The Matrix – Why Wake Up?

If an enormous alien lifted the sky and peeked down at us with one giant, glowing eye, wouldn’t you prefer that he just put the lid back on and we could forget all about it? Isn’t it better to be under the delusion that we matter than to discover how very small and insignificant we actually are? Would you rather live in Zion or your hometown?
I’m with Cypher on this one. Not in the sense that he betrayed his fellow beings or his wanting a better life at all costs, but I’m with him on his basic idea. Why wake up to a desolate, horrible wasteland, when you can stay in the dream, without knowing you’re dreaming? The damage has already been done, so isn’t it win/win for machine and man? They get energy and we get to live like we used to, at least for all we know. Didn’t Neo screw us on this one?

Diary 3 – Sigh, Sunday. 2010-01-24.

Dumbass woke me up at 4 in the morning, by hammering on my window (why do people insist on doing that?). Got up, threw on some sweatpants and stumbled to the front door to let him in. Motherfucker’s drunk as a motherfucker and he nearly trips on the stairs. I immediately go to my bedroom and shut the door, ‘cause I’m kinda pissed, but dumbass follows me because he needs to use the bathroom.
- She kissed me dude!
- Wonderful.
I’m still sick and if you recorded my voice and played it back to me, I would’ve thought that dude had throat cancer. Either that or he was Clive Barker.
Dumbass does his business and returns to my living room to pollute my couch. I try to go back to sleep but fail and a Fight Club quote pops into my head. ‘With insomnia nothing’s real’. I wonder whether it would be real if I killed dumbass. Then I chuckle at my own thought. I spend a couple of hours finishing reading ‘The Road’, to try to fall asleep. It’s a brilliant book and I decide to go see the movie the following week. If some of the book’s quality rubbed off on it, it’s worth a watch for sure. I finally fall asleep to some Scrubs on the laptop.

Even though dumbass woke me in the middle of the night, I wake up at around 10. He’s still passed out on the couch. Luckily I have two and I spend a couple of hours playing Borderlands, while I’m listening to the latest SModcast. I’m surprised that Pineapple Express is a real weed, and even more surprised that Kevin Smith smokes it with his mom (SModcast #103, though I don’t think it’s a regular thing). But God bless ‘em nonetheless. When dumbass finally rises to a buttload of hangovers (which I’m kinda smug about) he suggests we head out for some brunch. We try a new place, where it turns out that the food isn’t great but the setting is pimp. The place is dead too though and I leave kinda disappointed. But he was paying so who cares. I drive dumbass home, then drive myself home, then tug one out (in no way related to dumbass) and I spend the rest of the day on the forums, playing Borderlands and reading Smith’s My Boring-Ass Life. I fall asleep on the couch.

The Deer Hunter - Review

I think (or rather I hope) you all know the story.
A group of friends, who work in the iron industry, enjoys hunting deer together. One of the guys is getting married while three other guys are going to fight in the Vietnam War. To mark these occasions they go on a deer hunt together. After the wedding (which maybe takes a bit too long in the movie) we are abruptly thrown into the action. The movie shifts to the war in Vietnam. Michael, Nicky and Steven are taken prisoners in a Viet Cong camp. After playing a deadly round of Russian roulette they escape the camp, where after the movie divides into two. We follow Michael’s return home, we see how he gets back on his feet and we see him hunt deer again. But we also see constant references to the horrors the guys experienced in the war.
Which brings us to Nicky. Nicky never returned home. He faded out from his earlier life and we follow his psychological descent. He visit prostitutes, drinks and upon stumbling into a bar where he puts a gun to his head he becomes involved in a Vietnamese ‘club’ where they play and bet on Russian roulette. The same game he and Michael were forced to play in the Viet Cong camp.
The story of Michael and the story of Nicky merge in such a heartbreaking manner, that I won’t reveal it for you, just in the unlikely case that you haven’t watched the movie.This movie stars Robert de Niro and Christopher Walken. I single these two out because the other actors appear mediocre compared to them. This isn’t due to Walken and de Niro’s individual performances, but the acting between them. The chemistry is amazing and I dare say it’s the best I’ve seen. The Russian roulette scene in the camp made me feel uncomfortable. I felt sick. On the contrary to repulsing horror scenes this was a positive discomfort, since the feelings were triggered due to amazing acting instead of disgusting gore scenes.
Another memorable scene was when Nicky walked in on a game of Russian roulette. He takes the gun without hesitation and puts it to the contestant’s head and pulls the trigger, where after he immediately puts the gun to his own head - all done with a dead, indifferent look in his eyes.

These scenes were executed with amazing acting. However, the scenes wouldn’t be half as powerful, was it not for the great writing. The Russian roulette is an extremely powerful tool and the movie is plastered with brilliant symbols. One of the best is the scene with Michael and the deer. After a lengthily chase Michael finally catches up with the deer but he realizes that he can’t shoot it. The deer superiorly regards Michael, after which it slowly walks away without dignifying him another look.
Michael had just returned from the Vietnam War. He’s shot people and yet he couldn’t shoot a deer. The majestic and superior gaze of the deer seems a symbol of the indifference and idiocy of mankind. The deer seems superior compared to Michael. It has no worries and it does not bring pain and suffering to itself. This same indifference is emphasized via Nicky, which seems to have given in to it and thrown his life away, and the green barrette who utters; “just f*ck it all’, in the beginning of the movie. The game of Russian roulette alone is filled with idiocy and meaninglessness and this game is equated with the Vietnam War itself. And war in general for that matter.

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a movie that had this kind of emotional impact on me. I’ve always loved Walken due to his performances in ‘The Prophecy’ trilogy and his minor roles in movies such as ‘Pulp Fiction’ and even ‘Balls of Fury’ and ‘Man of the Year’. But his performance in this movie laid the basic to the man’s foundation of awesomeness. At least for me.
I’ve got nothing but love for this movie. One can argue that the story was a bit slow to start with, but, to me, that didn’t hurt the movie at all.

Good Will Hunting

Will - Beethoven, okay. He looked at a piano, and it just made sense to him. He could just play.
Skylar - So what are you saying? You play the piano?
Will - No, not a lick. I mean, I look at a piano, I see a bunch of keys, three pedals, and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they saw it, they could just play. I couldn’t paint you a picture, I probably can’t hit the ball out of Fenway, and I can’t play the piano.
Skylar - But you can do my o-chem paper in under an hour.
Will - Right. Well, I mean when it came to stuff like that… I could always just play.

I’m very subjective when it comes to Good Will Hunting.
I remember seeing it for the first time with my aunt, when she was in high school. After having watched it, I knew right then and there that I wanted to go to high school too. The movie had a huge impact on me, and even though I’m not a brilliant prodigy I related to the character of Will Hunting. The character fascinated me and, at that time, I could identify with Hunting’s anger and his feelings of being misunderstood.

This movie introduced me to Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Robin Williams, all at once and I couldn’t have wished for a better introduction. The fact that Damon and Affleck wrote this film, starred in it, and won Oscars impressed me a great deal, and it only made the movie better.
Damon’s acting impressed me even more, and he became the ‘ideal actor’ to me, at that time (mainly because I hadn’t watched that many movies, other than cartoons, I think). It was with Damon’s performance in mind that I began taking acting classes.
Robin Williams’ character, the psychologist who doesn’t care about materialistic possessions and prestige, but merely wants to help and influence people, became my ideal view of how a psychologist ought to be (this kind of character is what Williams does best – if you don’t believe me, you should watch Dead Poets Society and Patch Adams). Williams’ character spawned my thoughts of some day becoming a psychologist myself.

This ‘review’ hasn’t been like the other reviews I’ve made. I’ve left out commenting on all the technical elements, such as the composition, symbolism etc. But when it comes to this movie, they just aren’t important to me and they have nothing to do with this movie being one of my absolute favorites. This is the only movie, which have influenced me to this degree. When I had finished primary school I had no clue what I wanted to do. Who knows what I would’ve done, and where I would’ve been today, if this movie had escaped my attention. Call me nostalgic.

Antichrist - Review

I heard a woman threw up at the movies while watching this. I was skeptic. Thought it was all a bunch of hype. I even told the women sitting next to me (who were covering their eyes all the time, even before there was any scary stuff) that this wasn’t a horror and they ought to calm down. I was wrong. Half an hour into the film I was the one doing all the covering and turning away.

This is by far the strangest, most disturbing, most horrifying and most graphic movie I have ever seen. I will never watch this movie again.

The plot is simple. It’s about a married couple whose baby son crawled out of a window and died, while they were making love. The husband is a psychiatrist and the mother has recently quit some sort of adult education. The woman suffers an emotional breakdown and the husband takes her as a patient and attempts to cure her throughout the movie. He takes her to the place she fears the most, the woods, in order to get rid of the fear. That specific part of the woods is called Eden. The woman eventually goes insane and, well, see for yourself.

Knowing a bit about Von Trier helps to understand this film. Von Trier has had to endure various, serious depressions and as a result, he views the world differently than most people, which is obvious in the film.

The beginning (prologue) and the end (epilogue) of the movie is shot in very similar styles. It’s black and white and the slow motion effects and background music makes it very beautiful. Everything in between is dark and horrible. Maybe this is a statement. Everything between birth and death is suffering and only in death, or non-existence, do we find peace.
The baby boy, who usually is a symbol of life, beginnings and joie de vivre, dies, or if you stretch it, commits suicide.
Various animals appear throughout the movie; a blood-covered fox, a deer which is in the middle of giving birth and an infant crow. The fox is in China believed to be a signal from the spirits of the deceased. At some point in the movie the fox looks into the camera and yells;Chaos reigns! thus stating that there is no afterlife.
The deer giving birth is, like the baby boy, a symbol of life. However, the deer infant is dead and nothing about the miracle, that is birth, is beautiful.
The crow is commonly known as a symbol of negative omens. At one point, the husband attempts to kill a new born crow, because it’s giving away his hideout. However, the crow proves difficult to kill and it takes several blows with a rock before the bird falls silent.
Have a look at the movie poster. The tree is supposed to be the tree of life. However the tree is fertilized with dead bodies. And that is, in a nutshell, the message of this film. What if birth, life and death aren’t beautiful miracles, blessed by God? To Lars Von Trier they aren’t and this movie is a lens through which we are offered to view the world as he does.

I honestly wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone. Not because it isn’t a wonderfully executed piece of cinema but because I felt sick watching it. I very rarely have to look away and I never experienced that I couldn’t eat my popcorn.

One Danish film critic said that one third of the audience would give this movie five stars. The second part would give it zero. And the last part would have no idea what they’ve just seen.

Jersey Girl - Review.

“My dad says that life can be split into two categories. New Jersey and New York”.

There are movies that completely shatter your expectations. Often these movies star actors, which usually do something completely different, or they are directed by directors, who normally make movies with very different themes. Reign Over Me was very serious and not something you would normally expect from Adam Sandler. Stranger Than Fiction and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are similar movies, starring actors, whose main occupation have formerly been comedies. Jersey Girl does the same thing.

Kevin Smith is the man behind movies, such as Clerks, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Backand Zack and Miri Make a Porno. These are all comedies, containing dialogue based humor, which mainly relates to a younger audience. Some find the so-called Viewaskewniverse hilarious, while some regard it as juvenile and immature. However, I would be surprised if both audiences couldn’t appreciate Jersey Girl.

The movie starts out similar to Spanglish. The main character’s daughter reads a school essay, which tells the story of her life with her father. Her mother died giving birth to her, leaving her father (Ben Affleck) to raise her alone. The father, Ollie, doesn’t want to face that his baby depends on him and he distances himself from her. This causes an angry outburst in front of reporters, which results in him being expelled from the music industry for good. He becomes a street sweeper, the same job as his father (George Carlin) possesses. Ollie is very bitter that he’s lost his high profile job, which affects his relationship with his daughter. His father has to put him in his right place and Ollie finally realizes that he has to take responsibility and adapt to his new situation. The story escalates from there, until we finally realize that Ollie has been secretly bitter that the mother and his daughter have taken his ‘ideal life’ away from him. Eventually, Ollie comes to terms with his current situation and accepts his new role in life – a father.

I’m pleased to say that Jay and Silent Bob don’t make an appearance in this movie. Holden McNeil and Banky are also gone, which seems like a statement from Smith. This isn’t that kind of film. Like Reign Over Me this movie differs from its heritage by being serious. UnlikeClerks this movies actually has something to say. The sole purpose of this movie isn’t to entertain via humor, like Smith’s previous works, but to entertain via strong emotional scenes, good acting chemistry and a meaningful message. The former immature humor has been replaced with a more mature kind of humor.

Ben Affleck does a surprisingly good job as a loving father and the chemistry between him and Raquel Castro (the daughter) is amazing. I normally don’t think much of child actors, but Castro really impressed me. Besides, she was adorable.
George Carlin plays the role of the working-man-grandfather. Don’t expect to see any typical Carlin humor, though Carlin does have his moments.
Ollie’s girlfriend is played by Liv Tyler (Lord of the Rings). Her eccentric and slightly kooky character is very lovable and very well played at that.

This movie is properly sprinkled with very emotional, humoristic and heartbreaking scenes, which gives the movie a boost when needed, and maintains the viewer’s attention.

Jersey Girl is very unlike Smith. I was looking forward to watching a comedy you didn’t really need to commit too, but I ended up watching a descent movie with a nice message. Ollie spent the first eight years of his life with his daughter, longing for a life that was long gone. He wanted the high profile, glamorous, New Yorker life back, without realizing that everything he really needed and loved was right there – in New Jersey.

The Chunky Piña Colada

- A can of Pineapple with juice
- Bacardi White rum
- Coconut milk
(Optional: use Malibu Coconut Rum instead of Bacardi).

Open cooled can, pour in rum and coconut milk to suit your taste. Enjoy.

Variation: Add ice to the mixture and blend very lightly to make a Frozen Chunky Piña Colada. Eat with spoon.

Diary 2 – So I started smoking again. 2010-01-20.

As disgusting as those three cigarettes were the other day, it felt like the one I had today could only come from a tobacco field, which was fertilized with the ashes of God almighty and watered with the tears of his son Jesus Christ. It was pretty damn good.

I was anxious, angry, irritated and on the verge of tears at some point, for 24 hours, before I finally yielded and sucked on that glorious, god-like tit once again. And it was awesome.
Got home from work, dived headfirst into bed, put on the latest episode of Scrubs and lighted up! The episode wasn’t that funny but I laughed my ass off nonetheless. I looked up from my laptop and said; “Look how happy I am, just look at me, I need this!” (I do these things sometime. Talk to no one in particular, but I imagine there’s an audience like in a sitcom. Shut up some people talk to their dogs, I’m not that crazy).

So yeah I started smoking again. I have to quit in a month though, due to a deal with a buddy (I know you’re reading, that’s the only reason I mention you), but I’ll take that grief when it comes.

Diary 1 – Last day of smoking. 2010-01-18.

I wake from a bad dream, which I can’t remember, though I realize it was probably caused by my immense headache. It takes me a while to realize that my alarm is beeping and another moment to realize that I have to call in sick. I press the snooze button and postpone the phone call to 8 o’clock. I light up one of the three cigarettes that are left in the pack and remember with a groan that this is supposed to be my last. Cigarette smoke never tasted good to me but today it’s downright disgusting. My throat is aching and the smoke leaves a chlorine-like trail down to my lunges. I’m thinking that quitting is probably a good idea but I don’t put the cigarette out. I might as well make the last three cigarettes of my life a bad memory. I crush the last inch of the cigarette in the ashtray and open the window, after which I crank the heat up. I want to get rid of the smoke but I don’t want to freeze. I climb under the duvet and put on some Scrubs on the laptop. I doze off after a couple of minutes but someone knocks (pounds rather) on my window, like they’re trying to break it. I get out of bed and quickly throw on some sweatpants. I punch the window open, rather hoping that the person outside is going to get a headache matching mine.
“What?”
It’s the upstairs neighbor. He’s hammered out of his mind and can’t locate the door. I put on a jacket and shoes and rushes out the front door. I nearly trip twice on the icy doorstep and sidewalk. I go around back where the drunk is lost, and call out to get his attention. He looks up wildly and nearly trips in the snow. He greets me by a wrong name and staggers over to the gate I’m holding open for him. In my mind I visualize this scenario as the beginning to a very bad zombie flick. I don’t say anything about the icy sidewalk and he very nearly falls on his way to the front door. The zombie stops dead helpless in front of the door and looks hopingly towards me. I meet his gaze skeptically and without taking my eyes from his, I open the front door, which isn’t locked. He doesn’t even realize his stupidity but merely staggers inside and tries to close the door as I’m entering. I stop the door with my shoulder and he falls over. He manages to push himself up to sit on the first step. I ask him if he’s going to be okay but he can’t formulate a complete sentence. I ask him if he’s going to be able to climb the stairs by himself. To this he nods and I leave the drunk zombie on the stairs.
I kick off my shoes in the doorway and staggers back to bed, accidentally knocking over the ashtray on the way. “Another reason to quit smoking” I think as I brush off the ashes and pick up the butts. The cold seem to have woken me up properly and I can’t fall asleep again. I light the second last cigarette of my life and put on some Craig Ferguson on youtube. That guy always cracks me up.
I call in sick and the lady on the phone seems convinced enough by my hoarse voice that she doesn’t ask any further questions. I’m grateful because it really hurts when I talk. I fling the butt of the cigarette out the window, since I placed the ashtray in the kitchen.
Mom comes by with scones and cocoa later because she knows I’m sick. I smoke the last cigarette of my life after breakfast.
Later I cut out some carrots when the desire turns in. The oblong slices look like cigarettes to me and I carve out a carrot cigarette just for fun. I don’t bother peeling them and I wonder whether unpeeled carrots can give you cancer. Trading out coffin nails with carrot death sticks. I smile at the irony.

I Will Always Be An Addict. And You Probably Will Too.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I will always be addicted tosomething, and realized that it probably applies to most people. Whether it be cigarettes, drugs, alcohol or more innocent things such as work, sex, movies, videogames, music or food.

2 months ago I stopped smoking. 1 and a half months ago I started smoking marijuana. A week ago I started smoking cigarettes again but stopped smoking weed. And it was a moment of clarity for me. I haven’t felt like smoking weed again ever since and I believe I’ve successfully cured my addiction with another addiction.
You might argue that I have a particularly addictive personality and you might be right too, but I think we all have addictive personalities to some degree. Granted, you might be addicted to charity work and saving cute little kittens from trees, but you’re still an addict.

We all have our addictions and of course they aren’t set in stone, and you could certainly give up smoking or drinking, but the question is; how many addictions can you take away before you stop being you? And which new addictions is the new you going to have?

Inglorious Basterds - An Interpretation

They sure kill a lot of Nazis.
That’s probably the immediate description one would give of the film. Then one could go on describing specific scenes that were extraordinarily violent; like when The Bear Jew bashed the Nazi’s skull in with a bat, when Aldo Raines carved the Nazi cross into Hans Landa’s forehead or when one of the Basterds shot Hitler’s face off. But in the midst of this Nazi-killing massacre and extreme violence hides a strikingly brilliant film.

The Basterds is a group of Jew-American soldiers, whose sole purpose is to kill as many Nazis as they possibly can. Their means are those of extreme, inhumane violence and they have no mercy. This group is lead by lieutenant Aldo Raines, an American soldier from Tennessee, who Brad Pitt plays to near perfection. Like the rest of the Basterds, Aldo Raines has no mercy for the Nazis, since he believes that they’re such cruel and inhumane adversaries that they don’t deserve any form of forgiveness or justice.

In the film a fictional movie named Nation’s Pride is presented. In the end an assembly of high society Nazis is watching this movie in a theater. During that scene I got the distinct impression that the movie the Nazis were watching was very much like the movie I was watching. Nation’s Pride was about a German soldier who was killing off opponents of the Third Reich by the hundreds. In the movie he was carving the Nazi cross into the floor of the clock tower he was shooting from.
Inglourious Basterds is about a group of Jew-American soldiers who are killing Nazis by the hundreds, carving the Nazi cross into their foreheads. The resemblance of the two movies is apparent. On our side, in front of the screen, we’re watching an American, anti-Nazi, propaganda film. On the screen the Germans are watching a German, anti-Jewish, propaganda film.
Both movies are, after all, just about people killing people, who they believe deserve to be killed. And in the sense that Inglourious Basterds is just about killing and violence it doesn’t have much to say. But given that it has so little to say, it says a whole lot. In essence, it becomes a modern parody of an old German propaganda flick.