Tomorrow, I'll be heading towards Roskilde to work as a journalist at the festival for about a week. I'll be a part of a eight man crew, who will be doing interviews and writing reviews during the four day festival. It looks like I'll be doing most of the interviewing, so I'll probably add a few links here while were at the festival, so you can check out video clips of who I've been talking with. There are a few things that aren't completely taken care of yet, but I think we'll get most things in order today and if not then hopefully things will get worked out once we get over there.

In other news I found a place to live today. I'll be renting an apartment in a part of town I haven't live in before, so that's sort of exciting. It's fairly close to the downtown area in a part of town, which I think has gotten a lot more interesting in the last couple of years. So it'll be fun to explore a new neighbourhood. I don't know how long I'll be living there as that sort of depends on whether I get a full-time job or not, but as a temporary solution I think it'll work out just fine.

I consider myself somewhat of a moviebuff (or expert if you must), but there are several holes in knowledge when it comes to movies from when I was a kid and before. So this week I watched Mean Streets and Scarface as they're movies that have somehow slipped through the cracks on me. I guess I can see why Mean Streets made an impact when it came out, but I didn't think it held up very well. The story is non-existent, the production is poor, and I just didn't find it that interesting. Scarface on the other hand was cool from the get-go. Pacino was great and I loved his Cuban accent. However, I did think it was a bit on the long side and in movies like that the rise is always a lot more interesting than the fall. But either way it was still pretty cool and I can sort of see why people made such a big deal about the anniversary edition, which was released recently.

I should probably also mention Denmark's loss to the Czechs last night. In 1998 we lost in the World Cup quarters to Brazil, who then went on to play in the final. That's probably also what's going to happen here with the only difference being that the Czechs will win the final and we played a great game against Brazil and had a chance of winning. So maybe the situation isn't that similar, really.

[Update] I totally forgot to mention I went and saw Air Thursday night (review). It was a pretty brilliant show, but their version of La Femme d'Argent was beyond incredible. I think it's their best track and in the very long live version it was even better than on the record. So that was definitely a great show.

I don't really follow movie news like I did a few years ago and I don't go to the movies as much, either. There are several reason for this, but one is that it is depressing to read about great movies knowing that you probably won't get to see half of them, because they never open here. And another is that most movies that make it over here are mediocre at best, so I only get excited about seeing a handful of movies a year, which might be because I'm even more cynical and jaded than I was five years ago or it might just be that movies sucks these days.

But unfortunately not reading reviews and following news about film festivals and such means that on occasion a pretty good movie will fly under the radar with me. That's what happened with The United States of Leland, which I watched tonight. I think Ryan Gosling is one of the most interesting actors around right now, so I'll definitely try to catch the next couple of movies he makes. In this one he's so sad all the time and he just does it so well. In case you haven't heard about the movie it's about the murder of a retarded boy, who is the younger brother of the girl Gosling's character is in love with. There's a lot of stuff going on and a lot of famous people in small parts (Martin Donovan, Sherilyn Fenn, Lena Olin, and Kevin Spacey), but the backbone of the movie is the relationship between an aspiring author (played by the always cool Don Cheadle) and Leland P. Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling) after Leland is arrested for the murder of the boy.

The movie focuses on a lot of sad issues and although I think it was supposed to have sort of a positive spin towards the end the sad stuff was what I took with me from the movie. Leland has a brutally honest and realistic (some may say pessimistic) view on things, which makes him introspective and I guess depressed as well. He's definitely a likeable, but also a very troubled character, which I think makes his story interesting. The movie is edited in a non-linear style, which isn't done in a fancy Tarantino-like style, but a very matter-of-fact way, which works really well. And you have to love a movie, which opens with Gigantic and has another track by The Pixies on the soundtrack along with tracks from Frank Black, Ron Sexsmith, and a really good song by Bob Pollard called There are Other Worlds. I thought The United States of Leland was a really good movie, so if you're in the mood for a movie about broken hearts, crumbling family relations, and murder, you might want to check it out.

I'm currently reading Brave New World, so it was funny when I was watching Seabiscuit the other day to see the movie start with a segment on Henry Ford and the invention of the T-Model Ford and the assembly line. Actually, the addition of segments about The Depression, the Wall Street crash, and other historical elements added a depth to the story, which I honestly hadn't expected to find. Sure, the movie's too long and really corny towards the end, but it was still a lot better than I'd expected. Maybe it's me but it seems like Jeff Bridges has become a much better actor since The Big Lebowski. I definitely like the movies he's making these days a lot more than the ones he made before. He's very cool in Seabiscuit and so is Chris Cooper, who seems to put in a good performance every time.

The final thing I'll mention is that I'm going to see Air tomorrow night. They were the only band I really wanted to see at the now cancelled Midtfyns Festival, so I'm really excited that local club Train managed to book them right away. Their new album might not be as impressive as the remarkable "Moon Safari", but it's a lot better than their last one. And I'm really curious to see how they'll manage to recreate their beautiful tunes into hopefully equally beautiful live versions. And I think their show will play a lot better in a relatively intimate club setting than it would have on a large outdoor stage in the pouring rain. So chances are this will be huge.

Oh, you can listen to the new album by The Cure at VH1's website. I haven't yet, but I will.

This reeks of corruption, but who cares!

Three things I learned Saturday night:

1) Women who get really intense about football freak me out a little.

2) Men shouldn't wear tight, red Armani jeans. And when they do they shouldn't wear them with a green sweater, because when you do that you look like an overgrown elf.

3) Whenever someone pulls out a camera white guys will inevitably flash either devil signs or gang signs no matter how old they are.

Important. Goodbye. Work. Asshole. Funny. Relaxing. Stupid. Exciting. Terrible. Pointless. Interesting. Never. Wankers. Ugly. Best. Finally.

Have you noticed how this thing has become like the weblog equivalent of a redheaded stepchild? A lot of stuff has happened lately and yet I haven't really taken time out to sit down and reflect (at least not here), so once again a lot of time has gone by between entries.

But last week was fairly hectic as I was at the Spot Festival three days in a row and had to get up every morning to write reviews before attending the next series of shows. But it was a lot of fun and I met an unbelievable amount of people and talked to friends who had traveled from all over to partake in this brilliant festival. Among the musical highlights was hearing Sondre Lerche do an acoustic version of You Know So Well and Teitur play Great Balls of Fire both on the opening night of the festival. The next day I saw a bunch of great shows, but my favourite was Norwegian hardrockers Span (who knew Norwegians could rock hard?), who killed with songs like Not Like the Others and Found and local boys Nephew, who received a hero's welcome from their audience.

Saturday, we saw Tiger Tunes (once again) and Utah, who are definitely worth keeping an eye out for. Later, we went on the bender to end all benders, so it took a few days to recuperate. I actually also went and saw Br. Danielson, Sufjan Stevens, and David Eugene Edwards play a show together last Tuesday, which was cool. I don't know why the Brother felt the need to dress up as a fruit tree, but whatever floats your boat I guess . That Sufjan Stevens sure can sing, though. I thought about picking up the record, cause it sure sounded cool, but didn't get around to it. Edwards was way intense, so the three shows were quite different from each other even though all three plus a drummer played together during the different shows.

I've also been listening to a lot of music here at home. For some reason I've been on a Cake trip, so all four records have been played heavily the last week. Can't wait for the new one, which is out in September. But I've also started getting some free CDs, so I've been listening to the new Sonic Youth album, which is great, and the Broken Social Scene album. I've gotten some more stuff as well, but I haven't had a chance to check them out yet. Mostly, because I've also been listening to the streamed versions of the album by The Killers (which I like), the Velvet Revolver album (which I'm not so sure about), and the new Beastie Boys record, which I need to listen to some more. Also, The Veils, The Delays, and Snow Patrol have been brought to my attention lately, so after quite a musical dry spell I finally feel like there are records out there worth buying.

I was actually planning on seeing The Delays this summer, but the Midtfyns Festival filed for bankruptcy yesterday, so I guess they won't be playing the festival this summer. That also means I won't get to see Air, which is a real bummer. On the plus side it means I have a week at home I can spend getting ready for Roskilde while trying to find an apartment, a job, and watch the European Cup all at once. But other than that I don't really have any summer plans besides another guest stint as DJ at The A-List in July. By the way, if you live around here The A-List is on again this Saturday and the guest DJ will be the drummer from Nephew, who will hopefully give us a sneak preview from the not-yet-released album "DSB USA". So show up at Sway at eight as usual. And speaking of going out it would seem that women are more disturbed than impressed when they find out you know who Steadman is. I wonder why?