Oscar's sum up.

Oh boy.

Oscars are over ladies and gentleman, and this year have marked a very special year for me, it’s the first year where I discovered that I am enough of a movie nerd to actually taking qualified guess and pretty much knew how everything was going to turn out. Even so much that I played tips about it! (yeah, you can do that) and now it’s time to me to see how much I can cash in, first, which once I had right.

That is not mean to say that I give a crap, I did when I was like thirteen and fourteen, but don’t anymore. Which is ironic as I genuinely would have no idea who won back then and now I had a fairly good idea, though I was only mostly right.

I had gathered that King Speech would win for best picture and Colin Firth in it for best leading male, that was of no surprise to me.

I was even betting with my mom that Natalie Portman would win for best actress, so my mom now owns me a dinner.

Christian Bale winning for best supporting male, was also one I was extremely sure of.

I honestly don’t know who else than the wolfman had even made any cool make-up, and come on, that was a cool wolf rubber mask and cool wolfy fur, in any case it was nice that they went for make-up rather than special effects, though it also made this category sadly predictable as no other movie did anything this cool.

As for costume and art direction, this year also we also seemed to have one single movie going out of its way to be artsy, and that was Alice in Wonderland, so really no surprises there.

Best special effect, if anyone was in any doubt that “Inception” would win, they are hereby stripped of the right to call themselves a movie geek.

Best Animation film, duh! I don’t think any other studio than “Pixar” have even been allowed to as much as touch one since the award was made up back in 2004, and for good reasons, Pixar just makes the better movies, toy story, end of story.

Only one left I got right which I could be in doubt about was best foreign languet movie where it was an extremely close call between the Mexican movie “Buitiful,” or the Danish movie “In a better world.” I however choose to be faithful to my country, which means I tipped on “In a better world.” Which actually paid off, we won. How nice.

But then there is the ones I had wrong.

I had tipped on “Hailee Steinfield.” In “true grit”
I though it was her as her part was very dominant in the movie, had weigh and was not a love interest, which is actually pretty different for a lead, actually I think her character is the main character not just a supporting role, so she should totally have been nominated for best leading female, and I though the reason to move her down in the category of supporting actress was so she could have the statue, but that should teach me to vote for the western, it was Melissa Leo that won for her part in the fighter, which I found to be okay, but not a female character I hadn’t seen before.

For best original score I honestly thought it was “Tron” which should have won, but that movie wasn’t even nominated, instead I settled for “How to train your dragon.” As I though that had quite a fantastic score, a score of adventure and flight which give the audience a sense of flight and actually rings in your inner ear afterwards.
Instead it was “The social network.” That won, which is okay, because the sound track were indeed memorable and not to bland, which I think is the problem with many recent Hollywood movies, I guess that modern techno sort of thing is just not my thing.
In any case, I just a sound track like the doctor who sound track where each song have a personality and a story to tell, and you can actually listen to without any visual medium and your know it’s telling a story, many people thinks it’s to dominant, but that’s how I personally like it.

Best original song however, that’s probably the only one that left me with a long face. I was so sure that. “I see the light.” From tangled would win, as it’s well known, I don’t like the movie, but I actually like that song, and for me that’s the breath moment where Alan Menken is back, all ready now I am taking myself in humming the tone, despite only having heard it once or twice, it’s just very memorable and very pretty, instead it was Randy newmans “We belong together” from Toy story 3, and I am so sure it only won because toy story is the better movie.
I mean honestly, most literately, I have seen Toy story 3, five times at least.. and I don’t remember the song.
It’s nagging me very much, and I sit and wrack my brain as I try and remember, but nothing is coming to me at all, and when I can enjoy a movie that much, and forget a song that throughout, it must just have been extremely forgettable.
I know that is Newmans music, there is literately never any chance of pace in his music, it’s that sort of music that fits well to a dance floor or running, because it’s extremely consistent and never changes pace at all. Which also means it would make for a horrible forgettable musical, and not a very good story telling tool.

Again, I would like to lead your attention to the doctor who soundtrack, which have so much personality exactly because it chances pace and thus tells our story, my favorite example is probably the track which is called. “The master tape.” Which starts on a slow rhythm and a bass string, and then as the track evolves that bas string just goes quicker and quicker, telling the story of the situation tightened and the urgency becoming greater and greater, whilst everything around that bass which is always dominant raises. You can look it up on youtube or something, I know I am side-tracking again.


And that was my Oscar experience for this year, nothing special, no gasps or anything, I don’t really care who have an Oscar or no, I couldn’t care less for “King Speech.” And I still wouldn’t if it had swept all of the Oscars, this year I just really liked “Kick ass” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the world.” Neither of these movies were nominated for anything, and I don’t care because I liked the movies.

mission impossible

I fucking love mission impossible!

And right there I can hear all the ”Oh noes.” and screams of disbelief in the far off distance.

And then I got to say.

No no no! Not the Tom Cruise mission impossible movies! I hate those movies, probably even more than most other people, because in my mind they have nothing to do with mission impossible, what so ever! At most they are a very poor imitation of James bond.

What I am talking about, is the original show from the sixties! And if Leonard Nimoy playing a secret agent with the speciality of masquariding, pity thief trickery and imitations for two seasons, my god I don’t know what I am supposed to do convince that this show is awesome.

Seriously though, it’s such a joy seeing Nimoy putting out all the spectre of his acting ability in those seasons, he can do a lot more than just being Spock for sure.

And other than that, even without Nimoy it’s so a joyful show for me. It really comes down to the aspect in agent movies and series that fascinates me the most but I am getting exstremely little of, especially in Hollywood, I am saying never ever will I get it.

Except this show! This entire show is about it, and its’ awesome.

It’s about a groupe of agents, solving their missions, not by force, not by explosives, but by trickery, stealth and just sheer fucking around with who-ever the mission concerns. It’s about getting in and out without being noted.

And to do so they go undercover, they uses disguises they trick them selves out of tight situations rather than pull a gun, guns are only ever last resorts in this series, as agents that relies on their brains they rather trick themselves out, and it’s bloody awesome.

And what this show is also a lot about, it’s the team work! What it’s essential about is the same team, each one with some sort of speciality and the missions they are send out to solve, occasionally some team members would be exchanged, simply because the actors or actresses left the show. However three Characters were pretty much a constant.

Jim Phelps, who is the teams leader and also an accomplished masquerader and strategist.

Barney, who also happens to be the first leading black male in television history, is their handy man and gizmo genius who can do just about any engineering work.

And Willy, who is their strong man.. and yeah.. he is very strong, can do weapons and is just good to have around.

Then in every season but one there would be a lady, and this have been four different actresses doing the show’s run, though the lady’s would always pretty much be capable of the same things, they would kind of just be the masqurader, like Jim Phelps.

Lastly, they had two different tricksters onboard, who was also masqueraders and could do a lot of trickery such a pitch pocketing, illusions and so on. And as noted before, Leonard freaking Nimoy played this part.

They also had a doctor at a point, but he was only in the show for about one and a half season, and even then he was only in one third of the episodes, so I don’t know if it counts.

Which actually seems odd to me, as I find a field doctor to be a very good thing to have on the time, also because he would take the part as chemist rather than Barney.. but who am I to judge what makes sense or no.

And the best part is the massive plots that the team is forging to get to their information or item. We are talking staging a fake nazi submarine so a former Gestapo member is lead to believe that he is among friends, only to have the fake submarine attacked so he believes that he is going to die and thereby willingly give up the information no one could get out of him with torture, we are talking impersonating a terrorist leader to strike up a fake bargain so they can catch an illegal organisation red handed, sharing a prison cell with a convict, then the stage a prison outbreak with said convict to get to the location of a secret document. All sorts of plots!

Though the even better part, things doesn’t necessarily always go as planned, in a episode a team member was undercover as a convict, and was suppose to met up doing mission at a critical point, but then the team member actually got caught by the police long before he made it far enough, and brought to the police station due to the false conviction, thus not meeting up on time, thus the rest of the team suddenly finds themselves in a dia situation they have to use their wits to get out.

In one of my absolutely favourite episodes, Barney is shot doing a mission and is seen by the police running away, so what the episode is basically about is him being wounded while running from the police, trying to find his way to the meeting point, while the team try and diverse the polices attention by staging a fake convict.

Some of their ploys is pretty damn silly though, like when they convince a mobster that they own a mind reading tool, or when they convince the gangsters that one of their team members is actually one of the long since dead gang members, who of cause merely staged his death back in the day and got a plastic operation to change his appearance.. right.. way to use finger print technology guys. And it’s the sixties not the former centuries, they could use fingerprints back then.

Though mostly, it’s extremely inventive, fun and smart, a definite inspiration too much of my own writing as I very much think seeing hero use such inventive smart ways to get out is way way more fun than them just pulling a gun. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone in the worlds, as I really can’t say that the show have aged all that way, and often the viewer would have to be quite attentive to capture what is going on.

But when it works, it works. And it’s great.

Gnomeo and Juliet movie review

God dammit in hell.

I just can’t help it! An animated movie gets released, and I just have to see it!
And it certainly doesn’t help that I figured how to get a massive discount on any children’s film and I can get in for virtually free.

So that’s my excuse, that’s my excuse for going in and actually watch “Gnomio and Juliet.” One of the first movies on my list of movies I wont support in the year.

And that being said.. I want to apologies and retreat my statement that it shouldn’t be supported.. because this movie.. quite honestly. I enjoyed it, I thought it was rather good. I was emotionally involved, I was shocked a couple of times and most of all, I laughed a lot.
So there really can’t be no arguing, I liked this movie.


Hm, I think we should try and make an experiment here, lets try and look at the things that got my warning lights blinking back in January when I made my list.

Well first of all, it’s about fucking gardening gnomes re-acting the tale of Romeo and Juliet.
What I expected at first would be all these gardening gnomes make really immature nasty jokes while occasionally making an Shakespeare reference, and of cause our two nauseating sugar sweet protagonist can’t have each other. And that would have been what I expected.

And actually.. they do indeed re-act Romeo and Juliet, following the same basic plot.. well simplifying it of cause, but the interesting issues are still there, and it’s done pretty well.
For crying out loud Tybalt actually dies! I am dead serious, well it shouldn’t be a spoiler that the character dies in the original play. But that the gardening gnome Tybalt gets smashed into a wall and breaks into a thousand pieces… That is harsh man. And then all the red gnomes chases Gnomeo for revenge until he lands on a motorway and gets stuck to a car, so all the remaining character are left to presume that he is dead as well, including poor Juliet, while he is stuck in the other end of town.

And then as he is stuck the two families (The red gnomes and the blue gnomes.) get ready for serious battle, and there are smashing in their eyes.. it actually gets pretty damn grim.

I mean, the movie actually builds it well, as the feud itself starts out being cruel but harmless but then it builds and builds and builds, until the ending battle where it’s very grim, where both side thinks they have lost a person (died for crying out loud.) As you can tell, the urge for Gnomeo to get back is very real.

Of cause, as this is a kids movie and we only need following the Don Bluth formula “Darkness and angst in children’s movies are okay, as long as you attach an happy ending.”

And as we all know, the real Romeo and Juliet does not have an happy ending.. and I don’t think.. No the families never get physically involved like that in the play, but that being said it is an effective plot device, it fells natural and further the story.

And it also really brought a smile to my lip, that before the ending battle, right before the start.. the movie actually addresses this ending issue, as when Gnomeo have been played football with by a bunch of kids he ends up on the top of the head of a shakespear statue. And he tells the statue his entire story.

And the statue goes. “Hey! That sounds like my story!”

And Gnomeo naturally response. “Really, well how did it end?”

“They all die muhahaha!” …. Well okay, shakespear statue didn’t say that, but he might as well could have, he just described the real Romeo and Juliet ending while gleeing over the beautiful tragedy.

And honestly, that right there seems to be a very good compromise to me.
See the problem with the movies as “The page master.” Is that they wanted to pay tribute to these litterare classics, but failed to tell why any of these things are classics. Never do the audience get an insight to captains Ahab’s obsession over the white wale moby dick, never did the audience get a glimpse of the duality in Long John Silver, the dreaded pirate whom no one can trust. What happened in that movie, was visual references not tributes, and chances of people getting curious and checking out the source material seems very slim.

Here however, it shouldn’t wonder me if some kids gets really curious and would want to check out the source material.
They would be disappointed of cause, as Romeo and Juliet by no means is light reading, but on that some note, that fact a lone makes me sort of happy that a younger audience can familirise themselves with the classic tale this way. Because now they would know it! What’s it about, even how it really ends.

It’s actually kind of brilliant.

I know, I know.. it sounds like I am praising the movie to the skies.. and of cause this isn’t bloody beauty and the beast.
But it’s also very harmless, have the heart in the right place.. and yeah. It’s actually really good. I personally liked it better than tangled.

And I know.. I know.. I am the only one in the universe not going nuts of “Tangled.” But I still just don’t like it. I just don’t.

Hell, a ton of people out there probably don’t like “Gnomeo and Juliet” in the least, me however. This was a very pleasant surprise!

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In other news! Here is an animation movie I do look very much forward to!


Guillermo del Toro, working together with Jim Hensons puppet company, to create a version of Pinnochio that looks like something out of Tim Burtons early years! hell yeah!

http://www.deadline.com/tag/pinocchio/

This looks absolutely gorgeous to me! not the mention absolutely fascinating and my kind of movie!

That being said... Del Toro claims this to be darker than the Disney movie... my answer. Not bloody possible! the Disney version of Pinnochio is in my opinion the darkest childrens movie ever, and it honestly scared me out of my wits as I was a child, it honestly did made me cry and it honesly did give me nightmares.. And I still can't watch the scene where kids is turned into Donkeys while calling for their mothers without being incredible disturbed.

Okay, so the blue fairy is going to be a dead girls spirit, I honestly don't care, she's a magically being. have the kids turn painfully into donkeys as if it were a werewolves transformation, while they call for their mom, afterwards to see them be burn marked and kicked into the fold, as we are left the impression they are going to spend the rest of their life in labour as donkeys, wishing they had never given in to temptation.

Then Del toro, then we can bloody talk.

Vlog #3; Updates and me playing the paino

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