I’ve been a bad…bad boy

Ooooh yes, I’ve been bad. No, not that kind of bad Go wash that dirty mind out with soap and water.

You probably noticed I haven’t said much for a while…..quite a while.

Weather’s been crap…..days of rain…….some sunny days……lots of gloomy cloudy days……more days of rain……yeah…..lots of days of crap weather!!!

Been to the pictures a few times. Seen the Transformers movie, which was good schoolboy fun. A typical Michael Bay action movie, but tempered down to schoolboy friendly levels - probably with the deft touch of Mr Spielberg….lots of people exclaiming “mother…!!”

And, just the other weekend I just had to go see Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix. Not bad, but felt a bit too condensed at times. I think I’m correct in saying that this is the shortest of the movies so far. Seems to presuppose to much that you’ve read the book. That big archway….very significant in the book, looks great in the movie….but not a word said about it. And then there’s what happened to Lucius Malfoy….you’ll need to read the book for an explanation.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I was there on Saturday morning getting my copy and unless friends in Austin were in the bookshop at midnight then I got mine first….nah nah n’ na nah

BTW, if you like to visit the cinema in Norway then i would recommend signing up for Kinosonen ( I might have mentioned this before). Its a sort of prepaid cinema ticket card. You top up the card with cash and then use it to by your tickets and you get kr.10 off the ticket price - and if you book online the booking fee is kr.3 instead of kr.5 One word of caution, the card can only be used at the cinema which you sign up for (although all Oslo cinemas count as the same).

Just before I go, a few more movie recommendations. Just seen on DVD, “Kontroll“, a weird and quirky movie about the strange and downright bizzare folks that inhabit the Budapest subway system. Cool soundtrack too.

Another movie worth checking out is the recent Norwegian slasher flick Fritt Vilt (or Cold Prey). A group of snowboarders head off for some off-piste boarding, one guy falls and breaks leg, group take refuge in an old abandoned mountain ski lodge….guess what…..they’re not alone. Formulaic stuff, but plays to the genre pretty well. Looks great and makes you jump in all the right places Check out the DVD, which thankfully also has English subtitles.

World Trade Center (2006)

Oliver Stone has been abducted by aliens and replaced by an andriod body double. At least thats the only reason I can fathom why World Trade Center wasn’t penned by Alan Smithee.

…They’re after you. They’re after all of us. Our wives, our children, everyone. They’re here already. YOU’RE NEXT!

This is made for TV…?

nooooooh, worse……its Hallmark TV…….aarrrggggghhh!!

Yesterday evening thought I’d take in a movie. Used this neat mobile phone service which allows you to save a few krones on advance tickets. Went for the bus in good time, almost there, speeding past it goes. I forgot. This was Sunday evening. Busses here seem to run a few minutes early. Of course its another story in the morning before work..I’ll leave that for a later whinge

Without the benefit of hindsight and not wanting to waste the 80kr. ticket money, took the 30 minute walk into town … and it was raining too.

Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps is about to start, and then its more Simpsons - gonna have to finish this later.

Ok, back again…. (2 days late)

The film opens well, showing that morning looking just like any other. These opening scenes, along with one of the films closing images of the empty commuter train, I found to be amongst its most effective. The bit in the middle was mediocre at best… made up from some cheap looking sets, lots of cheesy dialog, and a few unintentional laughs.

Most of the movie takes place after the towers collapse, watching two Port Authority police cops (Cage and Pena) jabber away to each other. We frequently cut away to the families of the two cops, frantically waiting for news. Then there’s the story of Dave Karnes, the ex-marine who comes to save them.

Karnes’ (Michael Shannon) character comes across as being really creepy, as some kind of patriotic avenger on a mission from God. In one of his earlier scenes we see him in Connecticut, sitting in church asking God for guidance, then heading off to Ground Zero in New York. Before leaving he finds time to drop in at the local barber for his regulation marine haircut. He also has one of the best lines “We’re not leaving, We’re the Marines, you are our mission” - remember those unintentional laughs I talked about. Addding this to those kitsch and cringe inducing visions of Christ give the whole move a rather disturbing quasi-religious undercurrent.

Stone himself, and others, have claimed this is a non-political movie….bollocks!! It comes across almost as Stones apology to the christian right, after years of being their whipping boy. In the closing credits he even attempts to tie the whole event into Iraq.

All the heroes of that day deserve much better than this.

I wonder if this was really the movie Stone wanted to make, or the one he was told to make. Another conspiracy theory perhaps