Well, I don’t really know what to think. There were moments I thought ‘wow, this must be the best movie I have seen in a long time’ and then again there were moments when I thought ‘wow, why did I waste my money’. In the end I did not love it, I did not hate it. Like that scene from Family Guy when they discuss their trip to Purgatory.

But I have to admit that although it was rather long, 140min, not once did I peek at the clock or look around at the audience in the cinema, which tends to happen with most 90min movies. So that’s a major plus.

Maybe I should watch it again in a month or so. Just to let it settle. Since it has Depp and Bale, I don’t want to praise or bash the film if I am not totally sure about it.

From the shallow point of view I must say that although I think Christian Bale to be hot as hell, I cannot deny that next to Johnny Depp he looks like a horse.

This song kicks ass. And the video is really cool. It’s simple, it’s hot, it works.

I don’t speak French (sigh), but a few clicks and I found a source that had the translation. Don’t know if it’s correct, but it sounds like something they could be singing about while walking butt naked on the streets of Paris.

Baby Baby Baby

I want to fuck on the commode. I want Tellier on my Ipod.

I want your Mom’s Black Amex. I want your Dad’s car.

I want to go out with your mates. I will wear my cutest panties.

I want a hot sex session. You can look but you can’t touch.

I want to be a Justice top friend. Gaspard’s hand on my thigh.

I want to be able to count without my fingers. And I want yours in the right spot.

I don’t want to go up the stairs. That’s perfect – you’re going to carry me.

I want to be the only person in photos. And I want to model for Laurent.

I want gifted children. And I want my dog to have a degree.

I want your head on a platter. I want mine to be on Denisot.

I don’t want any cake. I just want Coke.

I don’t want Kate, I want Ethan Hawke.

I want to jump off of a big ladder. Do as you can for the rainbow.

I want chocolate and vanilla flavored ice cream. I want your balls to be blueberry flavored.

I want to dance like Vanessa. I want to see her guy at Ibiza.

I want to be asleep when you wake up. And I want Yelle’s t-shirt.

I want to fit all my jeans. And I want you to come home with your pay check.

I want ice cubes in my glass. I want to smoke dope with your grandma.

I saw your ex – you know she’s dumb. Tell her I found her boots.

I don’t want a pip in my cherry. I want you to straighten the Tower of Pisa.

I want to cum in a Deux Chevaux. And I’ll do it behind your back.

Ooh that smell.

Can’t you smell that smell?

Really hot.

I saw it again last week after many-many years and I have got to say, it was better than I remembered. And I remembered it as something very good.

Although the whole man vs nature polemic seems to be on repeat, you can’t really say anything bad about this movie. It was made twelve years ago so it is OK in my book.

The man vs nature theme here is so much more interesting than all the other black and white versions of the problem. In Mononoke-hime there are no good guys or bad guys. The characters on both sides are both good and bad.

The woman making guns and taking down the forest is your typical bad guy and at first you think that you should hate her. And then it turns out her village is filled with girls from brothels and lepers who are dead to the rest of the society. She has taken all of these people in and given them a job and they are very grateful for it.

And nature with your wolf gods and boar gods, your typical ‘good guys’, is motivated only by hate and rage. And by acting out only on these emotions the gods get caught in it. A vicious circle is inevitable: rage causes more rage.

The protagonist, Prince Ashitaka, is in the middle of this ongoing war. He does not take sides. He tries to balance these two forces, man and nature, tries to show them both a better world. He is there to show that man and nature are not supposed to be natural enemies.

So although the basic theme of this animation is too familiar, this is the one movie that gets it right in my opinion. This problem is not black and white. Otherwise there would not be a problem.

Who were those people?

To the makers of this movie: look up ‘foreplay’.

Since this movie had no satisfactory introduction I had no idea who the characters were or why on earth I should feel for them. OK the kid got cancer. That’s sort of sad and not his fault and you kind of think in the back of your head that you should probably like him. But that’s not enough. You cannot just throw us that and hope it’s okay. It’s not. This movie sucked.

OK, so I looked around for some of his other stuff and YAY I found that he is not a one-hit-wonder for me. I actually like his other work as well. I will look into this matter more thoroughly some other day as I am really tired (just got back from Estonian Song and Dance Festival that had lots of wind and rain and drunk people singing songs about beer). But here’s a couple of pictures of Richard Notkin’s work (that consists mostly of teapots):

You can read more about him here, for example.

I love it. I want it.

It’s Heart Teapot: Hostage Metamorphosis II by Richard Notkin.

Found it here.

I really love ceramics and I am constantly looking for interesting artists who make cool ceramic stuff. But due to my poor searching skills and my nonexistent education in the art of messing around with clay I seldom find anyone I actually like. It’s always brown bowls and the same fucking vases painted with oh-so-artsy-fartsy colors that I see on the internet. I won’t give up, though. I know there are plenty of cool artists out there who make wonders happen with their hands, I just haven’t found my way to them. Yet.

What makes me love this film is how the father who is trying to save his daughter does not hesitate to shoot an innocent woman to gain some useful information. He’s not your average good guy. You can see that he fucking loves his daughter.

I have father issues. And seeing a father – even a fictional one – who will stop at nothing to get to his little girl is something that.. well, it just moves me. And I think it’s the main reason I love this one.

However, aside from my personal reasons for loving this movie: Liam Neeson is great in this one. That sexy badass dad.

I think I’m gonna watch it again. Right now.

(Spoilers ahead)

This is a good movie. Really.

The basic plot – guy finds drug money, runs with it and other guys start chasing him – is not exactly what you might call ‘original’. However, what makes the film original in my opinion are the characters. They do not react to the events like you would expect them to react. And because of this you look at things differently yourself.

What was very interesting for me was the theme of the fragility of human life. Throughout the film Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) goes around killing people. We see so many deaths without seeing the people’s lives. Only a couple of people give us hints about how they have lived, but what we remember about them is the  bolt gun in Anton’s hand that blew their brains out. Anonymous people are presented to us so that we can simply see them die.

And then there’s Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), the guy you like the most. He’s a good guy. You get to know him and hope he succeeds. And then he dies. And we don’t even see the actual event. We don’t see his heroic death. We get to see it after the fact. When he is already dead. Along with the rest of the anonymous corpses.

The main killer, Anton Chigurh, is basically the Grim Reaper. Totally anonymous, totally inescapable. No explanations.

So that was what made an impression on me.