Bringing You The "Ha Ha"s

Sky's The Limit

I am so pumped for life right about now, I am THIS close to going hog-ass wild and living life to the extreme. There is so incredibly much out there that I want to do that I am having a hard time sitting still right now,.

What has come over me all of a sudden you think... Top Gear. Top gear has these special shows now and again and they travel around a part of the world. This time (season 14 episode 6) they went around south america and I am sitting at home watching... FUCK THAT. I CAN DO THAT TOO! What is stopping me? NOTHING. There is no reason why *I* cannot do that as well.

And on a different point, I'll show you acting used to be once upon a day, not these kiddies who run around the screen these days and think they are the bee's knees.

This is what I want to bring to the masses some day in the future, with a bit of luck and patience. I give you Peter O'Toole, witness what PROPER acting is, this guy hasn't been nominated for EIGHT (count em') oscars for nothing. Although I must say, I don't really give a dogs bollocks about award ceremonies and fluff like that, nothing to wish for.

Some Tunes I've Been Listening To Lately

Yes, I love classical music! And it's gonna be the theme for the night. I've been living and breathing these kinds of tunes for the past few years, I can't see it changing anytime soon.

Song I found from the amazing film 2046,

Cecilia Bartoli sings some Vivaldi, found it from the Sopranos in a very moving scene,

2046 again, need I say more?

The genius composer, Chopin, "Chopin - Nocturne in E flat major"

Air - Le Voyage de Penelope

Some PROPER orchestral music from the Eminence Orchestra playing some amazing tunes from Blizzard's World of Warcraft game. I've saluted Blizzard and their amazing soundtracks again and again, this one is no different, captivating,

Life

In The Mood For Love

My kind of film. Very suave and easy, followed up by a brilliant soundtrack (still a common theme in all my favorite films, yes the score MIGHT be the most important element in a film) It's name is "In The Mood For Love" how can it not be good? Like the book "The History of Love" (my favorite, i'll get to it later) just the name is brilliant.

All I Want For Xmas

A straight edge razor,

Cigars,

and a typewriter,

And to live in London and study acting, not too much to ask for right? I really should start writing down some very early scripts of some ideas I have. Some are very much out-there but a few I think I could start writing, and see where I end, right now.

Count Your Blessings

I just done reading a bit about Anton Chekhov on wikipedia and this passage moved me;

"In 1892, Chekhov bought the small country estate of Melikhovo, about forty miles south of Moscow, where he lived until 1899 with his family. "It's nice to be a lord," he joked to Shcheglov;^[17] but he took his responsibilities as a landlord seriously and soon made himself useful to the local peasants. As well as organising relief for victims of the famine and choleraoutbreaks of 1892, he went on to build three schools, a fire station, and a clinic, and to donate his medical services to peasants for miles around, despite frequent recurrences of his tuberculosis.^{[10][29][57]"}

That is what money is for isn't it? I absolutely hate all these mother fuckers around the world that go around and spend money on several mansions and tons of cars... FOR WHAT? These fuckers make me sick, the sooner they die out, the better. The world need more of Chekhov's. He moved to a place, and built it up like a hero, this is the type of human that makes up for 99.9% of everyone else on this planet.

As I am going down to the kitchen are and seeing the absolute snow storm outside (I've never seen anything quite like this, its almost scary) I keep telling myself that I fell on my feet when I was born into this world. I am incredible lucky and fortunate and I feel like I have done nothing do deserve it, and I am enjoying every day of it to the max because I have this paranoia in my brain that says this all will go away by a month so enjoy the hell out of it kid. I was just looking out the window and thinking of everyone who aren't as fortunate...

Counting the blessings everyday.

Full Schedule Come 2010

Looks like 2010 might be a fruitful year perhaps, as I've lined up quite a bit of work that I hope that I can partake in.

Fist off I've dug around and found a pretty cool acting course that spans from 11th January to 28th of May in a school called "ABF". It's three times a week, tree hours per class and it looks like it could do me good. It's better then just to go to one acting course á two hours a week isn't it? Definitely!

The issue I'm having though as you'd might imagine is to pay for all this. I'm almost ready to ship an application to RADA about summer school which will pretty much empty my savings, so I'm going to have a nice chat with the fellas at the theater course on the payment if I get accepted which I really hope I do.

I also have Stanislavski acting classes at Wednesday nights as usual, while at the same time going to school. Fuck me.

It would be cracking to get all this going though. Just imagine, acting classes from January to May, Stanislavski during 12 Wednesdays, followed up by summer school in RADA, got to keep it busy you know...

I might have to get an odd job at the weekends to pay off everyone I'm borrowing cash from :) I'm an investment though.

Fruitful year perhaps, wonder if it'll be too much though. What I don't get accepted to neither RADA nor the ABF thing? That would be a huge blow for me. I suppose the question of paying for the flight to London and staying there for a 5-6 weeks is still up in the air. ALEXANDER FELTHAM IV, ARE YOU READING THIS? lol

Still though, must not complain. It'll be interesting to read back at these clueless blog posts in ten years to see how I ended up. Besides acting can't really imagine doing anything else "ordinary".

Alas...

My Favorite Films #2 - OldBoy

If I had to choose one, this would be THE favorite of mine. OldBoy, Chan-Wook Park's masterpiece, in my opinion, that changed the way I saw films ever after.

This film has everything I want out of a film. The premiss of the plot is intriguing, the soundtrack is so good that after this I deleted every R&B/RAP crap song I've ever had (grew out of em' anyway) and started consuming soundtracks and scores from left right and center like they were going out of fashion. The acting is as usual brilliant, I've been wondering for the longest time what kind of acting asian people get over there, is it the same as in europe/america? Ji-Tae Yu's performance inspires me to do better. After I saw him in OldBoy and before him, G-Man in Half Life 2, playing a "villain" seems much more interesting then playing the hero.

I don't know what else to say, as per usual I am horrible at writing about films. It's just about something that happens inside my brain you know? Hard to put it in text.

I live for OldBoy and I am dying to see if anything can ever top this film for me. *Clap Clap* Chan-Wook Park.

"Filmhuset"

Translated into "The Film house" in english, anyway, I found this amazing place around two months ago and I've found my new hang-out place. I adore this place.

They show old classic films that you would never come across, films from the 40's all the way to the 2000's, not just american movies, nay, a lot of european as well, so there is a broad style of films shown.

The lovely thing is that it's usually more or less empty so you'd get like 10 maybe 15 people going to this place that has seats for probably at least 100-150 people I'd imagine. So it's almost like my own little secret that, almost, no one knows about. I go there, kick my feet up, enjoy two hours of something great (not always mind you :)) and leave with a full stomach. When there is fuck all to do in this town what else do you do?

The other day me and a friend went and saw a film though, Dead Man with Johnny Depp, we thought why not go to a café before we round things off tonight. As we are driving around aimlessly for a good 20 minutes not finding a single café to go sit at, we stumbled upon what might be the greatest café/restaurant in town tucked away neatly around the back roads of Stockholm. We stepped into what might be a dream.

This place is called "Dell Attore" and translates to "For the Actors" (unless I am mistaken) and was decked out from wall to wall with actors memorabilia. Might have been a sign from the heavens. Imagine stumbling in here as a wanna-be actor in the middle of nowhere searching for ANYWHERE to sit down and chill after a film? Made my day. Had a great pizza, was running my eyes up and down the walls seeing faces I've often (or Of't as Shakespeare would've put it literally perhaps) seen before. Had a great chat about films and monologues with my buddy, and called it a day.

Maybe Stockholm isn't so boring for me after all... I mean it is but... you understand.

Time To Moan

Which is something I do quite often nowadays.

Here is the moan: I feel like a jellyfish in a desert here (Stockholm) right now. I feel like there is NOTHING I can do around these times. There are no acting/theater courses to go to, no summer schools around here (unlike RADA, woot woot) no fuck all! Next theater course starts at the beginning of FEBRUARY for fuck sakes what am I going to do until then? And also just a theater course? Jesus christ, 2h a week? A JOKE!

I can't apply to the theater colleges here because for some unlogical reason they require that you have high school diploma... WHY? RADA/LAMDA (or a whole sea of other amazing theater schools around the world) doesn't require it but these swedes think they are sitting on a high horse or some shit.

Why would I go through 3 YEARS of learning geography or history or some shit like that to get into ACTING school? Where is the sense in that? I wouldn't want to step a foot inside their boring establishment anyway. Just take me out of here!

So I am sitting here and there is fuck all I can do at the moment, feels like I am wasting time just sitting on my ass and there is nothing I can do about it really.

All I do is sit down and read my Stanislavski books, watch John Barton's "Word of Mouth" shakespeare TV show from 1984 which is amazing, go watch films in a lovely new cinema I've discovered (more on that a bit later), reading plays (Death of a Salesman was great, I'd love to play Biff not gonna lie), read some other great actor's biographies (like Brando obviously and also Michael Cane) and just think about acting and how to act 24/7.

I feel like I've got a good grip on the theory side of things but I WANT TO PUT THINGS INTO PRACTICE, but there is no where to turn to or go, and I feel sooo behind in the practice department.

1 acting course coming up... thats it. No other good courses to go to, no summer schools, no work shops, no fuck all. If there is, I have grossly overlooked something. And I have to say, just because there may be acting courses out there doesn't mean that I have many options to choose from to fill my times... nay, many of em are very lackluster and I wouldn't waste the time and moneys on em'.

The Dramatic Institute and "Teaterhögskolan" doesn't even offer any fucking courses or summer schools, I am speechless.

I can only hope for my life that RADA accepts my summer school application for 2010. My life will be ruined otherwise :).

RADA Summer School

I found my thing! I've been so busy thinking about doing audition for the full-time program that I didn't think about the summer schools!

I found out that RADA has a summer school that is a month long and is followed up by a week long course about Shakespeare, now when I found that out you can imagine that I became very excited.

The process of getting accepted to summer school seems very fair also, you just send in an application and unless you are terrible you get accepted. It's kind of like first-come-first-serve basis, so I am hoping to gather up some cash and send in my application very soon.

It would be a dream to study in RADA from middle of July to the middle of August sometime. Just imagine hopping on a bike and cycling all across London to RADA at 10 am, act like a madman to 5pm every weekday. LOVELY. I am getting more and more excited just thinking about it!

RADA summer school, I'll get in there come hell or high water.

My Favorite Films #1 - The Land Before Time

Starting a new thang here. Posting my favorite films, in no particular order i'll start with the movie that I grew up with. My love with films and creativity must have started subconsciously after watching this gem of a film. A lot of years later here I am... writing a blog post about it, go figure.

THE LAND BEFORE TIME

Why is it one of my all time films? Well if you ask that question you clearly haven't seen it, and if you haven't you aint welcome here anymore until you have, and when you have, you won't be asking that question again. I think I cried through half the film.

FUCK YOU SHARPTOOTH!

Amazing soundtrack as well, which is a recurring theme with all my favorite films. What can I say? I got great taste. No '2012' for me thank you.