Mysteriöse Käseglocke: Ab heute neues Serien-Event auf ProSieben

Wer auf Mystery-Serien und / oder Roman-Adaptionen von Stephen King steht, sollte heute um 20:15 Pro Sieben einschalten: Dort startet heute die Serie Under the Dome, die auf Kings gleichnamigem Roman von 2009 basiert (dt. Titel: Die Arena).

Der titelgebende Dome ist eine durchsichtige Kuppel, die sich aus unbekanntem Grund über den kleinen Ort Chester's Mill senkt und es so von der Außenwelt abschneidet. Simpsons-Fans dürfte das Thema der Serie bekannt vorkommen, denn es kam in ähnlicher Form bereits im Simpsons-Film vor.

Hier ein Screenshot der ProSieben Website zur Serie - die auch unter der eigenen URL www.underthedome.de erreichbar ist.

Die 1. Staffel hat 13 Folgen und läuft in den USA erfolgreich auf CBS. Eine 2. Staffel ist bestellt / geplant. Pro7 zeigt die Folgen als Event mit je ca. 3 Folgen am Stück immer Mittwoch Abend. Da die Staffel in USA noch nicht mal beendet ist, ist man zeitlich sehr nah am Original dran, was erstaunlich und löblich ist. Bin gespannt, wie die deutschen Einschaltquoten aussehen werden. Mystery am Mittwoch ist ja neu - das gab es sonst immer Montags auf Pro7.

Die 1. Folge konnte ich bereits vorab im Original sehen und möchte kurz auf die verschiedenen Charaktere eingehen - denn natürlich bringt so ein unvorhergesehenes Ereignis die guten oder schlechten Seiten eines Menschen ans Licht.

Update vom 07.09.:
Nachdem ich nun 3 Folgen auf Deutsch gesehen habe, ist Einiges klarer und ich habe die Infos zu den Figuren etwas nachbearbeitet. Die Einschaltquoten waren übrigens super, was mich sehr freut für ProSieben!

Smash (NBC/RTL2) Review

The NBC musical drama series Smash, which premiered in the USA in February 2012, started airing yesterday on German national network RTL2, so I'd like to give some info about the show and my thoughts on it.

(pic taken with my smartphone in front of the TV)

RTL2's image as a TV station is pretty trashy (their current slogan is "It's fun"). While they used to air some good drama series in the past (24, Sleeper Cell, Heroes, Californication), they've been quite impatient with their US shows recently, pushing them to late night or early morning slots or cancelling them altogether when instant ratings success didn't happen.

Their latest idea is the so-called "Event-Programming", which means they show complete seasons of a show on consecutive days - for example 3 or 4 episodes on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. They did that with The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones on national holiday weekends (I think Easter was one of them). I didn't have the time to watch these marathons on RTL2 and bought the DVDs instead. With Smash, I'll try to watch it all live ... we'll see if I succeed. It started airing last night, so I've seen the first 4 episodes now.

Smash has been compared to Glee, but I see more similarities with Fame - although both had the "school" element Smash is lacking. The show is about the development of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe.

These are the main characters:

Book Review: Harrison Cheung's Christian Bale biography

I've been a longtime fan of actor Christian Bale and used to be part of a mailing list / Yahoo! Group for fans of his (approx. between 1999 and 2002 if I recall correctly). I've met some great girls from the USA, Canada, Denmark and Spain through this list / group with whom I'm still in touch with today and that means a lot to me.

The list / group was run and moderated by Harrison Cheung, Christian Bale's publicist. For a while everything was good, but then he started posting more about other actors such as Jake Gyllenhaal and when I and other memebers voiced our criticism, we were expelled from the group.
At some point Christian Bale had fired Harrison. I don't remember if this was before or after  my time in the group, but the bottom line is that Harrison must have been very bitter and therefore after all these years wrote this book Christian Bale - The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman.

Wetten, dass ich gestern ZDF geschaut habe?

Man kann mir sicher nicht vorwerfen, dass ich einfach nur auf den Wetten, dass ...? Zug / Hype aufspringen will, denn die Sendung gehört bei mir quasi zur Familientradition, d.h. ich habe nur selten eine Ausgabe verpasst, und sei es nur, um darüber zu lästern.

Als Thomas Gottschalk dann seinen Rückzug verkündet hat und die Suche nach einem Nachfolger losging, hat mich das alles eigentlich wenig interessiert. Auch dass Markus Lanz es jetzt moderieren sollte, war mir mehr oder weniger wurscht, aber gestern hat dann doch die Neugier gesiegt und ich wollte mir selber einen Eindruck verschaffen, wie er sich macht und was am Konzept geändert wurde.

The Oscars, Part 2

I realized that I forgot some things in my previous post. So here they are:

I was surprised (and in some cases disappointed) not to see certain people at the awards (especially winners from recent years). Maybe they were there, but not shown? Or I missed them because I didn't pay enough attention. Or they were not in any of the nominated films and therefore not invited? I have no idea. But here's the list:

Kate Winslet, Clive Owen, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Jeff Bridges, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio.

I'm sure I've forgotten many others, but those are the ones that came to my mind first.

I also wanted to add that I liked the theme of the show. As I've written before in relation to beauty companies, retro is "in". The old-fashioned movie theatre backdrop was beautiful.

And I liked the Cirque du Soleil performance. But was disappointed that only 2 songs were nominated in the best original song category. How is that possible? Usually you have 5 nominees for each, right? Very strange.

What I also liked was that the order of the categories was a little different than in most years. No wonder the guy with the long white hair (I think his name was Richardson) was suprised that cinematography came first. I remember from last year or 2 years ago that the supporting actor/actress categories used to come at the beginning. It's good to shake things up a little : )

And that's really all now (I hope).

Academy Awards 2012 a.k.a. The Oscars

Ha, I'll make this an English entry for a change.

The Oscar ceremony took place this past Sunday. I have some days off so I wanted to watch it live at night (starting at about 1 a.m. here in Germany, or 2:30 or whatever). But I was too tired and went to bed and caught up with the show yesterday and today.

General impression: Billy Crystal did a good job. There were some nice and funny moments and speeches, but not too many highlights or surpise winners that will stick in your mind for years. The most touching moment was Octavia Spencer crying when she won for best supporting actess for The Help. And guess who presented her with that award? Christian Bale! I hadn't expected that, although I guess I should have because many of last year's winners appeared as presenters this year. He looked quite handsome and was well-behaved. Hehe. Not always easy for him. Here's a picture of the TV screen I took with my mobile phone:

As to the ladies' dresses, hm, which one was my overall favourite? Can't really decide. Of the 3 bright red ones that I saw (Michelle Williams, Emma Stone and Natalie Portman) I liked Natalie Portman's look best - not least because of the beautiful jewelry she wore. Here's a picture - again of my TV screen (from the interview in the pre-show):

I also liked Penelope Cruz's look. The colour of her dress (Armani Privé I think she said) looked mauve outside on the red carpet, but "only" grey on the stage inside the theater. That's a pity. Here's a picture of a red carpet interview:

Other dresses/looks I liked were

1. Melissa McCarthy: best known to me as Sookie from Gilmore Girls, now nominated for Bridesmaids, which surprised me. Isn't that like a female version of Hangover? Unusual for a "shallow" comedy to be recognized, but not bad.
2. Sandra Bullock in a dress with a white top, some gold in the middle and a black skirt. Didn't like her simple ponytail too much, but it fits her usual style. Loved that she spoke some German on stage.
3. Jennifer Lopez: silvery, V-neck going down very low, that's all I remember. But I liked it, which is not my usual reaction to most of her looks or outfit choices.

The not so good ones must also be mentioned: Angelina Jolie in that black thing showing off her legs and doing a strange pose. Loved that one of the writers who won the category she presented mocked her by imitating the pose. Hehe. She's too skinny in my opinion anyway. Bony arms. Dislike. And then of course Meryl Streep. I love her, but the dress ... strange gold-black outfit, strange cut. Not flattering or beautiful.

If you're wondering if I was rooting for any film in particular, I must admit that I haven't seen too many of them. I haven't had time to go to the movies lately. Shame on me. I still love to watch the Academy Awards though : ) And sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. As mentioned, I just took snapshots of my TV screen with my smartphone.

Facebook is down : (

A couple of hours ago I logged into Facebook briefly at work. I wanted to post something on a newly added friend's wall but got an error message. Then I tried to suggest friends for him but got another error message. I looked up a radio station and clicked on "become a fan". Nothing happened. I gave up, but couldn't even log out properly. Now I'm at home and can't even log in anymore. This sucks. I guess I'm addicted : )

I've been meaning to post some thoughts on Facebook anyway. Can't remember them now. Great. It was something along the lines of "Modern communication is very strange. It's for people like me who are lonely, but need to feel connected. But in the end it just makes you feel even lonelier." Or something like that. Not very uplifting. Sigh. Whatever.

What else:
Robbie Williams announced yesterday that a new single and album will come out in October and November. Yay, can't wait!

Public Enemies (Christian Bale's new movie) opened today in German movie theaters. Don't have anyone to come along. Hm. Still want to see it on the big screen. Must work that out somehow.

More on Bale

I guess I was the last person to talk about the Bale incident. Apparently, it made huge waves on February 3. So much so that it was even featured on one of the websites in my links section, Mashable. I find that kind of strange cos Mashable normally deals with new mobile apps or online music services or social media in general.

They call Bale's rant a "social media going mainstream" event. Sorry, but I don't get it. What does Bale's meltdown have to do with social media? The audio file was first posted on gossip site TMZ, not by a blogger or facebook user or something similar. I guess what Mashable means is that people talked about it very much using social media such as Twitter. I still find it strange.

A day later, Mashable asked the same questions that came to my mind in the entry I posted yesterday, i.e., was it all a publicity stunt? I still believe it wasn't because this is Christian Bale we're talking about. He's always been a very private person who hardly ever attends awards shows or parties and still hasn't officially released the name of his daughter. Since he became part of the new Batman franchise, he's become a much bigger name than before and has been seen more at movie biz events (at least that's my impression). But I still won't believe that he would have agreed to letting that tape be used to promote Terminator 4 because it really puts him in a VERY bad light. Yes, there are those that say even bad press is good press, but Bale really doesn't need that. He's probably in a better position as far as being able to chose his film projects goes than ever before. And as I said, he's not someone who enjoys the limelight.

What might be possible (as I mentioned yesterday) is that the studio couldn't stop the tape from being put online and forced him to apologize. The standard way would probably be an official statement, but maybe making him call in on a radio station is version 2.0 of that. Hm. I'm not sure, but here, too, I like to believe that Bale wouldn't be part of such a manipulation.

I guess I still care more about him than I thought. But it's not just that, it's also that I don't like to be manipulated by the media and that I'm curious to find out the truth behind stories - which is hard because I'm just a normal person with hardly more knowledge about what really goes on behind the scenes of the media businees than most people.

Rambling mode over. Move along and enjoy your Sunday.

How often can you say the f-word in 4 minutes?

Very often, apparently. So, what am I talking about? Christian Bale totally freaking out on the set of Terminator 4 a.k.a. Terminator: Salvation back in July. One report of the original incident here. I think what happened was that the director of photography walked through the background of a scene they were just shooting and Christian didn’t like that at all, to say the least.

Now, why does this matter more than half a year later? Because now the audio to go with Christian’s rant has become available. It goes on for more than FOUR MINUTES. And as I said, the f-word is in it probably 100 times, if not 1000. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been a long-time fan of Christian’s and am not surprised or shocked because he is known to be very intense. What I find interesting is his accent, which now seems to be a mixture of English and American. Okay, so everybody is appalled by Christian’s behaviour and the incident was even reported on German TV (Exklusiv on RTL). Whatever. Let’s move on to the good sides of the story:

The remix. I find it hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing when I heard it.

The mash-up: Maybe even funnier. It mashes the trailer for Disney musical Newsies (the first film I saw Christian in back in 1992– awww, so cute!) with bits of the remixed meltdown. Simply amazing.

His apology: He actually called in on an L.A. radio show himself and tried to explain everything. Wow. I mean, he could have just made his agent release a statement or something similar. But no, not him. As I said, he’s intense and passionate and real because he’s not perfect and makes mistakes like everybody else. Okay, if I was more cynical than I am I could say this was just a way to promote the Terminator movie because he does say how great it turned out and so on. Or I could say he was forced by the studio to apologize in public. But I’m not that cynical (yet) and I do want to give him the benefit of the doubt and I like to believe that he is genuine. I'm not sure I'd want to run into him on a bad day cos I believe he can be a little scary, but I continue to see him as a good guy deep down. Yup. And his explanation that they were filming a difficult scene where he was trying to portray a certain craziness does make sense. End of my praise of the wonderfulness that in my eyes is CB. : )

Okay, have to add something: there's another clip which I don't find very funny, to be honest (most of all because I don't know who Bill O'Reilly is) but if you scroll down to the comments, you'll find someone saying "Christian Bale has nothing on Klaus Kinski." with a link to a YouTube clip of Klaus Kinski going off against director Werner Herzog back in the 70s (?). Oh boy, it's a small world. Here's why: just yesterday in the office, my boss brought that up. I can't remember at all in what context, but he started walking from his office to his co-worker's office (with my room being in the middle between the 2) and he was talking about crazy Klaus Kinski freaking out on sets and not answering questions on talk shows etc. I think there's a whole documentary feature about Herzog's and Kinski's difficult times on the set of a film called Aguirre. So when my boss brought this up, what came to my mind was of course that CB has also worked with Werner Herzog - on a film called Rescue Dawn. I haven't seen it and it's just been released on DVD here I think. Hm. Small world, isn't it? Everything's connected. Sigh.

End of holiday

It's back to work for me tomorrow. Am nervous. And hope my car will start as it's freezing (-9 degrees Celsius right now). I un-dug it from 15 cm of snow yesterday.

Just wanted to report that I've seen 2 new films in the theatre over the holidays: Australia and Buddenbrooks.

Loved Australia from start to finish. Hugh Jackman is so good. Actually, the whole cast is, from villain David Wenham to Aboriginal boy Brandon Walters. Also loved the scenery and the epic-ness of it all - and the references to The Wizard of Oz which came as a surprise to me. Baz Luhrmann is one of my fave directors and I'll definitely get the DVD when it comes out.

The other film was a German one. Classic stuff, based on Thomas Mann's novel about a merchant family in Northern Germany in the 19th century. Can't say much about it. Good cast, nice costumes, but very depressing towards the end.

The next film I might go see is Twilight cos I've read all of the 4 vampire books by Stephenie Meyer. Am not too enthusiastic about them, though. Movie opens next week. We'll see.

Prison Break season 3

... will start airing in Germany on January 8 - yay! Stupid me could have known that 4 weeks ago if I'd checked Serienjunkies PB page. Ah well, better late than never ... Too bad it's on so late again (11:15 p.m.) again. I need my sleep : (

So ... will I go back to being obsessed with Wentworth Miller? Hm. My new actor crush is Hugh Jackman. Tough competition. Hehe. I'm so looking forward to AUSTRALIA (which will open on Thursday). Hugh is sooo handsome and so cute with his kids. He can ride horses like a real cowboy and can sing and dance. What more could a woman ask for? : )

Okay, time for bed. Gute Nacht, John Boy. Oder so.

2 fun links

Ha, 3 posts in one day. Must be a new record. Anyway, just found this in the TV section of digg.com

If TV shows had truthful titles from Holy Taco, a site I haven't come across before. The first poster is part of the reason why I stopped watching Lost. Ha. (See older post for more.)
Can anybody tell me what the 2nd show is and the one that is now called Dreamjob?

And a site that looks like fun altogether that I hadn't heard of before:
NothingCorporate.
The film pic shown in the 5 must-see films thing is Equilibrium starring Christian Bale (one of my fave actors). I think. Cool.

Recap of my week off

Monday: Ikea. Didn't buy much and had a major headache in the afternoon.

Tuesday: Some shopping and a movie. Bought a pair of jeans and a purple v-neck sweater, both from Tom Tailor. Saw Mamma Mia! and liked it a lot. Meryl Streep has a great voice. IMO she sounds a bit like Cher (which normally would be bad because I don't like Cher, but here it worked). The men's attempts at singing were very cute. Never liked Amanda Seyfried in Veronica Mars but here she's really good.

Wednesday: Watched the Olympics. Did some laundry.

Thursday: Bought the Mamma Mia! soundtrack and saw The Dark Knight. Hm. What can I say? It was veeery looooong but Christian Bale looked good. I wasn't blown away. I don't know.

Friday: more Olympics, sadly not with a medal for my fave guy, the German pole-vault athlete Danny Ecker. Some grocery shopping and cooking. Never bought so many fresh vegetables before. Love love love the smell of limes (which are fruit, not vegetables, but anyway ...) Girls' night in with 2 friends.

Edit: I've thought some more about Batman / The Dark Knight: I love Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. They both have the best lines (in both parts, i.e. Batman Begins and TDK). I love the score (also in both films). I miss the Wayne mansion. I didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal much. Don't know why. I almost wanted Katie Holmes back. Heath Ledger really is excellent as the Joker.

Okay, this next part might contain spoilers so you've been warned:
The kiss between Bruce and Rachel was lame. Bruce kept one hand in his pocket. I mean, hello?? You're kissing the love of your life, can't you be a bit more passionate??
I kept waiting for Harvey Dent to go bad. I kind of remembered it from the old Batman movies, I think, but I wasn't sure.
It felt a little bit to me like they had put too much story into one film. I don't really know how to explain this. There was just so much, the bad guy from Hongkong (Lao or whatever), the Joker, Dent, it just went on and on. I guess this should be a good thing, but for me it was just a little bit too much instead of focusing on one thing.

Christian Bale

Ich wollte eigentlich neulich schon was zu ihm schreiben, und zwar, dass ich ihn mal wieder "wiederentdeckt" hab, da ich endlich mal meine 3:10 to Yuma DVD angeschaut hab. Ich mag ja eh Western und der Film ist echt super. Er und Russell Crowe spielen toll und das Psycho-Duell ist wirklich spannend.

Außerdem kommt bald der neuen Batman-Film The Dark Knight in die Kinos, worauf ich mich auch freue. Ich muss unbedingt vorher noch mal Batman Begins anschauen. In Amerika ist er ja letztes Wochenende sehr erfolgreich gestartet. Aber was muss ich da gestern lesen? Christian Bale soll seine Mutter und eine seiner Schwestern in einem Hotel angegriffen haben. Pfff. Glaub ich überhaupt nicht. Ich verfolge seine Karriere seit 15 Jahren und es gab noch nie irgendwas, dass auf Gewaltätigkeit hindeuten würde bei ihm. Klar, er ist ziemlich extrem, was die Rollenvorbereitung angeht bzw. stürzt sich immer ziemlich intensiv in seine Projekte, aber sowas ... nee! Außerdem ist er eh schon als Teenager von seiner Mutter weggezogen zu seinem Vater nach Amerika und hatte angeblich gar nicht viel Kontakt zu seiner Mutter in England in den ganzen Jahren. Vielleicht ging es um's Geld, jetzt, wo er endlich mal größere Filme macht, bei denen er sicher gut verdient. Wäre ja nicht das erste Mal, dass Angehörige von Prominenten mit abstrusen Anschuldigungen ankommen. Ach, keine Ahnung, ich spekulier nur wild rum, aber ich kann auf jeden Fall nicht glauben, dass er auf seine Familie losgegangen sein soll.

Ich wünschte mir nur, es gäbe mal einen Batman-Start, der nicht von irgendwas überschattet wird. Als damals Batman Begins rauskam, hat sich ja die Presse nur für Katie Holmes und Tom Cruise interessiert. Und diesmal wird sehr viel über Heath Ledger geredet, ist klar, aber das mit den Anschuldigungen gegen Bale hätte echt nicht noch sein müssen.

Grrrr.

English summary: Christian Bale who I've just become interested again, is supposed to have assaulted his mom and one of his sisters in a London hotel. I don't believe it for a minute. ButI'm very much looking forward to The Dark Knight which comes out in Germany in August.

As always ...

... wow, no new post for more than a month, that's really bad. As always, work got the better of me. I could probably work 24/7 and still wouldn't get everything done. Argh. The "new guy" does help, though. And I get along with him quite well.

In my defense, I must say that I did write something new last Sunday but then my internet connection at home broke down before I could post it and I forgot to save the text to my USB stick so I can't post it from the office.

I know that part of what I wrote was a list of new songs I like. Hm, let me see if I can remember them ...

Melee - Built to last. Band's from California but they sound very British. Piano pop rock, similar to Coldplay and Keane, so that's right up my alley. My absolute favourite song at the moment. The chorus goes like this:
So this is real and this is good
Warms my insides just like it should
But most of all, most of all
It's built to last

Newton Faulkner - Dream catch me. British guy with weird blonde rasta hair. Has a unique way a playing/plucking the guitar.

Hm, those are the only good ones I can think of right now. Whatever ...

What else? Went to see Horton hears a Who! at the movies and enjoyed it very much. Very colourful and imaginative (is that a word??) and not just for kids. Cute. And I saw the trailer/preview for Made of Honor (in Germany it will be called Verliebt in die Braut, which means "In love with the bride"), which is Patrick Dempsey's new romantic comedy. It comes out in May. Can't wait. Love the McDreamy : )

And last, but not least: April weather sucks.

More TV and music babble

Prison Break Season 1 DVD box:
Have now watched discs 1-3 and the specials on disc 6. Am happy with the box, but there are still a few things I wish they had added:
- Audio commentary from Wentworth Miller. He’s the only actor not doing one, I think. Instead, you get the very monosyllabic Dominic Purcell on more than one episode.
- Outtakes. They were always the best thing about the ALIAS DVDs, mainly because Jennifer Garner was so different from her character Sydney (i.e. clumsy and girlish-giggly) and that was so much fun to watch.
- More deleted scenes. What I most would have loved to see is a longer version of the kiss in episode 19 because it’s edited very strangely in the episode itself.

Dinotopia:
Oh yes, I’m still very much obsessed with Wentworth Miller. So although I hate dinosaurs I watched Dinotopia on TV last night (both parts were shown back to back) because he was in it. What really confused me was that his brother (played by Tyron Leitso) had his German Prison Break voice (Gerrit Schmidt-Foss, who also dubs Leonardo DiCaprio) while Wentworth had Lex Luthor’s voice (from Smallville, done by Björn Schalla). So when the brothers were in a scene together I always thought it was Went’s character speaking when I heard the Michael Scofield voice. Anyway … I found the whole thing highly amusing. It was all such a fantasy land … the costumes alone made me laugh quite a bit. Oh boy … poor Wentworth … no chance of looking cool in a light green shirt or a beige pilot’s uniform … hehe. But it was interesting to see him in a different part than the one he plays on Prison Break, just for a change.

New songs stuck in my head at the moment:
Bad one: Leona Lewis - Bleeding love. Argh.
Good one: Michael Bublé – Lost. You are not alone, I am here for you … la la la. Like it.

The usual blah

First of all, I'd like to reply to 2w10's comment to the post below: As I think I mentioned, I need to use the Germain railway next Saturday. As far as I know, the most recent news was that they wouldn't go on strike again until Dec 3. I really have no idea what I'm gonna do if they start striking again after that. Okay, I do have a car ... but I'm an awful driver. And I paid 50 bucks for the train ticket already.
Christmas ... I don't know. I'm not feeling christmassy yet. But I did bake cookies with my mum yesterday. And I just ordered some stuff from Amazon as presents for a couple of people. But as I'm not feeling good today I'm not in the mood for anything. Oh, but I put a kind of Adventskranz on my living room table. It's not really a Kranz, but a Gesteck with 4 candles that my mum made. It comes in the classic Christmas colours green, gold and red and smells good.

What else? 2 movies are coming up that I'm looking forward to: 3:10 to Yuma (Todeszug nach Yuma) starring Christian Bale. I had heard of it but had no idea it is a Western and starting so soon here! Love CB in turn-of-the-century type movies cos I just like the clothes and think he looks good in it. The other one is Elizabeth part 2 - The golden kingdom or whatever it's called. Saw a picture of Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh in a magazine yesterday. Hot. Both films are opening on Dec 13 in Germany. Speaking of Clive Owen, I watched Derailed on DVD last weekend ... oh boy ... not very enjoyable. Owen plays a quite weak character - a man who is blackmailed by a guy who always wants more -
and that just doesn't go very well with my idea of Clive Owen who to me seems quite strong and masculine etc.
Hm, now I sound as if Clive is a bad actor. That was not my intention. I can't really explain it, it was just a strange film.

Need coffee. Only had decaf this morning. Am tired. Can't form complete sentences. Hehe.

Grand Avenue and Jennifer Garner

First thing: just discovered a Danish band called Grand Avenue. Their song "The Outside" was on Bremen Vier (a radio station from Bremen, a town in the north of Germany) and I was almost 100% sure this was the new Coldplay single. Which of course it wasn't. Guess Chris Martin is too busy with his private life (you know, wife Gwyneth and 2 kids). Too bad. Anyway, go check out http://www.grandavenue.dk/ for some sound bites if you need something if you're on Coldplay withdrawal. Hm, hope that sentence means what I want it to mean. What do you call a Lückenfüller in English? If it was a person, I'd say a rebound guy/girl. Hm. Anyway, they sound very much like Coldplay or Keane. Not that that's bad, but a little bit of your own style is a good thing, too.

Second thing: Jennifer Garner will be live on German TV the coming Saturday! She and Jamie Foxx will be promoting Operation: Kingdom or whatever that film's called. The show they will be on is one of Europe's biggest Saturday night shows Wetten, dass ... All sorts of stars have been there as guests (Madonna, Michael Jackson, Hugh Grant, etc.) before and the show always gets a share of 40% and about 12 million viewers (which is a lot for Germany). It's also broadcast live in Switzerland and Austria. The host is a guy called Thomas Gottschalk. Used to like him a lot but I now think his interviews completely lack any kind of substance. Anyway, I still like Jennifer Garner (I was a huge fan of her show Alias and still enjoy watching it) even though I don't understand what she (or anybody, for that matter) sees in Ben Affleck. She's beautiful and seems like a sweet and fun person. So I'm looking forward to Saturday. Even though I might have to tape the show cos my sister wants to go see the new Pixar film Ratatouille that night.

New obsession

The excellent drama series Prison Break just started on German TV 2 weeks ago. RTL is airing it on Thursdays at 10:15 p.m. (always 2 eps in a row). The ratings have been pretty bad – especially given RTL’s high standards (they are the market leader, at least when it comes to 14-49 year-olds) – so I hope they won’t take it off the air again soon. That’s because I’m very obsessed by the show already. I had heard only good things about PB beforehand (on the internet and from a friend of mine who has already seen most of season 1) and it really is a great show. In the German press it’s been compared to 24 a lot. I don’t see too many similarities, but that doesn’t matter. The basic storyline is this: Michael Scofield, an engineer from Chicago, gets himself into prison in order to break out again – together with his brother who’s already in there for having killed the vice-president’s brother and whose execution is only about a month away. Wentworth Miller is excellent as Michael Scofield, and of course there is also a romantic storyline: the prison has a pretty female doctor, Sara Tancredi, played by Sarah Wayne Callies. So I ship MiSa, naturally. And yesterday I started looking for fanfiction and videoclips about the 2 of them. Thank goodness for YouTube, but damn my slow internet connection. And it’s hard to find something without seeing, hearing or reading spoilers, which is not a good thing with any show that builds on suspense and thrill and surprising twists or whatever you would call that (in German we have this word Spannung, which can mean tension or suspense, but it’s hard to find a good expression in English). Um, yeah, so this I my new obsession (besides Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice). Wentworth Miller has fascinating blue eyes and is very good at staring intensely at someone. Sigh.

Blah. So there, I’m a silly fangirl once again.

My thoughts on The Prestige

As I mentioned before, I saw CB’s latest film The Prestige last weekend and enjoyed it a lot. Strangely enough, Christian (who’s been in a lot of period films, such as Portrait of a Lady, Little Women, Newsies, Swing Kids, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) to me in some scenes looked like a modern day person walking around in 19th century London. I blame that on the hair. It was quite short and spiky which looked, as I said, modern to me, which was slightly distracting.

The other slight problem I had – as mentioned in replying to continuitygirl’s comment on my entry before this one – was with the twist of the story, which was too obvious for me or, in other words, which I’d guessed pretty early on. I’m not usually like that and Christopher Nolan is IMO a very intelligent director, so I was a bit surprised I got it right. Ha, does it make you crazy now not to know what I’m talking about? As I don’t want to give it away, you’ll have to go see the film yourselves to find it out. Apart from this twist concerning Alfred (CB), there’s another one which has to do with Hugh Jackman’s character, but that’s not really a twist because you see when it’s first discovered. Um yeah, sorry if this doesn’t make much sense.

Another thing: the whole cast was very good, especially Michael Caine who is the narrator, sort of. Something that can be confusing is the way the story is told, i.e. the events are not shown in chronological order so you sometimes wonder what came when etc. But things do make sense in the end. So, on the whole, good film with slight imperfections but two very handsome and talented leading men.

Oh, and there were lots of trailers shown beforehand. Most of the films looked quite interesting, such as Breaking and Entering with Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright Penn. Don’t think I’ll go see it because Jude Law has an awful hair cut and looks really old and Juliette Binoche has a very strange accent (at least in German. Didn’t sound like the French accent you’d expect of her.).