Sigur Ros

One of my favorite bands is Sigur Ros. I've first heard their music at a photo exhibition a couple of years ago and liked it straight away.
Sigur Rós consists of Jón þor (jónsi) Birgisson (vocals, guitars), Kjartan (kjarri) Sveinsson (keyboards), Orri Páll Dýrason (drums) and Georg (goggi) Holm (bass). The band were formed by Jónsi, Georg and original drummer Agúst in 1994. They were later joined by Kjartan and when Agúst left the band after the recording of Agætis byrjun in order to pursue a career in graphic design, he was replaced by Orri. Sigur Rós hail from iceland, and rightly claim to bring you the beautiful landscape of their homeland with their music.



Sigur Ros have released four albums so far, plus one remix album:
- Von (hope); frequently unrecognisable from the bulk of their subsequent work, von is an experimental and ambient work, which many believe to be a concept album (something the band deny, however)
- Agætis byrjun (a good beginning); the album was originally released only in iceland, but was discovered by brighton's fatcat records, who snapped the band up and released the album in the uk in august 2000.
- ( ); the lyricless and titleless album was a darker, rawer and less accessible follow up to ágætis byrjun and came out to favourable reviews around the world.
- takk…(thanks); finally released in september 2005, 'takk...' quickly became sigur rós' largest selling album to date and charted highly across the globe.

Sigur Ros also just released their first movie "Heima" (at home), which starts selling in December 2007. Here's a preview:

Official site is here.

Luc Besson

Today I want to write a few words about one of my favorite, it not the favorite, director Luc Besson.
Born in 1959, Luc Besson spent the first years of his life following his parents, scuba diving instructors, around the world. He already showed amazing creativity as a youth, writing early drafts of Grand bleu, Le (1988) and The Fifth Element (1997), as an adolescent bored in school. He planned on becoming a marine biologist specializing in dolphins until a diving accident at age 17 which rendered him unable to dive any longer. He moved back to Paris, where he was born, and only at age 18 did he first have an urban life or television. He realized that film was a medium which he could combine all his interests in various arts together, so he began taking odd jobs on various films. He moved to America for three years, then returned to France and formed Les Films de Loups - his own production company, which later changed its name to Les Films de Dauphins. He is now able to dive again.

I'll write just a few of his titles that I love:
Leon the Professional - ranks in first top 5 of my favorite movies
Nikita - again, has to be in top 10 of my favorite movies
The Big Blue, The 5th element, Taxi, Subway, Angel A, The Transporter, Danny the Dog, Colour me Kubric, Hitman,... and others. It's really amazing how much creativity and talent some people have.
(P.S. Amazon created a nice Luc Besson collection, take a look).

Here's a song by Slovenian singer (Anja Garbarek), based on Angel A movie, that's also featured in the movie. Have a listen, it's great..

Lost in translation

One of my favorite movies is Lost in Translation. I've first seen it back in 2003, bought the DVD as soon as it got out and now seen it at least 50 times. I love movies that can make you think about life, yourself, values, your future and your past without all those special effects. It's almost fruitless to summarize the movie, each viewer has his or hers own thoughts and feelings about it.
Basic story follows two people Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). Bob is a "semi-retired" actor, visiting Japan to do a whiskey commercial. Charlotte came to Japan with her husband, photographer. In a way, they're both lost, both have a fog over their life, one about his past, the other about her future. This makes for a strange connection between them and develops into friendship.
Overall the movie is amazing. Written and directer by Sofia Coppola, it is amazingly done, from great scenery, sounds, to great acting from both main actors. Some could call it a bit slow, but it's exactly that which I like. In real life friendship takes time to develop and that is excellently port raid in this movie. It's not an action movie people!
For relaxing times.. make it Lost in Translation time.
I have to give this one 10/10.