onsdag, september 19, 2007

The Bourne Ultimatum (movie)

I am not too happy writing this as I know its…. Well for the first this movie got some excellent reviews and one review called it “the best action movie ever” for the second the masses also love the movies about Jason Bourne.

That’s why its so hard for me to say that its utterly crap. I don’t think the reviewer that praised this movie as “the best action movie ever” have seen a lot of action movies.

While I can go good for the first 2 movies in the series, (Even if I don’t put it on the top of the pops) the third one has nothing new to offer. The story is going further like, behind the story of “Who is Jason Bourne?” – we are finally getting to know. The problem is that the story has no strong points and progresses just like one washed madras.

The action itself is mediocre and reminds me of plenty B movies of Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris and the likes. The music is the same. The tempo reminds me a lot of HairSpray (!!) because it never really stops up to let the story progress. And this means we are fed with B movie action and nothing else for the whole duration of the movie – which just tires you out. Problem is that many of these old action movies that I refer is better than this. The Bourn Ultimatum has only 2-3 action clips that are truly unique and raises the awe sensor. The rest is crap.

Now there had been a lot of Bourne has better action than the rest, than James Bond and so on. I remember back in the days when Mission Impossible 1 came out, it was sort of the same. The truth is that good action movies has been redefined all the time, unfortunately good camerawork, or cutting the action like crazy can make things look good for a while, but when Jason Bourne fights like an old Chuck Norris – someone will notice? – or maybe not?

In a way it is sad to see that the Bourne trilogy ends up this way – a little like watching Matrix 2 and 3 and wanting them to be good, but seeing only crap.

My tip is, stay away from this movie, you don’t need to know the secret about Jason Bourne.

mandag, september 17, 2007

Jo Nesbø – Rødstrupe (book)

I couldn’t wait and had to read more about the alcoholic policeman Harry Hole. Again it is an extremely well done book. While it doesn’t have the same smashing intro as in “Marekors” but builds up better in several dimensions that gives us the feeling that everything is connected, yet we do not know what it is.

Its a intermix of happenings that are the big strength of this book. It is so much of it doesn’t really feel realistic, but at the same time we are not able to put the finger on what, and in the end things are put together in a kind of epic (!!) masterpiece and we don’t really have an idea that what is realistic or not.

It’s the kind of story that hits us and leaves us thinking, thinking about a lot of thinks. Jo Nesbø also shows excellent in dept knowledge about all kinds of (un)interesting things.

onsdag, september 12, 2007

Hairspary (movie)

Hmm. Good or bad first? Ok let’s take the bad. While the theme of the movie is serious enough: integration, the tension of the movie never rises above “there is bad things in the world but lets sing a song and everything is ok” level. When even Disney presents seriousness like in Bridge to Terabithia, then this is too weak.

The other weakness is that the movie has a little to less story break between the song numbers. And also it just can’t get enough of showing us John Travolta as the fat mom. Come on, it might be funny for a while but not forever. This leads us to being kind of overfed on dancing and music and we just don’t care for what happens anymore. Look at the classic Blues Brothers – one need a paste of music and story and fun that makes it all fit like a glove.

The good is that the music and dancing is well done (although not my taste) and will probably be a big hit to the smallest ones. But that’s all there is to it.

tirsdag, september 11, 2007

Jo Nesbø – Marekors (book)

For many years I have been hesitating to read Jo Nesbø, this is obviously because he is the brain behind the group “De Derre” and I had this kind of idea that he wouldn’t be much of a writer.

Of course I was wrong. Just like he is the mastermind behind songs like “90 meter bakken” he brings it even further in this book about the policeman Harry Hole.

I am hooked and can hardly put the book down. I am lost and the 400 pages are over in no time.

This is clearly a masterpiece. His writing reminds me mostly about John Le Carre, but where Carre sometimes become slow and boring Jo keeps up the paste with borrowed influence from other writers as well.

Even though the book sometimes has trivialities and the main villain even gets away, most people won’t even notice ;) That’s just how well he grips the reader.

As for some negative: The beginning of the book is really the best and Jo just can’t manage to keep it up for the whole book. I think he should have cut the book down with about 100 pages and it would have been perfect.

Still I am already on my second Harry Hole book.

torsdag, september 06, 2007

Nokia N95 – second thoughts

Earlier I gave some first impressions on this multi function phone device. This was in the days before iphone was reality. Its like ages ago. My first impression was really good, I had been waiting in for this device for a long time and I was a excited to have it in my hands.

The excitement ran out fast as an explosion.

And there I was stuck with an expensive cell phone that gave me almost nothing. What happened?

The S60 series 3 that this phone uses is slow, unresponsive. Pretty annoying.

The GPS didn’t work with Tom Tom. Equals useless

The Camera is darn slow. The camera is still quite good but it is annoying with the speed.

Low software compatibility. I can hardly find software that is compatible, except the mayor software. Equals pretty useless.

Mp3 player. Slow but useful? I don’t care for mp3 players on phones anyway.

Bugs. Plenty of bugs present that keeps irritating.

For the rest: The phone is basically just slow and unresponsive, this even with a good chip inside. I am sure there are faster 5MP cameras out there with an even slower chip. The fact that I can not get the software I want is annoying. Gaming is even worse. This phone has a 3D accelerator! And almost no games can use it. It will change when the N-gage platform is re-launched – but then this phone is already old.

I must say this phone sucks. And I still use the 6680 for GPS navigation as well as the OS is much faster and responsive.

Nokia, get a grip! Sort this phone out!

onsdag, september 05, 2007

Gert Nygårdshaug – Dverghesten (Book – Norwegian)

Mengele Zoo er ubestridt en av Norges beste bøker noensinne. Men hvordan er det med de andre Nygårdshaug bøkene? Gert har tydeligvis noe å fortelle om i flere av bøkene sine. I de groveste trekk er Dverghesten en eventyrreise roman. Denne typen romaner har hatt en tendens til å bli veldig populære og enkelt reise seg til klassisk status.

Gert prøver å bringe mer inn i eventyrreisen og blander inn masse fysikk, kvanter, teorier, natur, kjærlighet og humor. Til sammen blir dette en meget interessant bok selv om den hardpakker så mye at du fort kan bli svimmel av alt som skjer.

Boken er fra 80 tallet så er innholdet fortsatt like aktuelt i dag. Selv om boken er innom mange teorier og leker seg uvørent med virkeligheten så er boken en liten juvel i samlingen din og bør leses.

Henning Mankell – The Dogs of Riga (books)

Sometimes, I try something new. In Sweden there is a Television produced kind of Hennig Mankell movies. The movies are produced in high speed under a low budget, but still they manage to entertain in a nice way. Its more or less because they feel somewhat like extended length criminal episodes.

So I finally thought, lets give the writer a try and read one of his books; Big mistake of course. While this Swedish writer is sold in 36 nations this really does not give any real quality assurance.

I was really, really disappointed about his writing. I mean: even though criminal books are not my favorite (mainly because they normally does not goes deeper than solving a crime) I have read quite a few of them. The marked for criminal books are huge and hard. And there are really many, many excellent writers that make books that shines of quality.

So what is wrong with Mankell? The story does not really thrill you. The writing is childish. In fact I get associations with The Hardy Boys. While I was a teenager I think I read about 100 Hardy Boys books. (Boy must I have been bored…) And while this was ok at the time, as soon as I got over to Morgan Kane I never read another Hardy Boys Book.

So I guess in a way Mankell can thrill a small audience of teenagers and readers who never got beyond the Frank Stratemeyer level.

Poor you. Stay away from these books and watch the movies instead.