More movies watched

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call:New Orleans

This was one strange movie. I thought it was a remake of Bad Lieutenant, the Abel Ferrara movie starring Harvey Keitel but after watching it I’m not sure. Anyway Nicolas Cage portrays a rather corrupt cop in New Orleans and the movie is directed by none other than Werner Herzog. Why a genius like Herzog would take on a project like this I don’t know. The result is a rather average thriller/crime movie. Or perhaps it’s a drama. I’m not sure.

Watching the cop fall apart through gambling, drug abuse and outbursts of anger was kind of entertaining due to Cage being rather good at this type of role. Also it was interesting to see some scenes from the streets of New Orleans. However I soon lost interest in the plot if there is one and the movie just rolled by towards the end.

Terminator Salvation 

After James Cameron stopped being involved in the Terminator franchise the whole story has taken a turn towards the ridiculous. This fourth movie was no exception even if it is a bit better than what I expected. Not that it’s not well made and all but it still doesn’t give me the feeling I used to have when watching the first two movies. Especially the first one. Ok, I was a lot younger when I first saw The Terminator but even today when I watch it again, it blows my mind.

I doubt I’ll be watching Terminator Salvation again though.

I Spit On Your Grave (remake)

The original version from the 1970’s managed to scare and disgust me when I first watched it on DVD some years ago. This remake version does not pack the same punch at all. Still it’s gory and the guys get what they deserve in the end but it leaves me with a feeling of why did I watch this?

The whole thing is too polished. The main character seems not to be very affected by what happens to her.Or perhaps it’s only me not getting it.

Could be. I still think the original is the better movie.

Paul Blart:Mall Cop

I liked this one. Probably because I’m a sucker for a movie where the main character turns out to be something other and better than the loser he seems to be at the start. Perhaps I identify with characters like that. Perhaps I wish I’d turn out to be the hero who saves the day and gets the girl at the end. In my dreams I do. Only in my dreams.

However this movie tells the story of a rather fat man who wants to be a police officer but at the start of the movie he is working as a security guard at a shopping mall. An unarmed security guard. He rolls around on a Segway and performs his duty but wishes to be more important and less rídiculed. Meets a nice girl working at the mall and at first manages to mess it all up.

Then the story turns into less of a comedy when some gang of robbers show up to steal the money from all the stores at closing time on Black Friday. The fat security guard is the only man standing in the way of the robbers reaching their goal.  Of course there’s a happy ending.

I enjoyed the movie without it being anything special. I’ve seen this kind of story many times in different settings but I still find it worth watching. As I said, I’m a sucker for movies about losers becoming heroes and finally making their dreams real. I guess I always keep hoping it will happen to me too. Keep dreaming…

The Expendables

A Sly Stallone  (director, writer and star) vehicle about a gang of guns for hire who are recruited to save a small South American island nation from some ex-CIA thugs and a dictator.

Looks and feels like all the 1980’s action movies Stallone used to star in. Lots of other – younger – action stars play parts in this movie and some older heroes make small appearances.

Shallow and full of oneliners instead of any real dialogue, the movie moves fast and serves up a lot of action scenes. However the action tends to be a bit monotonous and in the end I don’t really care what happens, who wins, who lives or how high the body count goes.

Is it entertaining? Mostly. If you suspend your brain for the duration of the movie. Enough said.

Mardi Gras Jack Skellington

Mardi Gras

Sunday confession

My apologies, dear readers.

You have not found this blog to be at its usual standard lately. I know that you expect a lot more from me. However, I’ve had so much to do and not enough sleep that I haven’t had enough time to write posts in order to meet my resolution to post at least once every day.  I am only just able to make it now. It’s a lot harder than I thought to do it. Even if  I am not depending on inspiration to write its hard to come up with a text sometimes.

Often enough it turns out like this one. I’ve used a lot of words as you have probably noticed, but have I really said anything at all ?  Thought so.  This means I have to work harder at it. Otherwise I might not keep my readers interested at all.  Without readers, what would I be? Navel lint.

Early on a Sunday morning like this, its quiet and calm in the home and outside as well. A silent darkness and a faint glow from the snow outside.  A good time to do some writing, so that’s what I’m doing.  Only source of light in the room is the computer screen. Listening to Robbie Robertson singing Night Parade while I’m writing.  That song is 20 years old now. At least. How fast time goes by.

I remember bringing it with me on a tape when I went to New Orleans in January 1992. Was a very cold week I spent there. The hotel room was freezing cold most of the time. The TV hardly worked at all and across the street there was a housing project. Om the sidewalks there were often  groups of teens walking by. Some I could see were armed with pistols. I was often scared to walk to and from my hotel to the center of the French Quarter. Always feared to be robbed or worse but I was lucky. Nothing happened. However it was an odd sight to see snow in the streets some mornings. Even if it melted away very quickly.  Ok, I’m digressing but sometimes the memories just come back in force.

Today I have not got a lot planned. My mother is still no well so I have to take care of her. Also have some chores to do if I find the energy to start. Otherwise I guess I will be in some chatroom, looking at videos on YouTube and tweeting a bit. Maybe write another post.

Edit: Seems I won’t be in some chatroom. At least not today.  So I guess I will be doing something else.

“How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live”

Bruce Springsteen & The Sessions Band – How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live

Ry Cooder – How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times & Live

“Go back to your woods”

Robbie Robertson – Go Back To Your Woods

Have been searching for songs and videos from Robbie Robertson’s great Storyville album for some time now. Was very happy to finally find a few of them on YouTube today.

I bought the album in 1991 after having visited New Orleans for the first time in 1990. Around that time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about the Crescent City and its history. Also I read about the music – the birth of jazz – and the food, looked at maps,  searched out movies set in NO and bought a lot of music CDs by local performers and by almost anyone connected to the city or the State of Louisiana. So by the time of my second visit in 1992 I knew exactly where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see when I went out on foot to explore.

Robbie Robertson – What About Now

“New Orleans”

Take a trip… down to New Orleans.

I wouldn’t mind to go right now.

MoonieZ World Tour

Actually it is not much to talk about. My modest travels around the world. Or rather the places I have been outside my native country aren’t many. So here’s a short list of travels made by me, MoonieZ, over the past 41 years.

Started out with holiday travels along with my parents while I was still a kid. We went to Norway and Denmark. Nothing much to say about that. I like those countries and the people there, and why not.They are our northern neighbours.

Next we made a trip to Africa. Tunisia. Very hot and a lot of sand but at least I got to visit the town where later some of the Egypt scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark were to be filmed. Like the desert scenes in Star Wars it was all done in Tunisia. Little did I know about that since our trip was made before any those movies had reached the cinemas. Anyway I fell ill during that holiday and had a fever. It was horrible.

Later on, we went to Germany, but then it was still called West Germany, since this was before the end of the Cold War and Eastern Europe was still under the Communist rule.The Iron curtain was still closed and Berlin was divided by a wall. I’ve never been to Berlin yet. All I’ve seen of mainland Europe so far is a town in the north of Germany where we spent a few hours before going back to Sweden.

I’ve travelled to London, Great Britain twice. First time was in 1988 when I went there with my father, because my parents would not let me travel alone even though I wanted to. I liked London a lot. Had a great time going to see all the museums and the historical sites. Even went to a cinema to watch Crocodile Dundee II one evening. Also we made a short trip to Oxford and saw some sights along the way.

Second time I went to London happened to be ten years later, this time I did go alone. Spent two days going to various museums and did some shopping. However that summer happened to be one the hottest ever in Great Britain which made having a hotel room just underneath the roof of a very cheap hotel almost like torture. No air conditioning  – only way to get the air to move was to open a window. Still it was just as hot inside.

My longest travel alone – even as it was with a tour group – happened in the Spring of 1990 when I went to the USA. First stop was in New York and I guess I am one of very few who has not been impressed enough by NYC to want to go back there a second time. However I did snap a photo of World Trade Center and liked the fresh bagels a lot.

After New York the group and guide travelled by bus to Washington DC. It was a very nice bus ride and Washington made a big impression on me. I went for long walks alone, rode the subway and explored the city. Saw a lot of sights, went to great museums and generally had a very nice time there. Spent so much money I had to call home and ask to borrow some more.

From Washington we flew by way of Atlanta’s huge airport to New Orleans. And if I liked Washington a lot, I fell in love with New Orleans from the first minute I saw it for real. Never will forget how amazing it was to walk the streets of the French Quarter, hearing music from every open door or window, and from bands performing on the sidewalks and out in the street. The people were all nice and friendly and I always felt right at home. The food was/is fantastic and the whole place is just forever a part of me.

From New Orleans the group flew out to Tucson, Arizona for a few days of rest at one of the resorts there.

First we touched down at the huge Dallas/Fort Worth airport on an early morning flight out of New Orleans. The takeoff from Dallas was something to be remembered. The pilot took the plane almost straight up in such a  steep climb that the door to the cockpit flew open and all we saw out the front window was the blue sky. That would never happen today, security onboard is much tighter now so the door would remain shut.

From Tucson we travelled for a few days by bus out into the West. Stopped at the Navajo Reservation for a few hours, and there I got to meet some Native Americans which was one of the highlights of the trip. Later we got to The Grand Canyon and had some other stops before the bus tour ended in Las Vegas, Nevada. That place was something else again. I had a lot of fun there and managed to avoid gambling too much. Only spent $20.

A short flight took us to San Diego, California. There we had another day or two of rest and mostly went around on our own. I went to Sea World and had a really hot day in the sun, which gave me a deep red sunburn. Not healthy but after that I did make sure to avoid too much sun.

Another bus ride took the group to Los Angeles and the usual sites: Universal Studios, Disneyland and Rodeo Drive to name a few. Great fun!

Another flight, this time late in the evening to San Francisco. A nice city but rather cold and windy during the time I spent there. I had fun there too but by now the tour had lasted almost three weeks so I started to feel somewhat exhausted by all new impressions coming my way.

The last stop before the flight home was Fort Lauderdale, Florida. To get there we flew across the continent from San Francisco. In Florida it was all about resting and having fun in the sun on the beach. I was badly sunburned so I spent my days inside the hotel, renting movies, watching them, and sleeping. Of course eating has to be mentioned. I survived the whole trip on mostly hamburgers, sodas, potato chips, candy and sandwiches. This was not good for my body, I gained a lot of weight and never really lost it again. But the trip was one of the best, if not the best I will ever experience.

My travels after this long trip to the USA, has been mostly shorter trips back to different places in the USA. First one was in early 1992 when I went back to New Orleans and experienced one of the city’s coldest winters, even saw some snow falling. Very strange. Still I had a nice time as always.

Next I travelled with my brother to San Diego by way of Seattle. However all we saw of Seattle was the airport and the skyline before going on to Los Angeles and finally San Diego. There we had a very nice stay and explored the city. After a week in San Diego we flew to New Orleans and had a good time there. Even as the weather was hot and humid we went around town a lot. The flight back home went from New Orleans to Newark Airport for a change of flights and then on to Copenhagen.

The next year I flew to San Diego alone for a week’s holiday before going by plane to Sacramento to visit with my brother who was living there at the time. I had a lot of fun during that stay too. Got to see a lot of sights I would not have seen otherwise.

The following year my latest trip to the USA took me to Sacramento again, this time by way of San Francisco International Airport. Another nice holiday spent living in my brother’s home and going out on trips to near and far by car around California. A lot of fun.

Those are my travels so far. I hope to be able to go out travelling again some day, but don’t know when. So many places I would like to go to yet. Australia, Japan, China and many places in Europe just to name a few.

Where do we go from here ?

I never thought I would see this happening, what I have witnessed through the internet news streams from New Orleans this week.
What is the state of a nation that can’t do more for its people? How come that a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming can cause this kind of chaos? Why is the first instinct to look for someone to blame? How come the poor and the elderly are always the ones to suffer the most? How is it that dead bodies are in the streets and not taken away? Where is the dignity of human life? The respect for the dead? Why shoot at people trying to save life?
When will I be able to return to the city I have come to love?
Lots of questions, who’s got the answers?

At the top of my list is to go back to New Orleans as a visitor as soon as it is possible. I wish to do that out of respect for the people there and all they’re going through now.

We had a storm in the south of Sweden this past winter that felled a lot of trees and made many people lose power for a month or more. It was severe but we had no looting, no guns going off, and no civil unrest among the people. Of course there were people here too complaining of the government efforts being too late and too small. Also the power companies got a lot of heat for being slow in getting power back on, and not spending enough to prevent storm damage to their installations. But the society did not fall apart.
This storm was nowhere near a hurricane but it was severe for our part of the world. And we are still dealing with the damage it has caused.

Of course it is easy to point fingers at the current Administration and President Bush and I notice that many are doing that. I don’t know enough about American domestic politics to have any informed opinions but my feeling from watching the news is that the aftermath of this disaster could have been handled better. Just the same as the Swedish government could have handled the winter storm better, as well as the response to the tsunami that claimed the lives of a lot of Swedish tourists on vacation in Thailand.

Ok I’m getting to the end of my rant here.
It seems my leg is healing. I have gotten back to getting paid a regular salary for the work I do. The weather is good for the time of year and I enjoy some moments of fun and happiness when talking to friends and being with my family. In short: life is ok.

Over and out !

New Orleans

Well I don’t really want to write much today because the news coverage from the aftermath of the hurricane “Katrina” is just heartbreaking to listen to and watch.
The hurricane hit a city that is very dear to me – New Orleans. I’ve visited three times over the years and grown to be more and more attached to the city, to the people, the culture, the food and the history of it.

Today it is so sad to watch the live news online and see the water rising, the damage the hurricane has made and the people who are stranded, have nowhere to go and have lost sometimes everything they own, sometimes even their life.

I hope and pray for the city of New Orleans, the people and the state of Louisiana to pull through.

Over and out !