how can you bash the media for talking about it when you’re just as bad”. Well, I don’t get the hundreds of thousands of hits everyday or sell a million issues! They should have something better to cover than that!)
Busy, busy, busy. So much going on now, most of it fun.
So I was called as an expert in sci-fi movies and later Star Trek during the sci-fi convent here. And a very interesting thing happened. During the first discussion, “100 years of sci-fi” the conclusion we all reached was that sci-fi movies were alot better in the old days because they went more for good story than eye-candy (space battles, effects and whatnot). Back when they were deep and explored mankind instead of exploring the bounderies of CGI. Kinda frightening how close that conclusion is to my recent bashing of the music industry :).
The general consensus was that it all started going to hell after “Alien” and “Star Wars”. But there is hope now that sci-fi is once again going deep and making you think – A.I and Minority Report are two recent examples. (although I didn’t really like A.I)
In the second debate we were suppose to have a little battle over which sci-fi universe (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Star Wars, Alien…) was the best one. I was the voice for Star Trek. And I believe I was the moral victor because my initial statement was “Since I’m a trekker I shouldn’t be here, because the point of Star Trek is learning to respect other people and their opinions so I can’t really tell anyone that they’re wrong since in the Star Trek spirit no opinion can be wrong”. Hehe, tell that to any Babylon 5 freak who always sends in his navy of Whitestars…
I’m writing this at 2:10 am on Saturday morning. I just got home from a preview screening of “Minority Report”. I’m not that big a fan of Spielbergs. He is too much up and down, great movies like “Schindler’s List” and then rock bottom movies like “Hook”. Same goes for Tom Crooze. And I had read a couple of reviews, most critics didn’t like. But what do they know – it rocked! One of Spielbergs greatest movies, right up there with “E.T” and “Schindler’s List”. It made one think in so many levels, and a future society I’m not sure I’d be willing to be apart of. And of course, our swedish actor Peter Stormare who actually got to speak swedish and his assistant sang the swedish folk song about the small frogs – unbelievable! 🙂
One thing I liked was that Spielberg is going a little ‘DePalma’ with shooting sequences way more complicated than they need to be. Like the one whith the spiders crawling and you see everything from above in a cut-out sort of way – so inspired from “Snake Eyes”, and really nicely done. But what was down right beautifully filmed was the scene when Tom hugs the girl in the lobby and he’s facing one way and she the other while they have a conversation… that was just beautifully filmed and the lighting was excellent!!
You should definitely go and see it! Credit goes to swedish Fox for fixing the preview. And I usually don’t like Fox for all the trouble they’re giving us at NP.com!
Btw, if you’re in Stockholm you should check out the sci-fi congress in Kulturhuset. I’m gonna be in the panel of experts for two sessions, one on Saturday at 13:00 (“100 Years of Sci-fi”) then one on Sunday at 12:00 (“Sci-fi Wars”).
You must be thinking “you are one lazy dude, only updating twice during a 8 day vacation!”. Not true! I don’t think I’ve ever had so much to do during a vacation as I did last week! The time just flew past me like Marilyn Manson from a Britney Spears concert! And every little minute of free time I could find went into studying for my Novell 5.1 Administration certification exam I had this morning. So I hardly feel relaxed and re-energized after this vacation. But I only have myself to blame I guess.
And speaking of Britney Spears – I heard she “loves rock’n’roll”. Then why is she in the pop-genre? The difference is huge, and I don’t think she’d cut it in rock’n’roll. Although that song may be one of her best ones. Too bad it’s a cover.
Oh yeah, I passed that test by the way. So what does that mean? It means that I have a paper that says “this guy passed a test so he should kinda know Novell Netware 5.1”. I don’t know any more, or less, about Novell than I did two weeks ago though.
Last saturday we had a little party here at my parents house. They’re away for a week and I’m in charge, so naturally there’ll be a party! Anyway, it was going to be a normal BBQ with the usual crew (AC, her hubby Paul and my “brother” Jocke) but on this special occasion, two women I’ve known since I was five came – Lina and Helena. Lina I’ve seen and talked to a little now and then, but Helena have been living a little all over so I haven’t really talked to her for over 10 years (not counting the occasional “hello”s). And it was good catching up a little with her.
See, I live my life after my own set of “Rules of Conduct” to ensure that if I’d die, noone will have anything bad to say about me. And I can count the people who may have something bad to say about me on one hand. And now there is one less! Because the last time we “talked” it was during my teens when I had done some really stupid things, so I’ve always felt that when we lost contact it was on a bad note. But now I think I’m redeemed.
And on a very, very happy note – Helena’s boyfriend (yeap, all good ones are still taken) name is Timothy, but called Tim or… TIMMYYYY!… and I started laughing when I heard her say that and I had to explain that I’m a South Park-fan and that’s why TIMMYYY is pretty funny, and guess what she counters with? She was one of the dancers performing the “BLAME CANADA!” number during the 2000 Oscars! DUDE!
Did you see the MTV Movie Awards? Natalie was presenting an award so more or less had to see it. This is one of the few award shows I still have a little bit of respect for! Anyway, Seann William Scott won an award (for best kiss with Jason Biggs… don’t ask!), and in his acceptance speech he said something like “five years ago, I was working in a zoo, now look at me!”.
And that got me thinking – just how much in life is left to chance. Everything from having the good parents, the right genetic makeup/DNA, sibblings, teachers in school, job oppurtunities, meeting the right one and to not be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Just how much of that can you actually control yourself? Not a lot….
Let’s talk about an ever increasing problem in our society – DVD IMPORTS! The production and distribution studios like DVDs. The format gives them one more chance to make money on old movies and another format to distribute new movies. They also like that they now have some place to store all those documentaries that are made during production of a movie. A DVD disc today costs around $20, so that’s more than twice what it costs to see a movie in the cinema. So you’d think that they would like everyone to buy DVD’s everywhere?… yea, you’d think!
To prevent a movie from being available on DVD before it’s available in the cinema (which sometimes is the case here in sweden, I bought “Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back” 3 months before the swedish premiere!), they have decided to region code DVD’s. When I started buying DVD’s there weren’t that many places to buy from. DVDExpress was one of the first Internet ordering places, but the shipment cost was pretty high. Then I found a DVD supplier here in sweden selling imported region ones (i.e american) at a pretty cheap price so I stuck to that place for two years. Then the distribution studios in sweden decided to get “tough on imports” and started suing places that sold imported DVD’s. So I had to switch. That’s when I found Play247, an internet business selling region ones over the internet, free of shipping and delivery within a week. Not ideal, but great. Until last week when all of a sudden, the swedish customs wanted $20 extra, PER DISC! Just $5 of that went to the actual customs, the rest was just tax, shipment and all other kinds of stuff you can only charge people in sweden for since we never say no.
So what now? I’m gonna try with this Canadian place called DVD Box office, that place sounds good although they can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to deliver them. But if I can just get rid of this customs-charge I’d be pretty happy.
They could all solve this problem with region coding easily – have premieres at the same time worldwide, like Star Wars Episode II! It doesn’t make sense for a movie to get here 6 months after the states, it’s just rediculous! Anyway’s, I’ve started playing around with PHP so I might convert this entire thing into a database or something…
So summer is here. With a bang! You know what that means, right? Sleepless nights for Kris (don’t know why I have a problem sleeping when it’s warm, I just do), but more importantly, the women are dressing less. I work in the central part of Stockholm this week so I decided to take a stroll around the blocks the other day (I was actually on a mission, more on that in another update) and lets just say I’m glad I wasn’t driving! Some say people who are overly checking out women are insecure about their sexuality… well, I’m not and it’s good to get a confirmation about that a little now and then, considering it’s been… shit, almost six months…
SW Ep. II premieres tomorrow (at midnight actually, 00:01), but I’ve already seen it but just have to go anyway. If not to compensate for the fact I saw the pirate version off the internet, then for the huge bangs duing the asteroid hunt sequence! I’ll be going to the 18.20 showing on thursday at FS Sergel, so if you’re there, please say “hi” 🙂
So I just saw “Spiderman”… I can summon that movie up in one word – ripoff! This movie steals stuff from Grease to Star Wars. But it’s stylish. And when Spiderman saved his damsel in distress I got one more “signs you’re getting old!” – “when those little girls you saw in movies a while back starts playing the babe in today’s movies”.
Let me ellaborate:
The two most talked-about movies right now is “Spiderman” and “Star Wars Episode II”. The first ones has a babe who needs to be saved by her hero. That babe is played by Kirsten Dunst. “Star Wars Episode II” also has a babe who needs to be saved by her hero. That girl is played by Natalie Portman.
FLASHBACK back to 1994, Kirsten Dunst won an MTV award for her part in “Interview with a Vampire” and Natalie was just awesome in “Léon”. So having seen these girls grow up through their movies and now all of a sudden their playing the babes? DUDE, I was seriously checking out Kirsten Dunst’s contribution to the “Best Wet T-shirt”-contest when this thought hit me. Not a pleasent one…
Do you remember my collection of signed pics of beautiful women I got to regret having back in New Years? Well, my truly amazing american buddy Bill has given me another one to add to the collection. A signed pic of Linda Blair. Made out to “Kristoffer” – especially for me 🙂
I saw another movie the other day, “Resident Evil”. I’m not that big of a fan of the video games, so I wasn’t expecting much at all. And while watching it I realized something disturbing – I’ve seen so many movies I can’t watch one without thinking “where did they steal that from?”. This movie was a combo of “Cube”, “2001”, “Aliens” and “Night of the Living Dead”. The first three are great movies, but it was that “zombie”-thing I had a problem with. I still laugh when I see 30 zombies walking around trying to kill a main character. But other than that, a good way to waste 2 hours.
I just saw three movies this weekend based on historical events – “Braveheart”, “Apollo 13” and “U-571”. After all of those I realised what an incredible responsibility everyone who tries to do a historical drama has! Not only to do an entertaining movie, make some profit for the production company but also to enlighten the audience about an event they probably don’t know that much about.
And these three movies took their own routes to that. Story-wise “Braveheart” wins! Great drama, great battles, and a great ending. But it’s so full of historical errors it should have a disclaimer in the end that “some of this didn’t actually happen”. And that’s exactly what we got in the end of “U-571”, a disclaimer. But “Apollo 13” went all the way to try to be as truthful as possible. And in my opinion, “Apollo 13” was the best of them all, hands-down! Absolutely the best sound too 🙂
So think about that the next time you see a historical movie – they do take some libirties for dramatical purposes. So don’t sit there and think William Wallace actually nailed Isabelle, she was about 5 years old at the time…
I guess I managed to get the flu or something because all weekend I’ve felt like shit and spent most of it tucked down in my sofa watching old movies with my new DVD player. And I’m pretty grateful for it, because there’s been a while since I’ve had a weekend without any plans what so ever. And we all need those, right?
Anyway, one of the movies I saw again for the 15th time was “The Matrix”. There’s one thing that always bothered my about that movie – the window cleaners. The plot-reason for them being there is to motivate the existence of a scaffold outside. But why did they go to so much trouble showing the cleaners, and most of all, in the 5.1 digital mix they could very well be heard in the rear channel. I never quite got what was so important about them. Until this time around when I realised it was the directors, the Wachowski-brothers. Live and learn…
I also saw a movie that may very well make my top 5 of “best movies ever” – Groundhog Day. You know the one with Bill Murray who wakes up to the same day over and over. I still think that movie is hilarious and has some magic in it I just can’t put into words. It’s a totally weird premise, and there’s no real answer given, but it’s still a great movie. And whatever did happen to Bill Murray, he was a huge star in the 80’s, but what happened to him later? The most recent movie I’ve seen with him was “Charlie’s Angels”.
