I’ve had a lousy couple of days. Really, really shitty days. It just got a little better. I read only a minute ago that a new season of Big Brother starts again. I like Big Brother, and I can not understand why so many people hate it. People hate it with such a passion it’s scary.
But why do I like it? Well, imagine yourself being trapped in a house with a bunch of random strangers for three months, you have no contact with the outside world, and you’re given assignments and the results of the assignments determine whether or not you will eat for the following week.
It’s a live experiment in psychology, social interaction and it’s entertainment every day for three months. It is interesting to see these people having to cope with all of this for such a long time. You get a front row ticket to the human nature show; you learn about people, about our race, you see what’s good and what’s bad about being what and who we are.
I am very happy it starts again, and I will probably be watching it for most nights.
I watched a movie recently. It blew me away. It’s one of the best based-on-true-events-and-characters kind of a movie that I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.
I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and about the spirit of this man the movie is based on. I’ve been thinking about his attitude in regards to the way he led his life.
He has had one dream all his life. He is a motorcycle enthusiast and bought his first bike in the 1920’s. For 40 years he had been building, experimenting, and improving his motorcycle dreaming of going to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA for the speed week and ride his bike as fast as he can.
I like this quote of his;
“If you don’t follow your dreams, you might as well be a vegetable.”
Oomph, that hit me right in the gut!
Do you have a dream, something you want to achieve? Follow it, work hard and do whatever it takes for you to get there. Right now I drive a truck delivering drinks… It is not what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. I’m not doing that only because I need a job. I do that as a part of a larger whole, I do it as a way for me to get where I want to be later in life.
I suggest you watch this inspiring movie called The World’s Fastest Indian, and you can start by watching this trailer.
Technorati Tags: Entertainment, The World’s Fastest Indian, Quotes
I’ve been arguing with myself ever since part IV of this blog series whether or not I should continue doing these short movie reviews. Then I figured; why the hell not?
I love movies. It’s not only an interest, it’s a full blown passion. Among my friends I’m known as “the movie guy” and they never ask me movie questions when we play Trivial Pursuit because I’m almost always right. So, if you don’t dig these, don’t read. I’ll continue with these and I decided I will not care what people think. For this fifth post in the series I will give you five short reviews on five excellent films, and then you will have to watch them too. OK?
I remember years ago when I first saw the previews for this one on a movie show on TV. I didn’t think much of it, but for whatever reason I never forgot about it. So, last night when this was on TV I decided I should watch it. I turned the TV on and had one eye on the TV and the other on the computer screen. But more and more I started following what happened in the story of this film and ended up turning my computer off and watching the entire film. I really got into it.
Basic plot: a woman is evicted from her house because of unpaid taxes. The city decides to auction off her belongings, and later sells the house. The woman, now homeless, lives in her car. While she is pursuing legal action, unknown to her, an Iranian family has bought the house, moved in, and with the law on their side they refuse to move even though they are being pressured to do so by this woman, her lawyer and a local sheriff. There is of course more to this story than this, but I do not want to reveal too much. The acting is great, Ben Kingsley as the Iranian family man does such a great job that you really feel for this guy (I almost cried, that’s a good sign) and Jennifer Connelly as the evicted woman is very, very good as well, and she is very pretty too which doesn’t hurt at all (I almost cried for her too, by the way). This is a very touching, emotional and tragic story about a few innocent people that get mixed up in bureaucratic shit. Watch this one, folks! My rating: 4,5 stars out of 5!
“Prison desensitize you.” This is by far one of the best prison movies I’ve ever seen. Basic plot: a family man accidentally kills a burglar that enters his house. He is sentenced to prison and has to deal with living life in a place where no societal rules apply. It shows you how you devolve into a less of a human being into more of an animal-like creature. And it’s just not the prisoners that go through this transformation, it also very much affects the prison guards as they, too, in this horrible environment becomes less human-like. The story is good, the acting is great. Val Kilmer does a really good job as a bad ass “lifer”, and Stephen Dorff is pretty good, too. I highly recommend this one, folks. 4 stars out of 5.
The 1970’s. Drug trafficking. Bad guys vs. good guys. Really good music. Visually interesting. Even though I didn’t understand many of the casting choices they made for this movie the overall acting was great, and especially so by Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and Ruby Dee. This is a really good movie, I was positively surprised. Watch it! 4 stars out of 5!
My brother Christian said years ago that I have to watch this movie. He said it was great, and had an unexpected ending, and “if it doesn’t move you there is something seriously wrong with you”. Well, Christian has an excellent taste in movies, so of course I trust his judgment and when this movie was on TV a few weeks back I just knew I had to watch it. Basic plot: a down-on-her-luck young woman, played by Hilary Swank, is working as a waitress during the day and works out at a boxing club at nights, and she’s dreaming of becoming the number one female boxer. The owner of this dirty little boxing club, played by Clint Eastwood, is a legendary boxing trainer. He refuses to train women, but eventually he comes around and sees this woman’s talent and starts training her. I will say no more. Watch this fantastic movie! Rating: A full fiver!
Yeah, I know, there are two parts. But it’s the same story so I will make an exception here and count this as one continuous film.
A short back story first; When Kill Bill Vol.1 first came out on DVD I watched a bit of it and absolutely hated it. I must have been too tired and too drunk to really get into it. A few weeks ago both Kill Bill movies were on TV and I thought I should give them another chance. What can I say… I was so wrong, and I love both these movies! Good revenge saga, full of action (more so in Vol. 1 than in Vol. 2), beautifully shot, creative use of colours, sounds and music. I love both these movies and can’t wait til I can get them both on DVD and add them to my movie collection. 4,5 out of 5. Watch these!
Technorati Tags: Movies, Movie Reviews
If you thought “oh, this is just another one of those summer block buster comic book movies” you’re right, but you are also very wrong because this movie is so much more.
This movie is not only about Batman fighting crime like an immature little boy scout, thinking that only he can help set the world straight because only he has good values and morals in a disturbingly corrupt city. This movie is deep and thought provoking. It does not deal with absolutes, there is no absolute evil nor is there absolute good. It deals with ambiguous moral values and psychology.
The Dark Knight has our main character questioning himself as Bruce Wayne, but it also makes him question himself and his role as Batman, and what kind of a role or impact does he really make in the society he lives in. This is such an interesting character because he is three different persona’s, really. Two of those are masks hiding something he can not tell others about. There is “Bruce Wayne The Billionaire Playboy” that would take the cast of a Russian opera half way round the world just for the hell of it, to piss off his friends. There is, of course, “Bruce Wayne as Batman”, a character that stands for good, but “he is not a hero, he is the symbol Gotham needs right now”. This is interesting as Batman becomes the subject of a vicious hunt, they want his blood be he innocent or not. He is a symbol that gives Gotham what Gotham needs when Gotham needs it. And finally there is the real Bruce Wayne, an innocent human being so hurt and scarred by his tragic experiences as a little boy that he chooses to live a life in solitude only to hide behind masks, and the only one to ever really see Bruce, and know Bruce as his real self is the ever so loyal butler Alfred. (Alfred is a mentor in the classical sense, he gives advice when needed, he is there for support when needed, he tells Bruce about his own experiences and makes them into a metaphor for what is going on in Bruce’s life as private or as Batman.)
The villain, The Joker, he is just plain crazy. He embodies anarchy, evil, chaos, he is a cold blooded killer and does what he does because it’s fun. To me, this version of The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, has more soul, depth, life and attitude than the same character played by Jack Nicholson in the 1989 version of Batman. Heath Ledger blows Jack Nicholson out of the water. Never have I seen such a captivating performance for some one playing a “movie bad guy”. I sat there in the dark and enjoyed it so much that I was actually sad I will never get to see Ledger in action again. This is one actor I will surely miss.
The good that becomes bad, Harvey “Two Face” Dent. He is Gotham City’s new District Attorney, and the city’s “white knight in shining armour”. He is on the brink of solving all Gotham’s crime in one sweep. However, to prove a point The Joker has planned an event in where he would take Gotham’s new hero and twist him around and make him evil, so that he could show Batman how everyone really is corruptible. I do wish, though, that they could have given this character Dent a little more depth and character development, and show his turning evil a little better. In my opinion this was very bland, and I did not really care about him or what happened to him like I suppose they would have wanted me to.
The very first thing I noticed when the film started was the quality of the overall production, it was in a word excellent. Of course there’s action. It’s excellent. Enough is said about that.
Don’t be a dumb, ignorant fool. Go see this movie even though it is a Batman movie, because it is so much more than just Batman. I give it four stars out of five. Just awesome!
Trailer for The Dark Knight
Technorati Tags: Batman, The Dark Knight, Movies
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