There must be something wrong with me. I fell asleep in this movie. At the cinema! From the parts of the movie I actually saw, I can report that the creatures are extremely cute, the performance by child actor Max Records is just amazing, and the soundtrack by Karen-O and the kids really suits the movie – and is a great listen on its own too. Although my eyelids fell down just about the same time that Max and the creatures curled up in a pile to sleep somewhere in the middle of the story, I think I can recommend this movie. Judging by this Rolling Stone review, I should, anyway.
Archive for the ‘Play’ Category
Where the wild things are
Saturday, February 6th, 2010Classification of books
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
1) Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
2) Books You’ve Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It’s Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them
3) Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler
I am still reading about the detective Harry Hole, but I have started to think about what to digest when Harry has solved his last murder case. This process made me remember a quote I once heard on the radio. It was about how books can be classified, and I find it rather amusing. When googling it, I just found the next thing to add to my reading list – Italo Calvino’s “If on a winter’s night a traveler”. The quote is actually selected parts of a quite long passage about different types of books to find in the bookstore, and belongs to the first chapter of Calvino’s novel. After reading that chapter online (here it is), I really look forward to the rest of it! I have read some other stuff by Calvino before, but in Italian. However, I feel I should make it fun and less of a learning experience this time. Unless I want it to end up in the pile of Books I’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages!
HjaltalÃn
Friday, January 29th, 2010
A year ago, at the large Oslo music festival called By:Larm, my friend Veronica and I sat down at our favorite kebab house to take a break from an endless line of concerts. We ate our falafel, had a photo shoot (a weird tradition we have at Parthenon kebab), and then looked closer at the festival program once more. In this one hour spot we could choose between a whole lot of concerts, but we didn’t know any of the bands at all. So. We just picked a name that sounded weird. And this was the concert with the Icelandic band HjaltalÃn – which ended up being the best concert experience I have ever had.
We have attended two more concerts with this wonderful band after this love-at-first-sight meeting. One of these was localized in the Norwegian mountains and involved tents and large amounts of water falling from the sky…
Me and Veronica to the left waiting for our falafel – unaware that we are about to meet the love of our life, HjaltalÃn, at their John Dee concert.
Two HjaltalÃners performing at the Vinjerock festival. And our camp site filled with happy campers welcoming the long lost sun in the Jotunheimen mountains.
Now I am counting the days until HjaltalÃn will be back in Oslo again; at Revolver Wednesday February 3rd. I listen to their beautiful album Sleepdrunk Seasons all day, watch their YouTube videos, I hum along, and get the warm fuzzy feeling inside. And instead of me rambling on about how fantastic this band are, you should check it out for yourself on MySpace. And watch their beautiful music videos:
Traffic Music. I love this animation style. Made by Hermann Karlsson.
Traffic Music (acoustic version). I just had to show this one too.
Dugnad for Haiti
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
Unfortunately I stepped on the red carpet to the Norwegian Crown Prince tonight. That wasn’t very popular amongst the police. But as you can see in the photo, we were quite a crowd at the opera house in Oslo, and I believe showing our support for the people of Haiti was more important than royal carpets this time.
Lots of artists contributed to this evening called “Dugnad for Haiti”. The act I enjoyed the most was when Ingrid Olava, Thom Hell and Lars-Lillo Stenberg sang Beatles’ song Because. My Mom “discovered” the great sound of the band Minor Majority, and the voice of Noora Noor, which is fantastic. If you’re into soul music, anyway.
For me both Thom Hell and Minor Majority are the sound of fall 2004 when I just moved to Bergen to study – and Bergen broke all records when it comes to rainy weather. I handled the rain by staying indoors listening to nice music. Thom Hell’s album “I love you” is definitely lovable, and I just have to list some of the songs from this album, because I want to share those amazingly beautiful pop tunes (links to Spotify): Mourning Sun, So You’re Leaving, Tired , Some guy, Why Do I Feel
But back to the victims in Haiti – call 820 44 001 to give 200 NOK to the Norwegian Red Cross, or use this account number: 8200.06.08331. Or choose another help organization from this list.
Nemesis
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
I consider myself a book lover. I have even worked in a book store. Still, I don’t read as many books as I used to. I am trying to get into a good reading habit again by letting myself read some real page turners. I am continuing the journey of catching bad guys with detective Harry Hole through the great criminal novels of Norwegian author Jo Nesbø. Book number four, Nemesis (Sorgenfri, 2002), stands out as even better than the three former, and I really find the plot engaging. I guess some Americans have enjoyed the novel as well; it has been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best mystery novel in 2009.
I don’t read many crime novels, but I really enjoy Nesbø’s writing style. Reading the books chronologically enhances the experience a lot, so I guess I am not recommending Nemesis just like that. I recommend the whole story of protagonist Harry Hole from the first book The Bat Man (Flaggermusmannen, 1997) to the latest release, Panserhjerte (not translated yet).
Precious
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
16 year old black girl living in Harlem. Illiterate, obese, poor, and damaged by long-term abuse by family, with one child and another one on its way. Luckily she has developed a great survival instinct, the strongest will, and a sense of humor on top of it. An alternative school gives her a fresh start, but it is not turning her life around in a second like in any other cliche movie.
This is one of those films that makes your stomach turn. It simply hurts to watch the girl, Precious, being emotionally and mentally abused by her own mother daily. Precious’ revealed inner thoughts leaves you utterly disturbed by displaying even worse episodes from her past. But these flashbacks are intertwined with her dreams for the future – and you see how this girl still keeps her hope up while you as a viewer can’t understand how she can hope, and really can not believe things can change at all under her circumstances.
What I got out of this movie in the end wasn’t hope at all. But I remember the face of one girl, that unfortunately represents the stories of too many people. Horror stories I normally don’t think about because they make me uncomfortable. This movie is a movie that makes you uncomfortable, but aware. And the monster of a mother, played with frightening intensity by comedian Mo’Nique, really makes you appreciate your own!
The XX
Monday, January 18th, 2010
Going to The XX concert tonight at Garage. After I have seen the movie Precious at Filmens hus. Which is after I have spent 3 long hours at the hairdresser. Hopefully my curly new do will look smashing, because I refuse to run home in tears and miss tonight’s concert…
Mathias Tjønn
Monday, January 11th, 2010
Saturday night I discovered two new things at once. 1) Cafe Mir – a cafe that has been in Oslo forever (or since 1994), but that I still haven’t visited for some reason. Now that I finally did, I know I will be back soon. It was discovery number 2) Mathias Tjønn, that sent me in the right direction. Or his release concert, anyway. Great concert. I particularly like the song “I Wrote a Book and That Means I Can Do Anything”. Here is a portion of the lyrics from that song:
I like the timetable
because it keeps me up to date
about what will happen where and when.
You see it’s like a map of time
except it’s not
because a map will tell you where things are
but time won’t stay in place.
Which leads me right to a discovery I did yesterday that includes timetables, maps and other nice things – with lots of clever words wrapped around them. Read my blog post about this discovery, The Language of Graphics.
My Little Pony
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
How I love the Christmas feeling. This year the moment arrived when I was attending a superb Christmas concert at Parkteatret Friday night with a bunch of my friends, leaning from side to side singing “War is over – if you want it – war is over – NOOOOOOOOW”. My favorite Norwegian indie band, My Little Pony, was the band backing the audience choir. In addition to playing some of the good old classic Christmas songs, they played their weird, cute song about someone close to you being dead with these fantastic lyrics:
Now you’re dead
and there’s nothing I can do about it
nothing I can say to bring you back.
Cause you’re dead
and I will never see you again
and I don’t know what this means
but it scares me so.
(…)
I wish that I could have some kind of religion,
but no matter how much you want you can never get stupid again.
From the song I don’t know – Part 1
My sister and I both bought their album, Think Too Much last year, and in the car on our way to Bergen, we played it on high volume. Then this upbeat tune about death came along – which was sort of bad timing considering that we were driving to Bergen to attend our grandmother’s funeral… However, the sincere, straightforward lyrics of the song just made us laugh. Check out this album – there’s a lot of songs to get you in a good mood!
Regina Spektor
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Obama is in town. Will Smith is in town. Wyclef Jean is in town. But this day is all about REGINA SPEKTOR. While I was waiting for Kings of Leon to enter the stage at John Dee a cold autumn night in 2003, this weird girl sat down by the piano to sing songs about “cleavage, cleavage, cleavage” and “UH-merica”. I enjoyed her quirky act enormously – which is more than I can say about Kings of Leon’s distant, stuck-up and arrogant performance. However, I forgot about Regina until I heard her song, Fidelity, on the radio a couple of years later. The album Begin to Hope is one of the albums I have been playing the most since I bought it, and That Time, Better, Fidelity and Hotel Song are still quite near the top of my all time favorite songs list. Let’s hope she will take my list into consideration tonight at Rockefeller!