The bizarre boy-voiced adventures of Chris Garneau. Looks like he jumped into “Pan’s Labyrinth” and never got out.

My four-year-old daughter awoke from an afternoon nap today shaken by a bad dream.  She explained that in the dream she had been playing in the yard and suddenly became aware that the moon was watching her.  Woah.

Guillermo de Toro once shared that he drew inspiration from lucid dreams to create some of the creatures that appear in his films, such as the faun in Pan’s Labyrinth.

A fair amount of my own inspiration for writing has come to me straight out of the black depths of my sometimes twisted, sometimes parochial dreamscapes.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve awoken from a dream thinking, “I should write that down before I forget it.”  Usually, though, even if I have remembered, the dream scenarios do not hold up under the scrutiny of daylight.  It is most often the case that upon further, lucid inspection, the plots and sequences of dreams unravel to the point of uselessness.  For example, I remember awakening from a dream about a flood ready to write an epic, modern-day Noah’s Ark blockbuster.  By mid morning that day, however, the images that remained in my mind were comical and incomprehensible, at best.

Occasionally, though, the muse hits me hardest when my lights are already out.  Early in college I wrote a novella called Ice Capsule about a National Geographic photographer who uncovers some very unsettling goings-on while visiting a science station in Antarctica.  Everything about that story (I have to dust that one off and polish it up one of these days, now that I’m thinking about it) originated from a very clear dream I had in which I was far below the earth in a deep shaft of ice.  In the dream I was looking up toward the the surface at a disk of milky sky, the shaft walls glistening with swirls of blue, watching a piece of paper float down toward me.  When it reached me I realized it was a note.  I read the note and immediately awoke from the dream and scribbled down what it had said:  “She was alive when I took her, and her fear fed me.”

A major plot point regarding Embers of Shadow, Book Three of my Sunbird Chronicles, also came to me in a dream.  I never could have arrived at something so ingenious when I was awake!  Can I really take credit for it, though?  Where do these ideas come from?  Am I constantly having them (I do think about my writing all the time) and I just happen to have the right satellite dish up to receive good ideas when I’m sleeping?  Are our imaginations stronger or weaker when our thoughts are free-floating in the ether of sleep, without conventions of unidirectional time flow and external sensory inputs to anchor our synapses?

I suppose that writing ideas that come to me when I’m asleep are my ideas.  Who else would they belong to?  But it sure feels like I’m taking them from some…where, and not creating them myself.  Does that make any sense?

From Erik:

Well, I’ve been in the City of Angels less than 24 hours but it’s been a productive day! The morning started with the AFM Finance Conference, which was actually a series of two panel discussions: Current State of the Independent Film Industry and Foreign Investment: A Growing Source of Film Financing.

Current State of the Independent Film Industry

Honestly, this first seminar was a bit of a letdown, though reaffirming. Don’t get me wrong, the information was great, just nothing new. Focusing on the film industry while getting my MBA introduced me to all of the material that was discussed today. I was just hoping to get deeper insight from some of the top minds in independent film finance. However, like I said, it was certainly reaffirming for me to see that my understanding of the industry is accurate rather than purely academic.

Here are some noteworthy points from this panel discussion:

-Digital distribution shouldn’t be seen as a threat to the industry but as an opportunity for expansion. Figure out how to monetize the next generation delivery platform.
-This economic climate is a much needed film industry house cleaning that has “[cleared] out the suckers” (Modi Wiczyk, Co – Chief Executive Officer, Media Rights Capital).
-The traditional studio habit of getting rich at the expense of investors is a tired and dying model. “Construct products at a price that makes sense” (Wiczyk) and focus on returning a profit to investors (duh). Profit margins within the studio system have been shrinking…this trend is reversing.
-Banks still have money to lend to viable projects; there are just fewer banks in the game now.

Foreign Investment: A Growing Source of Film Financing

Honestly, this panel discussion was essentially a repeat of the first discussion with a new panel of experts. The information was equally insightful, but nothing new. They didn’t discuss foreign investing in much depth except to say pretty generally: emerging markets (such as India and China) are bringing new money to the table, when seeking foreign investment money relationships are key, etc.

Admittedly, I did leave the panel discussion about 15 minutes early to make another appointment, so maybe it got more interesting in the last 1/4 hour…?

All-in-all, the Finance Conference was worth the money spent to attend…if only they were giving away money…

And now, for the MAIN event…our first MOVIE STAR!!!

A Meeting with Doug Jones

Hands down, the highlight of my day was getting to meet THE Doug Jones! Don’t get me wrong, it was great getting to meet with Sunny face-to-face for the first time since High School (let’s just say it’s been over a decade for those counting), but come on, it’s DOUG JONES. Doug’s credits include: Pan’s Labyrinth, the Hellboy movies, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Adaptation, Men in Black II…the list goes on and on and on.

Doug read the script and loved it (a HUGE complement!) and, schedule permitting, would LOVE to play the role of JOHN!!! We’re thrilled that he has decided to become a part of this ever-growing project and can’t wait so spend more time with Doug, who is probably the warmest, most cordial person I have ever met!

Since I was too dumb to take a photo of Doug today and I’m not sure which pictures I’m allowed to pull from the web, just click on this link to Doug’s official site and have a look around.

Not that any news could really top this new addition to our team, but we’re going to try before the week is out! We’re planning another meeting to hopefully rope in another star for our lead role. We’ll keep you posted.

Check back tomorrow when I’ll be blogging about the Pitch Me! and Produce and Sell Your Film seminars. Thanks!

(By the way, thanks Ryan Dunlap for helping with the introduction!)

The best horror movies exploit the unfamiliar. I’m not sure how Spanish audiences first received this “The Orphanage,” but the fact that it’s in another language seems to make it more real. Same with older scary movies. Lon Chaney’s makeup in the “Phantom of the Opera” may look comical in some lights, but there’s always that little voice that asks, ‘wait a minute, what if this guy was for real?’

This theme was explored (to slightly comical effect) in “Shadow of the Vampire,” which imagines the makers of 1929’s “Nosferatu” using an actual vampire in the lead role.

But this is the problem with most contemporary horror movies, they rely on loud noises or unnatural amounts of gore to spook the audience.

“The Orphanage” uses some of these tricks, but throw in a few shadows and ask the audience to fill in the gaps and you’ve something that will keep you awake at night that no amount if viscera could. In one scene, a ghost lies in bed next to the main character. She thinks she’s talking with her husband, but we know from one quick scene whom she’s really speaking to.

On the surface, “The Orphanage” is a standard scary-house movie. Protagonist Laura grew up in a seaside orphanage. Year’s later, she and her husband fix it up with the intention that their new home for disadvantaged children will replicate the happy childhood she has. What could happen?

When the couple’s adopted son and see-er of ghosts, Simon, goes missing, Laura begins to realize that her childhood was not as serene as she once thought.

A mysterious old woman appears at the door one day that piques Laura’s suspicion that something else might be wondering around her home. The woman provides the two of the movie’s good scares: one involving an empty shed in the middle of the night and the other involving a shattered jawbone.

It’s standard fare that if you have a kid in a horror movie, they will invariable color a picture of all the ghosts they see, one of which will always have a creepy bag on their head or be old. It also goes without saying that the bag head character will show up in the next scene to terrify the protagonist.

The film later tells us that the kid wearing the bag was horribly disfigured. What is never explained is why the mask is more unsettling than the face? It’s like the caretakers said to themselves, ‘OK, the kid looks scary as it is, but if we really want to give the other orphans nightmares, let’s draw a clown face on the bag. Kids like clowns right?’

When Simon seems to vanish in a cave near the ocean where the first ghost was encountered, Laura spends the next few months consulting police psychologists and ghost hunters to try to find her missing son. When none of these fails to produce Simon, we get the surefire way to solve any horror movie: the heroine must unravel the mystery alone, in the house, at night.

The film was produced by Guillermo del Toro, himself skilled at building tension on a shoestring budget. It’s good marketing to play up his connection to the film to imply to the audience (wife included) that they’re getting a horror/morality tale in the vein of “Pan’s Labyrinth” or “The Devil’s Backbone.”

When we first saw a trailer for this movie, del Toro’s name flashed on screen and my wife remarked, “he’s such a good director.” I told her he was just a producer and that someone else had shot the movie, at which point she uttered a disappointed, “oh.”

Therefore I was surprised that she brought it home one day. She usually has an aversion to all things horror, but I’m sure the del Toro connection was the deciding factor in giving this movie a try.

The movie was effective enough at building suspense. Despite its sub-two-hour running time, my wife insisted we watch this in two parts, half in the evening and the other half in the comforting morning daylight.

I’m sure the filmmaker intended the movie to be seen under limited light. Scenes that would’ve provided a jolt at 10 p.m. lost their punch at 10 a.m.

A scary movie without darkness is like a romantic comedy without a happy ending.

If you’ve noticed the lack of posting on B&B recently, it’s been due to the fact that I (Bill Bodkin) have been taken away from blogging duties because I just went in for surgery. Nothing huge, but it’s kept me away from the site for the past week and 1/2. I even had to forgo my Halloween plans to make sure all my work was done for my job.

So I felt what better inspiration for a Top 10 post! These films are ones that I feel really can capture the Halloween spirit even if the ground is covered in snow or it’s the middle of a blazing summer.

1. Shaun of the Dead:
Fresh off the critical and cult success of their UK sitcom Spaced, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, Nick Frost and Big Talk Productions took a huge gamble and produced this wacky yet serious, romantic yet gory tribute to George Romero films. The film is filled to the brim with brilliant sight gags, witty one-liners, wanky British humor, tongue-in-cheek film references as well as genuine horrifying sequences and a real sense of humanity. This is one you can watch a million times and still find something new and hilarious.

2. Evil Dead Trilogy: Suck on this you primitive screw heads! The brainchild of then first-time director Sam Raimi and executed to acting perfection by Bruce CampbellThe Evil Dead series, is equal parts side-splitting comedy and gruesome, terrifying horror. The first Evil Dead flick is a bloody-as-all-hell horror film that is a good Evil Dead starting point. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is basically a rehashing of the first film with the Three Stooges-esque comedy ramped up to 11. “Evil Dead 3″ Army of Darkness is a terrific combination of slapstick and action/horror film that is known for its memorable one-liners than anything else. Remember…shop smart…shop S Mart.

3. Sleepy Hollow: Heads will roll indeed! Tim Burton creates a beautiful film that seamlessly combines 50s Hollywood back lot horror with modern CGI technology. Slightly modified from the original story, Johnny Depp played Constable Ichabod Crane, a forward thinking yet timid NY cop sent to the small hamlet of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders. Burton’s gothic tendencies, Depp’s daft performance and Christopher Walken as the Headless horseman makes this a classic.

4. The Nightmare Before Christmas: Another Burton gem. This is a beautifully crafted stop-motion animated musical comedy that has inspired millions of Hot Topics products. The music of Danny Elfman (who provides the singing voice of Jack the Pumpkin King) and unique vision of director Henry Selick (and Burton of course) make this not only a timeless Halloween classic, but a Christmas one as well.

5. Night Watch/Day Watch: The brainchild of Russian visionary Timmur Bekmambetaov, (known in the states for Wanted), this is a really trippy series of films that has to be watched within the same sitting. The film revolves around Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabenskiy), a reluctant agent for the forces of good who constantly battles the end of the world, vampires and tons of emotional problems in Russia. The visuals are mind-blowing, I mean see to believe it good and the story-telling, while frustrating at first, come together perfectly in the final act.

There's gonna be HELL to pay: The Hellboy films are just two films you can catch the Halloween spirit with year-round.

6. Hell Boy and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army: Hellboy’s success can be attributed to the brilliant mind of director Guillermo del Toro as well as the brilliant performance by Ron Perlman. The fantastical adventures of Hellboy and his buddies is a visual buffet filled only with the sweetest treats. The comedy is very high especially in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army where a drunk Hellboy and Abe Sapien belt out Barry Manilow’s “Cant Smile Without You.”

7. Pan’s Labyrinth: The masterpiece of Guillermo del Toro. He is able to tell concurrent stories of a fantasy world and World War II Spain, with the same attention to detail. The film’s creature effects are what’d you’d expect from the fantastical touch of the jolly director, but the drama and the phenomenal finale are what makes the film that damn good.

8. Big Trouble in Little China: Jump on the Porkchop Express with good ol’ Jack Burton (the amazingly underrated Kurt Russell) as he and his friends go into the mystical depths of the Chinese underworld. Helmed by John Carpenter, the film has a lot of strong fantasy and martial arts elements, but it’s Russell’s faux-John Wayne performance that makes this a truly enjoyable film.

9. From Dusk Til Dawn: Not many people dig this film, but it’s still a fun film. Take the snappy dialogue of any Quentin Tarantino film and combine it with the rock ‘n’ roll violence of a Robert Rodriguez film, add a dash of pre-awesome George Clooney with a whole mess of blood, guts and go-go dancers and you’ve got yourself a damn fine horror film.

10. John Carpenter’s Vampire 2: Los Muertos: Oh my sweet Lord…Jon Bon Jovi as a vampire hunter named Derek Bliss? Yes, this actually did happen! This made for DVD sequel (from the late 90s flick with James Woods) features Jon Bon Jovi kicking vampire ass in Mexico. Along for the ride is Darius Mcrary AKA EDDIE WINSLOW from Family Matters and indie film darling Diego Luna of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Milk fame.

John Rhys Davies, who played Gimli from “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy will not be appearing in “The Hobbit”, which is being directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) and produced by Peter Jackson.Gimli does not appear in “The Hobbit”, however, it was rumored he would play Gimli’s father or another dwarf. “The Hobbit” and its sequel is based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. What do you think?

Lukas Eggen

Det är inte bara Michael som har en tung studiebörda just nu. Både jag och Johan tentapluggar för fullt och kulturkonsumtionen är obefintlig. Men jag tänkte nämna några små kulturyttringar som på olika sätt satt lite guldkant på tillvaron på senaste.

1. Skumdums äldre material finns äntligen att tillgå på Spotify! Jag vet inte varför, men jag pluggar bra till punk har jag märkt (p g a detta upptäckte jag även att DLK lyckats klämma ur sig en EP, det första nya materialet bandet släpper på 13 år. Hugo EP heter den och innehåller sex låtar som känns hugoskligt oväsentliga. Tiden har sprungit ifrån dem och Mart har aldrig sjungit så dåligt).

2, Häromdagen såg jag om Pan’s Labyrint för första gången sedan jag såg den på bio. Den var sjukt bra även nu, nästan bättre än bioupplevelsen. Se den igen!

3, Klassiska NES-spelet Excite Bikes landar snart i en remake – Excite Bike World Rally – på ett WiiWare nära dig. Spännande! Dessutom har jag införskaffat Gamecubepärlan Pikmin i dess Wii-port som släpptes tidigare i år. Jag har aldrig spelat den serien tidigare men har läst otroligt mycket positivt om den. Ser verkligen fram emot att få mysa igenom spelet ingående med början på kanske onsdag.

4. Och när jag ändå pratar Wii. Nyligen framkom att ett spel vid namn Goldeneye 2010 håller på produceras till konsolen. Ni som kan er tv-spelshistoria vet att det är tufft tufft tufft.

Och det var det. Jag har dock en liten artikelserie om ett klassiskt hårdrocksband på gång, med start mycket snart. Jag vet att Johan har en ganska omfattande artikelserie på gång. Isak och Micke planerar säkert något finurligt. Och så dyker det ju upp en fredagsfråga imorgon. Stay tuned.

I finally saw Where the Wild Things Are. Given the emoting you’re used to from me, you might be predisposed to think that it dissolved me into a puddle of tears, but guys, I made it almost all the way through! Which is sort of unexpected, not only because it’s me but because everyone in the film spends so much time being sad.

Here’s what I liked about it, and let me be clear that this is what most people DON’T like about it: Max reacts to his situation not by running away so much as by reliving it with giant clawed monsters. The island of the wild things is a deep, deep dive into Max’s problems, but with way cooler houses, and while this seems to be one of the most recurrent criticisms of the film (not fun enough for actual children! too much psychological projection!), I actually thought it was the only way this movie could make sense.

Because an unfortunate truth of my own life is that even as a kid I was limited by my own imagination. The stories I made up, and the ones I wrote down, were the products of what I’d lived and done and read. Even my dreams were made up mostly of things I remembered from my waking life, if much weirder, what with that sailboat coming out of the bathtub drain and all, and that’s true for all of us, I think. I mean, I could imitate, I could rearrange, I could come up with things that felt new, but all stories are essentially inseparable from their sources.

Jonze makes this angle clear: Max’s creations haven’t emerged from the ether. Monster Carol behaves like Max, and KW often seems like a mash-up of his sister and his mom. Everyone speaks in the kind of simple sentences a kid would use, or that adults use when talking to kids. Since this world is of his making, it’s only logical. And despite the truly excellent rumpus at the beginning, things devolve into tantrums pretty quickly, just as they did before he ran away.

Pan’s Labyrinth, del Toro’s dark fairy-tale set in fascist Spain, was no idyll, either. Both movies start with a story: Max runs full-tilt down the stairs after the dog, fork in hand, hunting his dinner, and Ofelia’s books tell of a lost underworld princess. We quickly learn the miserable circumstances of each, and of their growing separation from their parents. Most importantly, both kids are extended an invitation to an otherworld in which they must prove themselves as royalty. (Ofelia has a harder time of this last task.)

Neither kid finds much in the way of solace in these new homes, because they are exactly as dark and difficult as the ones they’ve tried to avoid. Max’s situation is obviously not as dangerous as Ofelia’s, and his monsters are correspondingly much cuter, if a little mopey. But that dirt clod fight is basically the episode with the snowballs writ large, just as the Pale Man’s test of Ofelia’s character is a banquet only because Ofelia was sent to bed without supper that night. In each, the fantasy world’s rules always follow from what’s happening in the concrete.

The distance between what’s real and what’s imagined is so much bigger in movies ABOUT children than in movies FOR children. This is why 25-year-olds don’t watch those old Winnie the Pooh movies or go to, like, G-Force when they’re feeling nostalgic, and why WTWTA has been such an advertising juggernaut. If you’re six and you’re watching Winnie the Pooh, you’re in the woods with him. But the problem of being an adult is that you can’t really enter that world without a proxy, which is why Max and Ofelia exist.

That’s also why kids don’t get this movie. They shouldn’t. They don’t need proxies. WTWTA is not made for them, even if it was erroneously marketed to them. This movie is partly for people who know who Spike Jonze is, but more so for people sufficiently removed from being an actual kid that they can look back and now realize–much much later–that the igloo wasn’t any more awesome than the world outside it, and in fact the angle from which you see the world must necessarily triangulate your dreams.

So, I did tear up a little, which is what I started this post with and I’ll come back to it now. But not when Max and Carol are gazing soulfully at each other over the waves. I didn’t lose it until he finally makes it home, when mom collapses to the ground, pulling him in,  so full of words that in the end she can’t use any of them and just drinks him in with her eyes: her child returned. Her own fantasy– one I never thought I would be boring enough to share, let me add– is the one where everyone makes it home safe, everyone gets out alive. It’s a mundane daydream, maybe, but has its own wildness to it: remember how she yowled and chased after him when he ran out the door?

Shut out of Neverland, now I’m the Max who sits next to Alexander and makes a clumsy effort to apologize. And it’s not as much fun as throwing dirt, not even close. But I crossed that boundary a long time ago: if I were to make a blanket fort now, it’s not because I believe I can hide there.

In another salute to great Halloween-inspired entertainment, I’ve got another movie to suggest watching near the 31st, my fellow geeks.  I’m sure you’ve heard of…

Pan’s Labyrinth, or El Laberinto del Fauno

Theatrical release poster.

Not made specifically for Halloween, this dark fantasy suits the feelings surrounding the holiday anyway. Directed by Hellboy creator Guillermo Del Toro (who, you’ll be pleased to know, is the man behind the upcoming and highly anticipated “Hobbit” adaption with the help of producer Peter Jackson), this Spanish-language film is terrifying, lush, gorgeous, and quite unlike anything you’ve likely seen before.

The story follows Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl who’s pregnant mother marries Captain Vidal, a leader in the Franco regime attempting to stamp out the resistance in 1944 Spain, just after the Civil War.  The marriage moves her and her mother to a remote forest base camp, where Ofelia discovers an abandoned labyrinth.  There, a faun tells her she is the reincarnation of a lost Princess that can return back to her father’s realm only after completing three tasks in the labyrinth.

Don’t let the subtitles scare you away – there’s much more scary and frighteningly beautiful things to be seen while watching this film.  The film boasts top-notch special effects, using a mix of CGI, animatronics and heavy makeup.  The plotline between the fairytale and reality is woven intricately, and the ending result is a film more than worthy of the awards it won (Nominated for 6 Oscars, winning 3, just to be clear).  A dark fairytale set during a time of resistance, Del Toro has created a masterpiece by combining the dark, the heavy, and the strange.

Needless to say, Pan’s Labyrinth is perfect for an deeper alternative to the guts and gore usually viewed on Halloween, and its not without that either.  I’ll post some of those classics further on, promise.  Your choice, geeks.

May the geek be with you.

Lindsay

I saw a piece the other day about the concept of Umami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami). It is Japanese idea concerning a certain combination of flavours working to produce a stronger flavoured whole. The example they used was marmite being spread on bread, under cheese and then toasted. The overall effect was to exagerate the flavour of the cheese. There are other ingredients which, when added to meals, boost the overall flavour. The ones highlighted were worcester sauce, tomato ketchup, and parmesan. They said that the highest form of Umami is expressed through sushi where the flavours are balanced to perfection in order to highlight all the constituent parts.

Yum, sushi!

Somehow this got me thinking about the nature of taste and emotion, how I feel about certain film, music and art. Whether there is an equivalent of Umami in these fields because there are some films that produce an indescribable feeling of contradictions that gives the whole flavour much deeper impact. A life-affirming ennui or hopelessness seems to be the thing that really makes a film impact on me most severely and I can’t always pinpoint why.

Sickert's 'Ennui', from the Tate's Degas, Sickert, Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition in 2006 - which was amazing by the way.

Films like About Schmidt, Donnie Darko, American Beauty, Fight Club, Lost In Translation, Old Boy, Pan’s Labyrinth, In Bruges, The City of the Lost Children, The Motorcycle Diaries, Spirited Away, Clerks, Batteries Not Included (yes, really), Leon, and Ghost In The Shell all bring me this feeling that I love completely but that I find wholly unsettling and disturbing. It is not just in film that it can be found either. The novels of Knut Hamsun, George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, Nikolai Gogol, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Victor Hugo all have it. The art of Mark Rothko, Egon Schiele, Walter Sickert, and Vincent Van Gogh all have it. The music of Radiohead, British Sea Power (Man of Aran mainly), UNKLE, The Strokes, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Doves, Queens Of The Stone Age, Libertines, The Strokes, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday all have it at times. What is it that draws all of these together though?

Franz Kafka, does his strange surreal existentialism change the way I think?

For films it seems to be sadness and loss that particularly flick my switches. In literature there are few moments that have moved me so much as Prince Andrei’s death in War & Peace. The death of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables was another emotional one. Crime & Punishment was a terrifying one for me because I could feel it playing with my mind as I read it. I became so involved with Radion Raskolnikov’s plight and mental deterioration that my own mood changed. The starvation of the lead character in Knut Hamsun’s ‘Hunger’ and the Parisian exploits of Orwell in Down & Out make my heart yearn for something whether it’s a mythical and romanticised version of the past or something missing from my own existence and experience. It’s a struggle between these two poles and what balances it all out seems to be love in the middle. It’s hard to find the love in any of Orwell’s books but there is something there, perhaps a love of the poor and downtrodden people of the world. I’m not sure but everything else involves either a woman or God, or both. I’m certainly no Christian but the exhilaration of Jean Valjean’s piety was amazing to me. It invigorated me whilst simultaneously depressing and hurting me. A very strange sensation but one I do revel in when I discover it.

The pious, wandering ex-convict Jean Valjean.

Again and again I go looking for this feeling and it crops up in unexpected places. Certain key changes in a piece of music or a lingering shot of a normal room in a film will trigger it too. Something mathematical and related to the golden ratio I expect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio)? My thinking on this subject is so far only a week old but I will work on it and try to unravel exactly what it is that makes me tick in this respect. Other people must know this particular sensation too, perhaps someone else can help to explain it better than I am?

From the start of Lost in Translation

As I approached to face down my once-low, now verging-on-hopeful expectations, going to see Where the Wild Things Are with fellow film-buff Chadd Harbold, I was still secretly hoping it would be terrible, or that at least the dialogue would be or something, so that I could in some way blame Dave Eggers.

Unfortunately, I was denied my Eggers hate-fest as the movie turned out to be not only gentle and sensitive in its adaptation of the book, but supremely well structured in its narrative.

For those of you wondering, yes, there was a narrative.

Fast-forward to exiting the movie, walking with Chadd out on to the sidewalk as we began to process our opinions.

I can’t remember which one of us started with the ceremonial “Well…” that would indicate the beginning of the discussion of the movie.

But I remember the first thing out of my mouth, the same thing I had been thinking since the plot of the movie became apparent:

“Like a less literal Pan’s Labyrinth.“

***

The theater where we saw Where The Wild Things Are was Chadd’s favorite, an out-of-the-way out-post all-the-way east in the middle-upper housing development, Kips Bay.

I had noted the Loews Kips Bay before for having one of the most ingenious ideas of a movie theater I had ever seen: incorporating a Nathan’s into its concession stand.

Nathan’s famous french fries have all the delicious salty- and oily-ness of popcorn (and some of the crunch too) without all the pesky kernels that stick in your teeth.

But Chadd loved the Loews Kips Bay because it was largely abandoned; it was an over-large facility with huge screens and theaters that were never full.

Case and point was the 3:50 screening of Wild Things that we saw, which should have been over-run with tater-tots clinging to their moms, who were finally happy that they could show their kids something that might make them smarter without making them think that there were any magicians down in Greenwich Village or anywhere else.

“That’s Demi Lovato.” I commented to Chadd in the pre-screening enter-mercials that preceed the previews, citing the young woman singing with Disney characters.

“I think that’s pretty frightening that you know that.” Chadd told me and whatever I responded wasn’t a good enough answer to the allegation.

Anyway, the theater was more than half-empty and the tater-tots could be avoided with strategic placement and little effort at all.

After some all-animated previews (excluding a dreadful white-liberal-helps-black-child Sandra Bullock vehicle), the film began.

***

Where The Wild Things Are met my expectations in at least one significant way: It reminded me how much I like Spike Jonze.

Here Jonze, with his able cameraman Lance Acord, darts around with a rough-and-tumble energy to match the fierce movement and swinging moods of his 9 year-old protagonist Max. This same feeling is present whether Max is in reality or the more figurative Island of the Wild Things, since physical play is such a vital dynamic of the 9 year-old experience.

Not only does Jonze do an amazing job directing his young actor, Max Records (anyone who wants some insight into how he accomplishes should watch the truly genius featurette about the film here), he also maintains a child-like sense of wonder in the way he phrases the film, the look of the characters, the understanding of the world.

As Max escapes wearing the guise of a “wild” boy (a white-wolf costume), he is running Peter Pan-like from the realities of the world, from growing up, from realizing that he will not always have his mother’s attention, that he will not lways be a “king” in his own house. So he goes to a place where he is king, a place that is feral, like the imagination of a 9 year-old, a place that both grants the wish-fulfillment inherent in cinema and plays out like a dream, with the truth-telling of the unconscious manifesting over-and-over in the situations Max faces on the Island of the Wild Things. These Wild Things are in love, they are fighting, they are capable of laziness, insecurity, great power and great destruction. In a word, they are human, though they’re not, they’re wild. They’re Max’s conception of the adult world, of the forces in his life he must come to understand. Chief among these forces are the wild things Carol and K.W., who stand in for the parts of Max’s consciousness that are most at play and thus have the most integral role.

What transpires on that island is Shakespearean, it’s allegorical, it’s a play within a play, that denotes the tensions and realities of Max’s life without ever feeding us back-story like we were stupid. Instead, it achieves a Pixar-level of multiple layers, enjoyable and interesting in the movements and colors of its characters, but with a darker and more complicated message for those who dare seek it. In this way, it is a movie I show great respect for, because just like the book it was spawned from, Where The Wild Things Are as a film, allows a young, unsophisticated watcher the opportunity to begin to think about that realm, about their own wild place. It’s the sort of film, as the book was, that allows child to enter deeper into themselves and their conception of the world and for that it should be congratulated.

***

But of course, here’s the rub, going back to the quote I said coming out of the movie: Where the Wild Things Are IS a movie that bears a lot in common with Pan’s Labyrinth.

Both have precocious, young protagonists that show bravery in the face of difficult situations and seek refuge through fantasy.

Similarly, both allow multiple layers of entry through allegory and metaphor, through the art of fantastic visual storytelling.

The differences are marked clearly: Pan’s Labyrinth is an historical drama, as well as a coming-of-age film (what Wild Things arguably is). While Max’s view of the world is fairly in line with ours, his perspective only slightly stylized, Ofelia’s view of the world is constantly shaded through the prism of her storybook understanding: with characters of pure good and pure evil, monsters and heroes. I’ve heard this element of Pan’s Labyrinth as sometimes, forgive me, panned for its heavy-handedness. The detractors might say that the one-dimensionality of the characters in that film undermine its message or that Ofelia’s metaphoric challenges either don’t make sense for her emotional situation or else are boring. I find that as a reader of fantasy as a child, the idea of imagining reality in the terms of fantasy is intoxicating when the situations around you seem immutable and grim,

However, those who didn’t like those elements of Pan’s Labyrinth, would not have much to complain about in Where The Wild Things Are. There’s the same dichotomy of the real and imagined worlds, stand-ins and metaphors. But it’s all less literal, not only in the amount of Max’s world that we are not shown and instead left to imagine, but that unlike Pan’s Labyrinth, there is no inter-cut here between the “real” and “imagined” worlds. Whereas Guillermo Del Toro (director of Labyrinth) is a crafter of a distinct aesthetic like Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton, Jonze is someone who prefers a more shaggy-dog inter-mixing of the real and the fantastic. In both Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, the grittiness of personal issues becomes disturbed and interrupted by bouts with the unreal, after which supposedly “real” situations only may or may not return. If Del Toro is more story-book, Jonze is more Kerouac, more stream-of-consciousness.

When I decided to write this post, on a whim, I had seen someone compare to the two films on Facebook stating that “the wild rumpus was mostly hot air if you’ve seen Pan’s Labyrinth”. I wrote this post because while I agree with the comparison, I don’t agree with the evaluation.

I remember my father once telling me a story when we went wine-shopping together. Like I played Magic cards or later video games, my dad liked to shop for wine and when I was younger it was interesting for me to accompany him, if not the least, to see him in his element, engrossed in something like I was involved in my own nerd-tastic endeavors. When he was looking at a shelf of wine, I asked him how he knew which ones were better, if he followed ratings, or had some sort of cost/taste ratio.

“You know,” He told me. “I remember asking the same question to a wine owner, a french guy, many years ago. He looked at me with some digust and he said, ‘Why does everything with you Americans have to be a baseball game with someone winning and some losing? Why can’t things just be what they are.’”

Pan’s Labyrinth and Where The Wild Things Are are both good films in their own right and I appreciated both of them. While I feel Jonze (or Eggers) might owe some debt to Del Toro for the structure of the storytelling (and that Del Toro should be commended for an original script), they’re different films, with their own strengths and weaknesses and I was happy to see both of them.

And later on in the evening, Chadd and I got real drunk and went to Rubulad, anyway.

J-Sam was there and he ended up leaving his shirt there, on accident.

A good night and day, indeed.

***

NATHAN’S AT LOEWS KIPS BAY THEATER

French Fries- Approx $5.00

2nd Ave bet. 31st and 32nd Sts

6 to 33rd St

After a while we went through trials like A Time To Kill

The band becomes a family, though dysfunction-ill

Not 12 but 6 Angry Men

Now 5 left after one Departed

So we playing local shows for Barflys on Absynthe

The music game to us looking like Pan’s Labyrinth

Seeking fan expansion

Like Monty Python to the Holy Grail

Like Hoop Dreams even though they failed

You still succeed for trying, not buying in to what they tell you

Not listening to what Glengarry or Glen Ross  are trying to sell you

So my mind changed i became never tired

A Man on Fire

And It was going Great

Like Steve McQueen trying to Escape

We became Drunken Masters at the live performance show

Natural Born Killers of the rhythm and the flow

That’s where the story ends for now, come back next week for more

a New Beginning Like Star Wars Chapter 4

So da hat es der amerikanische Heilsbringer geschafft, einen Friedensnobelpreis zu erhalten. Und wahrscheinlich nicht für das bisher geleistete, sondern doch eher für das, was er noch an Heil zu bringen verspricht. Wenn dies eine Aufforderung des norwegischen Nobelpreiskomitees ist, Obamas Visionen umzusetzen, dann ist es eine richtige Entscheidung. Andererseits muss man gerechterweise sagen, dass es bisher diesen Preis doch eher nach etwas gab, nicht vorher. Ansonsten reklamiere ich sicherheitshalber schon mal den Literatur-Nobelpreis und den Pullitzerpresi sowieso für mich im nächsten Jahr.

Eine Frage, die ich mir dann in dem Zusammenhang stellte, ist die, warum eigentlich nur sehr wenige deutsche Personen diesen Preis erhalten haben  (es waren bisher nur fünf an der Zahl – Stresemann [1926], Quidde [1927], von Ossietzky [1935], Schweitzer [1952], Brandt [1971]).  Heißt dies im Umkehrschluß, dass trotz der hehren Worte “von deutschem Boden darf kein Krieg mehr ausgehen”, die Friedensbemühungen eher etwas schleppend bis dato gelaufen sind. Warum hat dann Schröder nicht vor seiner Wiederwahl den Friedensnobelpreis erhalten, als er tönte, keine Soldaten in den Irakkrieg zu senden? Weil es als das erkannt wurde, was es war? Nämlich bloß ein populistischer letzter Versuch, die Bevölkerung auf seine Seite zu ziehen? Letzteres hat ja wenigstens geklappt. Hätte Schröder den Preis erhalten, hätte eigentlich jeder Wähler, der hoffte, dass sich mal ein Wahlversprechen erfüllt, diesen Preis verdient. Ein Großteil der Bevölkerung will nämlich auch keinen Krieg mehr, der will auch nicht den deutschen Rechtsstaat “am Hindukusch” veteidigen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOnBqUjx_RY

Wenigstens haben wir jetzt wieder mal einen Literaturnobelpreis abgeräumt. (Verkauft sich im Land der Dichter und Denker eigentlich auch besser, nicht wahr). Ist halt besser als so´n komischer Goldjunge, der dann für den “besten nicht-englischsprachigen Film” vegeben wird. Gut, dass die “Academy” diesen Preis geschaffen hat, damit auch der eine oder andere wirklich tolle Film diesen Preis erhält, und nicht nur solche grauenhaft überbewerteten Schinken, wie Titanic (immerhin ein Film der eine rekordverdächtige Anzahl an Filmfehlern aufweist, wenn man diversen Foren Glauben schenken darf).” Pans Labyrinth” zum Beispiel von Guillermo del Toro – oh verdammt, ich scheue mich es zu sagen, aber hier irrt der Autor, denn in dem Jahr hat “Das Leben der Anderen” den Fremdsprachenoscar erhalten, und Pans Labyrinth hat Oscars für Kamera, Szenenbild und Make-Up bekommen.

Nichtsdestotrotz hat mir der spanisch-mexikanische Film unglaublich gut gefallen. Obwohl er Oscars erhalten hat. Was nicht immer eine Gütesiegel ist (Ghandi hat ihn für die Kostüme bekommen – wahrscheinlich eher für die Masse als für den Einfallsreichtum. Und warum hat “Amadeus” keinen Oscar für die Musik bekommen? — Gut ich bin kein Mozart-Fan, aber Maurice Jarre für “A Passage to India”? Ich erinnere  leider die Musik sowas von überhaupt nicht mehr, aber der hatte doch schon zwei davon zu Hause auf der Anrichte stehen für “Lawrence of Arabia” und “Dr. Schiwago”. Mozart hatte noch keinen Oscar. Da bin ich mir jedoch sehr sicher)

Was bleibt dann von einem renommierten Preis dann übrig? Bei mir das Gefühl, dass es bei der Entscheidungsfindung in etwa so vorgeht, wie beim Eiskunstlauf der Damen. Wer das kürzeste Röckchen trägt und sich am verführerischsten vor den Preisrichter verrenkt, bekommt dann auch die besten Noten in der künstlerischen Darbietung. Stürze können auch von einem Dekolleté nicht aufgefangen und gemildert werden.

Dann werde ich abwarten müssen, ob all das, was Obama verspricht, und was auch ich mir von ihm denn letzten Endes versprochen habe, in die Tat umgesetzt wird.

Bonifatius

Guillermo del Toro posted a message over on deltorofilms regarding the Cronos Criterion DVD and the Mimic Director’s Cut DVD.

CRONOS is evolving nicely. We are including a NEVER-SEEN-BEFORE version of GEOMETRIA (1987) the short that I made for 1 thousand bucks and that I was never able to finish the way I wanted it. NOW I re-finsihed it for this disc (dont worry, no CGI or fancy stuff) and I like it- I never did before- but now I do.

CRONOS has never looked so beautiful and we found dozens of photographs of the making of the device, etc

MIMIC is looking fabulous. Some of the negative had been lost but we found alternatives and are finishing the Director’s Cut. VERY HAPPY!!

This is very exciting news as Cronos is a simply brilliant film and I can’t wait to get a nice clean version of the film. Mimic was flawed but did have a good concept and some spooky imagery. It will be interesting to see what changes are made to it in the Director’s Cut.

Despite worries about going bankrupt as recent as a few weeks ago, MGM has reached an agreement. Here’s the official release:

MGM is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a forbearance agreement with its lender group. The Company is appreciative of its lenders’ ongoing support. Under the terms of the agreement, MGM’s lender group has agreed not to enforce its rights or remedies arising as a result of the Company’s request to not currently pay interest due on September 30, October 31, and November 30, 2009.

This agreement, which expires December 15, 2009, provides MGM with additional liquidity as discussions continue regarding the development of an optimal capital structure in support of the Company’s long-term business plan. With the agreement in place, MGM has taken an important first step in ensuring that the Company has enhanced financial stability and adequate liquidity to implement its business strategies.

And concerning the Hobbit films, which are being directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) and produced by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong):

Concern over MGM’s hold on “Hobbit” is at the heart of the activity. In a 50-50 rights partnership with Warner Bros.’ New Line unit, two “Hobbit” pics are being developed.

The first “Hobbit” aims for theatrical release in 2011, with Guillermo del Toro on board to direct that and a sequel. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and del Toro are writing scripts for both and are expected to deliver the first screenplay by the end of November.

Warners will lead production and distribute at least domestically. For now, the Burbank studio also is covering any immediate expenses.

Lukas Eggen

New in at Cinema Books: The Golden Labyrinth The Unique Films of Guillermo del Toro by Steve Earles, $29.95 paper.  First comprehensive study of the films of Guillermo del Toro.  Illustrated with striking color images from his movies. This volume gives background information on Celtic mythology in Hellboy II -The Golden Army and the  history of the Spanish Civil which informs much of the Spanish director’s work.  Think of Pan’s Labyrinth.

UP is  a typical Disney product: which is to say that it is goofily funny and thoroughly, unashamedly sentimental.  It is also  a Pixar product, which means it is  it is witty, clever and technically sophisticated.  Above all, it is an American movie, so you know right from the start that you are in for an upbeat, moralising experience. More specifically, you know that  the movie will deliver a message,   and that the message will most likely  be the time-honoured hold-on-to-your-dream,  be-true-to-your-family, you-can-always-be-a-kid romanticism that has made Hollywood such an effective purveyor of opiate for the masses.

Except that it is not.  What struck me about UP was that, though it is funny, upbeat and sentimental, it is in the end also a very sad film.  Though its visual effects and artistry are ‘magical,’  gorgeously picturesque and charming, its main  concern is not with ‘living your dream’ but with relinquishing it; not with holding on to youth but letting it go.

As in the case of some of the other movies I have reviewed on this blog, much of its impact pivots on the way in which it uses the visual language of animation to create its imaginary world.  In a way, I suppose, the film that UP most clearly references in this respect is The Wizard of Oz: like Oz, the crucial dichotomy in the movie is  between its beginning in the quotidian real world, grey and grim, and the way the plot is suddenly relocated —  literally by way of a leap into the sky — into a technicolour dreamworld.   In this particular case, much of the charm of the film lies in the kooky, zany world the art of the animation allows us to enter. There’s a  lot of absolutely standard Disneyesque fare – the broad comedy of Charles Muntz’s pack of dogs, for instance.  But the film goes well beyond that, and takes us on a truly surreal flight of fancy.  One moment we are watching Carl Frederickson ease grimly, resignedly into his day on a wonky Stairlift;  a few minutes we are seeing  a grumpy old man trudge through the jungle, towing behind him a fat Asian-American boy, a motor-mouthed dog… and a house, suspended in the sky by a multicoloured cloud of helium balloons.  The loopiness becomes truly florid when the boy and the dog befriend a huge iridescent tropical bird – a kind of outsize  Seuss-look cross between an ostrich and a dodo,  which falls in love with the boy Russel, attempts to swallow Carl’s walking cane, and is given to huge, wailing, passionate cries for no discernable reason.    We have left behind not only ordinary reality but also the cutesy world of Disneyland. What is being referenced here is not Jungle book or Oz, but the rather more fey, surreal, cartoonish fantasyland of Krazy Kat.  Krazy Kat is the moment at which American cartoons left popular culture behind and turned into something far more philosophical-poetical; and the surreal visuals of UP works in a similar way to signal that we are now in much more complex metaphorical territory.

A panel from Krazy Kat

So just what is Carl up to here?  Dealing with his unlived life, is what; and it is this that gives the movie its particular mix of uplifting positivity and sadness.  The most interesting aspect of the film is the contrast between the visual madness of the journey across the rocks towards paradise falls and the story of age, unacted desire and loss tersely summarized in its first few minutes.  The point film very effectively makes in the initial set-up is not only that Carl is settling grumpily into old age; it is that we know his crusty testiness is a defense against loneliness and pain.  We know that the loss of his and Elly’s dream – flying off into adventure, visiting Paradise Falls – is but part of a greater loss;  the loss, firstly of Elly herself; but also the loss of what their marriage could have been.  We are never told what went wrong with Elly’s pregnancy, but this is the moment at which the tone of the film is set:  the images whirl past, the story of a young marriage economically told in an overlay of images (I thought of Buster Keaton’s Johnny and Anabelle at the end of The General) – and suddenly we are seeing them in the obstetrician’s office: Elly’s being comforted; they’ve lost the baby; and though we see them settle into a kind of happiness,  it is the thin happiness of the childless couple, making a life for themselves after the future they’ve seen in the clouds has been taken away.   A sad and grown-up note to strike in the middle of an animated feature; and the artistry 0f UP lies in the way it bridges this moment of loss with the dizzy adventures that follow.

So: what, in mythopoeic terms, is Carl’s task?  The risk for him is that he dies, never having fully entered into life.  He has to make his soul, on his own, as a grown man, without his childhood hero and without his Elly; he has  to embark on the journey traveled by of Dorothy in Oz -and of Chihiro, Coraline and Ofelia, and of Alice.  He he has to enter into relation with the dreamworld: with desire, and with the powerful forces that slumber in himself, behind the facade of the mild, grumpy middle class man he seems to be.   This is the first interesting thought thrown up by the movie: that while it might seem that the compromises Carl and Elly make — giving up on their dream of traveling to South America,  putting their savings instead to the demands of adult, capitalist life — are adult choices, realistic ones…  these choices also mean that Carl at least, is ’stuck’  in time; or stuck in relation to the dream. It remains a dream, idealised and unchanging, symbolized most evocatively in the movie by Elly’s scrapbook of her plans to travel to Paradise Falls; after the page titled ‘ Stuff I am going to do’, the film suggests, the book is blank; the acts unacted.

And the second interesting thought is that to live your dream, to act it out, is to lose it.  This is what Charles Muntz, the great explorer never realises:  in love with his image of himself, he is stuck in perpetual narcissistic adolescence: his self-contained existence with his army of slavish dogs is not admirable at all but faintly ridiculous.  And that’s what Carl too has to learn.  When he finally arrives (he thinks) at the end of his journey,  mission accomplished, it is a moment of anti-climax.   We know that  he is wrong:  we know his real mission is not to act out his promise to Elly, but to help Russel save the bird from the clutches of the horrid Muntz.  Didn’t he cross his heart?  He sits down in his easy chair to look through Elly’s book – and he realises he misunderstood her.  The pages in the last part of the book are not blank after all. The book is full: it is filled with pictures.   She had her life –but he has not had his, not all of it.   His last  job is to relinquish her  and to be true —  not to the past, but to  his promises to the living.

The conclusions are interesting and complex.  You should not give up your dreams, the movie seems to say, because if you do, they will never let you go.   You should act on them; enter the dreamworld. But  what that will give you is not a spot by Paradise falls, but your bum on a kerbstone,  watching cars pass by, sharing an ice cream with a winsome, garrulous, enthusastic boy.  The blue bird of happiness, the film suggests, is never where you think it is.  It is eight feet tall,  ungainly,  and  completely flightless: its cry is a preposterous yawp of love;  name is Kevin, and he’s a she.   On no account ever try to capture it.  Feed it chocolates, and defend its freedom to disappear into the labyrinth where no-one else can follow.  You will be rewarded with danger, and craziness, unpredictability.  And you  just might make some new friends. I’m in.

Guillermo del Toro with a Hell Boy hand

Dawn C. Chmielewski and Geoff Boucher – LATimes.com

Walt Disney Studios and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro are forming a production company, Disney Double Dare You, to create animated films with a spooky edge.

Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook announced the partnership today in a star-studded presentation to the D23 Expo fan convention that brought actors Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, and directors Tim Burton and Robert Zemeckis, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and singer-actress Miley Cyrus onstage in a packed auditorium at the Anaheim Convention Center. 

Del Toro, who is in New Zealand doing pre-production on the film “The Hobbit,”  delivered a recorded presentation in which he said he hopes to create animated films in the chilling but family-friendly spirit of one of his favorite Disney theme park attractions, the Haunted Mansion. The filmmaker waxed on about the “immersive” journey to another world that he experienced when four decades ago he stepped into the mansion, which to his young mind was “the most demanded real estate in the whole world.”

The first project is called “The Troll Hunters.” The filmmaker also said there will be a shared trait among all the Double Dare projects, which will include books, merchandise and films, but he kept that secret to himself on this day.

“I love to take audiences into fantastic new world and provide them with some anxious moments in the process,” Del Toro said. “It is part of the Disney canon to create thrilling, unforgettable moments in the process. It is part of the Disney canon to create thrilling, unforgettable moments and villains in all their classic films. It is my privilege for Double Dare You to continue in this tradition.”

It is unclear how many films the acclaimed director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the comic-book-inspired “Hellboy” is committing to make under the partnership with Disney — or when he’ll find the time. He is directing two “Hobbit” films for Warner Bros./New Line Cinema and MGM, which are scheduled for release in 2011 and 2012, and has been linked to half a dozen other projects, including “Drood” and a “Frankenstein” remake.

*DISCLAIMER* If you don’t like the beautiful game you should probably read beyond the 3rd paragraph not.

I forgot to say that Belgrade is definetely on the list of cities to return to. There was lots I didn’t get a chance to see, it’s very much a full European capital with plenty of intrigue held within it.

The Romanian currency (lei) is really cool. The crisp notes feel like they are laminated and they have a plastic see through bit in a different shape depending on the value, the 50 is an eagle and the 5 a semiquaver for instance.

I’ve been listening a to The Walkmen a lot lately, they have to be one of the finest bands to ever come out of the Big Apple for me. Ace stuff.

The New Red Star Belgrade t-shirt was going to make it’s debut today but then I realised I’d been wearing my City shirt when the mighty blues had achieveved their 4 consecutive victories (without conceding a single goal) so far this season. It would be utter school-boy folly to break the habit, if I didn’t wear it and City were to take a hiding I’d have to accept undiminished, unmitigated and unequivocal responsibility. Alan Partridge.

I’ve not had much luck finding the City vs Arsenal match (that’s is the first and last time an emoticon will ever appear on STBB). This is despite the best efforts of Stephen, the nicest man in Timisoara. A Romanian takes an Englishman to 2 Irish bars and a Scottish bar, (there’s surely the beginnings of a joke in there, me and cousin Derek certainly believe that to be the case anyway) but all to no avail.

Stephen is just a bloke I asked for directions on the street and he went well out of his way to try and find a bar for me that was showing the game. I bought him a pint to say tah, is an interesting fella who knows a lot about the city as he used to be a guide here. I might meet up for a beer with him later.

I’ve engaged in conversation properly with 3 Romanians so far and they’ve all been spot-on with a keen sense of humour, nice people.

I’m watching the Stoke vs Chelsea game as buggers can’t be choosers. But I must say that ‘Eurosport 2 Live’ need to get it sorted, they’ve gone for a bit of steak and gammon when they could have had a double helping of steak.

At least there is Wi-Fi though so I’m using that Sky Sports app to get regular updates. Half time and it sounds like we are giving Arsenal a bit of a hard time.

I can’t stand Didier Drogba but what excellence for his equalising goal against Joke, so simple but utterly brilliant. Why are the best footballers usually immensely dislikable? Oh for a world of Zola’s.

Well to put a spin on a well known idiom, the applecart looks to be well and truly decimated. A City side that is no way near reaching it’s potential is flying in 3rd place in the league with a game in hand to boot. Although it’s very early days, one might be tempted to say goody gumdrops. Mr Wrigley might just be wrigglin’ a week tomorrow.

The lei (or leu in singular) is cooler than I thought, 12 lei for 4 pints was my final bill. Now brace yourself for this, that’s less than £2.50. I hope Easyjet and friends never get to know about this Balkan treasure of a country.

I’m now watching the Spurs vs Rags game in The Scottish Pub and I’m without doubt the most Scottish thing in here, that includes the bar prop stuff. Still, I’m enjoying the cheap Carlsberg on tap and watching Spuds make the swamp dwellers look like the Faroe Islands under 13 girls amputee team, maybe I’ve exaggerated that point a touch. Or a lot even, Giggsy Wiggsy just hit a beltin’ free kick to equalise, no doubt that alone will bag him player of the year for the 2nd year running. Great player that he was and good player that he is, last season was the Scorsese Oscar scenario (not that I think The Departed to be a bad film, but it’s certainly not in the same league as Raging Bull, Goodfellas etc. and more importantly Pan’s Labyrinth) of the footballing world and an undiminished, unmitigated and unequivocal sham.

I’m a bit ruddy hungry as it’s half 8 and all I’ve had today is a continental brekkie and a bar of chocolate. There’s 2 huge bowls of nuts on the bar but I don’t want to touch them for 2 reasons. Reason one being that I’ve never in my life started eating nuts and not destroyed all that be available in front of me and two being that bar nuts are subject to the regular maulings of many men who have just handled their own personal nuts in the WC and neglected to wash their mits afterwards. Paulie Walnuts would concur.

Romania (or at least this city, but I expect it to be the same in the other places I’ll visit) is a very different experience to others I’ve had so far. I feel almost like the only tourist here, it’s not even as though it’s not Westernised here but the masses haven’t cottoned on yet that it offers just as much as somewhere like Vilnius or Ljubljana. When it finally happens that charm will diminish slightly. It’s gives benefits as well when but prices inevitably start to rise and the usual tacky tourist trappings will become omnipresent.

I didn’t end up meeting Stephen in the end, he did text me late on to see if I was still about but I was back in the hostel by then. It’s probably a good thing as 2 consecutive reasonable night’s were well due.

Country number 13 don’t you know.

Hansel and Gretel – 2007

From Imdb: When Eun-soo gets lost in a country road, he meets a mysterious girl and is led to her fairytale ike house in the middle of the forest. There, Eun-soo is trapped with the girl and her siblings who never age. Eun-soo finally discovers a way out which is written on a fairy tale book. But the book tells a story of none other than himself.

From time to time, we all want to watch a horror movie just for the entertainment. We want something that will please our eyes, our guts, and that will make us jump from our seats once or twice. Of course each one of us has a favorite horror category to refer to when needed, such as slasher, gore, psychological and so on. As a person who loved horror movies longer than i can even recall (rumors say i was a fan even while still in the womb, true story), i have always had a soft spot for one thing: that creepy fairy tale element that brings my inner child out, the one who’s scared of the dark but still insists in playing hide and seek just because of the thrill.

When i was little i was always intrigued by the creepy characters in my fairytale books, like the witch of the west, the witch in Snow white, and so on. Hansel and Gretel takes inspiration from this element, borrowing the very popular brother Grimm’s story title, and makes a hell of an entertaining horror movie out of it, in typical (the good kind of typical, think A Tale of Two Sisters) K-Cinema style.

Directed in 2007 by Yim Phil-Sung (Antarctic Journal) , Hansel and Gretel provides such a delightful journey with its impeccable photography and camera work. Many compared the visuals to Pan’s Labyrinth, and i can definitely see some similarities in the attention for the details. It’s an entertaining dark fairy tale, complete with creepy little kids that can make things happen with their imagination.

not only the movie successfully delivers the eerie factor, but it also tries to go a little deeper exploring (and of course, condemning) abusive childhoods. you won’t be disappointed, this movie is pretty much a must see.