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Editorial - 31 July 2002
As promised I'll expand a little on the personal reasons which required immediate attention the
last week and a half - actually some of it will require more attention for the rest of my life, but
that's none of your business. The first issue that came up was the abrupt decision to move out of the appartement
within the next month. That's a short period to try and find something decent, large enough and affordable. Especially
in these busy months when there's a lot of activity in a city filled with students moving in and out of their places.
As you can imagine that creates a lot of tension and tension has a nasty habit of adding the proverbial last drop to
an instable situation. To put it vaguely : some stuff surfaced and had to be addressed. And that's all I'm going to
write about that here. Too bad that some things are out of my hands and cannot be dealt with. I sorta implicitely
promised to ignore it for now.
I know that sounds weird, but I can't clarify it without telling you the whole story and that's something I don't want
to do. I'm not a blogger who wants to share everything from his morning breakfast over his kidney-pains in the afternoon
until his latest sexual escapade at night. That would be boring by the way ;-)
Editorial - 29 July 2002
Considering recent developments, a small update with the recently viewed movies was the least I
could do. I'll try to explain the rest later on.
Song of the week : "Swedish Designer Drugs" Daan
Oldie of the week : "Little Trouble Girl (instrumental)" Sonic Youth
Last seen movie : "Meet The
Parents" : painfully funny. Ben Stiller is Robert De Niro's soon to be son-in-law
who's seeking approval for the marriage. But when he discovers De Niro is ex-CIA, things get totally out-of-hand.
De Niro may not be a comedic actor - nor will he ever be - but his rough persona works perfectly in this movie. A
whole lot better than in "Analyze This". The humour is never caring and kind, but always painfull. It's filled with
scenes when you just can't help laughing although you're always laughing at someone's expense. Its' exactly what every
boy wishes he doesn't have to go through this when he's introduced to the parents of the girl he loves ... albeit
stretched to the extremes ...
"Gone In 60 Seconds" : an original classic
indie from 1974. The year 2000 remake is roughly based
on this one. Written, directed, produced and starring H.B. Halicki - an ex-stuntman with a blooming car-junkyard-business.
H.B. had some kind of dream of showing off his driving skills in a movie of his own and just went for it. The acting
varies from bad to plain awful and some scenes wouldn't even make the deleted scenes section of today's DVD-extras, but
the pacing of this movie is very good. Hardly ever to long and usually a little bit witty ... And the movie ends with a
42 minutes long chase ... that's right : 42 minutes, half the movie. Lots of carnage ... just great.
"Absolutely Fabulous : The Last
Shout" : Sweetie ! Darling ! Patsy and Edina drink, slacker around, go skiing with
the non-existent jet-set and face the upcoming marriage of Saffron - Edina's daughter. What can be more stressing ?
Doing this week : -----
Editorial - 23 July 2002
Due to personal reasons further updates may be limited in time and quantity. I can't put an exact
date on the complete and semi-regular return of these editorials. Check back now and then, maybe some new stuff will
be posted, but don't get your hopes up ... I've got more important things on my mind ...
Song of the week : -----
Oldie of the week : -----
Last seen movie : In a way it has been a Sandra Bullock weekend. It wasn't planned, just turned out that way.
Saturdaynight I got to choose the movie and whenever there's a new Sandra, that's like putting the cat near the milk.
An easy choice ... So "Murder By Numbers" it
was. An adequate police murder-mystery with some fine performances by the younger actors. Sandra's not bad either, a
little darker than her usual sunny girl-next-door persona. I can't comment on this too much, I'm positively biased.
Obviously there are some weak points in the plot and the title isn't covered in the story so probably there were a lot
of cut scenes which relate more to the title but weren't fit to be placed in the movie. Maybe they'll wind up on the DVD.
Trying to avoid having a dull sunday-noon we decided to watch "The Prince Of Egypt". Taped a few months ago, we never got around to watch it. As it's an
animated feature, only Sandra's voice is in it. As one of the Dreamworks features trying to step into Disney's turf,
it's actually quite educational. The story of Mozes and Ramses, the plagues of Egypt and the Exodus ... In a way this
movie could be shown as some sort of history-lesson in school. At least it's something else than reading the bible,
ain't it ?
Doing this week : -----
Editorial - 10 July 2002
I had no idea who Janis Ian was, but this
article she wrote is one beautiful and eloquently written article about
internet and the apperent demise of the
music-industry. Its is - as Janis Ian puts it - baloney. Turns out Janis is one of those singer/songwriters from the
early sixties who is still around. Kinda like Bob Dylan I guess. Don't know her music. Might try and download one of her
free MP3's ... Maybe that's as good as her opinions about the whole musicbiz craze and their obsession with wrongly
acquired statistics - don't they know that statistics show that 80% of all statistics are false ?
Editorial - 9 July 2002
I'm cat-sitting at the moment ! My parents went to Italy so I'm sticking around the house to water
the plants, mow the lawn, feed the cat and give it some attention. If someone doesn't
the beast gets very crancky when my parents get back.
Song of the week : "On Mercury" Red Hot Chili Peppers
Oldie of the week : "Misery (acoustic version)" Therapy?
Last seen movie : In an effort to make up for some of the last weekends which were relatively empty cinema-going-wise
I went saturday and monday. Saturday was reserved for the brand new "Ice Age". I'm a sucker for these computer-animated
movies in Disney-style. As long as they're funny ! Remember the "Final Fantasy" fiasco ? Boy ... boring. Anyway, "Ice Age"
is funny. And impressive. And good. And so on and so on ... I had seen the trailer before other movies and each and every
time people around me were laughing out loud with the adventures of the squirrel and his nut. The movie itself is a little
different and the squirrel-stuff is just an inbetween story. Some scenes are almost as remarkable as the door-chase in
"Monster's Inc", like the slide through the mountain. And did you know sloths invented snowboarding ?
Yesterday I finally found the time to go watch "The Mothman Prophecies". Richard Gere may have the undisputable stigma of
a ladies man - which will make him almost unbelievable in any other part - but he's pulling this one off nicely. Nothing
groundbreaking, but considering his overall merit as an actor, he's doing a fine job here. Will Patton on the other hand
is on cruise control. It looks like he's done this character - smalltown local wacko - one too many times and he probably
has. At least he gets to play a good guy for once. But that's as far as the flaws go in this movie. I was intrigued from
the start. What was going to happen ? Was there going to be old-fashioned horror ? Hitchcock suspense ? A surprise ending ?
An open ending ? The entire time I had the feeling nothing special would happen and there would be lots of unanswered
questions but suddenly there's some kind of a "surprise-ending" which seems terribly Hollywoodian but is - like the entire
story - based on true facts. You can probably debate ages whether the story happened or not, whether it happened the way it
was filmed or not ... and so on ... but that would be beside the point. This is just one great entertaining movie for people
who like to think a little. A little gem.
Doing this week : Besides watching Lars there's another trip to the seaside planned. Let's hope the water's fine.
Editorial - 5 July 2002
From now on it's official : I am one cool dude. After being chosen as
Riff - coolest Sluggy Freelance character - I
have now been given the role of Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi. Check out the link beneath for a very cool flash-quiz which determines
which Star Wars character you probably are. My result is captured for
all eternity in this screenshot ...
Now you have to admit that there can be worse things then being considered the cool youthful sidekick of
Qui-Gonn who'll grow up to be a devoted powerful Jedi, living a long life while turning into a very wise man who'll sacrifice
his life for the good of the galaxy. Being portrayed by two great actors helps off course. Oh and I almost forgot he kicked
Darth Maul's butt.
Editorial - 1 July 2002
How's this for irony ? The last two to three weeks it has been sunny and warm. Not the kind of weather
students like in June with exams and all. Sure, it does feel nice after the last test to sit your butt down behind a cold
beer or soda in the baking sun ... or on the green meadow of the Rock
Werchter festival last weekend. For the first time in years I wasn't there. Too much mainstream programming and too
little interesting stuff spread out over three days, making it very expensive to go and see only 6 groups.
"So how about that irony part ?" you must be thinking. Well, the irony is in the details. July was only a few hours old or
rain came pouring down. The first official day of the big summer break and there it was. Water from the sky. Oh, the irony.
Song of the week : - skipped -
Oldie of the week : - skipped -
Last seen movie : "Hannibal" sucked big time. An obvious attempt to show how gruesome Hannibal Lector actually is,
fails miserably due to an over the top storyline. A weak starting point with a shoutout gone wrong, an irrelevant plot-twist
with a deformed millionaire, a cop who wants to do it alone and makes a mistake (cliché anyone ?), an
attempt at suspense with the phone-calls between Clarice and Hannibal ... even the too gruesome to be believable finale sucks.
What in hell were they thinking ? Whether Harris wrote it like this in the book is not important, it's no good either way. I
heard the book was pretty ugly too but that doesn't mean I'm going to read it. And what's up with that ending ? I don't want
to go into details but psychologically it doesn't add up. After "Manhunter" and "Silence of the Lambs" this is just plain wrong
and out of context. Sad to see a writer and a director try to hard and destroy a myth in the process.
"Spiderman" is probably one of the best movies of this year.
This one has it all : great lead-actors, big action-sequences and an exciting story made truly believable - even when the
whole premise is ludicrous, but hey, it's a superhero-film. They're never very down to earth and based on reality. Local
newspapers have had it numerous times about the hidden meanings in the story : the coming of age of a nerdish teenager
trying hard to get the attention of the beautiful girl next door, the best friend who's let down by his father ... it's a
little more than just another superhero kicking butt. For me it's up there with "Batman" - the first Tim Burton at least.
Where "Batman" is (and should be) dark, gloomy and hard, this hero is insecure at first, later on overwhelmed and finally
ready for the task brought upon him. Very impressive. I wouldn't mind owning this one on DVD.
Doing this week : Backing up a lot of files that might prove useful one day but probably won't but if you delete them
you'll end up needing them later on anyway somehow ... Anyone know that feeling ?
darkman says sleep tight
Next month
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