Weblog | I don't like the word blog, it's ugly. Anyway, new content happens here. (Swedish dito)

About me and the site | Twenty-something male who likes text. Obsessed with things such as books, reality, communication, and one or two tv-shows.

Archives | Things written here since... well, 2001. Some of it is good, some is utter shait.

Books | Books read, not books written. So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.

Photo | I like my camera and it likes me.

Links | Outwards, away, flee.

e-mail | J. Nicklas Andersson

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Kill Bill vol.1

Let’s start this in the chronological order, shall we?

Kill Bill vol 1 is beautiful and really cool. Its core is really a c-action, but it transcends this and surpasses most action movies by far. Some people go on and on about the mass slaughter scene, but really, it is one of the weaker spots. I’m not sure how it looks in the Japanese version where it is in colour, but I believe that it is better when it goes black and white. The reasons are these: in colour everything will look red and as the people sometime run into the light, in the B/w-version they go overexposed which looks wickedly cool. And the grain. Believe me, it’s probably better this way. Don’t get me started on the final duel scene though. I could go on for hours on that alone. Beautiful.

The dialogue in the movie is rather far from Quentin Tarantino’s best. It’s almost like he’s gone a writing class at Skywalker Ranch. But just almost, as this is more than a homage to the old Japanese samurai flicks. The music and the editing must surely be one of Tarantino’s best so far. It meshes perfectly.

Perhaps I’m weird that way, but unlike a lot of people I found it very funny — more of my dark humour later though. But bring on the second part already!

American Splendor

American Splendor — where to start? Just the fact that they had Harvey Pekar himself to narrate it, made me almost instantly aware of what kind of movie this was. (Apart from being really really good that is.)

I’m a sucker for these “real life”-things such as Larry Flynt, 24 Hour Party People and the Man on the Moon. There’s a line from 24 Hour Party People that describe this sort of film pretty well: “When you have to choose between the truth and the legent, always print the legend.”

Anyway. Harvey Pekar writes the comic American Splendor which is about his own life. He’s sarcastic and negative and well, not that people-friendly. Unlike the other movies in this genre, this is not about big things that happens. It’s ordinary life and no matter how much change, it always stays pretty much the same. But damn, it’s a good movie.

Black Angel

Black Angel, or Kuro no tenshi vol 1 if you like the original title better, is a good movie. DVD purists will complain about the cheap audiotrack, but really, I’ve seen things on VHS so it doesn’t bother me.

The movie is at times the standard you killed my father story, but it spins up and down and there’s a lot more to it than that. There’s a magnificent scene in a hotel room that would have been out of place in any other movie, but here it fits perfectly.

Since it’s Japanese, it does have other things than gunfights or non-stop action that’s pointless. It’s not a hack piece signed John Woo where the mediocrity is hidden behind Chow-Yun Fats coolness. But it is kind of violent at times though.

Oh, and I haven’t mentioned the run-though-the-hallway-scene. Eight minute oner tension. It’s ‘mazing.

Angel season 4

March the first 2004. All those with region 2 compatible dvd-player, write down that date and pray nothing happens. Because I want season four of Angel as soon as possible. That wait has been an experience of withdrawal, agony and foul language. [Whedonesque]

The defunct bad movie saturday

Been busy. We had planned to see a lot of bad movies and that didn’t quite happen. We did see the second collection of episodes from Grand Slam (imdb). The two episodes were not good and the acting was even worse than I remembered. But it was, in a weird way, fun. Then it all got out of hand. I blame the beer and Whisky.

American Wedding (imdb) was hilarious. The humour was so low that I recon you need a shovel to dig a hole to get any further down, but it didn’t matter. It had a larger portion of Seann William Scott than I expected, and that isn’t bad.

Death to Smoochy (imdb) had a lot of fantastic things, such as script, acting, and production design. The only fault was that the filming of it was dull. Very much of it was standard, mediocre image composition. However, Williams and Norton managed to lift it way, way up. All in all, this might be the best Roald Dahl filmatisation ever, even though he had nothing at all to do with it. Go figure.

Old School (imdb). Here my mind starts to get a bit fuzzy. I don’t remember much of the second half, probably because we talked instead of watched the movie. Seann William Scott is a genius though, just as Will Ferrell.

And we forgot to watch Remo. Damnit.

Daleks of the Ring

If the Lord of the Rings-movies really is about the big battle between the good and the ultimate evil, then where are the Daleks? They’re after all Very Evil, even more-so than Sauron. When something needs to be killed, you don’t send a couple of puny half-assed orcs. No, you send those who have sworn to exterminate everything not Dalek because then there will be no mistakes. No one will be offered cake since that just don’t mesh with the Dalek point of view.

The Annoated Donnie

More Barbelith underground. The Donnie Darko Annotation Wiki is a really good idea, since there are references in almost every scene and most of them have some sort of meaning. I’m glad they didn’t do a thorough analysis, as I imagine there would have been a lot of noise about whose explanation and interpretation should be considered as the right one.

Other Donnie stuff includes that Richard Kelley will appearantly do a theatrical Director’s Cut. I’m ambivalent to the whole idea, I thought the first one was a director’s cut in that no-one told him what he could and couldn’t include. I might have been wrong about that, but still. Does it need a new cut? No. I don’t think so. It is fine the way it is.

Will The Comic

For once, I want to see a Christmas movie and for one reason and that reason only: the main character is played by Will Ferrell. The movie in question is Elf (imdb), where in the elves find a human child who grows up to believing that his is just a normal but exceptionally tall elf. I don’t care if it is cursed to suck. Ferrell will not let me down. (Although, he has decided to be in a Woody Allen movie as well... What the fuck happened? And what’s next? Bilbo Bailey and Dylan Moran in ET 2: Extra Terrestrial Again? (That one, however, I would actually pay to see several times. The little critter is doomed from start to be crushed by a furious Moran during a rant against children.)) I have faith in his genius. He will make it worthwhile. He must. He must.

Because otherwise I’ll have to wait until the Anchorman is released in order to experience comedic excellence. (That one is about a news anchor that looks a lot like Will Ferrell in a ‘70-ies wig. While it might not be a stroke the off genius, it does look very promising nonetheless.)

Memo to self: watch the deleted scenes on the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back-dvd again. I need a Ferrell-fix.

Trailers on DVD is a silly idea

I thought we wouldn’t have to put up with this anymore. Trailers before the feature I mean. But no, someone must be difficult. I was a bit naive when I sat down to watch my copy of X2 (imdb). I expected the menu to pop up almost immediately. Well, it didn’t.

First we had the speaker reading the text on the screen, stating that this disc is not for rental. No shit? I thought and pushed the skip button. Deactivated. The thirty seconds of screen time felt as a lifetime and afterwards I was greeted by a block off trailers. This isn’t a VHS. Thankfully, here one could press the menu button on the remote. Praise the lord. (The trailers were for Master and Commander (imdb) (Peter Weir adapt Patrick O’Brian, it looks good. Yay.) and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (imdb) — and they were not local.)

This is the second DVD I have that does this. The first, Animal House (imdb), doesn’t allow anything during the trailers save for the fast-forward. There, you have to watch them. It is idiotic and not just a little a bit insane to force people to watch trailers more than once.

This means war. They’ve declared it and I’ve picked up the steel glove they threw in my face. I’ll boycott something. Like apples. Yeah, no more apples for me. Anyone with me? Anyone? Hello?

(Boycott Fox and Universal?! What are you, stoned? They have good movies and tv-shows on DVD for fuck sake. No way I’m letting a few trailers get in the way for those...)

• Sore Eyes: DVD clutter
  

Rundown

Should I write something about movies? I think I should. Or at least tv-shows. (I’ve heard good things about Jane Espenson’s the O.C., but alas, I’ve yet to see a single clip.)

The Dead Zone (imdb). I think I’ll begin with that. So far, season one that is, it has very little to do with the book or the movie. (One time, the studio considered the option to cintinue where the movie left off. Thankfully, the producers said “no.”) Some things they decided to keep, the cane and the coat, but other than that the Johnny Smith portraied by Anthony Michael Hall is a whole different beast compared to the Cronenberg/Walken-character. Which is a good thing, because trying to mimic Christopher Walken would be kind of stupid. The first two episodes and number thirteen have things that appear in the movie, and even that parts are different.

Very little action, lots of drama and a good deal of humour and some creepiness.

The Last Wave (imdb), how to describe it other than the best movie I’ve seen by Peter Weir? Surreal story about a lawyer-person who looks a whole lot like Richard Chamberlain who gets drawn into a murky Aboriginal prophecy by the way of a murder of a member of a tribe. Lots and lots of rain and water. Probably even more so than in Seven. It didn’t explain a lot, just like Weirs previous films, but here it felt appropiate and not once did it feel forced that way it did a couple of times in Picnic at Hanging Rock.

And then we have the League. No, not the movie which I still haven’t seen. I mean the british comedy series the League of Gentemen (imdb). I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before a few times. Now I’ve seen season one as well, and boy, was that weird. Not as dark as season two though. Still, some images will haunt me. Like then one where Tubbs... No. I can’t type it here. You would scream out of shock and horror. (”You lied to me Edward! You lied to me! There is a Swansea!.. and other places.”) I did however like Mr Chimmeys dispatchment of his animals better. When he’ll try to save that turtle is a hoot.

24 Hour Party People

I’ve just watched 24 Hour Party People — which I liked a whole lot — and now I sit here rumbling through the second disk. It contains another commentary track. So yeah, the entire movie is there again, only — and this is important — in the left corner. The rest of the screen is focused on the commentators. Brilliant really. And despite this, it also contains lots of more stuff. That second disk was well worth the less money the R2UK edition cost me.

The Twins Effect

The trailer was wrong. Way wrong, mostly because this isn’t an action-movie. It is an action-comedy with a large portion of it belonging to a romantic subplot. While I really would like to see the movie they promoted in the trailer, I honestly believe the actual result was better. It wasn’t overly Matrixy (as I feared it would be), and while there where things that seemed borrowed from Blade, they did use it differently. In the end, it was more about the characters than the nifty action or the expensive pixel-layer. I liked it whole lot.

And was it just me or did anyone else have a “Oooo! Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back”-moment when Reeve enters the church with his lightsaber collapsable sword in his belt?

Best in Show - at last and a bit late

I lied of course when I said that I would write about Best in Show yesterday. I’ll write about it today instead. And make no mistake, this is just a cover-up as I had forgotten all about it until now.

It was good. No, better than good. A delightful comedy made with a lot of warmth instead of the usual sniperesque “laugh at these pathetic people everyone”. Another good thing is that it grows on you. The first time I saw it, it was good. The second, I laughed even more. And on the third time I was floored. I liked the fact that Parker Posey had bracers. You couldn’t see them most of the time, but they were there. (Does she like to do things with her teeth? In Josey and the Pussycats she had the imperfection-transformation at the end where they gave her a gap between the front teeth.) The small things made everything much better as a whole and everyone seemed to do what was right for the part instead of just be there and look their best.

Go see it if you have missed it. Same goes for every other Guest-movie.

Guest, but no a guest

Best movie of this year? A Mighty Wind. I haven’t seen it, but the competition isn’t that spectacular. Christopher Guest is a genius, and this time he brings back McKean and Shearer. Sure, it’s the usual Guest mockumentary thing except with a slight twist. There is a story. A story, plot or whatever you want to call it. If you’ve seen the SNL-bit from ‘84 about the Folksmen, you know the premise. This is about their reunion. But we here in the cold Sweden will probably have to wait for a video release next year.

(At least I’m not alone about this...)

Tomorrow I plan to write about Best in Show as I plan to see it one more time later tonight. (Yes, I mean tonight. Late even. No sleep for the... you know, me.)

Proof that elves are local

While I haven’t seen the Two Towers, I do actually think I want to do so. If only because Hugo Weaving turns to Liv Tyler and says: “Arwen, you don’t belong here.” Is Elrond Tubbs or Edward? (Probably Edward due to his attitude towards humans.) Does he begin with “This is a local shop for local people?” And if Arwen isn’t local, then who is David? Questions, questions.

This is why DC can't get a decent comic adaptation

So, we’re officially screwed. The Hellblazer movie is going to be... Batman & Robin all over again.

Shuler Donner added that it will be a challenge selling audiences on a hero without the name recognition of X-Men. “I think the challenge is just to make a really good movie,” she said. “Even though there’s a name, a cachet, the movie [still] has to stand up on its own.”

Well. Let’s see. They’ve taken John Constantine and made him 1) American, 2) a con-man and 3) into Keanu Reeves. Neither of these changes are any good, and the producer thinks mr Reeves is perfect for the part. The whole point is that Constantine doesn’t have to use magic as he charms his way through life anyway. And they’ve given him a Batmobile.

Even better is this, from another interview:

“He’s hot in the role, he’s perfect for Hellblazer because he has that innocent quality about him, a bit naive, but someone you like,” Donner says to Zap2it.com. “He’s a bit like Tarzan, or a hero like that. But this time, he sends demons to hell.”

Naive? Constantine? I’m howling with laughter here. Really. I hope this never gets made... Can’t Terry Gilliam visit the set or something? With his pockets full of rocks from the Failed Movie About Don Quiote. Anything. Please.

Me, Zombie

Well, not quite. But those in London has the chance of being cast as a zombie in Shaun of the Dead. The movie is, as you know Bob, the brainchild (heh, no pun intended. Wait. Yes it is.) of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright of Spaced fame. Considering the Resident Evil-bit of series one episode three it can’t be anything but a success and a masterpiece.

Found this at MCiOS:Hyperlink Game

Oscars

I have seen very few of the Oscar nominated movies this year-- probably one two or three — but that will not stop me. These are those that I decree are fit to win. Not all, because some of the awards I really don’t care which will win and which will lose.

• Best Picture: Chicago — it may be a musical, but the only competition is from the Polanski crowd. I haven’t seen any of the nominated here, but it is going to win with the popular vote.
• Best Actor in a Leading Role: Nicolas Cage (Adaptation) — it is a Jonze/Kaufman production. It must win for that alone.
• Best Actress in a Leading Role: Damn if I know, but probably Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven).
• Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Christopher Walken (Catch Me If You Can) — it’s Christopher Walken. What else need to be said?
• Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Meryl Streep — once again the Jonze/Kaufman thingie.
• Best Director: anyone but Martin Scorsese.
• Best Original Screenplay: Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven)?
• Best Screenplay beased on other work: Charlie Kaufman & Donald Kaufman (Adaptation) — pure genius. Also worthy just for the fact that he’ll get to share the Oscar with his non-existing twin brother.
• Best Animated Feature: Probably one of the Japanese cartoons.
• Best Cinematography: Conrad L. Hall (Road to Perdition) — it looks beautiful, which I believe is the criteria.
• Best Art Direction-Set Decoration & Best Visual Effects: Let’s just give these two to the Tolkienists.

Finally on DVD

Hold the phone! One of my favourite movies of all time will be released the 24th March (on region 2 that is.) I don’t know if it will contain any extra features, but it probably won’t. But who cares? Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead is good enough to be bought anyway.

Terry Gilliam

Onion interview with Terry Gilliam (saw this thanks to Sore Eyes)

If you make films of a certain size and scale, you’re not going to be able to get away from Hollywood. That’s unfortunately, to me, the most depressing aspect of Man Who Killed Don Quixote falling apart, because we’d managed to raise $32 million without a penny from Hollywood, without even a distribution deal, nothing. It was me trying to show that we could make it. By European standards, that’s a really big budget; by Hollywood standards, it’s below the norm. But it was enough money in Europe to make a spectacular film, and I was determined to show that Hollywood doesn’t have to be everywhere all the time. But I’m afraid that with the failure, the inability to make the film, we lost that. At the moment, the way financing is in Europe, Hollywood is absolutely necessary.”-- T. Gilliam

Right now, I really want to see Lost In La Mancha

the Pillow Book

Previously this week (technically it was last week) I saw the Pillow Book. It has gone a few days, the images is still there. The calligraphed letters, the small windows that sometimes are used to show the actual movie. It is... The text... God, this is hard. The movie is about text, the text matters and plays an integrated part in the story. It is hard to explain, which is a bit weird. Text is supposed to be read and written, but here it almost takes a visual aspect. It is really neat. Sadly to say, they don’t make many movies about text fetishism.

It is an artsy movie, but in a good way. (Note to self: I might need to clarify what I mean with artsy sometime in the near future and the difference between that and artsy-fartsy.) Wonderful use of rare techniques of the media, great use of languages (English, Cantonese, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin), quirky narration and so on. The only problem is the somewhat paperthin plot but I guess its’s just that kind of a movie. It is very hard to describe it properly. So Tommy, this is another of those movies that you probably should stay away from.

Mike Leigh

A lot of people had talked about it. With a lot I actually mean about one, two, three, four, five people. A few others as well, but only five had seen it and all of them thought it was great. So you understand that I just had to see it.

Secrets & Lies starts with an introduction to the characters. At first I thought it was nothing special, I had seen it before. Then the characters started to expand and I before I knew it half an hour had past. I sat still. This is good. Really good.

The story is thin, there is no action whatsoever and it is quite long and slow-paced. (Tommy, this isn’t your kind of movie. You’ll hate it.) The characters however continue to grow all the way, the fill up every frame and make it a joy to watch. You don’t know if you’re going to laugh or cry. Much of the actors performance is appearantly improvised, but my God, what improvisations. Better acting than all movies on this year’s Academy Awards put together. I eagely await the cinema release of Mike Leigh’s All or Nothing in January.

Road to Perdition

This is a tale of four people. Boo, Ola, Patrik and I. The plan, full of naivity and childish optimism, was to see Road to Perdition. At first everything went fine. I was there and soon all the other showed up. Well, almost. Boo didn’t.

Boo was supposed to see a movie before this, so he should have been there. I look at the clock, the movie should have been over and done with by now. I call him up and it turns out that he missed the bus but he assured me that he was on the way.

We went away to get some cash from the ATM. We had a small walkabout and then we headed back to the cinema. This is where I got a SMS. It was from Boo, who had forgotten to bring his card to pay for the bus-faire. I don’t know how he managed to do this, but I’m pretty sure it’s a Boo-thing. He said he couldn’t make it and that I should cash in his ticket.

Boo, you owe me five kr. Oh, and the movie was Very Fine Indeed.

• fad absurdum: http://www.adolvsson.com/arkiv/2002_10.php
  

I forgive him for Alien: Resurrection

First impressions of Amelie:

a) This looks good.
b) I like all those info dumps by the narrator quite a lot. Especially the like and dislike adds a quirky atmosphere to the whole movie.
c) What the hell is Jeff Noon doing in a French movie? And the Santana look-a-like as the four way talkative photo. Amazing really. Of course, the movie is quirky, so Jeff Noon wouldn’t had been totally out of place, but his evil twin probably have more acting skills than the Manchesterian author. (The evil Noon twin also rides a motorized wheelchair in Alien: Resurrection, but he isn’t quite as Noonish in that. Quite possible, he’s also appearing in all the other movies by the same director.)
d) Samuel L. Jackson has never been quite so white, so I suspect that this isn’t the same Mr Glass as in Unbreakable.
e) Trust a Frenchman to throw in some umpha-umpha accordion music in the soundtrack.
f) It’s a Damn Good Movie (tm).

Hairy beasts

Shock! Horror! awaited me. I wan’t prepared for this, not by a long shot. But there on the dvd shelf stood Human Nature. Sure, it’s been a while since the cinema release so it shouldn’t have come as a shock. As far as I’m aware, it hadn’t been released as on region one, which tends to be a month or three ahead of us here in plain old region two.

I had to buy it. It’s Charlie Kaufman (of Being John Malkovich fame) after all.

Update 18:57: I have now seen it. I liked it. It was mot quite as bizarre as BJM, but it’s still not your average run of the mill type of film. There is, I suppose, a moral to the story but it isn’t what it seemed to be. Far from it. It is not a perfect film, there are flaws as there always is. The look Rhys Ifans gives to the camera in the alley where he drinks liqour and gets a blow job is stuck in my mind even after the movies is over. You don’t pity him, you pity yourself and our species.

The B R Act

Michele over at A Small Victory wrote about Battle Royale and I was intrigued. I jumped into the car and drove over to Boo‘s place as he had it on dvd. (He had tried to get my to borrow it before, but failed. Sorry Boo, but “they take a lot of students to an island and they fight” doesn’t sound as good and interesting to watch as “in which a 42 students are whisked away to a deserted island where they must kill each other off until one is left standing.”)

The movie was wonderful. Disturbing, violent and more of the same. At some places, I even laughed but then again my sense of humour is a bit askew. When someone died, they did it with blood. Not too much, but you could see it spurt out. This made it even more disturbing as the graphical violence was very realistic (except in one or two scenes). Very much recommended to those who don’t mind this type of films. I really need to see more Japanese movies.

Nothing at all

Not done squat the last few days. Just read books and watched movies.

The Wicker Man: it’s still brilliant. Utterly brilliant. It is also quite unlike everything else I’ve seen. Christopher Lee and the rest of the cast is good, even those who live in the village and jumped in as extras. A very good film, just as Dave Lally said.

Fellowship of the Ring: decent. Better on dvd, as you can pause and do other things instead for an hour or two, and then get back and admire the scenery. The plot however, is still missing just as well as large parts of the characterisations.

M*A*S*H season one: dear God. A bit uneven, but even if you count that into the calculations, it is great. Damn you TV4 for ruining it.

Sneakers: yay. A good solid fun for two hours. It’s vastly underrated by almost everyone in my opinion, I can’t figure out why though.

Running Time: black and white Bruce Campbell movie, a crime story in real-time created without visible cuts.

Later today: the Frighteners on tv.

Rewrite, please.

Saw Vanilla Sky. I wanted to like it but at most I can just say that it was decent at times. You have Cameron Crowe and some of the actors from his (brilliant) Almost Famous in it, but it lacks something in the execution. They throw in plot twists after plot twists that after a while don’t seem to fit in. And don’t let me get started on the ending. Talk about deus ex machina. It shattered whatever little they had succeeded to build up into fragments invisible to the naked eye. If you want that plot twist, you have to go along with it and see where it takes you and not use it as the end of the road. The trailer signalled an entire different movie, one that in hindsight seemed a lot more interesting.

I also saw Spy Game which can be best described as con games within CIA. It ended too early, way too early as they could have gone on for ten to twenty minutes at least. When I think about it Spy Game didn’t have an ending. It suffered from Neal Stephenson’s decease, where everything just stops at the last page. But unlike Vanilla Sky it didn’t ruin everything because I didn’t feel cheated.

Three movies and a wing

I have done lots of things, but I can’t find the right words to describe what. Be as it may, but I find it sad. Sad, even though I’ve said to myself in that high and commanding voice that “I shall not dwell on the past.” It’s hard. The past defines me and I keep coming back to it. History rhymes as Bruce Sterling once put it, so maybe that’s why I feel this deja vu.

I’ve seen three movies today though. So while I’m at it I might as well write about those. First out was The One with Jet Li. People claim that it was similar to the Matrix, but we all know how much we can trust people by now, don’t we? VR and multiverse have nothing in common, and as for fighting some sort of marshal art in an sf-flick? I don’t think that’s enough to pinpoint it down to Matrix-clone.

The second, the Score. It was very good all in all, although I start to question if Robert De Niro hasn’t burnt himself out or something. He had no energy and he seemed absent. Edward Norton and Marlon Brando was excellent, so they managed to pull it up above normal despite De Niro’s struggle with apathy.

The third was Enigma. It was okay. It also made me want to reread NEal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon which is a good thing. Anything that reminds me about that book deserves attention.

And soon it’s the West Wing. This day has been good to me.

Those Royalists

-- This near-death experience has given me a new perspective on things.
-- But dad, you never were dying.
-- I know! I’m gonna live!
(Gene Hackman and Luke Wilson)

I’ve finally seen the Royal Tenenbaums. It was even better than I believed it was going to be. Much better. Even Owen Wilson managed to actually perform and embody his character. Why doesn’t he stick to writing and acting in things such as this instead of being a part of bad action-flicks?

But I must see this again. The dvd should be released shortly. Yay.

In-joke bonanza

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie with so many in-jokes as Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back. The plot of the movies, well, what plot? I just don’t really care. I had fun while watching it and I really, really want to see more of Mark Hamill. I think it is time to get this movie on DVD soon.

The burning straw man

There are more versions of the Wicker Man that there are Star Trek-spin offs and it makes my head hurt. There are the usual 84 minute version, the one that has received the most circulation. This is the butchered version made by the studio without ant regard to theose involved. Then there are one which runs 95 minutes and on that runs 99. The 99 one is a new Directors Cut made from whatever they could save and is the one (together with the 84 theatrical release) which is present in the special edition DVD.

However. There is another version out there that runs for about 102 minutes, the original cut, but that hasn’t been available anyware since -91. Probably, the negative has been destroyed and this is a lost cause nowadays. The BBC-version (92 minutes) doesn’t exist any longer, but it is suspected that it is the same as the 95 minute American release.

It is confusing up to the point that I no longer knows which version I own. Oh well, it is good movie nevertheless. Nice extras too.

Update: the 102 and 99 minute versions are according to those involved making the picture the same. Go figure. I can now relax and go back to study the English language and its origins.

"I would have let go of those legs now."

Imagine four persons in a room. On the table in front of them someone has placed some beers and on the telly there is a rather goofy movie. They will talk about it, correct mistakes, come up with better solutions, and laugh at errors and stupidities. This is, in essence, the commentary track on Evil Dead II — probably sans the beer though.

Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Scott Spiegel and Greg Nicotero racks down on themselves and others such as Robert Tapert and Ted Raimi as well as talking about things which really doesn’t have that much to do with the movie itself. Listen to it if you can, it’s hilarious. Gosh, wow.

Why can't everything exist on dvd?

I went to play.com in order to check on the dvds I had ordered and this is what greeted me:

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) R1 £15.99 Posted 10/04/2002 20:34:00

Posted, already. Much happiness will begin next week as I’ll probably do absolutely nothing beside watching movies (and it will be everything I’d dreamt it would be). No, wait. I have classes to attend next week. Damn. Damn. Damn. So, I have to revise my plans, I’ll watch lots of dvds next week during the night and it’ll be everything I’d dreamt it would be — which happens to be what I usally do anyway.

Panic panic panic

I’ve just came home from Panic Room. It was good, better than good. It was almost excellent. It did live up to my high hopes after Fincher’s Fight Club. He is in my mind the best now living director, hands down. It was beautiful, the way the camera searched between the two “fractions” or whetever once should call it.

Jared Leto played Brad Pitt, I kid you not. The characters name wasn’t that, but the way he moved. It was uncanny. And no one can swing an hammer like Jodie Foster. No one. I want to have this on DVD now. Now. Now. Now.

The Bomb and me

I saw Dr. Strangelove first time in several years esterday. Why it has taken this long I don’t know, since I think it is one of Kubricks betst movies (tie with Full Metal Jacket).

Proof about the demise

Got woken up by a phonecall, which for some reason wasn’t as bad as it use to be. It might depend on the caller but that is rather arbitrary . Anyway, one of thesse two persons (they were, and still is I presume, Niklas and Ola) told me who had gotten away with the Oscar for best actor.

At first I though I was joking. But He wasn’t. Ola was dead serious but he cloud’t stop laughing. And I can see why. Denzel Washington for Training Day?! What do they do, let a crack pipe go around before it’s time to vote? This is the worst monstrosity that has happened in this category since last year when Russell Crowe went of with one for that Spartacus-copy. (Sure, Mr Crowe didn’t overact as much as anyone else in that movie but for that part he just didn’t deserve it.)

This should once and for all prove that the Oscars, whatever standards they once claimed to keep, have fallen hard into the murky area of “give your friends an a award.”

He's getting cranky now

Finally. There are some of us who call other people for Bruce and say things like “Crikey!” and “It’s really cranky now!” Now, the movie industry has decided to exploit our icons as well, and really, who are we to say no and stop them?

Steve Irwin gets to wrestle livestock on the big screen. This sure beats watching Crocodile Hunter reruns. This summer might have been saved after all.

Movies that left an impression

There have been three movies, no, make that four, that have affected my life [in a way that I myself could feel the change (added because Tommy couldn’t read between the lines)]. Perhaps not so much outwards but the way I think and look at my surroundings. Four movies. Only one of them is from my childhood, the others are relatively new and I don’t know if they’ll still be on this list a ten years from now. But now is more important than the future, so here they come in no order whatsoever.

The first one is The Empire Strikes Back. I saw it for the first time in 1982. Back in the heyday, it was not new at the time, it had existed for two solid years and I was five years old. Needless to say, the entire trilogy wrecked havoc on my entire childhood. I think I owned 80-95% of all the toys excluding the ships. Those where way to expensive for me. I knew Star Wars by heart before I started school.

The second movie is Fight Club. It is the greatest romantic comedy of all time. Pitch black romantic comedy.

Third movie, Pi. A paranoid obsessive guy that might be a bit autistic. When I saw this I was reading Alan Fletcher’s The Art of Looking Sideways, and these two together formed a strange symbiosis. It was as if someone had taken the filter we all have across our eyes and tilted it. Just a little bit, everything seems familiar but it’s not.

And so to the movie I’ve been watching for the last five days, almost in a long seamless loop. Untitled, or, as it is called in the shorter theatrical release: Almost Famous. The longer verion is much better in all aspects. For me, it felt as if it conveyed two messages: “you might still be uncool, but you might do some interesting stuff” and more importantly “follow through and pay the consequences.” And that is important.

False green ears for free

For those poor sods without a region free DVD-player, Shrek is soon to be released as both VHS and DVD here in Sweden. The best thing isn’t that this edition contains both the regular version as well as one dubbed to the glorious language of Swedish. No, it is that if you pre-order it at a fairly large chain store, you’ll get a pair of Shrek-ears free of charge.

I already own the region one version, but damn. I think I want those ears. But I don’t want to own a dubbed movie. Animated movies must be dubbed in Sweden, it is a state law or something. The problem is that the dubbing sucks ass — it’s so bad that it isn’t even funny. Kung Fu movies from the seventies seem to be expensive masterpieces, where the out of sync lip movements have been digitally manipulated to fit the new language.

But those ears. I can not drop it. Although I haven’t seen them myself, they are probably cute and ten times past silly. Who wouldn’t want to own a pair of those? (I want to see Shrek again but I can’t. It is either here or here, and the key thing is that I’m at neither of those two places.)

Cosy movie number one

This is another installment of my book entitled “It’s a weird life with Nicklas Andersson”, or I might change the title to “The small book about o(pi)nions” before I’m finished. Enough about that.

I’ve just seen the movie Pi and the extras (except the commentary track). It was actually almost as I mockingly described it below. Cosy. Not comfy though, but very cosy.

This probably says a lot more about me than about the movie itself. In a way I found the speaker voice soothing as well as showing how fucked up the main character was. The camera, the angles and so forth, was nicely done, it was skillfully treading the borderline without ever stepping over it into artsy claptrap. I need to buy this movie myself soon.

Other People I Know (tm) thought it was too much with all the numbers and equations but I don’t get that point of view. Numbers is what the plot is all about and just by adding the equations doesn’t make it “too bloody intelligent.” I’m not stupid, or so I like to think, but I’m number-blind and happen to like math. This could perhaps be one of my many paradoxes as it means I will never fully understand how to add things together from one X to the Y and the square Z times the derivation of 2X. Or something like that. It is a pain in the ass.

Anyway. Despite this I followed through the content in Pi without any problem whatsoever.

Cosier than thou

I borrowed three cosy-and-comfy movies today from Boo so my weekend is saved. In the beginning there were only meant to be two, but after I helped him toss in his new computer into his apartment — I’m sworn to secrecy about that place, so go bug someone else — I ended up with one more.

I figured I’ll begin a bit easy and then move on graciously into the more cosier movies later this evening (or perhaps even tomorrow). After all, I’ve already seen Se7en before although not with all these DVD-extras. Then Pi and last Requiem for a Dream.

Truly Burtonesque

If one felt that feeling of betrayal by Tim Burton for his latest motion picture, all one need to do is to watch his short Frankenweenie made for that Disney corporation in 1984. If he managed to get paid for doing that by Disney, I’m confident that he will embark on the dark twisted road he used to travel soon enough. Patience.

Frankenweenie was more Burton than the first Batman for Chirst sake. Magnificent and charming story about a kid named Frankenstein who brings his runover dog back to life. Shoot in black and white and with angles and lightning effects that are beautiful. oF his later wok, only Sleepy Hollow comes close in style and feeling.

The Others

Just came back home from the Others. Unlike both Boo and Ola, I knew how it would end about halfway through. I think I have to stop watching movies, this always happen (even with Sixth Sense and how fun is that?) But apart from that it was good, very good usage of the music and the camera. I liked it, although it had its flaws (a bit too slow in the beginning).

Afterwards we sort of ran, but really we didn’t, towards GVG where I bought a State and Main-DVD really cheap. We stayed fopr quote some thime and bitched about movies before splitting up in two directions.

That Cubicle Movie

I’ve seen it about ten to twenty times now, but Office Space is still just as good.

-- It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.

-- I’d relax, sit on my ass all day, I would do nothing.
-- Well you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, He’s broke, don’t do shit.

Worst movies ever

Over at the Stinkers they have a list of the worse hundred movies ever made. What is worse though is that I can’t really argue about top 10 worst as, and this I probably shouldn’t say in public, I’ve seen many of them and agree. They where bad, horrible and downright shit. Perhaps I should give Showgirls a higher position than “only” 8. And where are Highlander 2? Any list about the worst movies must have Highlander 2 among the top ten, it is in the rules. The rest of the movies, all 90 of them can also be discussed. Some just don’t belong there, while they seem to have forgotten other totally crappy films.

Oh, I didn’t see that at first: some wise-asses voted in the movies. Well, it was to be expected then. Most people don’t know The Third Man from Police Academy 5, and PA5 they can’t separate from that sequel to Saturday Night Fever. The en masse don’t know jack shit.

(By way of Plasticbag.org)

This is fucked up

Every bone in my body told me I shouldn’t like it, but they and parts of my brain had to surrender. I actually liked Moulin Rouge. It was as if Hunter S. Thompson had written a musical and then the distributor had stripped the finished product of every reference to drugs in the editing process. So you don’t actually see anyone indulge in a cocaine snort race, but the effects are there as they skip and dance and sings and well, dance some more. The story was a bit banal but it somehow fitted the wonderful camera-work.

And no matter what one say about the rest, the credits are stunning. The most beautiful piece of work I’ve seen in a long time, but then again I’m a sucker for everything nostalgic to the old times of any given technology. Anyway, the titles had that sort of flickering strobe light at the edges from old movies. Don’t get me started on the usage of type. It was as if someone had deviced a wet dream of credits.

Eleven people in the ocean

I saw Ocean’s Eleven yesterday and I liked it, I liked it a lot. Stylishly filmed and with a neat soundtrack (one person who I’ll refrain telling his name called it “psychedelic”, which proves what he knows about music). If it wasn’t for that Elvis song, I’d probably buy the cd right away. Beautiful movie and not a by-the-numders remake, I think I must have this on dvd.

Uno momento

Everybody should see Memento. Tomorrow might be too late, so you’d better do it now as fast as you can. But don’t fastforward through it, that was not what I meant at all.

The Banzai

It was a while since I was so excited aver a forthcoming DVD, but it seems the Buckaroo Banzai-dvd will be a whole bag of fun. Widescreen, commentary-track, 14 deleted scenes and some more junk one can’t live without. And what a great way to start a new year...

Serious overacting

Yesterday, I and a couple of people from my english class where at the movies. There were some differences about which to see, but eventually it was decided that it would be Training Day. I would rather have seen Rush Hour 2, but the others wouldn’t move an inch. I tried, and tried, I even used the “listen now, Mr Chan could kick Mr Washingtons ass any day, any place, and even with Chris Tucker holding onto his pants.” They didn’t listen.

However, the movie was better than I thought, perhaps because my low expectations. It kept a good pace and decent storybuilding up until the end, at which point the cardhouse were crushed by a 16 ton weight falling from nowhere. When it’s time to hand out the Lifetime Achivement Award For Overacting, Denzel Washington will be among the main contenders.

In the future I predict that I'll see a lot of movies. A lot.

The next-to-local cinema opened yesterday. More screens, bigger screens, better sound and all that is good and proper. One person who where there at the grand opening recieved a free year of watching movies there, movies of his choice. It was a he that won, and he was twelve. I’m happy and all that for him, but I just can’t loose the feeling, you know?

The feeling that it was rigged. A twelve year old has not the same choice of movies to see, there is in fact a lot that he simply can’t see, and those movies are those that they show there on the largest screens. I hope I’m wrong. Really, I do.

Oh, and a new biography of moi is up. It’s fun so you should read it.

The Superbeast's Playhouse

Imagine my face and how my jaw cracked the floor tiles when I saw Rob Zombies IMDB-entry. Imagine how my eyes popped out, the hair on my neck rising in sheer horror and my ears are filled with the soundtrack from Friday the 13th part III.

Some doors should remain closed, to protect the innocent and make sure that the information doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. Production assistant on Pee-Wee Herman’s Playhouse? Sure, it was a long time ago, in the darkest pits of the eighties even, but still... It’s just so wrong on so many levels that I just can’t speculate or even muster the strength to leave it alone. This is a change-over, and I have no idea what’s going on.

Sneaking past the trust

Anti-trust, which I saw yesterday, had some uncanny resemblance to Sneakers. Both focus on some sort of conspiracy, a conspiracy that leads to the death of those that are no longer of any use for the Evil Empire.

The Black Cryptocracker Box — lots of free toys inside! — and Synapse have the same purpose: to provide backdoors into everything. The henchmen who are not whom they appear to be. They/he even have to enter the building to steal the box/cd while at the same time avoiding the guards by hiding in cramp spaces.

In some scenes Ryan Phillippe looked like River Phoenix, with the difference off less hair, glasses and being alive. I will not mention that in some other scenes I expected Tim Robbins to pick up a paper with a circle on it from his table and say, “You know, for kids.” But he never did, not even once. But the questions remain: who is Whisper in Anti-Trust? Who gets the Winnebago, will there be peace towards man, and in which Internet-store near you can one buy the lego servers?

Do I need to mention that I, unlike most people, actually like both flicks? Even though they have faults? And that I need to buy the dvd-discs as soon as I can?

This is a bad movie #537

The movie Lake Placid is dumb, stupid, annoying, crap, and every other synonymous word that I can’t think of. And they, the characters, party to a rather famous song by Tom Jones, in the middle of the forest with a giant crocodile roaming the neighbourhood. This means that nothing can forgive its existence. Why, Oliver Platt? Why, Bill Pullman?

In similar vein, Mars Attacks! is also dumb, stupid, annoying, crap, and feature the same Tom Jones song. Not to forget Tom Jones himself, something I can’t no matter how much I try. But at least it’s entertaining.

Lake Placid just is, for some reason. I wonder where the hell is Steve “Oh boy, is this crocodile cranky now!” Irvin when you really need him, because he could have hunted this damn movie down and locked it up before I got to see it.

Additionally, David E. Kelley who wrote the bloody thing probably had written it for an episode of Ally McBeal, but due to the problem of getting a huge crocodile into the courtroom plotwise, he had no choice but to expand it into a movie. There are some “evidence” for this. Bridget Fonda obviously, from her behaviour and lines, is the part which should have been Ally. And then we have other persons who do characters from The Practice, Chicago Hope and Picket Fences.

Bad movie bonanza

For some reason, call it self-preservation or whatever you like, I had completely missed the Stomp Tokyo movie-site. And now that I have seen it, I also want to see the Bollywood Superman-version.

Moronic scheduling

For fuck sake! You don’t schedule All the President’s Men to 13:45 on a Wednesday! What if, and I don’t think I’m pushing this to its limits, somebody wanted to see it?

Repeat after me: ignore the bad transmission

How am I supposed to get any work done on my essay when crap like She’s All That is on tv? It’s annoying, because it is bad and therefore I must watch. It’s a compulsion. When I die, I’ll go to bad movie heaven, where there is no God. Only heaps of bad movies that will last for maybe two eternities if I’m lucky.

Now, I don’t really have time for this because I want to pass the damn thing. Right now its going slow, a slug could type faster. Besides, the mythology part of semiotics is the most fickle grey mass of ambiguous ramblings I have ever seen in my life. Well, there was that lecture in last November, I still do not understand what it was all about.

“The myths which are generated in a culture will change over time, and can only acquire their force because they relate to a certain context. In myth, the context and history of the signs are narrowed down and contained so that only a few features of their context and history have a signifying function.”
Media Semiotics by Jonathan Bignell (p.23)>

No, sorry but I want to be honest. I lied before, the exam is not damned; it’s quite the opposite. Semiotics is pretty cool, neat, groovy, and other out-of-date expressions that are synonymous with niftiness. At least if done on my own terms, which if I might add, this isn’t.

Most of the semiotic-books are clear on the importance of text and letters, but they seem to have forgotten one very important part. The font. Nowhere they mention that the typeface also matters in how certain things are perceived. I mean, no one would take a warning seriously if it was typed with a script font such as Avalon. Right?

Grail hunt! Grail hunt!

The final dark ages movie is finally hitting the dvd-scene in an appropriate way. The movie as such has been available before, but without any extras. Now, it does and what extras that is. It might be the definite dvd to buy and own ever. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see the 2nd disc version where the Pythons search for the Holy Grail, dubbed to Japanese? Or watch the educational How to Use Your Coconuts and all the other “load of rubbish”? October 23rd, mark that date down in your calendars right this instant.

-- Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
-- Oh, had enough, eh?
-- Look, you stupid bastard. You’ve got no arms left.
-- Yes, I have.
-- Look!
-- Just a flesh wound.
-- Look, stop that.
-- Chicken! Chickennn!
-- Look, I’ll have your leg. Right!
-- Right. I’ll do you for that!
-- You’ll what?
-- Come here!
-- What are you going to do, bleed on me?
-- I’m invincible!
-- You’re a looney.

Static background is annoying

When I saw Ninja Scroll last night — Manga not really being my forte and all — I realised something that I’ve missed a long time. Nobody uses parallax scroll in conventional media these days. Sure, there where some hints in new mixed cgi/hand drawn-animation such as Titan AE.

But I want to see it used properly such as in the old computer game Obitus — or for that matter, it was even widely used in other Psygnosis classics. It gives the visuals a artificial depth that it otherwise lacks. And this is something it usually does lack, as it makes it look more like an adventure game with an always static background than a motion picture.

This is my major beef with the animated movies these days. They simply don’t use the techniques they have at hand to produce a movie that works properly. Instead they go the fashionable way; ignore what they’ve learnt in the past and go for better cleaner images. Not everything must be done with computers, not everything done with a computer needs a lens flare and animated movies most definitively do not need a cute little animal.

There are things animators and the scriptwriters could learn from more back-to-basic comic book writers such as Jhonen Vasques. Or of it must be cute, look at the magic created by Roman Dirge. But most of all that can be learnt from these two fellows is that gritty and rough images works just as well. It does not need to be perfect.

In giftwrapped noise, the blip can get lost

Today in the News That Makes Nicklas Jump Up and Down and Scream of Joy, or ntmnjudsj for short, we’ve learnt that the record album entitled Gift by the most excellent band Curve is soon to be released. According to the track listing it looks good. But this was no real surprise.

As most probably don’t know, Curve is one of the few things that I feel is good enough to be fanatical about. Over the years I’ve learnt that it’s much better to be fanatical about the small things in life. The bigger the object of affection is, the worse it’ll get. But obsessions with small things on the border of artistic fabulousness actually make life better.

Horrible idea

Once, not long ago, in fact it was just a few hours ago, I hade this idea. That I wanted to see Phantoms again. I mean, it’s every humans right to watch a movie with bad acting, mediocre special effects and a script that, frankly, it sucks from square one.

But then it happened. I feel asleep. Yes, my entire plan of self-torment was spoilt by something so ordinary as sleep. Thank God perhaps, but couldn’t I’ve been informed before so that I could prepare — put the video on record or something.