Wait, I need to check my heart rate. Movie: The Cabin in the Woods

Okay so I don't even know why I watch horror movies.

1) I always end up watching them while I'm home alone since my usual movie company never feels like watching a horror movie (and some of them are simply scared). And usually right before bedtime as well.

2) I get paranoid when I'm home alone. Watching a horror movie at a time like this means I'm ridiculously easily scared. And subsequently get even more paranoid.

3) At some point in my life I enjoyed getting scared. Now I'm not so sure anymore. It's this conflict between the fact that a mild adrenaline kick is rather nice and the fact that going to bed while NOT ridiculously paranoid is rather nice also. But you can't have both. No no.

4) The Cabin in the Woods is cool.

It was really hard to find a picture that didn't spoil anything so here's the poster/wallpaper.

I stumbled across this title a while ago when I was stalking Joss Whedon on IMDB after watching Firefly (it's awesome, just go home and watch it now, it's for your own good). And figured "meh - why not". I was a bit skeptical about the whole "a bunch of friends go to a cabin but uh-oh they did not expect this" and this is why I've had this film for a month before finally giving it a chance.

And it was worth it! I liked it. I liked it so much I daresay it was too short. There was this feeling of not wanting to make a typical stretched-out horror movie, everything happened so fast. But the thing is, this ISN'T a typical horror movie so you could've stretched it out a bit. There was more to it, it needed more meat on the bones. I mean, the splatter was cool. That could've lasted a good 5min longer. And other stuff too. More of the old guys, I loved them. Fabulous men.

There was also one thing that I really really reeeallly hated while watching but I understand it's necessary: the fucking typical horror movie music of something-bad-is-about-to-happeeeen. But it was being toyed around with so that was nice. Or not nice. But effective.

Anywho, to sum it up this goes up there on my list of "horror" movies I actually like. Right next to El Orfanato. I like horror movies with closure. Ah closure. The stuff that keeps nightmares at bay.

Watching The Cabin in the Woods made me happy. Yay!

Breakfast movie: The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea is a drama. And romance. But mostly angsty, and bland. It doesn't involve the sea in any way. And it goes in the same box as Parnassus with the jumbled bits and pieces. "Oh I know, let's make flashbacks here and there, and oh no now we have to continue the realtime story, ok let's do that for the rest of the film, oh no wait there's still a couple flashbacks I want to put in there". Cute. 

My biggest problem with this movie: you get the feeling you're supposed to sympathize with Rachel Weisz's character. But really... how can you sympathize with a character who A) cheats on her husband until he finds out and then leaves her and B) attempts suicide because she has this problem with the new guy: "He doesn't love me as much as I love him!". I just want to slap her and tell her to get a grip. I guess that's just 'cause her acting's so good that I really get annoyed by her stupid character. Geez. I sympathized more with Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs.
 And hey, it's set in post-war London and He-who-does-not-love-her-as-much-as-she-loves-him used to be a pilot but let's not expand on that at all. In fact, let's not develop his character much at all. He can just kind of be there and look pretty. And later on he can be angry. He's good at being angry.

I wouldn't be this disappointed usually, but I actually had some stupid idea that this might be a good film. No. Wrong. It's not complete torment to watch it but please, there are better things to see.

She smokes a lot in this film. And suppresses her emotions.

Luckily, my day was not ruined by this because I've been planning a hiking trip that's gonna be great fun.

Movie night night: Parnassus & Coraline

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (or, as it is known to many people "Heath Ledger's last movie") is a Terry Gilliam piece. If you've previously seen anything written by Gilliam you may assume that there are fantastic elements and bits and pieces, and you may also be prepared for those bits to be a bit jumbled here and there.
The idea of Doc Parnassus is, to me, based on the the indecisiveness of humans and thus the lack of responsibility in us. This doesn't sound too bad, does it? Doc Parnassus doesn't really follow through, though. I assume the screenplay underwent major modifications after Ledger's death and that might be the reason the film left me with the feeling that it lacked something. The story was ok, but too shallow. I'm not saying it's a horribly bad movie, I'm just saying it's not as good as it could [should] be. It's all fun and games and visually explosive, but the story just doesn't hold up to the themes.

__________

The second movie of the night:

Coraline.

Now, I was never a fan of dolls, so I watched this movie fully aware that I might get nightmares tonight. I'm looking forward to it.

Coraline is visually fabulous, and it's a wonderful adventure. Spiced with a hint of Disney's evil witches, it is an interesting idea to use love as the power of the antagonist. And it works. And I liked it. See, a film review about a good film is so much shorter, I mean what should I say other than "watch it". It's beautiful, it's creepy, it's inventive, it's fresh. Watch it.

However if you do own a cat.. I highly recommend being fully aware of where your cat is. Mine kept making strange sounds in his sleep somewhere behind the sofa, and that just made the soundscape of the film even more powerfully creepy than it already was.

Now then.. nightmares ahoy!

Imagine Dragons

Har känt mig hes hela dagen så går nu omkring i huset och sjunger så jag skulle bli av med min röst ordentligt och sen kunna återfå den imorgon istället för att vara semi-hes resten av veckan.
Silly? Maybe.

Förhesningsplaylisten består av Imagine Dragons.

June

I just realised I've completely ignored this blog for all of June.
But that's ok. I was mostly drinking beer. And when I wasn't, I was looking for jobs. Which probably outnumbers beer-time in reality anyway.

Carrots, beets, potatoes. That's what's up in the veggie patch.

TV-rage of the day

beautiful fanart by alicexz.deviantart.com

 I MISS SHERLOCK, COULD SEASON 3 JUST PLEASE START ALREADY.






..and I miss the Doctor even more but I know I have to wait longer for him.

Hungrig

Igår började jag skriva på nåt nytt. Den här gången tänker jag t.o.m. skriva det färdigt eftersom senast jag på allvar började skriva nåt (i april, it's been a while) skrev jag 5 sidor + anteckningar och berättelsen kom aldrig till slutet av första dagen. Kanske jag i något skede måste återvända till stackars Toms tragiska kärlekshistoria.
Men senare. Först måste jag skriva shortstoryn färdig. Tom&co är i princip en grov storyline som skall fungera som botten för manus. Och nu vill jag skriva annat än manus.

Men samtidigt finns det så mycket annat jag vill göra. Jag vill göra vår film, men får huvudvärk av bara tanken idag. Jag vill inte att jag skall behöva göra allt själv, och inte p.g.a. lathet utan för att då skulle jag tappa siktet för vad det är jag strävar till egentligen.

Och jag vill verkligen skriva en bra berättelse, den är mitt ljus i ändan av tunneln just nu.

Mest av allt vill jag ändå ut på äventyr.

Det känns så onödigt att vara bunden av såna jordliga saker som fattigdom, hunger, sömnbrist, och snuva.

Men ändå är allt bra. Tänk vad mycket man kan klaga om ingenting, och tänk att man gör det varje dag. Jag ska försöka sluta klaga på saker som jag själv kan påverka.

TURKISK YOGHURT och SJÄLVPLOCKADE BLÅBÄR. Det relaterar till titeln, för nu ska jag äta dom.

The Soloist

A beautiful scene.

I just watched The Soloist ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0821642/?ref_=sr_1 ) and wrote a review about it in Swedish for a school thing so I figured I might point out here as well what a lovely film it was.

Based on a true story and magnificently portrayed characters by Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., and standard good directing by Joe Wright (not astoundingly special, just very good).

I'm a sucker for rescue stories and this one is about Steve Lopez, journalist, who finds homeless Nathaniel Ayers playing the violin on the street. All in all a very well told story with a fabulous soundtrack that you can listen to HERE.

G'day!

Getting away

I am currently writing from a suburbian village in Estonia. I came here because.. well because I could and because the Man is working on a project here on the weekdays.

I thought I was fooling myself when I said that I was coming here looking for inspiration and a possibility to concentrate. I have now proved myself wrong.

Things I needed inspiration and concentration for:

Finding an idea for a documentary film
Writing my script

Things I have done today:
Come up with an idea for a documentary film
Written a new ending and beginning to my script


What the actual hell, it worked!
At home I'm always so easily distracted, but I can't really work at a library either because lets face it: very few libraries in Finland actually offer an inspirational and comfortable working environment. At least at the ones I've been to are these modernized and sterile places useless for anything else than getting a book and quickly running home to read it.

And cafés are just not my thing for writing because I like to just sit and stare at people = not getting anything done.

I'm very picky about my environment of preference, but whatever because apparently I know myself better than I thought.

Einstein and Eddington

Today's breakfast was a little bit of historical fiction involving these two gentlemen:

Arthur Eddington (David Tennant a.k.a. the tenth Doctor) and Albert Einstein (Andy Serkis a.k.a. Gollum.) The film is called Einstein and Eddington and portrays the two scientists in their respective communities during WWI, communicating by letters.

It's a quality film. It was intriguing in many ways, which is why I feel the film was a bit too short. The characters were left too shallow. I'm not saying the characters were shallow, oh no sir, not at all, but there were so many moments and events in the film that could have gone deeper and really dug into the pain and joy these men felt.


I recently saw a drama documentary about Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh : Painted with words.
Van Gogh is played by Britain's it-man right now; Benedict Cumberbatch, and done so marvelously. I could go on and on about this film, but I'll leave it for later. See, the reason I mention this film now is because it has something Einstein and Eddington lacks: a thorough portrayal of the anxiety of an agonized man. The reason it doesn't have it I feel is the lack of time; the film was simply too short. Of course we see some painful moments but for me they left me wanting more. Dig a little deeper, hit a little harder... let that painful gaze last a while longer.

Like van Gogh in his life, both Einstein and Eddington were faced with contempt from their community. And there were moments in the film where Tennant and Serkis had their painful gazes, but these moments were too brief and were pushed aside to quickly get on with the rest of the film, and that's what's wrong with Einstein and Eddington: it's limited by the 90-minute frame of a TV movie.

 ...Aside from that, it's a great piece.

I leave you with the suffering eyes of van Gogh, as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Today's movies

Aaand to continue my recommendation-thingymajig.

When I have a day off I tend to watch a movie for breakfast. Today's choice was:

Silver Linings Playbook

 .. which was a pleasant movie. Not mindbogglingly fantastic, but pleasant. It was nice to watch, the drama worked, the main characters are pretty... and I realised one of the reasons I like Jennifer Lawrence: her voice. She has this darker, more soulful voice than most other young female actresses spawned out of H-wood. A voice that is pleasant to listen to, a voice I can relate to. Because let's face it: in speech, deeper voices are just that much more pleasant to listen to. Maybe one of the reasons why women don't get to talk about important stuff in movies? Because their voices make it sound unimportant. Really a long shot, but for me it works - my ears dislike high pitches.

Enough about voices. SLP was a good movie, watch it. .. but it wasn't fantastic so don't expect too much (like I did), it's just great, old-fashioned GOOD.


Aaand seeing as I'm home alone for the evenings this week, I've had movies to accompany my evening cup of tea. Today, this was on the menu:

A fantastic fear of Everything

What to say... Simon Pegg looks good in his wig. Another GOOD movie. Not fantastic, but good. It had some gnarly animations and a wicked style of its own though, and a lot of the comedy was made up of Mr. Bean-ish gags so entertainment-wise this was great! .. and in general, what the script was lacking was partially made up for some great production design, animations and, well, Simon Pegg.

That's all for movies now, tomorrow's breakfast will either be the safe bet-delicious The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Soloist, or Einstein and Eddington.

PS: I do this for research, right. Research for my own projects, right.

Sol. Fruset.

 Att skriva på papper är roligt. Det är mycket lättare att sitta i solen och skriva då man använder papper och penna istället för dator. Måste börja på en ny historia idag eftersom den satt i mitt huvud och distraherade mig från den historia jag borde jobba på. Det nya barnet hann nå sin första vändpunkt innan ett träd skuggade mig så jag fick kallt och måste gå in.

 

Marken är ännu frusen. Jo, jag försökte med våld sticka en spade ner i grönsakslandet. Ställningen är därmed 1-1 mellan is&snö och mig.

Läsa och skriva

Har åter lekt författare och insåg nånstans på vägen att då det är ens egna text man ska läsa och ändra så är det mycet lättare att göra med det gamla, hederliga paret Papper och Penna. Har även lärt mig tycka om min handstil. Eller så har min handstil gått och blivit vuxen medan jag inte tittade.

Musik

Whenever I'm home by myself I remember all sorts of different artists and bands I haven't listened to for ages, here are some of today's rediscoveries:

Recommendations

Saker jag vill rekommendera denna morgon:

- att stiga upp i tid: så kanske man får nåt gjort. Åtminstone får man mera ingenting gjort
- plättar med honung: vi råkar ha nån supergod magisk lokalproducerad honung
- pyssel: under senaste veckan har jag stickat färdigt en halsduk, och 2 mössor från scratch, dessutom har jag börjat förså grejer för grönsakslandet: dill och persilja var först ner i krukan

Jag tänker börja skriva mera. Här. Typ. Och kanske på engelska också. Typ.

Aijo, en sak till måste jag rekommendera, fast jag redan rekommenderat den tidigare.
 En förbannat snygg anime-serie som heter Deadman Wonderland.




Utspelar sig i ett fängelse som är byggt i en gammal nöjespark. Innehåller element av scifi och psykologisk thriller. Namnam












Orsaken varför jag kom att tänka på DW igen är att jag hade denna fantastiska idé:
"VITSI NÅN BORDE GÖRA LIVE ACTION AV DEADMAN WONDERLAND" Och jo, jag var så exhalterad att jag skrek det inne i mitt huvud.