Teasing, teasing, teasing, teasing
Teasing day and teasing night
Teasing, teasing, teasing, teasing
Teasing everything in sight
- Lars Von Trier

(Translated from Danish: Drille, drille, drille, drille / Drille dag og drille nat / Drille, drille, drille, drille / Drille hund og drille kat)

It is exemplary to read in the newspaper Information that French media is thrilled by the latest film by Lars Von Trier, dubbed “Direktøren for det hele” or “The boss of it all”. The Danish staff of movie critics have generally been very negative in their reviews. Example:

… [it] does not seem to be made for pleasing the audience, but rather for satisfying the director’s own cravings for joyful play.
-Politiken (Kim Skotte) [source]

Other reviews called it ‘laboured’ and labelled Trier as being a director in an artistic crisis. I thought it was a rather harsh sentence for the movie and Trier. Having not seen it myself (it was removed from the theatres rather quickly here in Denmark), but having had the pleasure of taking a sneak-peak at the manuscript, I thought the movie had potential. Especially because my feelings was that Trier was out to satirise the affectation and a ‘spoiled-child’ mindset that sometimes is inherit in a workplace and also in some aspects of the Danish mental attitude. We are one of the safest and richest countries in the World after all and it sometimes shows. More about this later.

Now, according to Information, the French loves it, calling it “a Voltaire-ish Vaudeville”, le Monde praising it as being a “sharp and absurd comedy that primarily is perceived as a critique of the power structure of modern companies”. And in Italy it seems like the movie is having an even bigger success. And I can see why the Danes do not take it (as) lightly (as they should). I see (i.e. read) the movie as a portrait of the interpersonal relations we Danes have. This portrait of a philosophy of ‘being your own boss’ here in Denmark, stems primarily from good living and an anti-authoritarian attitude that has seeped through our culture from years back. This is a broad issue, but forces like certain pedagogic practises and a strong sense of security coupled with the Jante Law are predominant behind this way of thinking and is a minor, but not all unimportant part of the darker, self-indulgent side of Danish culture. This movie to me gives a non-ironic portrait of the Danish individualism, where people do not want to take responsibility because they are too spoiled by not only the factors I listed before but also the huge public sector’s inherit way of handling things for them. Even the so-called ‘Automavision’ project in this movie, where Trier is letting a computer be in charge of camera angles and scene cuts is

the form’s conformity with the content where the instructor is taking a step away from the decisions, exactly like the CEO [in the movie] is running away from his responsibilities
- Aurelien Ferenczi from the TV Magazine ‘Telerama’

Irony is predominant in Danish humour, and when Trier then gives a naked portrait of this culture, mocking it without any well-known and for Danes very omnipresent ironic distance, it looks to me like the critics are reacting to the movie as a result of not being met with expectations. Expectations toward the previous works of Trier (even though they must know by now that he constantly tries to reinvent himself) and expectations toward the handling of such issues, i.e. Trier is tackling them in a direct way instead of an indirect one. They simply do not get the whole picture because the theme perhaps gets too personal thereof. They thereby focus primarily on form, not function or philosophy, and in that way miss the point.

Brazilian Girls. Photo by Brian Knight

Just went to a concert with Brazilian Girls. An uncompromising mixture of a wide range of musical genres and expressions blended together with a wink of an eye, tongue-in-cheek attitude and femme-fatale grunge-infected electronica. They come highly recommended.

Mads Mikkelsen and Jesper Christensen (in the back)

A lot can be said about the Danish involvement in both the war in Iraq and the undiplomatic incident regarding the infamous Muhammad Drawings. But it seems that a lot of good can be said about the talent of Danish cinema. Not only one, but two renowned Danish actors appear in the 21st James Bond movie, Casino Royale. Nice to see hard-working and extremely talented actors can make it both in- and outside the narrow realms of Denmark.

And with good results too. Not all Danes look badass though, if you should wonder, but Mads Mikkelsen and in a smaller, but significant part – Jesper Christensen, do a fine job.

Apart from that, the latest Bond is a minor masterpiece. I’m an old time fan, so my opinions are perhaps a bit biased, but as the International James Bond Fan Club put it: “Casino Royale is like the fourth James Bond film, after Dr No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger.”. And I couldn’t agree more. It is only a very few insignificant things that irritates me and one can wonder if the Bourne movies have influenced Casino Royale. Because Bond is believable now. He still throws a few wild stunts, but hey, they work (It’s cinema after all)! And that is what Bond should be. He’s ‘back’ – I must say.

..they [are] the movies you just kind of figure everybody ought to have seen in order to have any sort of informed discussion about movies. They’re the common cultural currency of our time, the basic cinematic texts that everyone should know, at minimum, to be somewhat “movie-literate.”

Now such a list will always be debated, and frankly, I couldn’t come up with a list myself. Not even a top 10. Mood swings, taste, life changes makes you revise such a list regularly. But this “top 102″ isn’t off at all in my opinion, give and take a few. I’ve posted the list, highlighted the ones I’ve seen. 56 57 out of 102 isn’t bad I guess. The next movie I have to lay my eyes upon is #3: Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2” (1963).

Update: Have now seen 8 1/2. A masterpiece.

1. “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) Stanley Kubrick
2. “The 400 Blows” (1959) Francois Truffaut
3. “8 1/2” (1963) Federico Fellini
4. “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) Werner Herzog
5. “Alien” (1979) Ridley Scott
6. “All About Eve” (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
7. “Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen
8. “Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola
9. “Bambi” (1942) Disney
10. “The Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
11. “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) William Wyler
12. “The Big Red One” (1980) Samuel Fuller
13. “The Bicycle Thief” (1949) Vittorio De Sica
14. “The Big Sleep” (1946) Howard Hawks
15. “Blade Runner” (1982) Ridley Scott
16. “Blowup” (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
17. “Blue Velvet” (1986) David Lynch
18. “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) Arthur Penn
19. “Breathless” (1959) Jean-Luc Godard
20. “Bringing Up Baby” (1938) Howard Hawks
21. “Carrie” (1975) Brian DePalma
22. “Casablanca” (1942) Michael Curtiz
23. “Un Chien Andalou” (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
24. “Children of Paradise” / “Les Enfants du Paradis” (1945) Marcel Carne
25. “Chinatown” (1974) Roman Polanski
26. “Citizen Kane” (1941) Orson Welles
27. “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) Stanley Kubrick
28. “The Crying Game” (1992) Neil Jordan
29. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) Robert Wise
30. “Days of Heaven” (1978) Terence Malick
31. “Dirty Harry” (1971) Don Siegel
32. “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) Luis Bunuel
33. “Do the Right Thing” (1989) Spike Lee
34. “La Dolce Vita” (1960) Federico Fellini
35. “Double Indemnity” (1944) Billy Wilder
36. “Dr. Strangelove” (1964) Stanley Kubrick
37. “Duck Soup” (1933) Leo McCarey
38. “E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) Steven Spielberg
39. “Easy Rider” (1969) Dennis Hopper
40. “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) Irvin Kershner
41. “The Exorcist” (1973) William Friedkin
42. “Fargo” (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
43. “Fight Club” (1999) David Fincher
44. “Frankenstein” (1931) James Whale
45. “The General” (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
46. “The Godfather,” “The Godfather, Part II” (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
47. “Gone With the Wind” (1939) Victor Fleming
48. “GoodFellas” (1990) Martin Scorsese
49. (?)“The Graduate” (1967) Mike Nichols
50. “Halloween” (1978) John Carpenter
51. “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) Richard Lester
52. “Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith
53. “It’s a Gift” (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
54. “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra
55. “Jaws” (1975) Steven Spielberg
56. “The Lady Eve” (1941) Preston Sturges
57. “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) David Lean
58. “M” (1931) Fritz Lang
59. “Mad Max 2” / “The Road Warrior” (1981) George Miller
60. “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) John Huston
61. “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) John Frankenheimer
62. “Metropolis” (1926) Fritz Lang
63. “Modern Times” (1936) Charles Chaplin
64. “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
65. “Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman
66. “The Night of the Hunter” (1955) Charles Laughton
67. “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) George Romero
68. “North by Northwest” (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
69. “Nosferatu” (1922) F.W. Murnau
70. “On the Waterfront” (1954) Elia Kazan
71. “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) Sergio Leone
72. “Out of the Past” (1947) Jacques Tournier
73. “Persona” (1966) Ingmar Bergman
74. “Pink Flamingos” (1972) John Waters
75. “Psycho” (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
76. “Pulp Fiction” (1994) Quentin Tarantino
77. “Rashomon” (1950) Akira Kurosawa
78. “Rear Window” (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
79. “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) Nicholas Ray
80. “Red River” (1948) Howard Hawks
81. “Repulsion” (1965) Roman Polanski
82. “The Rules of the Game” (1939) Jean Renoir
83. “Scarface” (1932) Howard Hawks
84. “The Scarlet Empress” (1934) Josef von Sternberg
85. “Schindler’s List” (1993) Steven Spielberg
86. “The Searchers” (1956) John Ford
87. “The Seventh Samurai” (1954) Akira Kurosawa
88. “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
89. “Some Like It Hot” (1959) Billy Wilder
90. “A Star Is Born” (1954) George Cukor
91. “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) Elia Kazan
92. “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) Billy Wilder
93. “Taxi Driver” (1976) Martin Scorsese
94. “The Third Man” (1949) Carol Reed
95. “Tokyo Story” (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
96. “Touch of Evil” (1958) Orson Welles
97. “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) John Huston
98. “Trouble in Paradise” (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
99. “Vertigo” (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
100. “West Side Story” (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
101. “The Wild Bunch” (1969) Sam Peckinpah
102. “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) Victor Fleming

Have I ever told you about one of the best music albums in the World? Well… It’s not that I listen to this album over and over again every day, but as a piece of art, it truly stands out, and I’d like to just dedicate today’s post to it.

The album is called “Eye of the Beholder” and is by the infamous Chick Corea Elektric Band. Now, you may argue that it’s all “in the ears of the beholder” – it surely is, and this album surely is a hotchpotch and delicate fusion of almost every ‘classical’ musical genre out there – jazz, rock, latin, classical. You might not like this kind of music, and if I have to be frank with you – I’ve grown a bit apart from it, but its sheer composition is something worth admiring, even though you have to listen to it with the mind of the 1980′s. Also, the performance of the musicians is baffling at the very least.

This album sums up the ingenuity and exceptional capabilities of one of the finest jazz-fusion bands ever.
It can be heard again and again without dissapontment. Chick Corea’s unlimited talent for bringing together classical composition with jazz, rock and latin has never been so clearly expressed in any of his albums, except for this one. This album tought me to love jazz, it opened my eyes for the wonderful world of improvisation, which life is. I heard it, and I was hooked forever on jazz. I still remember the day I first laid my ears on it. It was like opening the doors to Narnia, having lived in a closet forever (no reference to any sexual pun here).

The album is almost a journey into the mind of Corea, told by a bunch of people who truly unites their virtuous capabilities into a blend of sometimes humorous, sometimes deeply serious and technically baffling orchestration.

A masterpiece of what music also can be.