Aki's Blog

I have heard a lot of the original “The Twilight Zone” series, running from 1959 – 1964, and I finally downloaded it entirely (24,1 GB, gah) yesterday and watched the first episode (“Where is Everybody”), and it was great.

 The Twilight Zone was a series of  free-standing episodes of horror, fantasy and science-fiction, and lots of the episodes are afterwards copied by film directors, authors etcetera, and are referenced for example by The Simpsons (where I actually heard of the show at first).What I love about my family is how I’ve been raised with all these classic films, shows, comics, etcetera; my mother has renewed on a monthly Donald Duck comic since the late 1960′s and still renews on it (although at first it was in her father’s name while she lived there, and now it’s in her name while she lives here), and she’s learned me to love the Monty Python gang, and movies from the 1970′s and 1980′s, such as Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Back to the Future etcetera. Thus, I’m surprised my mother hasn’t even mentioned The Twilight Zone earlier. However, when I first told her that I had downloaded and watched it, her respons was that she was happy for me, since it’s among the greatest series ever, that she followed when she was younger (even though it ended a year before her birth it started airing in Sweden several years later).Anyway, a great show, recommended to EVERYONE! Watch it! 

 * * * * * * *seven stars

I just watched the 2008 American horror/sci-fi film Cloverfield, and it was amazing. Really, long time since I last saw such a great film. Basically, it is about a monster attack against Manhattan, filmed with a amateur camera by a couple of friends who happened to witness the whole thing. The film includes the time from a couple hours before the attack started, until Beth and Rob, the last holders of the camera, have a bridge crashing down above them, rocks falling down and then the film stops. The greatest part of the film is probably the work around it, though; the characters have fictional MySpace pages, there are websites for fictional products that featured and so forth. Also check out the IMDb FAQ for the film (AFTER you’ve seen it!).

*******seven stars 

Drama, Sweden 2003, “Evil”“Ondskan” is a film based upon Jan Guillou’s bestselling novel with the same name, which itself is based upon Guillou’s childhood, and the main character Erik Ponti is according to Guillou himself. Throughout the film, the sountrack is most silence, but in some scenes, it is the echoed music from when Erik’s mother played the piano in the beginning of the film. Since it is the 1960′s, several characters, including Eric, listens to artists such as Elvis Presley, and this is also played in the background on LP players quite often. The film won one Gulbagge (a Swedish film prize) and was nominated for an Oscar as the best foreign film of the year.The film is about 16-year-old Erik Ponti, whose stepfather uses corporal punishment on him, and resulting in this Erik is violent at school. As he in the beginning of the film is found assaulting another student, he is expelled and to finish his last year of the obligatory school, he goes to Stjärnberg, a luxuary boarding school. He promises his mother to try this time, try not to fight and try to finish school, and at first he thinks it’ll work. But Stjärnberg uses a system where not the teachers, but the older students, keeps the order in the school. And the school has rules such as that the other students has no choice but to obey the older’s orders. And when you don’t obey them, when you swear, when you stick up… you are punished. Erik Ponti at first tries to go by their rules, but is by time forced to stick up more, and he ruffles up the whole system.I liked the film a lot, and I’ve watched it several times. I especially like the style of the film (barely any soundtrack, no clear colors etcetera), and some scenes and quotes are really great.

 *******seven stars

Evelina arrived to the Gurkträff today. Tonight we ate pizza, played some Super Smash Bros. Melee and last but not least watch the horror film Saw II, the sequiel of bestseller Saw.I believe the film was great, but didn’t catch the sequences that the first film did. It was a bit dizzier. The greatest thing about it was that it had much more examples of the serial killer’s way to kill his victims, something I was missing from the first film.

 *******seven stars