I hate snow.

Seriously. It’s freezing cold. And there’s snow everywhere. Actually I hoped for some dry days to get some trails done, that I haven’t done in like 6 months or so…I would kill to go Mountainbiking right now!!!

Ataque de Pánico!

I love short films. Of course there are also really bad short films, that are a huge waste of time, even if they are only 5 minutes long. But if a short film is well-thought-out, then it should be awesome. There can be so much power and expressiveness in the pictures. This morning I found an awesome one. It’s sort of an alien apocalypse movie, you could say it’s Uruguay’s “Independence Day” in 4:48 min. The director/animator Fede Alvarez claims to having made this one with a 300 $ budget. And if you consider this one, then it’s just perfect. The animation part is really really good, and not that far away from a hollywood production, and the music works perfect with the story. I fell in love with that one. Somebody’s got talent in Montevideo!!! Just watch yourself:

By the way, I found out that Fede Alvarez, the genious behind all this, just signed a 30mio $ contract with the producers of Spiderman. Way to go!!!

Oh and here is the music-video uruguayan band, that is responsible for the soundtrack. Their MYSPACE might also be interesting…

Now I’m really excited for the first Blockbuster from Fede Alvarez! I’ll put that one on the must-see-list.

I hate HipHop. Especially when it’s in german.

OK so the reason why I’m writing this post, is because I just found out, that “Bushido” a german rapper, is starting to act. Yes, right: He is doing a movie. And guess what: He plays himself.

He is doing exactly the same thing, 50Cent did a couple of years ago, when he made that “movie” “Get rich or die trying”. YES. Another idiot is picturizing his LIFE-story.

Honestly I have never seen 50Cents’ movie and I’m definitely not spending money on that bad german copy. BUT: I saw both of the trailers to these two movies, and I think that’s fairly enough to obtain the ability to judge. And this I will do. The Acting in both movies is horrible, maybe even more horrible in the american, than in the german version, but there are several things this two movies have in common:They exaggerate. Really Really bad!!!

They both present themselves as the poor ghetto kid, that somehow made it from rags to riches. And of course it’s ALL about being a gangster, blahblahblablahblah Seriously, who is gonna believe this???

And now the thing that disturbs me the most in the german version of that gangster-hiphop-flick:

It casts a damning light on Berlin. And I LOVE Berlin. I was born there, and I still can’t believe that their football team loses saturday after saturday this season. Berlin is everything. Berlin is a lot of different cultures together. Berlin is probably the one CITY in the world, that has the BIGGEST history.

But Berlin is not NYC. It might be in some aspects a smaller version. Still you will never find a ghetto, in Berlin. People don’t get shot in the middle of the day on the middle of the street. This doesn’t happen. Well, but this is exactly the world, our little german 50cent is painting. And it makes me sick. That’s all that had to be said about this movie. Don’t watch it. The trailer is everything you need.

For everybody who never heard anything about “Get rich or die trying, here’s the trailer by the way: GANGSTA BIG TIME!

Oh please….

Gomorrha

So this is gonna be my first movie review. I AM a big movie fan, so I guess it was about time! I’ve started watching the first season of “The Sopranos” last months, and just bought the second season and I’m definitely all excited about it. I think I would be done already with the entire series, if I had more money. Two weeks ago I watched GoodFellas and Scarface, last week the Godfather, Road to Perdition and yesterday Departed. So I guess I’m pretty much in the Mafia/Gangster movie-mood right now. This afternoon however, I finally bought the movie “Gomorrha”:

A couple of years ago, I read a review of Roberto Saviano’s novel “Gomorrha”, which is the base for the movie that came out last year. I loved the review, but I never ended up reading the book. I should have read it before watching the movie, but that’s too late now. Anyways let’s talk about that movie. First of all let’s list the major movie awards, this movie got: It was nominated for the Palm D’or in Cannes and won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. At the European Film Festivals it totally swept the board with winning 5 awards, including best movie. And it got the Golden Globe for “best foreign film. Anyways let’s get things started:

Gomorrha is about the mafia-like organisation “Camorra”, which is mainly operating in the southern Italian region Campania and it’s capitol Naples. It is the oldest criminal organization in Italy, even older than the Mafia itself. There are 5 storylines of Italians, whose lives are touched by organized crime in Naples.some live in fear, some are trying to build up their own small criminal business outside the Camorra, some are involved in gang fights and just struggling to survive. It’s a bit like in L.A. Crash, when all these story lines move apart and then meet each other again during the story. The camera work and the cuts couldn’t be better in my opinion.  The director Matteo Garrone definitely created a masterpiece here, that should be ranked among the same level as Martin Scorses’ “Departed”, in my opinion. And I thought Departed was an epic movie. Gomorrha is brutal, unsparing and at the same time very emotional, and even though it’s not intending to be a documentary film, most of the time it appears to be one to the viewer. It’s thought down through the last detail and even mafia experts, say, that this movie shot the sharpest view of Camorra/Mafia activities in Italy, ever. It’s the most authentic film about this issue of all time. To sum it up: this is a MUST-BUY!!!!

If you never heard of this movie, watch the trailer:

So much for the movie: Let’s face the facts: Italy is probably the most corrupt country in Europe, if you leave out eastern Europe. Silvio Berlusconi, who is Italy’s prime minister at the moment, is rumored to have excellent connections to the Mafia and Camorra in southern italy. There were several tries to get him infront of court, but he always sneaked out end never ended up in jail. That’s another hint for his good connections to the italian underworld. He is the owner of one of Europes Top 5 soccer clubs, AC Milano, he controls 80% of the media in Italy right now and he makes millions of euros as an insurance tycoon. That would make him one of the richest men in Europe. Italy in fact, is reigned by a Mafia boss.

The only problem with him is, that nobody can stop him. Also under his government, nobody will ever stop the organized criminals. Yesterday there was a huge demonstration against is government in Italy. The so called “No Berlusconi Day” took 350.000 italians to the street for demonstrations all over Italy. It’s not the first time, things like this happen. But still Berlusconi gets re-elected every four years. It’s a miracle.

It’s like Berlusconi is the Godfather of Italy. If you want things to change, you’ll probably have to wait for his death.

Dancefloor Grunge at its best.

So let’s finally make a post about that band from Brighton, the BLOOD RED SHOES. They are one of these two-member-girl-and-boy-bands. And that’s exactly one of their problems they have. Critics often try to compare them with other two-member-boy-and-girl-bands like “the Indelicates” or “the White Stripes” of course. In my opinion, this is close to an insult. The only thing “Blood Red Shoes” have in common with “The White Stripes” is that two-member-boy-and girl-thing. That’s it. Okay Jack White might be an awesome guitarist, but that’s all you have to know about “The White Stripes”. I personally think he has one of the most annoying voices in music business and well we don’t even need to start talking about Meg White’s “drum skills”. Seriously give me a drum set and  an hour of time and I should be able to play her part. Well enough of insulting “The White Stripes” let’s get back to the topic. The “Blood Red Shoes” are a special two-member-girl and boy band. They started in 2005, after their earlier bands split up. Since then they became pretty well known in Brighton and London and played a lot of live shows. “Victory for the Magpie” was their first EP to be released in July 2005. Following up was their second EP “I’ll be your eyes” If I’m informed correctly, then, they didn’t even have a contract before I’ll be your eyes. This second EP caught the attention of some music labels. They had already played over 300 concerts, before signing a contract. However I found some videos of them accidently in the end of 2007, I’ll probably post some at the end of this post. Then I found out, they were going to play one of their first concerts in Germany a couple of months after they played their first one in Berlin supporting Maximo Park. However I sam them for my first time in Nuremberg in the february, 2008 Their concert was my first ever, and it was amazing. There were like 80 people in a really small room, so everything was in a very familiar atmosphere. It was a bomb. There are so many bands that sound amazing on the albums, but totally suck live. Blood Red Shoes is NOT such a band. They totally caught the audience and everybody was going crazy after the first 30 seconds of their first song. Then in April 2008 they released their first album, Box of Secrets. From this point on, their awareness level stepped up. Now they’ve already played the most important festivals in Europe, like T in the Park, Hurricane-, Highfield-, and Southside-Festival. But they have not made it to MTV yet, which I think is a really, really good sign. The reason why I make this post, is because since last week they offer one of the songs, that will be on their second album, to download for free from their homepage. Ever since I downloaded that song, it’s been playing on “one repeat” in my Itunes, and I haven’t changed it yet. This band totally got me. Steven Ansell is doing the drums and vocals, Laura-Mary Carter is also doing vocals and the guitar. They call their style of music “Dancefloor Grunge”. And that is exactly what their music is about. It’s all about the Riffs and the drums. It just fits together perfectly. Especially the drum and singing part from Steven is just a BOMB. I absolutely love it.  That’s all that had to be said. They are super amazing, and I can’t wait to see them LIVE again.

Just for you to see, how authentic they are in their live performance: Here is one of their songs from their second EP:

“It’s getting boring by the Sea” studio version with their video:

And now the same song live last autumn somewhere in France:

Bread, anyone?

Ok so I’m really not trying to be one of these ignorant americans, that think all Americans are fat, lazy, fastfood-worshipping people…And this is sometimes really hard, especially after I spend 3 weeks in Wisconsin, this summer, where basically all my prejudices, I had about americans where fully fulfilled…

Anyways, I really don’t think that it’s ignorant to say, that americans can’t bake any good bread…It’s always white and fluffy and tastes like nothing…

European bread is everything, american bread isn’t…There are so many different kinds and especially the Bavarian bread is something I really missed when I was in the States. We actually have a bread-mascott that appears on that one German-TV-channel for kids…

I think that really made my point. Bread is a big part of german culture and it IS some amazing stuff!!!

AND NOW, you can even walk in bread!!! Some french artist somehow found away to create durable shoes, that are made out of real bread…This is AMAZING and I really wish I had these extra 70 Euros to buy me one of these…

Deep inside, I’ve always wanted to walk down the streets with little baguettes on my feet!!! hahaha

“Jetzt wächst zusammen, was zusammen gehört.”

So let’s make this one a history lesson. The 9th november is a day of fate in german history. In 1918, this day was the day, the Weimar republic was proclaimed. 1923 on this day, Hitler failed at his first try to get the political power during the “Beer Hall Putsch”. 2 years later, Hitler formed the SS. In 1938 on this day 1938: In the Reichskristallnacht or “the night of broken glass”, synagogues and jewish property were burned and destroyed on a large scale. Finally in 1989, exactly 20 years ago. The Berlin Wall was torn down, which was equivalent with the end of communism in eastern Europe. Too bad I don’t remember this day, when my dad pushed me through the Brandenburg Gate in my buggy. But still I think I can make a quick résumé about what changed in the last 20 years in this country. Well I guess everybody that lived in the GDR 20 years ago, is free now, we have a united country, at least if we take a look at the landscape. But still there are many ignorant western Germans, and probably eastern as well, that won’t accept each other as equal, make fun of each other whenever they get the chance. Still politicians call the states from the former GDR as “new states”, they make a difference between “new” and “old” states. Still people in eastern Germany get paid LESS for exactly the same job. Still this WALL exists in so many german heads. I think this is just stupid and sad. We still have to give the proof, that Germany earned this unity. But this will probably take another 20 years. Maybe it would help to make today to a national holiday, but this wouldn’t make any sense with all the days in the backhead that I mentioned earlier. I really don’t want to celebrate this day together with Nazis in the streets, that would do the same thing on Hitlers birthday on the 20th of April. So not a national holiday. But still nobody is celebrating and I don’t know why…Germany is a weird country.

Crazy Climbing!!!

So there’s this speed climber Ueli Steck from Switzerland…He set a new record for speed climbing the Eiger North Face…He made it in 2:40 hrs…Respect from all my heart…I’ve been there last year with our skiing team when I was in the Mountain Infantry in the German Army…and this thing blew us away…Seriously I’ve got no clue how I could ever make it up there…So many people died trying to climb this wall and this guy simply runs it up…Congrats!!!

Sers Julia!

So today I got the sad message, that Julia, which was one of my favorite bands a couple of years ago, announced their last concert for this december in Vienna…I don’t know any details about the split, but however it sounds pretty definete…

Well and this April I even had the opportunity to see them live, so I was at one of there last concerts I guess…Actually I bought tickets for the german band “Itchy Poopzkid” and it turned out, Julia was the supporting band. Amazing show, and I think the crowd loved the supporting band even more than the main one. Though I personally count the RUN DMC cover from Itchy Poopzkid and of course the amazing guitar box crowdsurfing event to the highlight of this evening…

Whatever back to that austrian band Julia…I really loved them a couple of years ago and they were one of my first bands I ever listened to…My music taste kind of changed over the years, so I’m not into them anymore, but still they quit and obviously not gonna be playing live anywhere, so I’m gonna miss them…I think I should close this post with the last song they ever played in Germany…

What’s the Story? Morning Glory!!!

 

As I’m not a big OASIS fan, which explains, that a couple of days back, the title of this post would’ve filled me with disgust. Seriously, what have this guys done? They created this one song (Wonderwall) and everybody freaked out, and since then they were sort of legends with everybody throwing money at them.

But to the topic: I found this amazing video from  photographer Mark Watson. And I think he did an amazing job capturing the Morning Glory Cloud phenomenon and of course this crazy Red Bull hang-glider guy, who was the first guy to have the opportunity to perform stunts on these Sky-Tsunamis or whatever you want to call it. My plans were always to go to Australia, and seeing these beautiful clouds are just another encouragement to do this some day!!!

However I just wanted to share what I’ve learned today! Thank you Wikipedia!!!