Audi 80 (modelyear 1984)

Editorial - 17 June 2003

Today's my dad's birthday - that means I'm halfway through my family : my mom, dad and sister all have their birthday in the same month. Each one seperated by 11 days. Used to be funny when my sister and me were still in school since both my parents work in schools too. Three birthdays during the final exams.
Song of the week : "St. Anger" Metallica
Oldie of the week : "Andres" L7
Last seen movie : " Any Way The Wind Blows" : for once it's really worth it spending your money on a belgian movie. Sure there have been good ones in the past (like "Le Fils", "Manneken Pis", "Le Huitième Jour" ...), but not one like this one. Until now they all had coherent storylines with stories that were good or appealing to people. This movie is the first good one without a real story, without a big ending ... just slices of an ordinary day for a lot of people ... I like those kind of stories : interlocking the lives of people who didn't know eachother in the beginning and who hardly know eachother at the end. It was about time we got some of that over here - jolting the movie-industry. Hopefully this will be as big as dEUS was for our rock-industry, 'cause frankly, whether you like that band or not, they sure cleared the path for a big boom of new bands.
As usual Ellen won free tickets for the avant-première a few days ago so we got a short introduction from Tom Barman himself answering questions from a Studio Brussel presenter. Summarised it's a movie about a lot of people on a friday in Antwerp. Some very funny scenes, after two or three minutes you're used to the accents and the music is spot on. Writing this a few days later I can't remember any scene that was too long. It's probably no masterpiece but very good nonetheless. Absolutely worth checking it if you want to see something else than movies with jokes about genitalia or movies with big explosions. Great work Tom.
"The Matrix Reloaded" : being a big fan of the first one, I had my hopes up high. Knowing that usually ruins the experience I lowered them a few notches. i'm glad I did. Not that it was a bad movie - far from it, but there are some truly cringeworthy scenes that bring back memories of the lovescenes in Star Wars II. Why can't writer/directors of intelligent sci-fi movies with a philosophical theme write one damn love-scene. Some sweet words, a few glances of the eyes, a smile ... that's all it takes. But no ... here we have to endure a sex-scene (I use the term loosely) intertwined with the final remains of the human race dancing to some dumb techno music somewhere deep inside mother earth ?! Stupid and way too long. Some of the truly amazing fight-scenes are also too long. And yes, I can still see what's computer-generated and what's real. I don't care what the designers say, I'm sure most of you can see it too. Which sane human brain will believe a flying Neo is real ? Humans aren't that easily kid. Unless off corse, we really live in a matrix - but that's anohter discussion. Which brings us to the best point of the whole movie : there's somewhat of a surprise twist a little before the end which enhances the greatness of the whole matrix-idea ... Can't tell you though, that would spoil it. Go see.
Doing this week : Negotiating a nice percentage for a car-loan, new insurance, testdriving "the wanted one", choosing color and options ... quite heavy actually when you have to pay it all yourself ... probably a lot more fun when it's a company car which you can return after a few years ... less worrying whether you'll truly like it or not.

Editorial - 10 June 2003

Starting week three without a car and it's going quite well. First of all thanks to Worf who is kind enough to pick me up every morning so I can kick back and relax in his A4 whilst chatting away with my usual nonsense. Furthermore thanks to nearby foodstores which salvage me from having to walk to the nearest Carrefour which I frequented (bi-)weekly for the necessary supplies. Although those walks could give me the time to quietly ponder over the pros and cons of the cars I'm considering, I wouldn't want to do the walk back with three or four bags filled with groceries and a six-pack of Spa bottles. Would you ?
Song of the week : "Summer's Here" Magnus
Oldie of the week : "Mr. Brownstone" Guns 'n Roses
Last seen movie : " X-Men 2" : okay, this one ends with a shocker but as this is a universe of supermen and -women, your never know what will happen in the third movie which will obviously be put in production given the succes of this one. I like the X-Men, as a kid the comics were hard to get, so when there was one available I was occupied for the rest of the afternoon or evening. Needless to say I was glad the came to the big screen. And with director Bryan Singer behind the wheel nothing could go wrong. Maybe one thing though : the first one was too damn short ! Number two is almost three quarters of an hour longer : more than two hours of fun and thrills. Sometimes darker (we learn more about the experiments on Wolverine), sometimes sadder (the ending which I will not spoil), sometimes with more action (kung-fu fighting scenes in the beginning, the middle and the end) ... the obvious "bigger and better" adaggio most sequels get. Be happy it works here. Go see, buy the upcoming DVD and wait for number three ! (that's three rhymes in one sentence for ya)
"Yamakasi" : slightly boring french Luc Besson style film about a group of urban climbers. A group of young men climbing buildings, running away from cops ... It had to have some sort of story in order to justify the - granted - nice action-scenes, but a kid with a heart-problem, imitating it's idols, whom - remorsefully - steal money to pay for the kid's new heart ? Oh brother ... watch it if you really really really liked "Taxi", let it rest otherwise.
"Black Cat, White Cat" : in June it's free movies time. Three times a week there's a terrace-viewing of a movie ranging from "The Shining" via "The Wiz" to "Exotica". I didn't know anything about this movie from Emir Kusturica, but went along anyway. Could be good, not ? And it was or wasn't ... hard to decide. It's supposed to be a very funny movie about gypsies and gangsters and a wedding forced upon two of them, but I hardly had to laugh. I smiled a bit and it was ok I guess, but not at all what I expected. Some people even fell asleep. Probably something for the more experienced alternative movie-goers who like Dogme95, the french nouvelle vague and long movies without dialogue situated in chinese mountainvillages ... or if you like people falling in the toilet ... that was one scene which I didn't find funny at all and probably got the most laughs ... Go figure ...
Doing this week : Last week I finally caught up on the movie-reviews. Can't let that go to waste so now there's time to work a bit on the redesign again. Hope you're not too curious about that. I know I'm promising it for almost a year now, but you've got to know I'm extremely precise about it ... it has to be spot on or I'll dump the design and start again - something I did a few times over the last year. It'll only make the site if I'm totally convinced about it myself. Don't care what the others say. So for now I'll have to use this crappy look ...

Editorial - 3 June 2003

I'm getting ready for another busy week. I've got an appointment with a notary (some familystuff), go to the barber, sit through a yearly meeting about the status of the building where we have an appartment (costs 2002, scheduled costs 2003), check some car-dealerships on friday, two meetings at work and I was asked to sit in a commission reviewing the results of students "commercial webcontentmanagement" - something I did last year too.
Song of the week : "Catch Up To My Step" Junkie XL
Oldie of the week : -----
Last seen movie : " What Lies Beneath" : As could be expected from Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer there's some decent acting in this movie. Nothing remarkable, just the straightforward stuff from professionals. Too bad they both have too familiar faces (something even Tom Cruise has a hard time making you forget). The same can be said from the director Bob "Back To The Future / Forrest Gump" Zemeckis : the guy knows how to put an entertaining commercial movie together, but he ain't Hitchcock - to whom this movie is obviously an hommage. If it weren't a bit slow in the beginning, had less obvious plottwists and if they had ditched the useless supernatural theme, this could have been a nice suspense thriller. Now it's only basic sunday-afternoon viewing material.
Doing this week : After enjoying 4 free days of excellent sunrays, it's back to the reality of work. Sitting in closed rooms without much direct sunlight and an old airco ... Still, could be worse. I could be living in Texas for instance.

darkman says sleep tight

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