Thousandapologies

I did have the House of the Flying Daggers in my posession already for quite some time; after watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which I liked too, I decided I should watch more of these Chinese martial art movies, and so, Yesterday I finally watched another one. Beautiful movie, I really would like to recommend you to watch. These Chinese films have a different atmosphere than the Western movies we’re used to watch, but not so different that it’s not possible to understand them (like for example Japanese Manga is making entirely no sense to me). House of the Flying Daggers again stars the lovely Ziyi Zhang, is quite entertaining and at the same time beautifully filmed; ballet-like fighting scenes that near the artistic, beautiful nature and music that really empowers the atmosphere of the film. Add to that an unexpected (read not Hollywood-like) ending, and you have the recipes for an awesome film. I’m certainly going to check out more of these movies, like, for example, Hero, which I also still long to see!

One of the best songs by the Beatles I think, but now also a movie with only Beatle-songs in it, it turns out. Last week, I watched this film and still I am not too sure what I need to think of it. The film portrays the story of a young fellow Jude moving from Liverpool to New York in the late 60s, getting involved in the hippy community, student protests against the Vietnam War and finally, how could it be different in the ‘All you need is love’ spirit of the Beatles, falling in love with one of the hippie women, Lucie.

First, I thought the film just used Beatle-songs performed by John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves as background music, but it turned out to be a musical-like flick with the actors singing the songs, backed up by new compositions of the music. In my opinion, trying to portray the songs in a similar or better way than the Beatles, is one of the most difficult things one can do in music. The vocal lines and the music itself, especially in their later period, is just of a genious quality. Additionally, Beatles songs are still played every day, and thus very much established, therefore changing them too much might lead to critiques easily.

So when I found out the actors where singing themselves, my feelings about it were immediately mixed, although I must say the creators of the film (and the new compositions) did quite a good job with a lot of songs; trying to modernise the music a bit, but still adhere somewhat to the original atmosphere or style of the song. Conversely, some of the songs were a complete disaster. Really, one thing that I realised after viewing this film is that they should forbid Bono to sing Beatle songs, if not forbid him to sing altogether…arggg I was just outraged by his feeble voice trying to sing one of the lyrics; he provided the perfect example of the fear I wrote about above. Another thing I wasn’t to sure about was the musical-like quality of the film, song after song followed and this might have been a little less dense, some more normal conversations, a bit more attention to the story, and a lot less cheesy musical dancing choreography. However, I would still advise you to go and see this movie, just because the Beatles and their songs, in what form their songs are put, are just awesome. Oh and one last thing…all characters in the film are giving names from beatles songs, quite nice

If you haven’t got the film or the book yet, I really advise you to go out now and go get either of them, preferably both though. I first saw the film quite a while ago, in University to be precise. The film started with a turning record on a turntable and a piece of vinyl is always a way to attract my attention. When seeing the film the first time, I got hooked on it: the countless awesome quotes it had, the continuous enumerating of such-and-so top five lists and one of my favourite actors, John Cusack, in the leading role. This month I decided to buy the book and after finishing it, I can say two things: a) the book is brilliant b) the movie becomes even more brilliant after reading the book; the cast in the film is just awesome, John Cusack as Rob Fleming, playing the way too much rationale guy that’s doubting about everything, Jack Black is the raving lunatic Barry, and even Dick and Laura are perfectly chosen. Somehow they also managed to put almost an entire book into the movie, only ommitting some of the less important stuff. The movie also has some cool additions that would immediately fit in the book, would Nick Hornby decide to rewrite it (for those who have seen the movie the “Ray enters the shop” part). Well, I can say up till now, I think I did only like one book-movie combination so much, and this book has really left me wanting to explore more of English literature. Even more so after the big disappointment that’s called Dutch “literature”, of which only authors that are either sexually frustrated, plain crazy or major attention whores (in both the male and female meaning) seem to reach the wide public. Anyway let’s not get me started on that; what are you still waiting for, go out and buy High Fidelity immediately!

What a quiet but nice weekend it was; Friday evening one of sheer relaxation while Saturday the Namesake called up to have a movie night. Joined by a bagpack full of “munchies” (chips, japanese mix, etc.) I arrived at around 21:15, at which we immediately started examining the Namesake’s collection of mostly Belgian beers (strong beers!). Also the Namesake had two incredible “Friday night” movies saved especially for the occasion; Spiderman 2 and Spiderman 3. Well at first we thought it would be a grand movie night but unfortunately especially part two was quite a dissapointment; I think there could be only two ways of the movie being worse: (1) scrapping Kirsten Dunst from the cast and (2) adding Jean-Claude Van Damme Anyway, the beer already started to work, so the Namesake and I had the greatest amount of fun, even with a bad movie, I think we do not need much for that. As soon as, the movie started there was a Chinese woman playing the SpiderPig song, with different lyrics though, and I couldn’t keep myself from correcting her mistakes and singing “Spider Pig, Spider Pig”. After that it got even worse Luckily, Spiderman 3 was a bit better. Anyway, most important part is we had fun and it was an evening well spent! So off to next weekend and a new movie night

First, you start a blog, expecting not too much people to read it, next, after three months you have already 1400 hits and after that…people start to complain when you’re not updating regularly or ask for specific film reviews Even this afternoon I was virtually bitchslapped by Till because I did not write a post in a week That’s just great, keep me at it, I say…so here we go for another story….

Last weekend was unfortunately the last weekend of my holidays, so I had to spend it well. Friday afternoon, the weekend already started in all its glory when visiting my vikingbrother Stephan. After a long time we decided it was time for another of our legendary jam sessions…one of those that eventually led to the infamous, if you want to call it a band you have my blessing, Shagwell. It already started of well by Stephan asking me to accompany him to the local Aldi to get some beer and coke (the black, drinkable stuff; some of you might have wrong impressions of the Netherlands). After that I think we spend about two hours of jamming, which was fun as always…but then…

Something called… Beerfest.

It was not us inventing some new drinking game….no not even us organising an early version of the october fests (very early)…it’s a film…one…I cannot even remember the story of in my current soberness, maybe I should start drinking again to remember…but for now, I’ll try to give you at least an impression of what the film was like… Stephan had already told me, the reason we had to get new beer, was because he and his girlfriend Olivia had drank all the beer the last time they had watched the movie; at that moment they just had bought new beer…Anyway, I thought it couldn’t be that bad and just started watching with Stephan.

It was some story about two American dudez which for some unobvious reason had to bring their grandpa’s ashes to München at the time of the October fests. In München they end up in a fest within a fest called beerfest, which is only for true alcoholics. Discovered they do not belong there, they get humiliated and lose all the beergames, at which point they have to return to the States. There they decide that they have to compose their own beerfest team and compete again. That’s about all there is to the story…and yes, when sober it sounds stupid…but watching this movie, it’s impossible to stay just that, sober…immediately at the start you feel the urge to join in the beerfest and drink way too much…and that’s what we did and it is major fun too; till I had to ride my bike home Oh, and please do not stay sober watching this movie, I warn you, if so, you won’t appreciate the (ahum!) story…

But beerfest was not the only thing I did during the weekend….On Saturday I finally visited my cousin in Eindhoven, whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time now. Visiting him is always a lot of fun because the two of us just share a lot of interests and in my opinion have similar characters. After a one hour train ride I arrived in Eindhoven to be picked up my cousin and after some little snack we directly went to a terrace catching up on stories and social drinking. I, of course, had to demonstrate my (now not so) new camera to my cousin who also loves photography, more even, his pictures are just beautiful. Still catching up, our next stop was the local pool centre, where we discovered we had even more in common; we both majorly suck at pool, now even my tactics (mo & mik, Ancona, 2007) failed in getting me to win, and we soon decided to move on to the local cinema, to go and watch Transformers…

Yeah I know…Transformers….but let me explain…if you were raised, like me, in the 80s, it’s just pure nostalgia; and in what other movie can you see cars that magically turn into oversized robots that never fit into the original size of those cars…Exactly…And, far more important, it’s the perfect Friday night movie, even though we watched it on a Saturday night…You know, when you come home dead tired on a Friday evening and just want to watch something you do not need to think about. It’s like those Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, but then way better, because Jean-Claude isn’t in it…Also it contains nice babes…And! you can still follow it in Saturday evening condition…what more do you want? Oh, and the special effects are great

Still here? I just told you about my admiration for Transformers….sure you do not want to leave? Ok, then I’ll just tell you shortly about the rest of the weekend, which most of all contained a lot of chicken, of the grilled kind….just lovely, when arriving at my cousin’s appartement, we did just did that, eat a lot of chicken, played a bit of chess, watched another movie and that’s about it. Next day, more chicken, more chess, more catching up and just relaxing on his balcony…perfect end of a holiday isn’t it? Arriving home at about five, there was something else I did….

I did not go to the music festival Booch? And I did not join my friends there; and was almost lynched….they even sang spiderpig onto my voicemail Also I was called a couple of times by different friends wanting me to join and some even tried to bribe me with little pancakes (poffertjes in Dutch)…they did almost succeed… but I am a sissy, I was just too tired and had to work the next day. Luckily, they forgave me and after a while they called me to let me at least enjoy a little bit of Gabriel Rios….so that was it again…I’ll try to update again as soon as possible, maybe even tell you about the cruelty of Italian women, but please do not virtually bitchslap me again…

Voor degenen die deze film nog niet gezien hebben; het is een echte aanrader. Gisteren heb ik hem gekeken, en alhoewel het een behoorlijke zit is, ongeveer twee en een half uur, zit je bijna de hele tijd op het puntje van de stoel. De film gaat over het verzet tegen de Duitsers in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, en heeft als hoofdpersoon een joodse meid die, nadat haar familie uitgemoord is door de nazis, zich bij dit verzet aansluit; een prachtige rol van Carice van Houten, die iedere andere acteur/actrice in deze film echt ver achter zich laat. Geen wonder dat er veel belangstelling is in Hollywood voor deze actrice! Laten we echter hopen dat ze niet verzandt in de standaardrolletjes die meestal in Hollywood aangeboden worden. In Zwart Boek wist ze namelijk echt een emotionele snaar te raken, iets waar de meeste hedendaagse films helaas niet in slagen en waarbij het acteren meestal ook niet veel voorstelt. Niets dan lof dus voor deze actrice omdat zij weet te bewijzen dat het tegendeel nog steeds mogelijk is!

Last Friday our colleagues and I watched the Simpsons movie over at the Namesake’s…While I could not really be impressed by the movie itself (maybe it was the amount of alcohol still in my blood from the afternoon) , one song has been haunting me ever since. It’s just brilliant, and probably I also drove Rob and Christian crazy singing it all the time on Saturday…This was the best version I could find on youtube:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2uZkae8ra8]