today, i heard about, downloaded and watched valkaama, a movie released under one of the creative commons licenses. (this means that you can actually download the sources of the movie and make your own version. and, probably more important to most people, you can just copy and watch it without restrictions.) technically speaking, the movie is of good quality, except the audio, maybe. i’ve listened to the movie with headphones, which was a bit annoying since voices were often only audible on the left or the right channel, but almost never somewhere inbetween. on speakers, this is fine, but with headphones it sucks. but besides that, everything’s great. so go and watch it, but maybe not with headphones :-) the movie also features inarijärvi, one of the largest european lakes, located in northern lapland.

today, i saw dracula (imdb). the one from 1931. well, you might now think, “so what?” well, i did not just saw the movie on a big screen, but the more important reason – the one which made me pay CAD 52 for this show – was the score. the original movie did only had music played during the intro and the outro. until 1998, when minimalist philipp glass was given the task to write a score. he composed a string / piano piece, performed by him and the kronos quartet, under the direction of michael reisman. well, a philipp glass score together with the movie is still no reason to spend that much money – but a live performance of the score by philipp glass and the kronos quartett themselves, together with the movie, definitely is. the whole thing happend in the context of the high performance rodeo 2009 in calgary; an advertisement can be found here.
this was actually the first time i saw the movie. and probably the first time i saw béla lugosi in a movie not made by ed wood. well, it was quite funny, even though some of the dialogs were hard to follow because of the score.
anyway. this event was definitely worth its money.

she didn’t say it. never ever.
a cloud of dust, debris, arises. so majestic, somehow beautiful, but deadly. ripping apart the two bodies, parting them forever, leaving emtpyness. blackness wins, once again.
dil se.. (imdb), another bollywood movie, does not features a happy end in the classical sense, with blowing the lovers to dust. still, the beauty which can be found in particular in the last moments of the movie, is amazing. even though she didn’t say it, she accepts it and, somehow, expresses the yes, in her deep look into his eyes. if this isn’t, then what’s love after all?
then, in another glimpse of time, all is gone, shattered.
sounds familiar.

just saw 臥虎藏龍, which translates to crouching tiger, hidden dragon (imdb). not the usual version though, but one with live music added by a conductor with an “orchestra” of three djs, and a singer. shown in a ewz powerhouse. i haven’t seen the movie before, so i can’t comment on how this version compares to the original one.
but i can say that this one was really good. both the movie, a chinese martial art movie, and the new background music, featuring noise, strange beats, even swiss folk music, are good, in their own, and especially as a composition. i liked in particular most of the noise parts, which seem to make the scenes more intense.
and it made me think about the concept in general. reminds me a bit of dead man, one of my favourite movies, whose soundtrack is what neil young improvised on his electric guitar while watching the movie. and it makes me think how a movie featuring a sound track made by sunn o))) would be… must be fantastic…

after watching a horror movie which i didn’t like too much (it felt too constructed, the horror was too obvious), i watched another movie, den tredje vågen (imdb), a swedish one, called the third wave in english, and this one was really, really good. despite being an action movie. reason is, it has a story. a good one. the only bad point was that i could only watch the german dubbed version, as the original was in swedish and i don’t happen to understand that language…
the setting is europe, being threatened by organized crime. the hero, an ex cop, is dragged together with his family into a chase through europe (london to the netherlands to munich) after a backer’s wife who wants to give information to europol. the story is solid, seems to be well investigated and plausible, is mostly not predictable, tension increasing until the end, which is a partially happy end with a deep dark shade left, leaving my mind rattling, chunking on different thoughts. making me fear the environment is too real, too realistic. this is way more creepy than creep.
it’s really a shame this movie wasn’t shown in german cinemas, as it’s way better than most of the movies which were.

the third movie for today—and the last—was november (imdb), a psychological thriller. on the dvd case, it was described as “in the style of mulholland drive and lost highway,” what made me pretty curious. well. while watching the movie, it reminded me of these two, alone several other movies. here’s the whole list:

• various david lynch movies, for example mulholland drive and lost highway, as, well, they have a very similar style, allowing own interpretation, being completely mystery. with the difference that this one has a ‘solution’ at the end.
• jacob’s ladder and the sixth sense, because of not knowing what is going on and whether the protagonist is alive or dead.
• memento, for leaving the viewer in total darkness about what happened.
• π and fight club, because of the way many things were shown.
• fight club and hide and seek (the first dvd i watched today), because of signs of schizophrenia blurring the reality.
• run lola run, because of the different story versions which were told.

when reading at wikipedia, it was funny to see many of the movies i had to think of…

just watched paperhouse (imdb), a 1988 fantasy/horror movie, about a girl suffering from pfeiffer’s disease who, during her feverish dreams, happens to stay in a world which looks like one of her drawings. she finds out that she can modify the world by modifying the drawing while being awake between the dreams. reminds me a bit of the butterfly effect, even though there the modifications are completely different in that they change the whole timeline in the butterfly effect, while in paperhouse, the modifications only affect the dream world. both ideas are very intriguing.

just watched all three indiana jones movies (imdb: #1, #2 and #3). i’ve seen the last crusade before, but not the other two. i must say that it reminds me a lot of james bond. a james bond with a hat and a whip. and a bit more back in time.
featuring plenty of action and humor, brutality and love. makes one think about things, like the problem of to whom antique stuff belongs. the finder? the country in which it was found? the country where it was originally crafted? and it’s also funny to listen to the german (mainly used by the nazi characters), laughing about the fact that it sometimes has a strong american accent. and laughing about how stupid most of the german babbling sounds.
the triology has a nice ending. the holy grail is secured, the bad guys are dead. indy, henry, marucs and sallah ride into the sunset, accompied by john williams‘ great score. unfortunately, in real life, it never has such a good ending.

just watched romeo must die (imdb), yet another adaption of the romeo and juliet theme. this time, two gangs, one black and one chinese, are fighting for domination. differently from the classic story, romeo and juliet (r.i.p.) are not really part of this scenery, but are sucked inside when their siblings are killed. the film features lots of kung fu, has many funny scenes, and plays plenty of hip hop, which isn’t exactly favourite music style, but fits pretty well.
while watching a friend of mine typed on icq that this one is really good. he’s so right.

yesterday, i watched kabhi khushi kabhie gham (imdb), a bollywood movie. in fact, it’s the first bollywood movie i’ve ever seen. on the first glance, this 3 ½ hour epos about a family split-up and reunion looks like a filmed dime novel: the story is pretty straight forward, there’s a happy end, everything is painted in light, great colors, dreams come true, true love wins, it’s obvious what is white and what is black, beauty everywhere, wealth and luxury all around, lots of dance scenes (it often feels like a musical theatre), clichés all over the place.
on the other hand, the movie also covers other aspects. it shows how the father’s egoism, who seems himself as the only and infallible instance of making decisions for the family, destroys the family. it also denounces discrimination of lower classes.
i’m still not sure what to think about it…

ingredients:

• the big lebowski (imdb).
• a sufficient amount of vodka.
• a sufficient amount of kalúha.
• a sufficient amount of milk.
• some hardware to play the movie.
• some glass for the white russian(s).
• optionally, some ice cubes.

instructions:

1. pour some of the vodka, kalúha and milk into the glass. add some ice if needed.
2. start watching the movie, while drinking the white russian.
3. as soon as the glass is empty, pause the movie, refill the glass and continue the movie.
4. repeat until the movie is over.

the amounts should be chosen high enough to ensure that you won’t run out of white russian during the movie.

well. seriously. (as serious as one can be after watching the movie and drinking several white russians.) the big lebowski is a movie by the coen brothers about a hippie slacker, called simply the dude, who is drawn into a kidnapping case which turns out to be a bit more complicated, with a bunch of different parties taking part in the game. the movie features great characters, most notably el duderino, his friends, donny and walter, and the german nihilists (nagelbrett by autobahn!), some great dream sequences, lots of bowling, and lots of white russians, all drunken by his dudeness.

if you’ve never seen it, watch it. and don’t forget the white russians.