The Norwegian Black Metal scene has always been one of small and large scandals, but I've never heard of something like this before. Apparently Harald Nævdal, of the band Immortal, has been receiving threatening letters and now somebody has kidnapped his cat! His cat!? Surely that is a new low.

Quarrel with people, by all means. But leave the animals alone, yeah?

The story is here, though only in Norwegian.

ETA: Cat returned, but with serious cuts and bruises. Veterinarian is hopeful that it will survive, but says nothing is certain.

So um, we have cat kidnapping and cat torture!? *rage*

There is something deliciously creepy and perfectly apt abut this poster. In fact it makes me want to see the film in a way the original poster ever did. At any rate: Retro-looking movie posters from Seek&Speak
( more images behind cut )

I'll admit to being relieved that the nationalistic and "patriotic" Italian film about Barbarossa tanked at the box office. Like most normal people I'm not overly fond of jingoistic, discriminating films, and I'm hard pressed to see why the world needs another one of those.

Still, I've researched Barbarossa-symbolism in the past, and so a tiny part of me is fascinated by the Redbearded Emperor still being symbolically potent so to speak. Albeit in this film Barbarossa is clearly the villain, as opposed to the 19th Century German version with all his pseudo-religious trimmings.

( An article about the film )

If you're interested in what all the fuss is about the trailer can be found here:
( Barbarossa )

Sadly, I've only found a trailer in Italian without subtitles - but the dialogue is pretty standard. In fact I'd say you could guess most of what is being said, including Barbarossa declaring that the city of Milan will be a tomb for its defenders. And the endless cries for "Liberta!" hardly needs translation.

( larger version behind cut )

Found on the great site World Digital Library. The images might load slow, but that's simply because they are of Tif quality. I have just spent the better part of this Sunday browsing at all the old maps, posters and photos here.

Hey! The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to give the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama!

Congrats to all the Americans on my flist.

I'm having a bit of fun listing all the films and series I've watched and rewatched in 2009. So far I must say that autumn has been more relaxed than spring (wherein April and May were a bit absurd).

The only downside is that I set an adjacent goal of writing a bit of a blurb about most of the films, but so far I'm not even half way. So I'd thought I do some mini write-ups about some of the films, and at least make some progress.


Any excuse to put up a picture of Cary Grant. Here from Only Angels have Wings

Paris is Burning

The film adapts a documentary style when narrating the last few days before the Allied liberation of Paris in 1944. Problem is that the film has followed in the footsteps of The Longest Day and other luminaries, and so all the parts are played by famous actors. You're left with the impression that Alain Delon, Jean Paul Belmondo and Leslie Caron all worked for the French Resistance - or more precisely you stop caring about the story and start actor-spotting instead.( +++ )

Home of the Brave

The only times I truly dislike my work is when I have to watch bad films. And by bad I mean "films' that aren't even entertainingly bad, just plain awful." Home of the Brave is one of those. ( +++ )

Red River

John Wayne and Montgomery Clift drive cattle, while being manly men who quarrel over manly things - like, apparently, cattle. To be honest the film is very good, its just that it is a Howard Hawkes' action picture and I've never managed to engage with those (as opposed to his comedies such as His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby). ( +++ )

Only Angels Have Wings
( +++ )

Hotel Rwanda

This was a rewatch, and considering the film's material not a very pleasant one. But one thing struck med then, and even more so now and that is the bitter irony inherent in the film's message.( +++ )

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Films watched in 2009.

GRRM reveals more casting news - including Jaime

And yes, I'll rightly admit that I was more interested in that specific role than the others.

( Casting spoilers. Do we cut for that? Better safe than sorry I guess )

I'm currently utterly in love with this Norwegian artist, Rockettothesky, which is the name of the one-woman band of Jenny Hval.
She describes her music as surrealist folktales, and I find that quite apt. Haunting and a bit esoteric, with a video that is pretty cool as well.

Some of the answers to the Top Five Meme, the rest will come shortly.

( Top Five Films )
( Top Five Favourite things about Norway )
( Top five storylines from The Wire )
( Top five film noir style movies )
( Top five classic Hollywood pairings(either in real life or film) )
( Top five films set during WWII )
( Top five war movies where women play an important on screen role )

A slightly modified version of the image-meme seen floating around LJ lately. Apparently I cannot resist a meme that focuses on pictures.

1. Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.

2. NO CAPTIONS! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.

3. They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.

( ++++ )
In other news I am way behind on comments, and will start working on that in the next few days. Apparently those who said that summer was a time for holidays and relaxation lied.

Three Kings

There were two things I kept pondering while watching this film:
a.)Why isn’t anyone wearing helmets?
b.)Why is it called Three Kings?

So far I have no satisfactory answer to any of the questions, but will welcome any wild speculations.
( +++ )

( Behind Enemy Lines )

( Jarhead )

With some films the sheer beauty of the cinematography is the main reason why I love the films. of course the story and the acting helps, but I've always been a sucker for images and love it when I can indulge in gorgeous visuals. So I figured that instead of writing about the film, I'd screen cap parts of them instead. That makes this post rather image heavy, but it is also the only way to do the beautiful cinematography justice.



( Blade Runner - with a tiny spoiler for BSG )
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The German director F. W. Murnau consistently made films that were highly visual, and that often had a supernatural theme. This resulted in some stunning cinematography - like in Faust. It is a retelling of the tale of Faust who sells his soul, and Murnau uses the tale for all it is worth to include alchemy, heavy religious symbolism and some of the more stunning special effects of its time. ( ++++ )
------

The great combo of the supernatural and early cinema also produced the wonderful and weird Swedish silent film Häxan or Witchcraft through the Ages. The film proposes to tell in a lecture like manner the story of witchcraft and analyse it via the science of psychoanalysis. Complete with numerous images of naked women worshipping devils or course.( ++++ )
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Films watched in 2009.

Sword of Doom

I wanted to see this film for three reasons:


1. It starred Tatsuya Nakadai.

( ++++ )

Let the Right One In

A vampire film set in a small town in rural Northern Sweden that offered a fresh and psychological approach to the vampire myth sounds excellent. Which means I'm a bit baffled that I didn't like it. ( spoiler )

Angels and Demons

Imagine Tom Hanks running frantically around Rome while talking about Bernini and angels, and you could have any number of scenes from Angels and Demons. Yet somehow I'm fine with that. Unlike Let the Right One In this is a film I didn't expect to like, and where I'm a bit surprised I actually did. It isn't the movie that will change your life, but it does manage to avoid the tediousness that was The Da Vinci Code. In fact it reminded me of the National Treasure films. The plot is improbable, impossible even, and any form of historical correctness is achieved only by accident - yet I was never bored. With these type of films I think that counts for quite a bit. ( spoilers )

From Ken Burns' The War

The Battle of Midway

During World War II director John Ford to a break from directing epic westerns starring John Wayne and devoted himself to making propaganda documentaries. The most famous of these was the twenty minutes long colour film The Battle of Midway:
( video under cut )

The film is famous for its actual combat footage, particularly the way the camera shakes with the impacts of the blasts and how shots of the soldiers are predominantly close-ups due to the need to stick together during the bombardment. Both the shaky camera and the close-ups were later employed by Steven Spielberg in the Omaha beach landing in Saving Private Ryan, and later in Band of Brothers, particularly in the episodes Day of Days and crossroads. ( ++++ )

Ken Burn's The War

In Ford's The Battle of Midway the images tell the main story, but they are effectively complemented by the rhetoric of various voiceovers. A repeated phrase is how the soldiers are from this town, or that town or "any other American town". At one point the narrators says: "men and women of American. Here comes your neighbor's son", combined with mentions of the name of the various soldiers we see close-ups of. It all helps create a personal, intimate feeling that seems to confirm the film's claim that "this is our front yard". The reason I find this interesting is that Ken Burns in his documentary The War does exactly the same thing. ( ++++ )

A vintage WPA Federal Art Project poster from New York about tuberculosis. From 1941.

And I thought the swine flu scare was bad.

( larger image under cut )

from Vintagraph

I'm stuck writing a paper and so I'm procrastinating and talking about fandom instead.
Snagged this from wildtiger7 who tagged me with Band of Brothers, BSG & The Wire

Comment and I will give you 3 fandoms and then you have to answer these questions.

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
2. Do you think that you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
3. Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
4. Do you participate in this fandom (fan fiction, graphics, discussions)?
5. Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

( The Wire )
( Band of Brothers )
( Battlestar Galactica )

Sita Sings the Blues

You know what I love? When something that has been hyped lives up to its expectations. The animated film Sita Sings the Blues has been mentioned more and more frequent in the blog-o-sphere and I was worried that the film wasn't as wonderful as everybody claimed. After all that has happened before with other films - for instance Dark Knight, which is okay, but not a masterpiece by a longshot. But Sita Sings the Blues was everything I was promised. Therefore I'm continuing the hype and urging you to see it, and adding to the chorus of: You must see this movie! It is wonderful, funny and the animation is just gorgeous.
( +++++ )

The official sight for the film is here and you can watch it at Reel 13. If you have an hour and half available I suggest you do so. It will be worth it. I promise.

(I also have dastardly hopes that some of you icon-savvy people will watch it, and then there will be icons. Which I would love.)

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Films watched in 2009.

Michael Clayton

One on hand there is nothing new, shocking and shiny about Michael Clayton. On the other hand there is nothing bad about it either. Which I guess goes to show that with a good script, great actors and some nice cinematography you can dispense with that damn obsession with "plot-twists-the-audience-didn't-see-coming (but they actually did)", and just focus on telling a very good story. *sigh* I wish more filmmakers would do just that. ( spoilers )

Out of the Past

I feel there are two staples to a proper film noir. The first is Raymond Chandler’s legendary advice "If in doubt have a guy come in the door with a gun", the other is the importance of the quick reply. The latter is evident in full force in Out of the Past where the battle between scruffy detective Markham/Bailey (Robert Mitchum) and gambler Whit (Kirk Douglas) is a battle of words more than brawn.( +++ )

I'm a bit in love with this article called Memos to Hollywood

Several memos in the style of "urgent, eyes-only communiqués to Hollywood, fully confident that they will be carefully and thoughtfully ignored."

A few of my favorites are:


To: Filmmakers, especially under 40

From: Manohla Dargis

The tripod is your friend. Few filmmakers can pull off florid handheld camerawork because most aren’t saying all that much through their visuals, handheld or not. (Also: Shaking the camera does not create realism.) Though it’s a cliché of contemporary cinema, fiction and nonfiction both, handheld camerawork that calls aggressive attention to itself tends to make empty images seem even emptier. If you want us to notice your cinematography, make sure you have something to say, like the French filmmaker Olivier Assayas ("Demonlover"), whose restlessly moving images convey a searching intelligence. He isn’t just waving the camera around; he’s saying something about the world and the people in it.

----

To: John Lasseter

From: M.D.

I’m psyched that you and the guys at Pixar Animation Studios are finally making a movie with a girl as the lead character and with a woman as director, no less — another first for you! Congrats! Of course we have to wait until 2011 to see "The Bear and the Bow," but on behalf of 51 percent of the population, I salute you.

----

To: Members of the Writers Guild of America

Cc: M. Night Shyamalan

From: A.O.S.

You may think that slipping a doozy of a third-act surprise into your screenplay — a shocking twist that no one could possibly see coming — might make you look smart and the audience feel dumb, but please consider that the reverse might actually be the case.