Jonas Ferry’s blog

Otesánek (Jan Svankmajer, 2000). A couple who can’t get children animates a tree branch, which turns out to be a great threat to everyone. Wonderful animations and a great character in the form of a precocious girl who takes it upon herself to be a hero. [8/10]

Sybil (Daniel Petrie, 1976). A woman suffers from multiple personality disorder and seeks professional help. All split-personality films are silly, and although this is no exception it manages to be somewhat believable and with a really scary character from the woman’s youth. [7/10]

To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955). A retired burglar has to return to his occupation to clear his name from suspicion. Interesting characters and Cary Grant in a serious role makes this good. [7/10]

The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938). A woman disappears from a train, but no one believes the young woman who claims it. A silly spy film, with a horrible love story, ridiculous humor and the biggest McGuffin I ever saw. [5/10]

Metropolis (original title: Metoroporisu) (Rintaro, 2001). In a future city robots start a rebellion, but a young boy befriends a female robot who happens to be really important. The slave robots are interesting and even though the story is a bit cryptic the different situations are interesting. [7/10]

The robot Tima looks up in Metropolis (2001).

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). A black man is put on trial in the American south for an attempted rape, and the white lawyer who defends him find himself under pressure from society. A great film, that focus on racism without being either utopian or dystopian. [9/10]

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993). Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween, wants to do something new with the holiday and kidnaps and impersonates Santa Claus. Everything is great about this film: the characters, the mood, the jokes and most of all the music. Danny Elfman not only composed it, but sang the songs as Skellington. I’ve seen it before, but now I increased my IMDb rating from 9 to 10. This is one of the best films of all. [10/10]

Eragon (Stefen Fangmeier, 2006). A young boy lives as a farmer with his parents, but wants to seek adventure and his destiny in far away places. Luckily his family is torched, so he can go away and learn to use the force… I mean magic, to fight an evil wizard. Sound familiar? I watched this with Helena in Paris in French, but I think I got most of the “story” anyway. It’s interesting to note that the French didn’t have numbered seats, you had to come really early and wait in a queue to get a good seat. [4/10]

Arthur et les Minimoys (Luc Besson, 2006). A young boy is shrunk to a size of a few millimeters and has adventures in a garden. This film was obviously a way to sell a lot of merchandise, but I was still disturbed by some of the themes in the film. Was the love story between the ten-year-old boy and the seductive princess voiced by Madonna really necessary? [4/10]

Amelie from Montmartre (original title: Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain) (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Amélie is a shy woman who lives and works in Paris. She finds a hidden box she wants to return to the owner, and on the way she meets a lot of colorful people. But really, the film is about so much more. I like the narrative tricks Jeunet uses, when he introduces people by presenting their likes and dislikes (a technique also used in his short film Foutaises). When me and Helena was in Paris this New Years we had coffee at the cafe Amélie works in the film, and we visited many of the places used in the film. I’ve seen it before, but this time I give it a 9 instead of the earlier 7. [9/10]

Renaissance (Christian Volckman, 2006). In a future Paris a renegade cop searches for a kidnapped scientist in this cyberpunk noir film. The visuals are spectacular, with sharp black-and-white computer images created on top of the real actors. The plot is on the level of Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner when it comes to clarity, which means it’s far from obvious. I don’t think I’ll re-watch it anytime soon. [7/10]

A bunch of black-and-white bad guys in Renaissance (2006).

The Wild Blue Yonder (Werner Herzog, 2005). An human-appearing alien stranded on Earth talks about mankind’s foolish attempts to reach other worlds, and how he has made the same futile trip in the other direction. Herzog mixes a fictional interview with the alien with archive material from NASA and underwater special-effect shots that are supposed to represent another planet. The whole film has a meditative feel to it, and I floated away on the alien’s spoken words and the long shots of Earth and space. [9/10]

Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985). In a dystopian bureaucracy a man tries to correct an erroneous arrest, but gets suspected of crimes himself. Wonderful characters, neat retro-futuristic environments and an ever-present paranoia and desperation makes watching this a great experience. [8/10]

Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940). An inexperienced American war correspondent is sent to Europe at the start of World War II, and gets mixed up with high diplomats and spies. The two things that lower my grade of the film is that the message that America is the home and future of freedom and democracy is hammered home and that the plot presented few surprises. [5/10]

Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938). A man about to marry gets stuck with a strange girl and her pet leopard. I really wanted to enjoy this since it’s considered a classic romantic comedy. It’s also referenced in a roleplaying game I like called Breaking the Ice. But the film is a much too silly, frenzied, did I mention silly, with a plot that’s more than hard to believe. I don’t like Cary Grant in humorous roles and this is no exception. The one thing that saves the film is George the Dog, convincingly portrayed by the dog actor Asta, and Baby the Leopard played by Nissa. The scene when the two animals wrestle is one of the few highlights. Oh, and the ending sucks. [3/10]

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946). After a startling space animation cooler than the introduction to Superman Returns, an angel gets a job to earn his wings. He’s supposed to help a self-sacrificing man find happiness, and finds him at an all-time low during Christmas. James Stewart is good enough, and the film actually works until they get carried away towards the end and showers the viewer in melodrama. [6/10]

King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005). A couple of former apes travel to a remote island and bring back a current ape. The big ape runs amok in the big city and climbs a skyscraper with a woman in one hand. That’s the whole story. For some reason Peter Jackson thought it wise to add a lot of shots where the ape wrestles dinosaurs, where the hairless apes fight giant bugs and so on. This did nothing to improve the experience from the original from 1933. [6/10]

The Lodger (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927). A man moves in with a family while the city is plagued by a killer of blonde women. The man behaves in strange ways around the blonde daughter of the family, and goes out late at night for unknown reasons. Soon they suspect him of the murders. A great silent film by Hitchcock. Some of the special effects are really cool, like a see-through floor, and the suspense from his later films is already present. [9/10]

The Devil’s Backbone (original title: El Espinazo del diablo) (Guillermo del Toro, 2005). A young boy moves to an orphanage and realizes it’s haunted. I expected more from the premise, but was somewhat disappointed in the actual execution. [7/10]

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946). A crime is committed with two boys and a girl involved. When they grow up she marries one of them, but is drawn to the other. A nice love triangle, with great characters. Martha is a true femme fatale in this noir, as she’s constantly changing her allegiances and her story whenever it suits her. [8/10]

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). A down-and-out private detective in a future city is hired to find a bunch of renegade replicants, artificial people. The beginning was kind of lame, as I don’t think you should ever need to have a introduction text in a film. The music is very suitable, and the film is a good example of science fiction that’s about ideas and feelings as much as special effects. [9/10]

Harrison Ford as Deckard in Blade Runner (1982).

Look at Me (original title: Comme une image) (Agnès Jaoui, 2004). A French author is surrounded by people that want to be noticed, but he’s not able to see anyone but himself. A feel-good film that’s still watchable, maybe in part because I really like films about writers. [8/10]

Kes (Ken Loach, 1969). A young boy adopts a pet falcon, and is more comfortable with that than with people. You get a glimpse of a life where peoples’ greatest ambition is to work in the local mine and get drunk on weekends, and where people that are different are ridiculed. [8/10]

It’s All About Love (Thomas Vinterberg, 2003). Something is killing people around the world in this film set in the near future, but the focus of the film is on a relationship on the brink of ending. In some ways the film is really strange, but if you accept it as a fantasy it’s not that weird. I’ve seen it before. [9/10]

Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965). A secret agent is on some kind of mission in a dystopian future city called Alphaville. The plot is never clear and the characters always bizarre, and you can really tell Godard was inspired by 1984. [7/10]

The Trouble with Harry (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955). A man is found dead in the woods and more than one person feel responsible for his death. This Hitchcock comedy is quite silly, and I like his suspense thrillers a lot more. It’s made towards the end of the production code era, which means the murderer can actually get away with it. [7/10]

Getting rid of a body in The Trouble with Harry (1955).

Come and See (original title: Idi i smotri) (Elem Klimov, 1985). A boy joins a partisan army in Russia in the war against invading Germans during World War II, but instead of glory he meets insanity and many brutal deaths. There are a lot of symbolic scenes, one in particular that is reminiscent of the strange white horse in Twin Peaks. During the first artillery attack the boy turns insane from the violence, and at the same time sees a stork walking peacefully through the forest. To me it signifies him trying to hide his head in the sand, his insanity is a way of coping with the destruction around him. After that climactic scene all story is basically lost, and the rest of the film is just random scenes of directionless struggle. It’s a very strong film, and I was surprised to see what year it’s made since it feels totally modern. [9/10]

The young partisan losing his mind in Come and See (1985).

Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, 2003). Three men search for the missing child of one of them, while trying to come to terms with an incident from their childhood. This is good - the film asks the viewer if you can move on from anything or if there are things that happen that affect you for life.

Memories (original title: Memorîzu) (Morimoto / Okamura / Ootomo, 1995). Three shorter anime stories with varying drawing styles linked to the theme of “memory”. These are super-good, thought-provoking stories with a science-fiction angle.

Identity (James Mangold, 2003). A bunch of people have to stay at a motel to stay out of a storm, when one by one they turn up dead. A movie that grows - it starts with clichés, but manages to explain what’s been going on.

The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg, 1983). A man wakes up from a long coma after an accident with the ability to predict the future. Topaz (Alfred Hitchcock, 1969). A defecting Russian is held by the Americans during the cold war, with information on an international spy ring. Not the most memorable Hitchcock.

The Russian defector with family from Topaz(1969).

Spider (David Cronenberg, 2002). A mentally ill man relives his childhood as his mind tries to integrate the events that took place into his consciousness. A disturbing film with superb acting by Ralph Fiennes.

Dédales (René Manzor, 2003). A mentally ill woman with multiple personalities has murdered a lot of people, and we follow both the psychiatrist’s struggle to help her and the police hunt that led to the arrest. Very good, managed to surprise me.

Constantine (Francis Lawrence, 2005). A man is caught between the forces of Heaven and Hell as he tries to help a woman find out how her sister died. I was pleasantly surprised, but then I haven’t read the comic.

Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004). Several interconnected stories grapple with the subject of racism of different kinds. I think it’s good, but I’m a bit disturbed by the fact that the totally obvious emotional moments managed to grip me the way they did.

Three Musketeers (Stephen Herek, 1993). A young man wants to become a musketeer in 17th century France, manages to piss off three men who happen to be musketeers, but joins them in the fight to save the young king from cardinal Richelieu’s evil plot. A fun movie with a lot of swashbuckling action - I mainly re-watched it because it was on TV and because I was playing in Peter Nordstrand’s Day of Dupes scenario for Sorcerer.

Edit: Added a screenshot from Topaz. I’ve avoided images on my blog before, but they do add some life to the page. What do you think?

Into the Mirror (original title: Geoul sokeuro) (Seong-ho Kim, 2003). A series of suicides occur, where it’s the reflection of the person actually doing the killing. A nice use of the mirror motif throughout the film, even if the story doesn’t hold up all the way.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Andrew Adamson, 2005). A bunch of kids who walk through a closet ends up in a mystical fantasy land and has to join the battle between good and evil. People complained about the special effects, but they didn’t bother me. Actually nothing really bothered me, but then again nothing really made this a great film either.

Corpse Bride (Tim Burton, 2005). A young man is torn between a seemingly boring (living) girl and an undead ghost that’s full of life. Burtonesque animations in the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas (Burton, 1993), with wonderful music and interesting characters, make this a really good film.

Phone (original title: Pon) (Byeong-ki Ahn, 2002). Several people who have had the same phone number have died mysteriously and now a phone with that number belongs to the main characters. Full of cheap scares and not much else, this film is not a necessary watch.

Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005). In the sixties two cowboys express their love for each other, but keep it secret from their families and friends. This is the second Ang Lee film on homosexuality I’ve seen (the first one not being Hulk (Lee, 2003), but The Wedding Banquet (original title: Hsi yen) (Lee, 1993), and both are really good. Brokeback is a lot more serious, and manages to overlay the feelings that what they’re doing is wrong (they’re cheating on people) with what society’s doing is wrong (they shouldn’t have to hide).

The Amityville Horror (Andrew Douglas, 2005). A family moves to an old house where people have been murdered, the father gets possessed and so on. If you’ve seen one of these you’ve seen them all.

Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005). A struggling artist hooks up with a shoe salesman while throwing around profound insights on the human condition. A couple of interwoven stories directed by the actor of the struggling artist, almost a feel-good movie if it weren’t for a quite disturbing seduction attempt between two underage girls and an older man.

Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock, 1964). Marnie is a thief, but Mark Rutland (played by Sean Connery) decides to try and help her, or get her by blackmailing her. A psychological thriller that was probably more interesting when psychoanalysis was a young area. Better than Spellbound (Hitchcock, 1945), but no Hitchcock masterpiece.

Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945). Mildred is a struggling woman with a very spoiled daughter, and has to keep her lowly job as a waitress a secret. An unusual film noir in that it has a female voice-over narration, and a mother-daughter relationship with the daughter as the femme fatale instead of the usual pairings. Very worth the time it takes to find and see.

Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946). Gilda is a glamorous nightclub singer that has two men fighting over her. A good film noir.

I’m terribly far behind on my film reviews. I’ll do them ten at a time to manage, still in my two-sentence format. If you’re not at all interested in what films I’m watching, consider using the category page and subscribe to specific category updates instead (see Get the most of this page for more info).

The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956). A married couple with a son on vacation in Africa witnesses a murder they shouldn’t, get their son kidnapped to force them to keep quiet and has to fight to get him back. The theme music “Que Sera” and Doris Day is so annoying that I had a hard time with this film - it’s not one of Hitchcock’s best plotwise either.

Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950). A young writer meets a film diva past her prime, and gets involved in her scheming to get back into show business. With a very cool source for the narrator voice, and interesting gender-role switching (the woman as seducer and the man as object of desire), this film is a must-see.

It’s All About Love (Thomas Vinterberg, 2003). People suddenly start dying without anyone really caring, a woman finds out there are multiple copies of her and a bunch of Ugandans are flying. A very strange film, but at the same time strangely compelling.

Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock, 1944). A bunch of people find themselves in a lifeboat after a shipwreck, and has to collaborate to not kill each other before they are rescued. Some actions and situations feel put in there just to produce drama, making the story feel a bit forced and not as clever as it could be.

Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967). A man and woman start a bank-robbing killing-spree across USA, at the same time struggling with their own relationship. Not historically correct at all, but still a good film.

Battlestar Galactica, season 2a (TV-series, 2005). The human-created cylons wage war on humans in the future, with the humans trying to outrun them and fight them off in space fighter ships. I have to say I was a bit confused at times as to the relevance of what the characters were trying to do, and it was a bit annoying to have to stop at half-season.

Big (Penny Marshall, 1988). This classic tale about a young boy who wishes to be big, only to get his wish granted with all the associated trouble. It’s a nice tale, amazingly without an especially sugar-sweet ending.

Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton (English title: Christopher’s Christmas Mission) (Per Åhlin, 1975). A young boy works extra at a post office around Christmas and decides to give presents from the rich to the poor. Written by Tage Danielsson and shown every Christmas in Sweden, this one one’s a classic - a good one.

Firefly (TV-series, 2002-2004). After a intergalactic civil war a bunch of people gang up to work as smugglers, space-pirates and merchants, with regular brush ins with the ruling authorities. I like the science-fiction/western blend, and enjoyed both the characters and the plots a lot.

Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror (Leon Ferguson, 2000). Documentary on the horror director Dario Argento, with films known for their violence and shock value. I think the only movie I’ve seen by Argento is Suspiria which was indeed quite scary, mostly because of the eerie and strange soundtrack.

That’s the first ten films, with more to come later.

When I started writing stuff here I used all five categories. Since my two main interests are RPGs and film, that’s what I’ve mainly written about, but lately I’ve neglected the films. So, here’s a whole bunch of them, presented in a two-sentence review format. The first sentence is a summary of the characters and plot, and the second is my opinion of the film. I mainly write this as a film diary, but please ask if you’re interested in any of them.

Howl’s Moving Castle (original title: Hauru no ugoku shiro) (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004). A young girl is cursed to get the body of an old woman, and must seek the help of a wizard in a moving castle to break the spell. It’s Another Miyazaki a film with cute creatures, a ton of stuff happening and a plot that’s more linear than a ruler.

Audition (original title: Ôdishon) (Takashi Miike, 1999). A middle-aged man seeks a new wife, but a friend’s suggestion that he should arrange an audition for one attracts a really scary applicant. The main strength of the film, that I’m about to spoil, is that it starts out as a romantic comedy and ends up with torture and horror, which makes the horror much more revolting.

Toolbox Murders (Tobe Hooper, 2004). A young couple moves to a building that’s haunted by a serial-killer, and the woman has to fight to survive. A remake that follows the Friday the 13th formula of killing of characters one by one, that is enjoyable if you like that kind of films.

Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (original title: Sungnyangpali sonyeoui jaerim (Sun-Woo Jang, 2002). A modern Korean version of the H.C. Andersen tale of the matchstick girl with a computer game that blends with reality. I was pretty drunk when I watched this, but it’s a nice real-life anime with some interesting ideas.

The Last Castle (Rod Lurie, 2001). Robert Redford, a decorated military, is sent to prison and stages a revolt against an oppressing prison chief. An ok action movie without any real surprises.

The Manson Family (Jim Van Bebber, 2003). A present-day documentary team tries to figure out what made the Mansons do what they did, and is attacked by their modern spiritual ancestors. It’s an ok film, but the present-day Mansons are unnecessary and the film should’ve focused entirely on the sixties.

Gacy (Clive Saunders, 2003). Serial-killer John Wayne Gacy, the original killer clown, picks up boys and buries them under his house. A disturbing film, more so if you know that his neighbours actually did smell something from under his house but didn’t alert the police.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (Brad Silberling, 2004). Based on a series of books I haven’t read, this is the story of three children and their fight against an evil foster-father who’s trying to kill them. Fascinating characters, a great performance by Jim Carrey and the best animated credit sequence I’ve seen in a very long time.

Festen (English title: The Celebration) (Thomas Vinterberg (uncredited), 1998). A man takes the opportunity on a family reunion to reveal a dark family secret. A very, very good film that would make a great LARP if someone would like to produce it.

May (Lucky McKee, 2002). May is a socially inept woman who decides to build a friend from body parts. Together they give you a creepy movie that’s a very nice example of post-modern magic.

Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004). A ten-year old boy claims to be a woman’s reincarnated husband. The problem with this movie, as with most ghost stories, is that the boy’s way of communicating his dilemma is so absurd that it’s not very believable.

For a Few Dollars More (original title: Per qualche dollaro in più) (Sergio Leone, 1965). A bounty hunter gangs up with another one to hunt a notorious criminal, with one of them infiltrating the gang of outlaws. A prime example of Leone’s spaghetti westerns, complete with acting by Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef and music by Ennio Morricone.

Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993). A cynical news anchor travels to a small town to cover the Groundhog Day, but is caught in a time loop and has to relive the same day. Bill Murray is great, and this is one of the best time travel films of all time.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings, 2005). Arthur Dent is saved from being destroyed when Earth is, and is dragged along an adventure throughout the galaxy. I was pleasantly surprised, but I didn’t expect much either.

8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963). The film takes us on a journey through reality and fantasy in the life of a film director. Very confusing, but it’s obvious that it’s supposed to be.

Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944). An insurance man falls in love with a woman who wants to kill her husband, and he decides to help her set up an insurance scam. This is one of the best noir films out there, using the tropes before they turned cliché, so if you’re the least interested in the genre this is a must.

Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005). The story of a young boy who gets his parents killed decides to put on a bat costume and fight crime. I really liked the down-to-earth realistic take on superheroes, but they could’ve spent less time in training-flashback mode and should’ve introduced more wacky supervillains.

Jungfrukällan (English title: The Virgin Spring) (Ingmar Bergman, 1960). In 14th century Sweden, a young maid is murdered and raped on her way to the church and afterwards the perpetrators seek shelter at her parents’ house. This is currently on my Benny & Joon (Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1993). Benny and Joon are both “weird” people, misunderstood by others, that find each other and fall in love. I really liked the fact that there was no easy way for them to be together; when everything was going to be ok you find out that Joon’s overprotective big brother has a good reason for acting that way.

Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954). A man hires another man for the perfect murder: to kill his unfaithful wife. A very cool application of the kind of film where you first get the action spelled out, then the characters perform it and then one tiny detail ruins the whole planning.

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959). A man is mistaken for a spy and is chased across the USA. A real classic; the Mount Rushmore scene is really cool and the attacking airplane is hilarious if you’ve seen Vincent Gallo’s re-enactment in Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945). A man who has lost his memory impersonates a famous psychologist, but falls in love with a colleague who decides to help him. This film is kind of silly, especially the popular psychology that the audience is expected to believe.

Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1945). Raymond Chandler’s private detective Marlowe tries to figure out who has killed a woman, with everyone having a motive. This is filmed entirely from a first-person perspective; who would’ve thought that they’d do that in a film from the forties?

Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958). A police chief who runs his border town like his personal kingdom is confronted by an idealistic man, responds by kidnapping the man’s wife and end up being betrayed by his own men. Another noir classic; totally dark and disturbing, but very special.

Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003). A bunch of love stories in contemporary London, with Hugh Grant. Unfortunately Hugh Grant is in it, but otherwise the film’s generally quite nice, especially the story about the guy who’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend.

Fantastic Four (Tim Story, 2005). Five people are on a space station that gets bombarded by radiation, turn into four superheroes and a villain and fight some. I was admittedly a bit drunk at the moment, but it felt like a bunch of unrelated scenes put together, and I really like the comic.

The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). An American man reaches Vienna to meet his old friend, who has recently died under suspicious circumstances. Orson Welles is in this one, but we have to wait to meet his character, which is a great way to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

The Eye 2 (original title: Jian gui 2) (Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang, 2004). A young pregnant woman starts to see dead people, and realizes that her unborn child is in danger. This is strangely enough not at all related to The Eye, but still a nice horror movie with a great idea of why childbirth could be interesting to ghosts.

Maria Full of Grace (Joshua Marston, 2004). To escape Colombian working conditions, her demanding family and create a future for herself and the child she’s pregnant with, Maria smuggles swallowed heroin containers. It was nice that the main character wasn’t turned into a saint or a martyr, but a human that did both good and bad things.

What Dreams May Come (Vincent Ward, 1998). A children’s doctor dies and has to fetch his wife and kid from hell and bring them to the family’s personal paradise. The main part is perfect for Robin Williams, and luckily he’s the main actor in this movie.

One Missed Call (original title: Chakushin ari) (Takashi Miike, 2003). Japanese teenagers start receiving voice messages from the future, from their own violent deaths. A fairly good Japanese horror, but it didn’t leave a very lasting impression.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946). A drifter starts working at a countryside hamburger place, falls in love with the owner’s wife and together they try to kill him to get his insurance money. A noir film with a very obvious femme fatale, especially interesting since she’s not only glamorous, but also down-to-earth and practical.

Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945). A dissatisfied cashier and hobby painter meets a girl that tricks him into a messy situation. I really like the actor The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946). The private detective Malowe is hired to clear a rich guy’s daughter’s name from involvement in a murder. Another Chandler story, this time with Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe.

Tokyo Godfathers (Satoshi Kon, 2003). Three homeless people in Tokyo with their own stories of how they ended up on the street find an abandoned baby and try to find the mother. This was really good, and managed to mix seriousness and silliness to produce a touching story of the characters’ situation.

Riget (English title: The Kingdom) (Morten Arnfred and Lars von Trier, 1994). In a hospital ghost awaken and haunt the patients, while the doctors are locked in power struggles and scheming. This Danish miniseries is a must, all the characters are great and I especially enjoy the acting of Ernst-Hugo Järegård and that von Trier made screaming “Danish scum” his character’s trademark.

Land of the Dead (George A. Romero, 2005). The zombie catastrophe is a fact and people try to survive hidden in a sealed-off city, but the zombies will find a way to get in. The movie was so-so, I really like zombies, but there was a lot of pointless stuff you’ve already seen too many times before.

Riget II (English title: The Kingdom II) (Morten Arnfred and Lars von Trier, 1997). The second season of the series starts where the first one ended, but unfortunately ends with a whole lot of cliffhangers with no real answers. If you’ve seen Riket you have to see this, and can look forward to seeing Ernst-Hugo’s character look for “floaters” and “sinkers” when he visits the toilet.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton, 2005). The young Charlie wins a ticket to a guided tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and has to watch a billion Oompa-Loompas dance and sing. I liked the cloned Oompa-Loompa, but I thought the end of the film dragged a bit.

A Tale of Two Sisters (original title: Janghwa, Hongryeon) (Ji-woon Kim, 2003). Two sisters go to live with their father and their evil stepmother, but soon reality and fantasy are blurred and you don’t even know which of the characters really exist. A very nice psychological thriller that starts with cheap horror scare-tactics, but turns darker, more disturbing and more complex story-wise towards the end.

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1943). An old newspaper mogul dies with the last word “Rosebud,” and a reporter tries to uncover what it means. This film is a monument over the state of cinema when it was made, but is also, with its use of camera techniques, plot twists and the ambiguous ending, something that can still be relevant today.

The Happiness of the Katakuris (orginal title: Katakuri-ke no kôfuku (Takashi Miike, 2001). The story of a family who runs a guest house, but has the bad luck of several customers dying and has to get rid of the bodies. This is a horror-musical-comedy, and parts of the plot are told through the characters singing it.

Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972). A serial-killer who strangles woman with his tie is loose, and the main character is innocently accused. It was fun to watch a late Hitchcock, and I feel that the disturbing subject matter was just his way of continuing to shock audiences the same way he had done in his black-and-whites.

Onibaba (Kaneto Shindô, 1964). It’s fourteen century Japan and a civil war forces an old woman and her daughter-in-law to attack wounded samurai who has strayed from the battles and steal their valuables. This is a very nice film that starts out as a realistic piece of desperation and forbidden love, but takes a turn into the supernatural.

Battlestar Galactica, season 1 (TV-series, 2004-2005). Human-created robots called Cylons revolt and humanity has to flee through hyperspace with the ships they have left, defended by the military vessel Galactica and her fighter pilots. So far I’ve seen season 1, and very much like the moral dilemmas posed and the situations people have to face.

House of Flying Daggers (original title: Shi mian mai fu) (Yimou Zhang, 2004). Two men of justice decide to expose a hidden group of rebel assassins with one of them going undercover, but he falls in love with one of the members. Very beautiful, but too melodramatic and too many almost-dead-but-can-deliver-his/her-last-words scenes.

Bring It On (Peyton Reed, 2000). Two rival cheerleader groups compete to find out who’s the best. A couple of funny moments, but overall just something to watch if there’s nothing else on.

The Sky-Colored Seed (original title: Sora Iro no Tane) (Hayao Miyazaki, 1992). A boy trades his toy plane with a fox for a seed, but when it grows into a house the fox wants it back. An incredibly funny 90-second short with the best greedy fox in history.

In Rumble Fish (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983) was one of these movies that you’ve heard about, but didn’t know what to expect. Rusty James (Matt Dillon) is the leader of a small gang, which he leads in violent clashes with rivals. Suddenly his older brother The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke) arrives, a strange and thoughtful guy with apparent problems to stay focused on reality. The two brothers spend time together with a lot of discussions on freedom and family.

So what do I like about it? The Tape (Richard Linklater, 2001) Vince (Ethan Hawke) and Jon Salter (Robert Sean Leonard) are two friends having a reunion. Salter is an upcoming independent filmmaker and Vince’s a drug-dealing drunkard with a childish attitude. Oh, I do want to summarize the plot, but I think that would spoil the film. Suffice to say, they spend the whole film in the same motel room discussing something bad that happened at high school involving a girl.

The acting is brilliant and the dialogue naturally flows from one thing to the next. Hawke’s character is very annoying, which is good since that’s the point of the character. The quick hand camera makes it feel like your present in the room and part of the conversation, not like you’re watching it from the outside. Sometimes it does feel like it’s too much, like there are weird camera placements for the sake of it. Interestingly enough Linklater doesn’t care at all about the 180-degree rule which says that you should draw a straight line through the scene and keep the camera to one side of it at all time. This is almost always the case when filming dialogue, if you think about it the next time you watch a film. You always watch the participants from behind one side, and if you’re looking over the right shoulder of one person you look over the left of the other. Anyway, Linklater doesn’t care and the camera jumps around all around the person talking. I suppose it’s because the risk of the audience getting lost in a small motel room with two people in it is quite small.

I re-watched White Noise (Geoffrey Sax, 2005) is the story of Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton), whose wife dies a violent death. Rivers is approached by a man who claims to have been contacted by the wife after she died through the black-and-white static of a tv-screen. Ghosts can, in the world of the movie, contact the living through manipulating tv-static and from that noise between radio stations.

The movie starts promising but the ending is really confusing. The screen was very dark, making it hard to see what was happening, and the bad guy and his motive was not explained clearly enough. I would like to have known earlier what was going on, instead of having someone explain it at the end.

Fucking Åmål (English title: Show Me Love) (Lukas Moodysson, 1998), but I disagree with that statement. Where Fucking Åmål made fun of stereotypes Fjorton suger tries to be too serious for its own good. It tries to make the audience recognize the way people talk and what they do, but the spark is missing and it falls flat. The directors were by the way the people behind the music video “Hej Monika”, last year’s summer torture.

I’ve seen The Gift (Sam Raimi, 2000) the psychic Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett) gets visions about a murder and approaches the police. They don’t believe her, but the husband of the victim does, and they start searching for the person guilty.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie. The acting is great, both from Blanchett and Keanu Reaves as an abusive redneck, and the story is engaging. You really do feel for the main character and her struggles, and you want to know what is going to happen next. I think what elevated the movie from good to great was that it’s not over-the-top in any fashion, which makes it more believable. It’s a murder mystery with lots of suspects with motives, but Raimi manages to shift the blame around without being obvious. I recommend it.

Donnie Darko (Director’s Cut) (Richard Kelly, 2001) is my number-one film, and something a really want everyone to see. It’s about a schizophrenic young man who is told by a scary giant bunny that the world is coming to an end. The problem is that a lot of things have to happen in order for everything to turn out ok, as it turns out the bunny is a time traveller trying to help Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) handle things.

Everything is good about this film. The acting is great, the dialogue, not to mention the soundtrack which I’ve listened to countless times. The Director’s Cut adds a lot of information needed to understand the time travelling aspect and the paradoxes of the film, and I can’t see why it wasn’t included in the original. If you’ve seen Donnie Darko and are confused, drop a comment so we can discuss it.

Dead Like Me (2003). As expected the series didn’t really end, as I suppose they hoped to continue shooting. The mythology of the land of the dead wasn’t explored as much as I’d hoped, but one thing I did like was the thematic episodes. When I started noticing the fact that they had a theme in each episode, it was usually quite easy to spot. They could have “loneliness” in one episode for example, where both the characters and the things happening reflected loneliness of some kind. Another episode was devoted to “waiting”, where people waited or cut past queues as a way of exploring the theme. That I liked. The most interesting character was probably the younger sister Reggie Lass (Britt McKillip), perhaps because she was the one who evolved and transformed the most during the two seasons.

I’ve had an internal dialogue a couple of times, where I discussed whether I should write Swedish or English. Since my friends keep blogging in English, I have to as well. I think I’ll redo the whole page; it’ll only take me a minute.

Since the last update I’ve watched seven films and one series. I’ll list them in the order latest watched last.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) is a zombie movie successfully making fun of the genre. You have the constant feeling that every living character you see will come back as a walking corpse later on. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t show anything unnecessary, everything is used as a source of comedy or feeling of recognition. Even Helena liked it, even though she’s less than thrilled with zombie movies in general.

The Machinist (original title: El Maquinista) (2004) is a disturbing tale of a factory worker who loses his grip on reality. It’s a dark film reminiscent of the Swedish roleplaying game Kult. I didn’t recognize the lead actor at all, and only later found out that it’s Christian Bale from American Psycho and Equilibrium. I liked the film, and it is well worth seeing.

The Grudge (2004) is an American remake of the Japanese original, with Sarah Michelle Gellar. I can’t really recommend this. Sure parts of it were suspenseful, but they ruined it by cutting the scenes a couple of seconds to late. When you see the computer-generated monster it’s not as frightening as if you don’t.

Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse (2004) is based on a series of computer games I haven’t played, so I can’t really judge the movie from that perspective. I can only tell whether it’s a good or a bad movie on its own, and sadly it’s the latter. I suppose I could play this as a computer game, but it really gets tedious after a while to watch people shooting, kicking and punching each other without a semblance of story. The first movie was ok, but this one really sucks.

Watching The Storyteller (1987) was a journey back through time. The TV-series was called “Sagor för stora barn” (”Stories for older kids”) in Sweden, and for a good reason. The stories are usually cruel and I can see why they would scare a child. At least I know that I have some scary memories from watching it when I was young. The creatures are remarkably well-made, not that surprising perhaps since Jim Henson is responsible for them.

Hitchcock used to say that Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was his best film, and he could be right. Everything about it is well done: there characters are interesting, the suspense is ever present and even the ending is ok. Hitchcock is sometimes mocked for his inability to make an ending to match the high quality of the rest of the films, and even this ending is far from perfect. One thing that is masterfully orchestrated is the flow of information. The audience is usually one step ahead of the characters, which makes it almost painful to watch them walk into different kinds of traps. If you’re into Hitchcock this one’s a must.

The first time I heard of Cassavetes was in the song by Le Tigre called “What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes”. The refrain is basically a repeated “Misogynist? Genius?”, so I half expected A Woman Under the Influence (1974) to have an interesting take on women. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a story of a working man, his part-alcoholic part-insane wife and their three kids. The realistic presentation of the film makes some scenes disturbing, especially the scenes involving domestic violence or the inability of the parents to take care of the kids. It’s a good, but definitely not feel-good, film that I can really recommend.

Sin City (2005) is an adaptation, or a “translation” according to the director Robert Rodriguez, of Frank Miller’s comic. The thing is that Rodriguez used the comic book as the storyboard when planning the shots, so it’s very close to the comic. Even the lines are taken from the book, and the computer-generated backgrounds make it really look like the actors have stepped into a comic. I can recommend this film to anyone who’s not affected to much by violence, because violence is plenty.