Movie #8 - The graduate

Another classic movie hitting the list: The graduate. Starring a very young Dustin Hoffman being seduced by the horny Mrs. Robinson.
It has a great soundtrack. A lot of people don´t know this but the famous song by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (Mrs. Robinson) was written especiallu for this movie. However, contrary to what you might expect, another famous song (Sound of silence) is much more proeminent in the movie than Mrs Robinson.
The movie contains moments of pure magic cinema that really entertained me, like when Dustin´s character asks Mrs Robinson: you´re trying to seduce me, aren’t you Mrs Robinson?
However, it is not a master piece.
Dustin Hoffman reminds of his autistic character in Rain Man everytime he opens his mouth and the ending, which is supposed to be an hallmark of XXth century´s cinema scratches ridiculous… but maybe that´s… life.

Back to Portugal (for now)

My time in the Netherlands is running out... for now. I will be back in October.
But I will keep watching movies, listening to music, read books and my chances to try wine will improve now.
I told my fiancée that I would be back on Tuesday, but in fact I´m going back tomorrow (Sunday).
I keep telling her to keep an eye on my blog but she never listens. So now, I´m going to profit on that and I´m going to surprise her and be able to tell her that it was right in front of her eyes.
So, for those who read this blog and know my fiancée please don´t tell her.
Thank you for reading.
I´ll keep writting.

GMT, M

And now the artists

I noticed that I've been talking a lot about movies, neglecting the other topics.
So here is a post about music. In an earlier post, I said I've been listening to some new artists. Well, now I'd like to say that among them there are two names that already made the list of 20 artists (see first post for explanation) and the names are: Elbow and Tim Christensen.

Elbow is a very interesting band. I can't exactly name the type of music, but I can tell you that at times reminds me of Radiohead, and other times reminds me of Sigur Ros.
One particular music (that I would say doesn't sound like either of these bands) captivated me. 'Grounds for Divorce' has a very powerful riff. The song appeared recently on the trailer for 'Burn after reading' of the Coen Brothers (Here I am talking about movies again). You can check it here.

The other artist is Tim Christensen who has a style that goes from simple voice and guitar to other much more powerful songs. A very nice surprise is 'Whispering at the top of my lungs'.

I hope you enjoy them both.

Movies #6 & #7: The "In"movies

This Easter I saw two great movies that start with the word "In": In the Valley of Elah and In Bruges.
They are very different movies but both tackle serious issues. While In the Valey of Elah is a very serious movie about the soldiers who come back from war, In Bruges is more of a dark comedy (but definitely not a light one).
In both movies, we witness amazing performances, but while In the Valley of Elah, the performances are characterized by restrainment (Tommy Lee Jones is amazing), In Bruges they go all out (specially Colin Farrel in his best performance ever).
I recommend them both but I must say I was much more surprised by In Bruges.

Movie #5 - JFK

And another movie hits the list: JFK. An Oliver Stone movie.
And what an amazing movie it is. When I read about this movie (in that book: 1001 movies you must see before you die), I had the impression of the critics saying that the movie provides more questions than answers to what happened the day that JFK was shot, and the months before that.
Well, I did not feel that at all. I felt Stone's message emerging sound and clear and it's shocking.

An aspect that pertains to the quality of the film is that it's 3 hours long and the film just flew by. The editing is very well crafted and provides the viewer with much more information in each scene than what is merely happening in the core scene.

As you can tell by now, acting is for me a fundamental aspect in the appreciation I make of films, and this movie also offers great outputs at this level, namely by Tommy Lee Jones and Joe Pesci.

Just for the story, I would recommend this movie, but in fact, this is a work of cinematic art that should be seen by every movie lover.

Movie #4 - It's a wonderful life

A new addition to the list of 30 movies: 'It's a wonderful life'. Not to be confounded with The life is beatiful by Benigni. This one instead, is a movie from 1946 by Frank Capra with the wonderful James Stewart and Donna Reed.
It is the quintessencial of the feel good movies, and I'm sure served as inspiration for most of them. The story is basic. Tells about a man who is about to commit suicide and a guardian angel shows them how life would have been if he did not exist.
The acting is superb, the feeling of the movie in general is incredible and it is a definite classic where you see a lot of the aspects that influenced movies in the following decades.

Still on the topic of movies, I saw Burn after reading of the Coen brothers, and I must say that I do not consider it to be a work of art. I think the acting is fantastic, the cast is excellent, but the plot is just not well explored. As for many Coen brothers'movies, this movie is less about the ending and more about the journey. But in this case, it really felt that it ended abruptly and with no excitement.

On other topics, I finished reading The Lady who played with fire, the second volume of the Millenium series trilogy by Stieg Laarson. Though I have mildly enjoyed it, I do not consider it good enough to be a part of the list of books. The book offers a full insight into one of the main characters (Lisbeth Salander, which continues to be a positive point in this book also), but I think the book strategically fails in terms of the attention it devotes to certain story plots and certain details that provoke a very slow pace and harden the reading at times, making it less enjoyable.
I am now reading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, of which I will talk more in the future.

Updating the list

As you may know, the goal of this blog is to talk about the main things that I wish to enjoy during my post doc that will take place between the Netherlands and Portugal for the next two years. As I've said previously, I would like to come in contact with at least 30 good movies, 20 artists, 10 books and 10 wines.

About the movies, I already have 3 on this list: 1) Milk, 2) 2001 - a Space Odyssey, 3) Dr. Strangelove (this one I just saw and it's one of the best dark comedies of all times and just to watch Peter Sellers'performance - impersonating three characters - is more than a valid reason to watch this movie).

Concerning artists, I'm still exploring, but a few names have been suggested that I'm now paying close attention. I got to know John Schofield, Elbow, Minnie Riperton and a very curious ethiop jazz band and I started listening more to a few artists that I already knew like Jose Gonzalez and John Mayer.

Concerning books, the only yet on the list is The Lady with the Dragon Tatoo. It is part of a trilogy and I'm reading the second one now (I'll let you know what I think later). And the next book I'll read is Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I would like some more suggestions concerning this topic.

And finally wines. The only wines I honestly know by name and can tell the types I really like are the portuguese ones. And so, I haven't had many opportunities to try some of those wines that I read about. But for now I can tell you that I tried Vertente, a wine by Dirk Niepoort (coincidentially, a Dutch living in Portugal) which I really liked as I liked all wines I tried made by this producer.

Will keep posting more things that I come in contact.
Hope you keep sending suggestions