The Lego Movie

Earlier this month I went with my daughter to the cinema to see Warner Brothers’ American/Australian/Danish “The Lego Movie”. We had both been very excited about seeing it as Lego is one of the most amazing and international acclaimed Danish inventions and furthermore the movie got really good reviews.

I must admit, that when first I learned that the name of the main character was Emmet, I was disappointed. Why would anyone making a movie about Danish toys give the main character a name that is very uncommon in Danish? Obviously, the directors/screen writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller would, but I just thought it would have been nice with an internationally common name like John or Tom or Michael, which are common in Denmark too, instead of the very English Emmet. I must admit that seeing the movie, I was equally disappointed. Sure, Emmet’s orange and white security vest looks a bit like two Danish red and white flags, but the rest of the movie is very, very American.

The Lego Movie opens with a scene showing the wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) attempting to protect a super weapon called the "Kragle" from the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell). He fails to do so, but prophesies that a person called "the Special" will find the Piece of Resistance capable of stopping the Kragle.

8½ years later, we meet the Lego construction worker Emmett (Chris Pratt) who is so ordinary that people don’t notice him. He is content in his routine life, though, where he sticks to the manual, listening to the same song as everyone else, watching the same TV-show as everyone else and doing exactly what he is supposed to do.

By accident Emmet finds the Piece of Resistance and meets the Master Builder Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), the two eventually teaming up with Vitruvius, Batman (Will Arnett), Metalbeard (Nick Offerman), UniKitty (Allison Brie), and the 1980es something space guy Benny (Charlie Day) to battle against Lord Business and his henchman Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson).

It is impressive how everything in this movie is made to look like it is made of Lego (which of course it isn’t as it is a CGI movie). Especially explosions and water look awesome when made of make-believe Lego. And it’s funny that Shaquille O'Neal is the voice of Shaq and that Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels are Lando Calrissian and C-3PO. It’s entertaining that Batman is in the movie along with Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Milhouse, Dumbledore, Gandalf, Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare and a lot of other superheroes, made-up characters and real life heroes. And the plot twists and turns several times, but it’s never really funny or exciting.

The play of words are too few and too lame to be funny, the different Lego universes aren’t used or seen much and the contradicting theme of “everyone’s a hero” and “together we are strong” has been used too many times before to be interesting. Maybe I could live with that, but moving the story into the real world with real actors ruined it for me. Suddenly it was no longer an action packed animated fantasy movie, but a very sappy and very American story about a father/son relationship. Not a clever move, the only thing good about it being Finn, the name of the son (Jadon Sand), as Finn at least is a Danish name!

I have to say that of the audience, the very young children seemed to enjoy at least two things about the movie: the coolness of Batman and the anger of UniKitty. As for my daughter, she found the movie extremely boring and a bit of a disappointment and I’m afraid I agree with her. Even the soundtrack rap song “Everything Is Awesome” (performed by Tegan and Sara featuring The lonely Island), which we thought we would be singing for a long, long time after leaving the theatre, we both forgot within an hour.

Three out of five stars: ***

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

In December 2012, I went to see the first of Peter Jackson’s hobbit films with an old school friend and we decided to see the next one in December 2013. Well, time flies and we almost missed it, but eventually we got around to seeing it in the local cinema here in Odense, Denmark, in February 2014.

The film entitled “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” lasted 161 minutes, which was actually a bit less than the first one, but still very long. Maybe that had scared the audience away? At least we were only 8 people in the audience: 5 women, 2 girls and a little boy around 5 years old despite the film being rated PG-13. I guess at the cinema they hadn’t expected the audience to consist of mostly females – at least all the cinematic trailers were for typical “guy films” like “RoboCop” and “Lone Survivor”! Oh well…

In “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” we get to see short glimpses of Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) and the giant spiders, but to be honest, the film has very little to do with Tolkien’s book. In Jackson’s version, poor old Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is attacked by the orc Azog (Manu Bennett) and overpowered by a Necromancer (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose identity we had all guessed in the first Hobbit film. Furthermore, there’s a female elf, Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), who has been created especially for this film so that she can fall in love with the dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner). A lot of the film takes place in the Laketown, by the way, and is about Bard (Luke Evans) and his family as well as his “enemies”: the Master of Laketown (Stephen Fry) and his counselor Alfrid (Ryan Gage).

Most notable is the eloquent dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) and it’s nice seeing Legolas (Orlando Bloom) again, but Bilbo (Martin Freeman), who ought to be the main character, has almost been forgotten by Peter Jackson. All in all very little happens in this very long film and in fact it seems to be just a “filler”, getting Bilbo and the dwarves from point A to point B for the grand finale in the third and final Hobbit film.

After much thought I’ve decided that I can only give “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” three out of five stars: ***

Books I read in 2013

Each January I make a list of the books I read the previous year and here is my list for 2013. In 2013 I read novels, non-fiction and manga in Danish, English, French and as something new: in Japanese! I still had to read most mangas in English translations, though, and I read a Dutch book in a Danish translation as well, because I couldn't get hold of the book in Dutch. Nothing in German this year. :-(

All in all I read more than 40 books in 2013 and several of them I wrote as well. "Look Wot I Dun" is the biography I wrote about Slade-drummer Don Powell and although our editor gave Don secondary author's credits for commercial reasons, Don didn't write anything in the book apart from the foreword, so the book is entirely my work. The biography is available both in a hardcover and an e-book version.

I had 2 other e-books published in 2013, namely the English translation of my Danish Peter Pan Ph.D. thesis "The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up Up - But Did" and the English translation of my very first Danish novel "Never Mind It". In my opinion this novel is one of the best novels I have ever written! Needless to say that I've translated both books myself.

The best books I read in 2013 (apart from my own of course, ha-ha!) were E. M. Forster's "Maurice" and Joe Hill's "Horns". Both have been made into films, but so far I've only seen "Maurice". Now I can't wait to see "Horns" with Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) in the leading role as Ig Perrish as Joe Hill's book really impressed me. After all, Hill IS the son of Stephen King!

Anyway, here's the list:


Baldwin; James: "Giovanni's Room"

Berthelsen, Anders: "Skibhusbogen"

Borberg, Jytte: "Loeslad kaptajnen"

Boyne, John: "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas"

Chabon, Michael: "Telegraph Avenue"

Cunningham, Michael: "By Nightfall"

Eken, Cecilie: "Sikkas Fortaelling"

Falkenberg, Lise Lyng and Don Powell: "Look Wot I Dun"

Falkenberg, Lise Lyng: "Never Mind It"

Falkenberg, Lise Lyng: "The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up - But Did"

Forster, E. M.: "Maurice"

Guillou, Jan: "Dandy"

Harbach, Chad: "The Art of Fielding"

Harvey, Andrew: "Burning Houses"

Hatori, Bisco: "Ouran High School Host Club" vol. 18

Hill, Joe: "Horns"

Hollinghurst, Alan; "The Swimming-Pool Library"

Irving, John: "In One Person"

Johnson-Woods, Toni (ed.): "Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspective"

Kaaberboel, Lene: "Skyggeporten"

Kardy, Glenn & Chihiro Hattori: "Kana de Manga"

Kardy, Glenn & Chihiro Hattori: Kanji de Manga", vol. 1

Keyes, Marian: "Last Chance Saloon"

Lagermand, Tomas: "Forhud"

Leavitt: "Family Dancing"

Lyng; Ajatsa: "Jin Boys" vol. 2

Lyng, Ajatsa: "Jin Boys" vol. 3

Lyng Ajatsa: "Jin Boys" vol. 4

Murakami, Maki: "Gravitation" vol. 12

Nakamura, Shungiku: “Junjo Romantica” vol. 14

Nakamura, Shungiku: "Junjo Romantica" vol. 15

Oates, Joyce Carol: "Sexy"

Proulx, Annie: "Close Range. Wyoming Stories"

Rimbaud, Arthur: "Une Saison en Enfer"

Ringkoebing Amt: "Hardsyssels Aarbog, 1995"

Roché, Henri-Pierre: "Jules et Jim"

Rozier, Gilles: "Un amour sans résistance"

Sax, Aline: "Mellem to verdener" ("Wij, twee jongens")

Shakespeare, William: "Hamlet"

Teller, Janne: "Intet"

Wood, Bari & Jack Geasland: "Twins"


I've already started my 2014-list and hopefully it'll be as interesting as the one above. I just love books! How about you?

Book signing in Stereo Studio, Silkeborg, Denmark

Saturday the 9th of October Don and I did a book signing in Don's Danish "hometown" Silkeborg. It was the record store Stereo Studio that had invited us and when we arrived a quarter to one on that Saturday noon, the shop was already crowded with people who wanted to buy the book and have it signed by Don and me.

Some of the people had ordered their books in advance and that was a good thing, because within 20 minutes every single book in the shop was gone. As there weren't enough books, some people bought Slade CDs instead and had Don sign them. Others had brought their own old LPs and had them signed.

At the signing we met our old friend Jonas, the drummer of Danish band The Guv'nors with whom Don has worked in 2007. It was great seeing him again. We also met 4 guys from my hometown Odense who had travelled all the way to Silkeborg to have their books sign - because they hadn't been aware of the book signing in Odense on October 22! When Don had to leave for a birthday party straight after the book signing, these 4 guys invited me on a drink in a nearby pub, so that I wouldn't have to stand alone at the station for an hour, waiting for my train to arrive. Thanks guys! I hope to see them again in February 8th, 2014, where Slade will be playing in Naestved in Denmark - their first Danish gig in ages!

Behind the Candelabra

 

Based on Scott Thorson's autobiographical novel, Steven Soderbergh's film "Behind the Candelabra" tells the story of the 6-year relationship between Thorson and his much older lover, the flamboyant piano player Liberace. Originally an HBO TV film, "Behind the Candelabra" was received so well that HBO sold the theatrical rights for other countries and that was how I got to see it here in Denmark in October 2013.

In real life Thorson was 16 years old when he met the 57 years old Liberace in 1976, but the film makes him out to be a little older. Probably in order not to gross out the audience as you could argue that Liberace was a paedophile who seduced boys who hadn't reached the age of consent, yet. The film is not about paedophilia, though, but about a showbiz relationship.

The young animal trainer Scott Thorson and his older boyfriend Bob Black goes to Las Vegas to see a Liberace show and meet the artist afterwards. Young Scott, who has been raised by foster parents, immediately falls for the much older man and although he is being warned, Scott refuses to see the dark sides of Liberace. Scott and Lee, as Liberace is called, are living the fast life, but to Scott it means having to say goodbye to his freedom, career and identity and hello to drugs, plastic surgery and financial dependency.

To be honest, Liberace has always seemed a bit ridiculous to me, but seeing the film, I fully understood why Scott fell in love with him. The film is very clever that way, very manipulating and intelligent. When Scott gets charmed, we get charmed. When Scott is being manipulated, we are being manipulated. And when Scott is hurt, we hurt. It's brilliantly directed and very witty too.

And then of course the cast is amazing. Michael Douglas IS Liberace. Full stop. Creepy, charming, vulnerable and manipulative. And Matt Damon is funny and youthful and naive as Scott Thorson. Both of them deliver strong, stunning and spirited performances and are believable as a gay couple.

Worth noticing are also Scott Bakula as Scott's ex-boyfriend Bob Black, Rob Lowe as the plastic surgeon (and drug dealer) Dr. Jack Startz, Debbie Reynolds as Liberace's mother Frances Liberace and Dan Aykroyd as his manager Seymour Heller. I must admit thought, that Dan Aykroyd was so well disguised and Debbie Reynolds had aged so much that I didn't recognise any of them, so I had to read the credits before I realised who they were!

To sum up: "Behind the Candalabra" is one of the best films I have seen this year. It's a must see, even if you have never heard about Liberace before! Four out of five stars: ****

"Look Wot I Dun" promotion in Odense, Denmark

After a slow start in the Moby Disc Records shop in Odense yesterday afternoon where only a handful of people came to buy the book and have it signed, things improved in the evening where Odense Music Library hosted a talk/Q&A with Don and me. So many people turned up that the Music Library had to put up more chairs!

The event at the Music Library lasted for 1½ hours with me introducing myself and the book in Danish before Don joined in and we talked about his life for about 40 minutes. After a short intermission where people were able to buy beer and soft drinks, the audience asked Don questions and had their books and other stuff signed by Don and me. By the end of the day, most of the books from Moby Disc Records had been snapped up after all.

Don and I had a lovely day and it was fun saying hi to so many of you. A big thank you to all of you who turned up!

Harry Potter Festival 2013

The 11th Harry Potter Festival took place here in Odense, Denmark on October 17-19, 2013. Over the years the festival has grown larger, but not necessarily better. When it first started in 2002, it was just a magic day at the local library attended by 40 kids. Then it grew to become a regular festival that lasted for a week and had up to 4,000 visitors. Three hundred of the kids went to Hogwarts each year in our old town hall where they were sorted into the different houses and tried to win the House Cup. They also had lessons in Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions, History of Magic, Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures taught by McGonagall, Snape, Hagrid and the rest of the staff. They got their wands at Ollivander's and fought off dementors and inferi and all in all it was an amazing experience for the kids. The festival also included The Forbidden Forrest, The Hogwarts Express, Hagrids Hut, The Chamber of Secrets and a two day Diagon Alley/Hogsmeade market in the town hall square. For many a Harry Potter fan, it was indeed the highlight of the year!

Then in 2010 J. K. Rowling visited the festival and Hogwarts was closed, as she needed the building to have lunch with the local notabilities. Hogwarts never opened again and as the number of visitors had increased to 10,000 the market days in the town hall square were abandoned and replaced by other activities in different places in town. This year even more visitors attended the 15 different "activities", but to be honest, the magic was gone.

The thing is that Hogwarts was always the core of the festival and with Hogwarts gone the heart of the festival is gone. Maybe that's the reason why the festival has been cut down to only 3 days and the Harry Potter activities scattered all over town. The good thing about the "old" festival was that all of the activities were situated next to each other, so when you entered the festival, it felt as if you had stepped into a magic world. Now there is no core to the festival, so you are still just in the real world with only occasional pockets of magic popping up here and there.

Oh well… What about the activities, then? Three of them I didn't attend. One was the Hogwarts Express that was sold out in advance (and limited to kids 8-12), the other a Harry Potter role-play for kids aged 8-15 and finally the Harry Potter Concert with Odense Symphony Orchestra. These three events are the same year after year and they are pretty expensive too and at least the Hogwarts Express is - according to my daughter - one of the dullest rides ever!

What I did attend, though, was the new Chamber of Secrets in the museum Moentergaarden. Here you went through a guided tour of the Middle Age Exhibition of the museum and ended up in a library with potions and clues. Then you had to follow the spiders to a cellar where you had to crush some basilisk eggs and get a diploma. The very young kids found it funny, but the rest of the visitors did not. And this is one of the problems with this "new" festival. It aims at an audience aged 3-8, much younger than the average Harry Potter fan and much younger than the age limits at the Hogwarts Express and the Harry Potter role-play too.

Anyway, I went on to the next activity: School start at Hogwarts. Now that Hogwarts is no more, Odense City and Odense Library (the ones in charge of the festival) are using the Library of Local History as a "replacement Hogwarts" so that kids are able to experience the sorting ceremony and meet Dumbledore and Snape anyway. To get there, you have to go through The Forbidden Forrest and that was quite fun, as I was attacked by a dementor, but Hagrid came to my rescue.

In The Forbidden Forrest you had to find some letters and then when you went upstairs to the Library of Local History you had to find more. On your way you'd meet moving portraits and Argus Filch with Mrs. Norris.

The Library of Local History had been turned into a kind of Great Hall where you'd be sorted into either Gryffindor or Slytherin. For some reason Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw didn't exist anymore! As I'm Ravenclaw through and through, Dumbledore and Quirrell had to put me in Slytherin along with all the other intelligent people! Oh dear! Anyway, in order to get more letters I had to meet four different challenges like play music to Fluffy and make potions for Snape. This year the "usual" Snape had been replaced by a young lad, which was rather sad. The guy was probably okay, but I always used to have a chat with the old Snape, so I really missed him! In the end I got all my letters (which spelled "Alohomora") and I was rewarded a diploma and a wand.

From there I went to the nearby Eventyrhaven (Fairy Tale Garden) park where you'd find Quality Quidditch Supplies and be able to play Quidditch and fly a broom. Not much was happening when I was there, so I went on to find the other HP activities.

I had to walk down to Jernbanegade (Railway Street) and Graabroedre Plads (Grey Friars Square) to find what was called "The Magic Market Square". Here some of the shops and offices from Diagon Alley were situated such as Ollivander’s, Eeylops Owl Emporium, Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, Gringotts Wizarding Bank and The Daily Prophet. You could also find St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies there as well as Professor Sprout teaching Herbology, a potion workshop and unicorns!

The street and square also included 3 other "activities": a toddler area with an enchanted forest, Cáfe Hogwarts where you had to stand in line for 40 minutes to buy a sandwich and then Hagrid telling stories in the local Abbey Church. In my opinion the church should leave Harry Potter alone, so I refused to take part in this activity.

In the Funen Art Museum a little further down the road you'd find what was probably the best of the festival activities. In order to finish your education as a witch or wizard you had to answer questions and riddles in a 4 pages booklet. While doing so, you went though Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Salon and Dumbledore's office and met Professor Trelawny telling fortunes. There were both an indoor and an outdoor tea salon where you could buy tea, coffee, soft drinks, cakes and sweets using Galleons. In Gringotts you get 500 Galleons for DKK 30/£3 and that is DKK 5/50p more than last year, as the exchange rate is always DKK 5/50p more than the previous year!

In the Museum I also met Professor McGonagall and I was quite surprised to see that she was actually an acquaintance of mine! So now I can say that I've been hugged by Professor McGonagall and she also signed my diploma, so now I'm a fully qualified witch!

Anyway, you had to walk up all the stairs to the upper floor to find Professor Trelawny in a very dark room where she was reading palms. From there you could go on to Dumbledore's office and that was really great. There were ghosts in the room and it was so well done. Bravo!

Only two "activities" were left now and one was Diagon Alley. This is situated in a street called Vintapperstraede, which means "Tapster Alley". But this Tapster Alley has NOTHING to do with Diagon Alley, mainly because most of the Diagon Alley shops are situated in the Magic Market Square. Only a branch of Gringotts was there. You could also find the Mirror of Erised, where you could have your face painted, or visit the "Care of Magical Creatures" people and say hello to real snakes, tarantulas and giant snails. That was actually quite interesting.

The other activities in Diagon Alley consisted of Viola's Workshop where you could make toy owls or carve pumpkins and then a Merlin's Workshop where you could make your own wand. I found George Weasley at the back of Merlin's Workshop and to my horror I realised that they had actually closed Weasley's Wizard Wheezes this year, so George was out of a shop! We never had a Fred at the festival, so seeing George all alone in the back of a workshop that had nothing to do with Harry Potter was heartbreaking. At least he seemed quite content with doing magic tricks and I noticed that he'd got his ear back!

The very last stop on my Harry Potter activity list was to visit The Leaky Cauldron that had been relocated to a street called Smedestraede (Blacksmith Alley). The small, rundown house was perfect for The Leaky Cauldron and their butterbeer tasted great, but it was expensive: 50 Galleons per glass. After that I was ready to call it a day.

Attending the "activities" that I did took about 4 hours, where at least 1½ of the hours were spent going to and from the different "activities" and another 40 minutes on standing in line at Café Hogwarts. I really liked The Leaky Cauldron and the activities in the Funen Art Gallery, but the rest of the activities were aimed at a very young audience. Because the activities are spread out though the city, you no longer get the feeling of stepping into a magic world and you are not likely to bump into as many Harry Potter characters as usual. Some are simply not there anymore like The Weird Sisters giving concert or my friend Madam Rosmerta serving in The Three Broomsticks, as there are no Broomsticks or concerts anymore. Other characters are probably still there, but you just don't see them, as they are not at the same activity at the same time as you. I really missed Luna Lovegood, Victor Krum, Mad-Eye Moody, Madam Hooch, Rita Skeeter, Lord Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange and all the inferi as these characters are usually great fun at the festival, but I didn't see any of them this year.

I also missed a lot of activities and places, such as Weird Sisters concerts, the annual lookalike contest, Hagrid's hut, The Three Broomsticks, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Flourish & Blotts, Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop and Snape's dungeons. And I missed SNAPE!!! I hope that the "real" Snape will back next year, so although I think the festival has started catering to pre-school children instead of Harry Potter fans, I'll probably be back next year anyway in the hopes that Snape is back as well!