Some Girls Buy Shoes, I Buy Film-Classics!

I'm a 90's-child, which means that when I was old enough to gain an interest for films (that weren't one of Disney's children's-films) we had already spent a lot of time in the 2000's. And when one of my favorite things to do was to go to the cinema I naturally watched a lot of new films...

Don't misunderstand! A lot of the best movies I know were made quite recently. But now, that I'm older, I have suddenly become interested in the classics. The ones that shaped the industry and the epic ones that stay with you forever. Somehow some masterpieces survive their own time and generations and engage new audiences year after year. As a self-declared film-geek there are some films I just *need* to have seen.

But! When I say classic, it's truly a very loose term. For me it can be used of silent-films (Chaplin) and black-and-white films (Double Indemnity) as well as some of the great pieces made in the late 90's and early 2000's. Yesterday it hit me that 1995 was not quite recently... it's actually nearly twenty years ago! So I must say that movies like these (and a lot of others I don't have here with me in Bergen at the moment) has earned the right to call themselves a "classic"

Gladiator (2000), Edward Sissorhands (1990), Black Hawk Down (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002)
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Return of the King (2002), Two Towers (2003), Braveheart 1995)

That being said, I suddenly and compleatily unplanned bought no less than four movies today! I was just going to the grocery-store when I noticed thet the local record-store had a thon of film-classics on sale... Weak as I am I simply couldn't resist. But to justify it all I pretend that I bought them using some of the money I got for my birthday. That somehow makes it more "ok" to buy four dvd's on a whim. Anyway, here's my result...

The Usual Suspects (1995)
"A boat has been destroyed, criminals are dead, and the key to this mystery lies with the only survivor and his twisted, convoluted story beginning with five career crooks in a seemingly random police lineup."

This one is the only one I was actually looking for (along with Memento, which was sold out). A guy recommended it to me this past sunday, and I became so curious I knew I had to see it. With brilliant reviews and the position as #26 on IMDb's list of the 250 best movies in the world I figured it was worth a try?

Cosmopolis (2012) 

"Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager's day devolves into an odyssey with a cast of characters that start to tear his world apart."

This is the only new one I got. I remember reading about it in Empire a while ago noting that it had gotten a lot of great reviews. I'm sure it's a very odd and peculiar movie... but that's not necessarily a bad thing? Anyway, it's got Robert Pattinson, and in his post-Twilight-days he's become one of my all-time favorites.

Fight Club (1999)

"An insomniac office worker and a carefree soap maker form an underground fight club that transforms into a violent revolution."

This sounds kind of brutal. I won't deny that. But it holds the #10-spot on IMDb's top-25-list. There must be a reason? At least it's got both Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter...

Lèon (1994)

"A professional assassin rescues a teenage girl whose parents were killed in a police raid."

As always I find myself almost drawn to the slightly odd movies out there... This one reminds me a little of a better version of "Hannah". If so, I think It'll be good. Gary Oldman and a very young Natalie Portman makes this look interesting. It'll either be brilliant or disastrous, as is often the case. Currently at #31 on IMDb's top-250-list I'm hoping for the first.

As you can see I've actually started at the top of the ever-so-famous list Internet Movie Database has made of the 250 best/most liked movies in the world at the moment. I figured it was a good starting-point to get to know some of the must-see movies out there. And as this actually is a combination of fun and school-related education it makes it easier to find the time to enjoy a film now and then...

Lastly, If you're sitting there thinking: "But Bente, what about all the "real" classics? Won't you watch anything older than the 90's?" My answer is no, I've *not* forgotten about them! I'll definitely find time to watch movies like "The Godfather", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", "Casablanca", "To Kill a Mockingbird","Vertigo" and "Citizen Kane" which I very nearly bought today. Want to have a movie-night with me!?

Also on my watch-list at the moment...

January Update - Back in Bergen

I recently got inspired to make a "January Update" after watching one of Kalel's videos on Youtube (WonderlandWardrobe). You should totally check her out! I took the liberty of stealing her questions and added some of my own, so here we go...


Did you do anything exciting? 

Well... I'm back in Bergen for my second term at the University. Even though it was a little sad to leave my family and friends after having spent an entire month in Stavanger, it was also kind of refreshing to come back and start all over. For those of you that didn't know, my first semester as a student actually failed miserably .. But I'm definitely both stronger and wiser this time around, so my hopes are up and I'm thinking positive thoughts!

I also feel obliged to mention I recently celebrated my 19th birthday! It was the day before I had to leave Stavanger, so I managed to gather a bunch of my best friends. The result: I had an awesome day!

Funniest thing that happened? 

I share kitchen with no less than seven other people, so when I make dinner I tend to meet one of them at some point. The only problem about this is that I'm terrible at multitasking! It's like my brain can only keep enough information to complete one task at the time. With this in mind I'm sure you can picture what happened when I met some of my flat-mates while making dinner my first couple of days after returning after the holidays? Trying to catch up and keep a conversation while cooking was just an impossibility... So there I was, small-talking to the best of my abilities, and all I did in the meantime was finding knifes and bowls and frying pans and move them around a lot to nurse the illusion of being seemingly busy. It must have looked *so* awkward! 

Best movies you’ve seen?
I actually haven't seen a lot of movies this month... There are quite a couple currently playing at the cinemas I wish I'd seen (such as Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi and Les Miserables) but I've seen some older dvd's. The first I have to mention is an old film noir in black and white named "Double Indemnity". A friend recommended it for me, and I'm glad he did! Even though it was from 1944 it was really exciting and had brilliant actors. Totally worth watching for movie-lovers!

Yesterday I finally got around watching "Braveheart". It's been on my list for quite a while, and when I got it for Christmas it was only a matter of making time for a three-hour-movie. I knew I'd like it, as some of my all-time favorites include "The Gladiator", "Robin Hood" and "Troy", but I was quite surprised by how good it actually turned out to be! When it managed to bring me to tears only ten minutes in, I knew I was up for a rare treat...

Favorite edible thing?
Asian food. I'm obsessed. And we're *not* talking about fast-food or something... Homemade all the way! With good guidance from my cook-books I have managed to conjure dish after dish using stuff like soy-souce, rice, chicken, beef, sherry and rice-wine. Hungry anyone?

Which songs have you listened to the most?
I actually bought a lot of albums these past couple of weeks. However, the one I was most excited about was no doubt "Night Visions", Imagine Dragons' first album. I'll write a separate blog-post for that little piece of wonder. All I'll say for now is that it did *not* disappoint!

Top tracks:

"Radioactive" - Imagine Dragons

"Siste Dans" - Kaizers Orchestra

"Burn It Down" - Linkin Park

"Hall of Fame" - The Script

"Miss Atomic Bomb" - The Killers

Favorite material things? 

I got new headphones for Christmas... enough said!

Something that made you proud?
I have successfully managed to set up a budget for the entire spring! I've also accounted for all the money I've spent in January so far. I hate math, so this was quite a feat for me!

What did you learn?
To cook! And also not to "steal" money from my food-budget to buy other stuff. I tended to do that a little too often in the past...

What are you looking forward to?

A lot! My best friend and I actually booked our summer-vacation recently, so in a couple of months I'm officially headed to London for the first time! But I won't have to wait until then to do something fun, 'couse the Oscars are soon upon us and I'll of course be watching the entire broadcast live together with my sister! I'm actually so pathetic/awesome I'll throw myself on a plane to Stavanger to be able to keep our Oscar-night-tradition <3 I was also very happy to find out she'll be visiting me here in Bergen right after that. 

But before all of this comes an event I've been awiting for half a year... In less than two weeks I'm going to Stavanger to see Kaizers Orchestra live in the new concert-hall! They'll be joined by Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, so I'm not overestimating when I say this will be epic!

Why can't everything be perfect!

Why am I not doing anything creative at the moment?
Why am I hardly doing anything at all?
Why do everything have to be so perfect all the time?
It's sort of like I discovered that there were so many talented people out there, and that I was never going to get anything perfect, so why even try.

I'm not the person to make new year's resolutions. According to me I can change things any day if I want to. It's not like January 1st has some magical power that makes the change "better" or more "permanent". It's just a date like all the other 364 days of the year.

However... After spending the entire last week watching a lot of youtube-videos and vlogs and blogs and so on, I suddenly decided that I simply can not sit and watch everyone else be productive and creative while I do nothing. Because I really do want to make things, but like I said I want them to be perfect at first try.

But I'm not the only one bothered by this very problem...
Most notably this was communicated by the very famous Charlie McDonnell (charlieissocoollike)

And also by Dan Howell (danisnotonfire)

And most recently by Chris Kendall (crabstickz) who made an uproar last week when he stated that he was quitting Youtube. However, he did not quit totally, just decided to get rid of all the thoughts and expectations that had started to weigh him down constantly.

I'm not even close to the situations they are describing, but some of the things they said really hit me.
Ok, so hardly anything I'm able to make at the moment will be as perfect and brilliant and flawless as i want it to be. And I'll always be my own worst judge... But if I don't do anything I've already lost!

The outcome of all of this was that I eventually decided to start slowly by trying to take up writhing and breath life into this blog again. It's not much compared to all the stuff I want to do... but it's still a step up from nothing at all. I also decided that I'm not going to limit myself and this blog to solely consist of perfect, well written, long and arranged posts about music, youtube, tv-shows or music. While I definitely will wright about all of those kinds of things, I also want to add some of my own thoughts and experiences and things happening in my life. Not at all because I, or my life, is particularly interesting .. Just because I occasionally need to share my thoughts to prevent my head from eventually blowing up or something.

Well, that was all I wanted to say for now. We all learn as long as we live, and I have to do a little more living to learn some more...

See you around the next corner :)