yesterday I went to see Alejandro González Iñárritu new flick BABEL. Having seen more of his work, of which I especially enjoyed AMORRES PERROS, I was slightly disappointet with BABEL. Clearly 30 minutes to long, it, in spite of the issues and personal downfall in the movie, never really got to me. It seemed too contructed, and the paralel stories to easy, allthough the story of the deaf and numb girl lost by lack of communication in Tokyo came out really good, closer to me, but further from the movie.

Anyway the photage and the soundtrack was great, but bacisly it was more movie that confirmed the states of things than putting forward provoking og controversial interpretations of the state of El Mundo, which I definitely expect from a 135 minutes production.

mixed message








four headlines in different newpapers made a lasting impression on me over he last week.

1: a recent pole shows that one in every fifth dane now is pro capital punishment, aka: the mercy seat.
the positive attitude towards solving the crime issues with DEATH, was predominantly distinct among the ranks and voters, for and of DANSK FOLKEPARTI, the lesser educated, and readers of danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet. That itself didnt surprise. The surprise is the actual number of people pro-death. Over a period of 5 years it has more than doubled. The bitterness, the animosity just adds to the picture of a country, of people imploding in them selves: Close the door after me, I have what I want.

2: that more than 50% of DK population seems to agree that the coming execution of Saddam Hussein only just fits the crimes he commited. Its gonna be a stunningly hardhitter, once the the happy slapping of Saddam hits the internet... Remember the aired freak trial of Ceaucesco?

3: Let him rot in jail for 40.000 years, which was the official verdict on the convicted Madrid terror-bombers. Understable, the rage in mind, but do-able? What strange sense of justice.

4: the reoccuring massive headlinelines on tabloid newspapers BT and Ekstra Bladet, which in particular refers to the TV2.dk primetime show VILD MED DANS. How the f... can two adjascent newspaper with just a little ethics let references to a f...... tv program to make headlines? And how it applies and goes down well, I refer to the abovementioned (1).

I havnt seen BORAT: The Movie http://www.boratmovie.com/ yet. I plan to.

But have you seen this, the real mccoy?
http://www.istanbul.tc/mahir/mahir/

The Clayton Brothers: The Most special day of my life.













today,
three immensely positive newsflashes from the past week: my days of social nadir has definitely evaporated. This week I attended no less than two movie-premiers. That’s like…so much up the ladder, the height is almost frightening.
On Wednesday, by rubbernecking on the means, tolls and networking of Swedish novelist Jakob Ejersbo I attended the opening night of Ole Christian Madsen newest film, “Prag” starring Stine Stengade and the omnipresent frenzy of Mads Mikkelsen.

The film: Christopher (Mads Mikkelsen) has been summoned To Prague to bring home the corpse of his deceased father, with whom he havnt had any contact for 25 years. Simultaneously his marriage with Maja (Stine Stengade) is running dry, as Christopher confronts her with the inescapable fact, that he knows she is having a very intimate affair with a younger man.
Shot on location over 24 days in Prague, the city serves as a perfect kafkaesque backdrop for the narrative that unravels. At first impressions it seems that Christopher is willing to do everything to save their marriage, but the closer he gets to the full story of his father life of which he knew nothing, and to which he is caught somewhere between indifference and hate, the more he seems to acknowledge that his marriage is over, and that he wants it to be over as much as Maja. It doesn’t go about without intense drama in really well played low-fi scenes, and the dialogue is as tense, honest and emphasizes the absence of choice, except for the final break up.
Stengade and Mikkelsen are playing each their character with great integrity and credibility, and it is clear in the direction of the movie, that O.C Madsen has great and equally sympathy for both Christopher and Maja. It stands out that the director knows the story well and it is told with the twists, dilemmas and desperation that I can only imagine is the cold reality of a break-up and he clearly avoids the clichés at hand.
Also I find it clear that he states that The Modern, do offer an “afterlife”, and that there are reasons not to underestimate and respect the family structures and cultures that emerges and constructs, following the rising numbers of first family break ups.

http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Christian_Madsen

On Friday I attended the premier of four movies at Cinematekets sneak bar. The first 3 were not the best I have seen, mostly they came out as dramatized jokes, that all were 17 minutes too long. On the other hand, the last movie of the night: “Hvordan de danser” (How they dance) by Jesper Ravn came out clear as daylight.
An almost anthropological short-film depicturing four average danes, chosen among hundreds, to perform a dance to their favourite tune.
The performances of a slightly overweight 34 year female old school-teacher, doing booty-shakes and hard choreopgraphy to a Beyoncè Knowles hit, the 50-something year old male århus-based gartner and American doing a spectacular anachronistic dance in flip-flops whilst undoing and doing his ponytail to a latino-up beat tune, the 35 year old male writer and in many ways bookkeeper in a crossover between electric boogie, elvis-moves and just pure emancipation in top shined shoes and footwork to Desmond Dekker`s “The Israelites”, and finally the 17 year old female from Århus, doing it in front of flames to “Relight my fire..” was nothing less than a brilliantly sympahtetic and honest film.

http://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/Cinemateket.htm

Then this morning, the long awaited package from Amazon arrived with the Book (see picture, top): “The most special day of my Life” by artist brothers Clayton.
The Clayton Brothers do very narrative, autobiographical, surreal and ethereal and subliminal paintings: From memories of surburban decay coated with irony and humble truths.

The site
www.claytonbrothers.com

good fun for a boring day at the office: subtitle your own movie at bombay tv.

klikken sie hier
www.grapheine.com

now its dark, and winter came with the precision of a neurotic arctic clockwork...

When the idea surfaced publicly some years ago, I thought of it as a joke. But then Israel started building one, and soon thereafter the speculations in the US gained foothold, and now: the money has been granted, they are gonna build one too:
A wall!
A wall, stretching for the Pacific through California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico: A 1200 kilometer long wall, to keep the Mexicans out of the US. 6 billion dollars approx. is the price, and still it leaves a 2000 kilometer gap open.
“Mr. Gorbatjov, , tear down this wall” said iconographic Reagan in 1987 visiting Berlin, and basically Mr. Gorbatjov did, and for a while there in the early nineties Europe looked prosperous.

And for the States? Instead of spending the money developing the countries from where the illegal immigrants originate… I mean…jesus...or making laws against hiring illegal immigrants, on building a economy that does not include modern slavery…I mean…
Poor Mexico, So far From God, so near the USA…

ÔBERG OF SKI FI SKANE IN DEVELISH POSE...




Went to see SCI FI SKANE on friday, and was in no way disappointed. I never actually saw BOB HUND live by which I am a big disappointment to myself, so my expectations were high, and as you can read from the first sentence my expectations was met. SCI FI SKANE is a more electronic outfit than BOB HUND, but hold the same energy and strange soundscapes with references to old scifi and horrormovies and also owes a lot to the twangrock era featuring names as The Ventures in particular. So one word really covers the gig: vuf!

One sad flipside to Copenhagen Musicweek (as this gig was a part of) leading up to the MTV music awards this coming weekend revealed itself over the week with some stunning paradoxes.
Copenhagen CityCouncil have supported topdollar corporate-cocksuckers MTV with almost 7 million danish kroner for the MTV Award show, with one demand put forward, wanting to secure that the MTV concert held at City Hall Square should be “open and accessible to the people”.
MTV on the other hand spend the week handpicking the young preppy juniors at a week-long audition, where you, if you displayed your loyalty to different brands, maybe could be granted a front row-ticket for the massive covered media event. The pictures from the audition had a striking resemblances to those from born again Christians, the youngster doing exactly what was expected: when MTV says jump, they do not reply: “Why?”; no they ask: “How High?”
Anyways, I hold absolute no grudge towards the people participating. It’s a chance for a free show with the topshit line up.

What is more saddening is the fact, that this was also the week where www.ungdomshuset.dk apparently have lost the battle for survival, by a pretty definitive court-ruling and the persistent NO to the offer the new owner, The Fatherhouse, told the wellmeaning people trying to buy the Ungdomshuset.
The problem with Ungdomshuset I think is that the issue havnt been worked out years ago. Ungdomshuset have a immediate need at about 200.000 dkr per year to keep services up and running. And though the CityCouncil per se have handed over responsibility to let the issue be solved otherways, it really only points back at them. And the more than willingly hand out to MTV, I think puts it in a sickening elitist perspective.

In the (Swedish words) of Thomas Öberg, “jeg kryber under filten I min pereferi.”

now its dark

the remains of swedish post-punk rockers BOB HUND: SCI FI SKÅNE are playing yet another gig at RUST in Copenhagen tomorrow. SCI FI SKÅNE is still charectarized by one the most talented and contemporary scandinavian lyricists and vocalists, Thomas Øberg. His groundwork as verbalizer for BOB HUND, I think, is some of the most precise words ever uttered on modern life and losses.

I intend to be there.

meanwhile, check out this little hymn and video from there website:
http://www.scifiskane.com/film.html