So, we had a bit of a Argento theme going last weekend. This reminded mea lot of Susperia, but was not as good unfortunately. Visually, yes,very nice. Great ideas and scenes once again. And that whole hauntedhouse theme. But storytelling was a bit all over the place and I wasleft wondering what the purpose of certain scenes were beyond “let’s putthis cool scene in there, too”. Still: certainly not a wast of time thisone!

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This had a bit of a slow start and the acting was partly a bit amateurish. But overall, this was a very enjoyable watch. The story was very good overall, it had suspense, and some scenes were just great. The whole sequence with the dog! Or the grand finale. I mean, he was standing *exactly* behind him!

And it’s all fine, chopping off limbs and murder people in unimaginable ways. But when their friends then just shrug and get on with it, that’s just next level crazy stuff!

While I did come to enjoy cycling videos, this wasn't for me. It waslacking context, editing was terrible, and some driver's attitude andmad skills rubbed me the wrong way. But I might just be not familiarenough with the whole bike messenger, alley cat race scene.

There was some great driving, though! And the filming was probably veryunique at the time. I mean, come on, two comparatively big cameras on ahelmet (there were no GoPros at the time), plus more mounted on thebike, and then keeping up with drivers racing through dense traffic,producing useable footage. That certainly get some stars from me.

It’s been a bit of an chaotic week here. Zoe being sick at the beginning of the week, and then two positive Covid PCR pool tests in kindy (at least one of which was false alarm) meant she was home four of five days. Works just fine with two working parents. Not. Hopefully next week will be better.

I recently bought Pixelmator Photo for iOS and now I can finally do all my image editing on the iPad.

Which is missing for me from Apple’s “Photos” app is a “Retouch” tool, which I use for dust-removal – and for which I had to use the Mac-variant for. Until now. Because Pixelmator Photo has it. I don’t know what took me so long.

I DIYed me some wind-noise reducers using a sock and a bit of velcro. With my new bike, I started riding a bit faster and one thing that bothered me was all that wind noise. So I looked for possible solutions and came across these catears. But before ordering something pre-made so seemingly simple, I wanted to try making something like this myself. So, I cut a sock, glued on a bit of velcro and wrapped the whole thing around my helmet strap. Et voilà. And it indeed works and reduces the wind noise significantly. And it does not look too strange IMO.

In December we watched this as Zoe’s first feature-length movie. It wasa good choice: the “bad guys” weren’t all that bad, the action wasmoderate and it was just 70 minutes long or so.

We all enjoyed this and Zoe got a first taste at paying attention to astoryline for more than the 15-20 mins she’s normally accustomed to.

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Hm… I liked the characters and dialogues for the most part. But the build-up was way too long, leaving me questioning if this indeed is a crime/mystery movie. Meh. The house is very cool, though!

As I hoped, this was a good fit for my slightly hungover self. A simpleplot, no surprises and some good old-school special effects.

But it was very obvious and (because of that) a bit unintentionallyfunny: I thought a lot “say what!” during the dialogues. And the actingwas all so keen, over the top, and the characters were all so damninvolved in their quest and full of clichés, putting a smile on my face.But the smile was only short-lived, because you know it’s really seriousand you want them to succeed.

A great movie! I love a good dialogue and this has plenty of that. Plus,well thought-out characters, very well played. And it has Steve Carellin it!

Maybe the ending could have had more bite to it (I don’t even know whatI mean exactly), but other than that, this is very much recommended!

This was quite clever. And funny. I enjoy a good time travel movie. Notthe best of its kind probably, but definitely an enjoyable watch!

Persuaded Nicole to (re-)watch this with me. I still found thisentertaining. And it brought nostalgic feelings back.

I watched this for the first time in English. And I must wonder why –why??? – they didn’t put in just a little effort into making the Germandialogue realistic.

Everyone is so damn cool in this. But overall, a solid movie, althoughthis is not the kind of (action) film I enjoy all that much anymore.

I generally enjoy a good “Kammerspiel”. But I found this to be ratherboring. I’m sorry.

This was a remarkably written movie. Very sensitive and probably quiteaccurate to be honest. And I noticed I wasn’t quite used to seeing gaycontent. Good movie overall. Would have been better, if I didn’t findmost main characters so unlikeable.

I managed to create an entry in the photo journal. The first set of film photos from this year.

Life and death, sun and snow, at home and on the go.

A good book overall and a fascinating – or shall I say “shocking” – glimpse into how many people are convinced they have bullshit jobs that do not contribute to society or are even harmful. I read this in German, but since I already finished this in late summer, I don’...

Riding through Düsseldorf Bilk to and from the doctor where I got my Covid booster. Since it was during daylight hours, I thought I’d record another one of these POV cycling videos. And this time I did my little commentary in English. And it’s only half as long with 16 minutes.

For this recording “Sharpening” was set to “Low” on the GoPro. And I think that is too low. I think I’ll prefer a little “too sharp” over “not sharp enough and then needing to do that in post”. I also only uploaded a HD 1080p version this time. And I might just record in that resolution in camera. 4K results in such big files. And I’m again figuring out encoding settings and formats. And that seems like a science to me; maybe I should just use YouTube.

Just got my booster shot. It’s only been a little over four months since my second Pfizer/BioNTech vaccination dose. But they say to not wait any longer. And I figured being protected for winter makes more sense than being ready in spring.

Join me in cycling half an hour around the Rhine. I start pretty much at home in Flehe, go through Volmerswerth, over the “Südbrücke” towards Neuss, then south, and over the “Fleher Brücke” back to Düsseldorf. And I even do talk a little. Santa brought me a GoPro Hero 10 for...

That was alright! Mostly I think because I generally seem to enjoy movies about bands. And to my relief, how the actors played their instruments was pretty good (because when they don’t, it usually ruins a film for me). It was all well done in general, but a little too mainstream-y for me I guess. That chicken-“Gallileo”-cut was brilliant. Solid movie!

I did listen to this a lot a few years back. And currently I’m doing so again. All-around great musicianship!

This is giving me some nostalgia of splatter-movie samples and solid death metal. Just like a lot of bands did 20 years ago. How “Palms by the Cemetery” starts for example is exactly my kind of groove.

This video was recommended to me tonight. Good choice! Thanks, algorithm! This is some extremely skilful cycling – and filming! Plus it’s in black and white and the dude is carrying an analogue Leica.

I looked him up, too, and of course there’s more of this. Oh my. Another rabbit hole.

Some old and some never seen clips of Cooper riding a fixed gear in NYC. I hope you enjoy. Looking to shoot some more in this style. Who should I film? Beco...

I can totally relate to this guy being so excited about film photography. And it was great to get a tour of a professional film lab.

This was emotional. Since becoming a father, movies including “something bad or sad with children” hit me way harder than before.

Anyhow, this was still a good one. Although a bit conventional. But acting and dialogues and all the subtle interpersonal relationships and emotions as well as the dealing-with-grief topic were really well done. The setting in the winter was great, too. And the real-life cases this story is based on is commendable – and is something I wasn’t aware of to this degree.

That one was unique. One of those unique things was the many different characters and stories. And then they die or you don’t really know what happened or will happen to them. The humour is unique, too – and I liked it, although I found this unfitting at first. The combat-scenes were a bit over-the-top for me. It is also pretty cruel at times. It includes plenty of social criticism. It’s a bit of a trip this one. The more I think about it now, the more I want to watch it again (which is often a good sign). And it somehow reminded me of one or more other film(s), but I can’t put my finger on which one(s).

Started learning Dissection’s “A Land Forlorn” from “The Somberlain”. But it has too many riffs to learn quickly. But this ending riff and melody is fun to play using a looper. And I thought I’d just record that for now.

Recorded directly into the iPhone with the headphone mic in front of the Katana Mini.

Fiona Oakes’ running achievements are incredible. But her personality might be even more inspiring. Quote from the movie’s official website:

With overcoming her own adversity, Fiona’s true drive to achieve incredible feats of speed and human endurance are motivated by a deep desire to raise awareness for the plight of animals. Her achievements help fund a 450+ animal sanctuary that she takes care of every day.

Ordered some 300+ prints the other day. It’s always something different holding physical photographs in your hand. Even when it’s relatively cheap ones, like these.

I usually use ALDI Fotos and I have been very satisfied with their service so far. The main argument for them is that they can print on matte paper with a white border. And it turned out they can even print my panoramic images with only little cropping.

I should really make more of a routine of ordering prints. The more photos I get out of my computer and into the physical world the better. Gotta feed the archive!

Their new album came out today. Will surely be listening to this quite a bit the coming weeks.