Well this has been fun. Once more, a weekend only dedicated to entertaining me, myself and I. Not really doing anything, no obligations to anyone or being anywhere. I like that a little know and then. And so I got to catch up on movie-watching ; “Schindler’s List” again. Damn that’s an awesome movie. One of those movies I can see over and over and still end up crying. I wonder if it’s a part of modern schooling to see that movie? It should be. “Scary Movie 3” ; hilarious movie, way better than I thought. The first one was hilarious, but second one was a little too much. But this one redeemed it. But they still do play alot on internal movie-jokes, and having Denise Richards as Sheen’s wife – nice! And then there was “Underworld”. I’ve never been a fan of either the warewolf or vampire genre, and this was all about that. But I enjoyed it alot anyway, pretty good action flic. And Kate as Selena is probably the sexiest thing on film since Elisabeth as the Devil in “Bedazzled”. And she did it all without smiling – once. Then there was “Duplex”. Nothing special really, “neighbor from hell” concept without any real surprises. No, I take that back. It was an unexpected use of music! But still pretty disappointing.
It almost slipped my mind. But only almost. Yesterday was pretty hectic so I didn’t have much time to stop and think. But when I finally went to bed at 11 and did my “think about the day” I realised what day it was. 2 years… 2 years ago that I lost my best friend. 2 years ago that I was taught the real meaning of “you don’t know what you’ve got until you lose it”. 2 years ago that my world was turned upside down. 2 years… it feels like an eternity.
Have you heard all the fuzz about Gibson’s latest movie, “The Suffering”? If you haven’t – it’s a long movie about the last days of Jesus Christ as told by four gospels in the new testament. And I’ve been laughing quite hard at the reaction from both the christian and jewish camps! I haven’t seen the movie, and neither have most of them, so I can’t really say if it’s good or not, but I have read the Bible so I know a little about the story behind it. But that’s not what I’m laughing about. The christians are all jolly about this movie since it will englighten millions of people and everyone will start streaming back to the good old Churches looking for salvation and forgiveness. The jews are all worried about how the jews are portrayed as bad guys in the movie. And I’m not one to take religion that very seriously so I hope all christians and jews will forgive this ; havn’t they been saying the same thing for the past thousand years? Christians have gone all over the planet looking to christianify (I love making up words!) people, even with guns and cannons. And the jews have gone “feel sorry for us, it’s us against the world” for as far as I’ve known it. But with Schindler’s List (which btw is one of my all time favorite movies) coming to DVD next week they’ll get some payback, ’cause those people I really felt sorry for.
Personally I’ll just quote the Guru Kevin Smith:
“Tell a person that you’re the Metatron and they stare at you blankly. Mention something out of a Charlton Heston movie and suddenly everybody is a theology scholar.”
– The Metatron in “Dogma“.
… or how about “Stigmata“:
“Jesus said…the Kingdom of God is inside you, and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood…and I am there, lift a stone…and you will find me.”
I could go on all day…
And today the ever so enlightened, wise and open minded president of the land of the free decided to make same sex marriages unconstitutional. Why? Well, it seems the marital bond between a man and a woman is sacred and a basis for society to function. Meaning that if you’d allow people of the same sex to marry each other everyone else will feel their marriage means less and that would pose a threat to society.
Two words : Britney Spears. She wasn’t even married for 100 hours, but what she did should pose more of a threat to “normal” marriages meaning less than two people who actually love eachother. But their short “getting married while drunk”-marriage seems to be worth more than the thousands of gay people who’s gotten married in San Fransisco over the past week. I’m not married, so I can’t really say what that bond would be like. And I’m not gay, so I don’t know what that bond is like. So I can’t really say which one Shouldn’t the 50% (or whatever the number is nowadays!) divorce rate pose more of a threat? I’m pretty sure gay’s would divorce as well, but I guess we won’t find out. And besides, saying “gay people can’t get married because it would make my marriage feel less important to me” is to me like saying “women can’t vote since that would make me feel less important”, which they were saying hundred years ago. And that changed, so hopefully this will as well.
And I wish I could say Sweden was better, but we’re not. Here, gay’s can become a so called “registered couple”, which is as close to marriage you can get and offers some of the same benefits and assuarances, without actually being married.
Think what you want about the gay marriage thing happening over in San Fransisco, but this mayor is my new favorite politician. I was hoping that Arnie might make a good politician, most of all because he’s suppose to be financially independant (not even Bush can say that) and coming from Hollywood one would hope he had a more open liberal mind. But I guess I was wrong.
As I said, I’ve spent a few days in Finland (which is so close to Sweden it doesn’t even count as being abroad!). Anyway, I can really recommend this place called “Storyville”. If you just wanna hang around in a nice quiet bar and play some BJ, it’s perfect. But if you wanna hang around in an overcrowded bar with live blues & jazz music you just go downstairs and you’ve got that too. Really nice place and atmosphere, and the band on the night we were there was damn good as well. And it’s the only bar I’ve been able to order a “jägermesiter in red bull” without argument!
Did you hear Colin Powell’s speach at Princeton? I particularly liked how he used what happened to Iraq as an example to what would happen to any other countries (Iran, North Korea and Libya that is) that tried to acquire WMD and how this event has made some countries reconsider. Wait.. did Iraq really have any WMD… nope, bad intelligence. And I don’t only mean Bush’s intelligence, or lack there of. Then he also mentioned how allies of the US needn’t worry about going into an arms race with anyone or trying to buil any WMD since US would protect them. So I guess Blair can just start dismantling their nukes? And “they” are still downplaying the importance of the fact that they were totally wrong about Iraq having any WMD when one year ago it was the reason to invade another country and overrule the UN, go against their oldest ally and getting the world opinion against them. But I guess it wasn’t that important.
I used to think swedish women were the most beautiful in the world. Well, after spending some time here in Finland I think I’m ready to extend that to “scandinavian women” ’cause they are pretty beautiful here too! And you know me, I like to be proven incorrect and have my believes questioned a little now and then.
I saw a little clip on CNN from some european Jewish convention and heard this big speach about anti-semitism and how it’s a growing problem in Europe and it’s a big monster that must be defeated. Maybe it’s just because of the fact that I’m not jewish or maybe it’s because Sweden is a very tolerant country, but this was news to me! I’d like to think of myself as a pretty up-to-date kinda guy, the kind that watches the news daily, doesn’t mind having CNN or Sky News on for hours, checks out news websites daily. And I’ve never heard that this was a big problem. Atleast no bigger problem than your average short sighted racism and anti-“everything that’s not us” mentality. But apparently it is.
Don’t you just love “Evanescense” latest song, “My Immortal”? I’m loving it, and the video is freaking awesome as well! Thinking about adding it to my “songs to play at my funeral”-list.
Is it just me or has the weather this year been very schitzo, especially here in Sweden. Going from warm-cold, winter-spring all the time. I’ve been thinking about changing the tyres on my car but everytime it’s started snowing or something.
Another weekend, anoter bunch of movies. I finally saw “Run Lola”, a german movie that’s been cult-labelled. And after seeing it I gotta agree with that assesment. Damn good flick. But like “Groundhog Day” and some Star Trek episodes, a little bit weird. I personally liked the little small things that changed between the different versions and how they affected things in a big way. Kinda like “if I hadn’t ordered that chicken sandwhich I wouldn’t have gotten sick and I would have been able to go to Jordan as I was suppose to and make tons of money”. Those things. Also saw “The Last Samuraj”. Didn’t expect much but it was pretty damn good and interesting flic. And beautiful too! Not that historically correct though, but they never make that claim either. Then there was “Paycheck”. I expected a very good story and not that much action in that movie, but it was pretty much the other way around. Story was ok, although no big brainer and the action was pretty good. But what would you expect from John Woo.
Do you know I suck at confrontation? Doesn’t matter if it’s normal lovers quarrel, negotiating my salary or telling a waitress she messed up somehow, I suck at it. Don’t know if it’s because of my upbringing, if it’s my reluctance to have people disliking me, lack of confidence or whatever, but it’s a fact. But it has led to some good things. Not many people do dislike me, as far as I know. I’ve had to try different dishes from what I’m used to when a waiter/waitress serves up the wrong thing. But I’m below average when it comes to my salary 🙁
I was hyped yesterday to see the NHL all star game. I’ve tried to see that annual thing since I like hockey and there are always swedes playing, but this year I really couldn’t do it… it was suppose to start at 9 but for 30 minutes of bringing out the stars and stripes and showing off and still no hockey they bring out Kurt Russell, who just happens to play the lead in the upcoming movie about the so called miracle (the movie is actually titled “Miracle”!) when the US college hockey team won the olympic gold, to talk about the glory of… I really don’t know cause I got fed up with the bullshit and switched over to the Osbournes. I was ok with american patriotism before, but after september 11th they’ve just gone overboard. But with a law like the Patriot Act, I guess you don’t have a choice.
Another weekend, another bunch of movies consumed. With all the hype about Lost in Translation, as well as being a Coppola and a Murray fan, I just had to see it. And it turned out to be the most boring movie I had ever seen. Visually it was really great, some shots were just amazingly filmed and Sofia should get all credit for that, but it was just sooooo slow. And in the end, I never really got it. Call me shallow or whatever, but I just didn’t get it. And then I saw Elephant. I don’t really know how to describe what that movie is suppose to be about, but it turned out to be even MORE boring than Lost in Translation. This one had no humor in it what so ever. I guess I didn’t get that movie either. But I finished with a movie I did get – Runaway Jury. Big Cusack fan, I was expecting alot and it delivered and then some. Not that many twists that I was expecting but I still didn’t see the end coming. And a pretty good reminder of how flawed the american justice system is. But then again, so is the swedish sometimes. Then I finally saw “Matchstick Men”, when both Ridley Scott and Robert Zemicks involved it had to be good. And it pretty good, only one twist and a depressing one at that, but a nice ending made up for that. And another big surprise was “Pieces of April” which I wouldn’t have seen had it not been for Katy Holmes, but it was pretty damn good! I’d recommend it to a friend! All in all, a pretty good weekend!
And speaking of of setting new records, the Jackass crew set an all time “furthest anyone will go for a laugh” record – a guy convinced his parents to go to Las Vegas and renew their vows, Elvis style, and also imported a russian mail-order bride that one of the guys married the same day they met for the first time. That episode was just hilarious. It might have triggered the “oh what an awful state the world is in when you can mail-order a wife”-vibe in me, but it was all done in a funny way and the babe seemed happy about the situation…
That’s it – I’m never gonna buy another issue of Aftonbladet! (one of the biggest selling paper here in sweden) They’ve always been pretty good at twisting, spinning, exaggerating and basically doing alot of superficial idiotic things to sell more issues. But I’ve always been able to filter out the crap and get to the actual news. But today they crossed the line. They went so far over it, the line is a dot to them! As I was strolling around in NK in Stockholm, admiring the view (you guys know what I mean), thinking about stuff I saw the first page of Aftonbladet. The biggest news of the day that they were running. And guess what it was? … That two of the contestants in this years Big Brother… they… oh, can I even say it.. oh… they had… they had sex… like “oh my god”. OH MY GOD, has it gone that far, have we made this world so uneventful that there is NOTHING more important to report than the fact that two people had sex? Just how many million people did have sex yesterday? Do I care about that? This is so lame, they sat a new record for lamest front page every, it even beats the time when they called Christer Petterson (they guy accused of killing Olof Palme) to talk to him about the guy who’s now accused of killing Anna Lindh. Seriously, if I worked there, even as the coffee-machine-refiller, I’d be embarrassed. Don’t they like have an obligation to report something worth the ink it’s printed on?!
Doesn’t the americans have a twisted sense for what should be shown on TV and what might be harmful for kids to see? They’ve never had a problem showing people killing people, violence in any form, no prob. But Janet Jackson’s boob pops out and OH MY GOD, that’s terrible. A boob. Geez, never mind the fact that the sport everyone turned in to watch is pretty god damn violent! And don’t tell me it’s not, they wouldn’t need all that protective gear if it wasn’t violent… But 20 guys beating each other up over a ball isn’t harmful for a kid, but a boob is. Like hello, one of the first thing any normal baby does is get a boob smashed in his/her face, why should seeing one more be harmful!? They are pretty weird….