joy division

i saw a great hour and a half long documentary on joy division from 2007 the other day. it's called "joy division", plain and simple, a hudson production. it's available on svtplay.se (here) til 11 march, so click and watch it before it's too late! the story is told largely with archive footage alongside interviews with band members, people around the band and old friends. it also tells a part of the history of manchester the city and of punk rock in the u.k. at that time.

don't miss it!

trekking

after seeing the new trailer for the next star trek movie (in theaters in may next year) i want nothing more than rant about how the trailer just screams ACTION MOVIE! and seems to have only character names and the fact that they're in space in common with the world of star trek. gahh! star trek isn't action! it isn't star wars dammit! it isn't the rebels fighting the empire, it's the federation exploring and handling diplomacy! i'm so annoyed. has j.j. adams even seen star trek?

i really really hope it's just the trailer trying to lure non-trekkies to see it as well but if not? then i'll hate j.j. adams forever.

zack and miri

zack and miri make a porno, kevin smith's new flick, is coming in the end of october! although, probably not to sweden, as is usually the case with his movies.. but hey, what's the internet for, right?

here's the trailer.



[on my love of kevin here]

following the rules

tried to watch a scanner darkly yesterday. this is a movie that in theory really appeals to me - sci-fi, based on a novel by philip k dick, really interesting theoretical plot, directed by linklater, starring both rory cochrane (the only reason i still don't hate csi miami), woody harrelson and winona ryder - but after nearly an hour i was bored to hell! and still couldn't make out what the fuck this movie was about. and it definitely didn't pass the bechdel rule. no two women were ever even in the same frame.

so instead we watched emmet's mark, which was ok, no more no less. incidentally; it starred khandi alexander, also in csi miami. i wonder if someone's trying to tell me something. (i stopped watching it in its 5th season cos it just got worse and worse and more and more stupid stereotypic and horrible. otherwise i'm a fan of the csi series.) come to think of it, this movie was a lot like a really long episode of a police/crime tv series. anyway, the movie didn't pass the rule either, if not one no-name woman saying "hi, how's it going" to another counts as a conversation. didn't think so.

a.m. notes

i baked. a tried a new recipe. hybrid rye and wheat buns. they turned out great, and delicious! especially with cheese and marmalade. so i had my midnight snack and was supposed to go to bed after that, but, well. here we are.

read about the bechdel rule today, on bitch ph.d. it goes like this;

The rule is that movies should have 1) at least two women, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something other than a man.

sounds like a good useful instrument to make gender stereotyping and the practice to marginalize women clearer. cos you think, hey, of course a lot of movies will pass this rule. yeah, well, try it and you'll see. really, it's ridiculous. we're in the 21st century and it's not a given that two women in a movie actually talk to each other about something other than men.

i did see one film that passes the rule this weekend, the hours. i don't know why i haven't seen it before, i've even had the dvd sitting on my shelf for at least six months, but no. however, it was awesome! i loved it. beautiful, depressing - i mean in a good way, actually taking depression and being suicidal seriously - great characters. i haven't read enough of virginia woolf, i should really do that. also, nicole kidman's acting is awesome, i mean the acting over all in this film is great, but nicole's is just mind-blowing. she's SO good.

i got a package of ordered cds today, from the swedish a west side fabrication label. a great indie label! last week when i got into a nostalgic mood after buying and listening to this compilation from the label, i realized i was in love with backfish and so i ordered what the label had by them. good idea, cos all of it was really good! and i also have a crush on the label's mail-order now cos besides being quick and not expensive they sent me 5 singles extra, for free! all 5 was by other small bands from the same period as what i had ordered, so rather than just sending promotional stuff by their new bands (which i guess some label do) they must have thought "she seems to like the 90s, let's give her more 90s and maybe she'll like it too and order more!". and what do you know, i think it worked. i will definitely order more from them.

give it a listen! here's backfish's video fashion mania, not one of their better songs from what i think. there're also a few listenable pieces here.

now i'm waiting for the other packages to arrive, with even more new music. at least for my ears. i can't wait! i want it now!

what matters?

one of my all-time favorite novels is high fidelity by nick hornby. the movie is also awesome. i love the novel for several reasons.

first of all i really like the language, and the tone of it. the flow of it is fantastic. you're really there, you can see the racks of records you want to go through so badly, and the awkwardness gets under your skin.

second of all, i really dig the characters. they are really real, like it says on the back of the penguin edition "oh god, i know people just like that!", we really do. rob becomes your best buddy, or worst, and you fall in love with him, or with dick. barry is.. well, he's jack black, essentially, which is one reason the movie version works so well.

third, it really appeals to the geek in me; top ten lists, obscure musical facts, pop-cultural references, anal filing systems, obsessive behavior, the focus on mixed tapes.

at one place in the book (p.91) rob ponders on something he's been talking to the others about in relation to his underlying women problem, namely what really matters, what you like or what you are like, and says that

"..the truth was that these things matter, and it's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party."

those of you who's read the book or watched the movie knows what it eventually resolves to, but whatever that is i still think this is an interesting dilemma, cos even though it's superficial and even mis-guiding to judge people on what they like, it does, after all, matter. at least to me. certainly not as much as it does to barry with his questionnaire, but still.

however, there are morons with impeccable taste, just like there are awesome persons without taste (i call them radio listeners). i think it matters what people are like, but generally i do prefer them to have good taste.

that's what i think. what do you think? i put the poll to the right up just to find out, so please click it. thanks.

oh, and for the love of god, if you haven't read the book, make sure you do that first, but fast, you only have a week before my poll closes.

kevin is teasing us

i love kevin smith. i think he's one of the funniest people alive. i love his movies, or flicks as he calls them. i force them on everyone i know - not too seldom with a positive result mind you. he writes great characters and awesome dialogue. if i had to pick one thing about them that's better than anything it would be the dialogue. they're also incredibly nerdy and sweet. and foul of course.

people usually say that clerks is their favorite (makes sense; back to the roots and all), but i'd say mallrats. casting jason lee as brodie must be one of the best thing he's ever done. what an obnoxious character and how perfectly portrayed! there are so many things i love about that movie it's too vast to list.

the reason for this sudden expression of love is that his new film zack and miri make a porno is coming out this year and he's just put a teaser (not a trailer) up. enjoy! (don't worry, there's no porn in it, just a lot of talk about sex.)

[updated: damn. the embedding first seemed to work just fine and then didn't. click here to see the teaser.]

oh, and yeah, kevin's one more thing i love about the 90s. so if you haven't seen any of kevin's movies yet, DO IT NOW! your life will never be the same. :)

the brave new world

so, you might have heard that ridley scott is interested in doing a movie of huxley's brave new world. ridley, the old man - a sir now apparently, who has produced and directed two of my favorite movies, blade runner and alien, and several other quite good ones - thelma & louise, 1492. i know, that was years ago, but still, couldn't be too bad, could it?

i wrote a piece here on what i think of the novel in question and since it came up again, i'm curious, how do you, my readers, feel about it? so i put up a poll here to the right. please click! thanks.

winona love

so, winona ryder is engaged to blake sennett? awesome. great musician - i love rilo kiley so much - with great winona.


i like winona. i really do. i know the press tries to make fun of her for one thing or the other, and she's done some not-so-good things, but in her shoes, who wouldn't? i like her. some of the roles she's done are just awesome - reality bites, alien 4, girl interrupted, edward scissorhands, american quilt.. oh! and she's listed in the coming star trek movie (2009)! also, she's obviously got great taste, i mean, come on. johnny depp? yes please.

southern romance

i've just watched elizabethtown for maybe the 10th time (thank god for dvd) and as usual i crave alt-country. i love this movie. it makes me wanna go to kentucky (!) and fall in love with kirsten dunst too! the connection between orlando and kirsten is really great and believable and sweet. and i love the fact that there's so much music in it, and that kirsten's character makes the most awesome road map with soundtrack and everything. i wanna do that too!

it's weird cos before i was sucked into cameron crowe's universe (read: almost famous and elizabethtown), alt-country wasn't really something i did, you know. (on a side-note mr crowe's also responsible for the fact that i, despite years of not understanding my father's love for him, now also listen to elton john.) i didn't do alt-country, i just listened to sheryl crow. (she did make an awesome cover of guns n' roses' sweet child o' mine btw).

the soundtrack to elizabethtown is awesome (both of them actually). it has tom petty, elton john, patty griffin, my morning jacket, ryan adams. i especially love patty griffin. the song on the soundtrack alone made me buy her album and it's really great (well, except for the strange 5 minute long tango song in spanish at the end). her voice touches my heart.

the hard thing about liking alt-country, i've noticed, is that i don't know anything about it. i have a few friends who's into it, but it's not really what i mean, it's more that i'm used to having the references, of knowing the story, the big guys, but here, on the country side of things, i don't. i don't know what's authentic and what's not. well. i know elton john's country-ish album is a fake, cos british homosexuals aren't really country are they. but it still has some really great song on it though.

i guess i'm used to knowing what is cool and what's not. not that i by default choose the former, but it still feels good to know. you know.