David Lynch

Awesome!

David Lynch on product placement


David Lynch on watching movies on a phone. (notice the setup of the clip though with the cozy apple music and the convenient "iPhone" in bold at the end - someone's been having some fun)

The Visitor

The Visitor is coming to Norwegian theatres this friday and was given a 6 (out of 6 possible) in one of the biggest Norwegian newspapers. Grounds to look further into the movie! It's by the director of The Station Agent and the producer of Sideways, which turns up the anticipation even more. It's apparently about a university professor who has a rather straight forward life which doesn't really fulfill him. After the loss of his wife he shut down emotionally and doesn't find any pleasure in living. During a trip to New York for a conference, two foreigners (a man from Syria and a woman from Senegal) are living in his apartment due to a misunderstanding. But as it turns out, this meeting will be his awakening. There seems to be some sort of political agenda in the movie, but according to the norwegian review this is done in a subtle way.

The trailer didn't really mesmerize me, but considering the rating of 8.1 at imdb and the review in Dagbladet it is definitely worth a look.

HIMYM Season 4

They are back on set and filming for the new season yay :D It's sad though that all the focus is on the guest stars such as Britney and that other fella they talk about appearing this upcoming season, cause the show in itself is awesome! Seriously, who cares about them! Neil Patrick Harris is funneh! "Look away Josh Radnor, look away".

Watchmen

Zack Snyder, the director of 300 is currently working on Watchmen which is based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore. The comic was released in 1986-1987 and became an acclaimed piece of litterature. The writer set out to do a comic for adults and so Watchmen is not the straight forward superhero comic, but rather superheroes flawed. The movie is highly anticipated and according to the crew working on Watchmen, the movie is very true to the novel. It's already been filmed but the release isn't until 2009, so this trailer might ease the wait.

Everything is illuminated

Everything is illuminated was shown at the film festival Kosmorama 2 years ago but I wasn't able to see it. I did see it this weekend and it is a sweet little movie. Jonathan is a collector. He collects everything of value to him and puts it in small bags. This obsession as one might call it, started after his grandfather died. Now on the deathbed of his grandmother he is given a picture of his grandfather and a woman that saved his life during World War II. Jonathan sets out to find this woman. He hires a rather disturbed tour guide company and the guide, his seeing eye dog and the grandson take young Jonathan on a trip he will never forget. The images are beautiful and the nature is stunning. The characters seem a bit stereotypical at times. There's the grumpy grandfather, the strict waitress that only serves meat and the somewhat dim-witted grandson that loves Michael Jackson. It atleast feels like they try to portray the east european culture to it's full extent. When (if) you get past that then it's a nice, witty and a little bit sad movie. 7.7 on imdb - maybe a tinsy bit lower in my opinion.

Fun fact: The actor playing the grandson is the front man for Gogol Bordello. Saw them at both the Roskilde festival and the Quart festival and although it's not my kind of music they sure know how to put on a show and put you in a good mood no matter what! It's a lively bunch and they just go nuts on stage!

The Last Kiss

The Last Kiss (2006) is an american movie based on the italian L'Ultimo Bacio from 2001. I haven't seen the italian one so I don't know how the two movies are compared to each other. The director behind The Last Kiss has mostly done tv series in the past, but the screenwriting is by Paul Haggis - the acclaimed writer behind movies like Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima and In The Valley of Elah. The Last Kiss is centered around Michael and his girlfriend Jenna who are expecting a baby. Both are quite young, in their late 20s and the bigger story in The Last Kiss is about relationships. Not only are Michael and Jenna having problems, but so are their friends and Jenna's parents. I think the movie has a lot of potential and the directing is quite nice, nothing over the top. It's a quiet movie and the issues at hand are presented in a subtle way. The issues the character have to face are placed in the grey areas of life where things aren't certian or purely one thing or another which is good. However, I didn't feel the movie lived up to it's full potential. They have a great writer on board, the pictures were nice, most of the actors did a good job and the music was... nostalgic... Coldplay, Athlete and Turin Brakes to mention some... There are several stories in this movie and we never got to know all of them very good. The main focus was entirely on Michael and Jenna and a certain incident they had to resolve. I think the movie could have been richer had we been able to see more of the other stories as well, which may have tied together the overall theme a bit better. It's a relatively short movie, only 1 hour and 30 minutes so a little more meat to the film couldn't hurt. It's got a 6.7 on imdb which I think is a bit low and I would give it a 7.2.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

1 years has passed in the real world but in the magical land of Narnia it's been 1300 years. Yeah, this is the follow up to Disney's production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from 2005. As a kid I was a fan of the BBC production of Narnia and I was very sceptical back in 2005 to whether the Disney version would be all glossy and disney-like. The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe wasn't all that bad in my opinion. It could have been much worse, but I guess they were able to constrain themselves and keep it relatively close to the british BBC production. I especially liked Tilda Swinton's performance as the White Witch. So my memory before the age of 8 is kinda sketchy so I for some reason only remember watching The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe and none of the other 3 BBC productions. That leaves the slate somewhat clean when I am to make up an opinion for Disney's Prince Caspian.

Well, the kids are still kids, running around with huge swords when they in real life probably aren't allowed to run with scissors. Prince Caspian, a Telmarine, is about to be killed by his uncle when his professor saves him and sends him for the woods. He receives a magic horn and is asked to use it only in the case of an emergency. The four siblings are back in London and when Prince Caspian uses the horn they are all transported to Narnia. Together with the creatures in the woods they decide to help Prince Caspian take back his throne, and the battle with the Telmarines begins. Narnia has received some heat for its religious and sexist undertones and they are still there. I think that in 2008 the most prominent and most annoying with these kinds of tales is the fact that the boys with their swords decide what to do, but the girls have to be quiet and do what the boys tell them to do, and of course in the end the girls save the day. It's very stereotypical and kinda boring. The religious connotations are subtle in my opinion, and had I not been aware of them I 'm not sure I would even notice them. Once I was aware of this link they were easy to spot though. The movies are based on the books from the 50s and it wouldn't be Narnia if it wasn't like that. So i guess the question is, do we need Narnia in 2008? In the end it's a pretty straight forward movie that doesn't take any unexpected turns. It's a fantasy movie which is good entertainment, but it's not a movie I will keep thinking about in years to come. I liked The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe more than Prince Caspian as it was more imaginative and the story was more interesting. In this film they have already established the backstory so the main focus of the film was on the big fight against the Telmarins, which to be honest wasn't all that exciting.
Trailer here

House season 5 promo

From a psychological standpoint I'm really looking forward to see how House and Wilson can come out of this. Both characters are so well written and how they interact with each other is for me atleast the most interesting part of the show. I think it's going to be quite the treat seeing how House copes with this and also how they will begin to patch things up.

Jubilee with Maynard and Trent

This has to be a great partnership :D Maynard James Keenan contributed with some vocals on this track by Jubilee, and Trent Reznor programmed the drumbeats for it.

Tool

Damn youtube and it's "related videos" section... you can end up there for hours! Anyways, I was doing some music video searches and ended up finding some Tool interviews. Tool is a band that does very few interviews but there are a couple on there. Thought I'd post one of them here. Everyone in the band keeps a low profile and as the vocalist and "main figure" of the band, Maynard is by the music industry portrayed as an almost mythical creature. I for one admire how they let the music take first place, cause to be honest that is the main thing. Another thing is that Tool's music is quite rich so to give the music its full attention during a consert I find it refreshing that they don't try to give us a flaming show with the band members raising hell, but rather let the music and backdrop images play together to create the ultimate visual and auditory experience. With that being said, I think it's about time they do a score for a movie.

Part 1

Part 2