We were in a mood for Tarantino and decided to watch his debut. And itwas kind of nice to watch this right after The Hateful Eight, as Idiscovered that they share quite a few similarities.

Rewatching this after a lot of years, this was a great refresher. It’sstill his weakest movie, but everything else but a waste of time.Especially enjoyed Harvey Keitel’s performance. And that credit-scoreCoconut song.

A Tarantino film is always a guarantee to entertain me. This one mightbe not have a satisfying ending as his other movies, but nevertheless,it’s great. Love Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack!

With Ukraine so much in the news, I started listening to Jinjer again more. Hope they are well! Love this EP!

Bandcamp

I come right out and say it: this is a lot like “The Big Lebowski” – butnot as good. The film was too long. That’s mainly because the story wastoo confusing to me to actually really care about what’s going on.

But individual scenes were very funny and enjoyable. Loved theperformances of Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin and Katherine Waterston.Actually I liked much about how the movie was done otherwise. Butunfortunately, I found the parts greater than the whole.

Oh my god. This is a weird one. After initial doubts in the beginning, Iended up really enjoying this one. Beyond the brutal and disgustingparts is this actually rather loving relationship with the “father”. Iwas constantly on the edge of my seat wondering what’s going to happennext.

Visually great. And Agathe Rousselle was amazing!

I’m sometimes reluctant to watch older movies (it’s from 1974). But Ishouldn’t have had this concerns before deciding to watch this. Justoverall great whodunnit fun, with great acting. And pretty hilarious,too.

I don’t think I have anything good to say about this one. A combinationof kitschy and advertising-like visuals and a weak story with borderlineannoying music. I’m sorry.

I didn’t expect this title to kind-of refer to my experience with it.And then I fell down the stairs to the basement when I went to see it atthe Souterrain cinema. Well, there was no blood actually, but I felt the effects of that fallfor over a week. Given that the first sce...

A little update about my mood and why I haven’t posted in a while.

The gun fight in the middle of the night is a great start into the storyabout this assassin brother duo. While their quest is already gripping,this movie is as much about relationships and life in general. And thiscombination made it special and a very enjoyable watch.

This film will hopefully also make you appreciate how much morecomfortable life is in the 21st century (in the so called “developed”world anyway).

Wow! I’m going to experiment with this a little. I already created this very post using Gitpod. With the iPad (and the Planck keyboard, of course).

Gitpod streamlines developer workflows by providing prebuilt, collaborative developer environments in your browser - powered by VS Code.

This was a weird one. For me, this was partly (and maybe involuntarily)too cute and/or funny, which I felt was not fitting to the overallrather dark – almost menacing – atmosphere. Which I liked. Just like theacting and the whole setting. Hm. A “mixed review” I guess.

Getting a “Accessory Unavailable: The attached accessory uses too much power.” warning? Here's the fix!

Some proper old school sci-fi. With fucker Charlton Heston. I think Icould recognise the influence this had on other movies. So I think itdeserves its “classic” status. Loved the end: “You’ve go to tell them!Soylent Green is…”.

But man, the scene between Thorn and Shirl in the bedroom during the“furniture”-party… what was that? Lol.

Yep, good entertainment. Funny, good music, and a great cast. I foundthe storyline sometimes a little bit all over the place, which is my onecomplaint. And I would’ve actually loved to hear/read more of that finalarticle he wrote for Rolling Stone.

New challenge. New possibilities.

Having seen “An Impossible Project” at the Metropol on Wednesday made me realise again how much I like going to the cinema. At least to those of the little, artsy kind. Like the “Filmkunstkinos” here in Düsseldorf.

The whole experience is just so much richer than at home: you get to see the film on a big screen in a dark room, with loud sound and without distractions. It’s much more immersive and I’m always much more into the story being told.

Plus, the locations here in town are all very cosy and inspiring. You get to smell the popcorn. They sell great beer. And you get new ideas for what to watch next. And usually those cinemas are frequented by interesting folks, too.

A wonderful portrait of Florian “Doc” Kaps, who saved the last Polaroidfactory from being demolished and resurrecting Polaroid film. Thisdocumentary is mainly about this, but it’s also about his other projectsthat followed and all things analog and how and why it’s having acomeback.

I loved this and would easily watch this again. The only criticism Ihave is that the bit about Facebook should have been shorter – althoughI thought it’s ok to be in there.

And what a beautifully filmed ending, Barry Lyndon style.

Recently I didn’t listen to stuff I haven’t posted before. But now I’m rediscovering this gem. Listened to this quite a bit in the 2000s. It’s still fantastic! Great riffs, great sound, and the occasional absurd beast vocals that makes me happy here.

Bandcamp

I accidentally rented this movie when we actually wanted to see thefirst one in the series. And since we had started this one already, weonly had 48 hours left to watch this second instalment.

And this wasn’t as good. Yes, it was (partly) funny (oh, boy, that scenewith Steve Carell “announcing” the weather!), but everything was justover the top. There were not many new ideas, instead everything frompart one was dialled up to 11, and it kind of gets on ones nerves.

Soundtrack was again pretty groovy, and the media criticism wasn’t bad,either.

I don’t even remember how or why we decided to watch this. But it wasactually quite funny. Easy to digest entertainment and some really funnyscenes. We enjoyed the soundtrack, too.

Stories mit Zeitreisen finde ich oft faszinierend. So auch hier. Dazu kommt noch ein klassisch philosophisches Thema und interessante Episoden-Geschichten und man kann mich begeistern.

Vielleicht kommen etwas zu viele Charaktere und Handlungsstränge vor – was der Autor aber sogar selbstironisch aufgreift – was dazu führt, dass die ein oder andere vielleicht etwas zu oberflächlich bleibt. Andererseits ergaben sich somit aber auch mehr interessante Gedankenspiele. Und clever geschrieben ist das Ganze sowieso.

Auf dem Umschlag steht, dass das Buch verfilmt wird. Dass es einen guten Film abgeben würde ist genau was ich gedacht habe während ich es las.

Empfehlenswert!

We all tested negative on Tuesday. And that means life for us is largely back to “normal” again. So far. It steel feels like things can change again at any minute. 🤷‍♂️

In other good news, my shoulder is constantly getting better and I can do most things without pain now.

Some interesting insights into how Kubrick worked, what he thought abouthis films and how they were made.

Made me want to (re)watch his movies.

We waited three days for the results. And since 1pm today it’s certain that Zoe and Nicole had – or still have – COVID. Very likely the Omicron variant. My own PCR test result was negative.

That explains Nicole’s somewhat heavy cold symptoms last week. But both are now feeling ok again. To be honest, Zoe only had some heavy coughing the night from Monday on Tuesday. Otherwise she seemed happy and healthy as ever. (Fingers crossed, no long-term symptoms will develop).

Maybe I’ll still get it (or have it already). We’ll see. (Nicole and I have spent our time mostly in separate rooms for the past few days.) We’ll all get another test (non-PCR) on Tuesday. When those are all negative, we’ll hope some normality will return.

We’re definitely happy we decided to already get boostered end of last year.

I have settled on Kodak HC-110 to be my one and only black and white film developer. Here's why.

So my shoulder seems to get better slowly but steadily, thank you!

But the corona situation is frustrating. Now the PCR pool test today was negative while we know of one kid, that also was part of the pool, that had a positive self-test in the afternoon. And last week there was a positive PCR pool test with all the children’s individual tests afterwards being negative. And now I’m questioning all the tests!

So we’re thinking about leaving Zoe out of kindy this week altogether again, just to be safe and not risk an infection. I think at least half of the children in her group have it right now. And with seemingly unreliable tests, it seems like the more cautious action.

My shoulder already doesn’t hurt as much. But I still can’t put socks on by myself.

So, ok, next week is not off to a great start, either. Fell while skateboarding today, and now my right shoulder hurts and I don’t want to move it. Then, this time there have been Covid cases in kindy. Luckily Zoe and the two of us are fine (so far), but it sucks for all the parties that are directly affected. And now the kindergarten is understaffed; and we’ll first try to get another PCR test for Zoe before sending her again (and wait for others to test, too). That means work-juggling continues.

Sorry for the negativity. Maybe now 12 hours of shoulder pain is making me a little grumpy. 🤷‍♂️ (don’t feel sorry, I fell while skate-boar-ding🙄.)

Here’s a little Monolord bass riff for you. Could never get this out of my head after I first discovered it. It’s good practice for my finger playing, which I’m still not fully used to (but which is a lot more fun than playing with a pick – for some bass parts at least).

And this entry is also a little test for my new video setup, which should look (and sound?) better than previous tries. And this new arrangement is also a little easier to set up, so I’ll hopefully record a little more in the future.

Oh, and I bought another bass. A 5-string this time. Because I ended up leaving my first bass in the rehearsal room permanently, I missed one at home.