7 x 7 Award

Oh, darling Neve. Why would you give an award like this to a self-destructive cinéaste who subconsciously deters the interest of any one like minded by being awfully sarcastic, morbid and childish? A woman who just watches her blog slowly wither away into oblivion and nothingness?

*dramatically covering eyes with arm and falling down to the floor with a loud bounce*

Please, Neve... if these are my last words... remember... The Baz... I believe... in... you... *croak*

Thank you, darling.

The point of this award is that once you are the recipient of it, you are supposed to highlight seven blog posts of your own (following the highlighted directions below), and then pass the award on to seven other bloggers you feel deserve the punishment of forced false modesty.

I will feel like a defiler of graves, since my answer to all these questions will consist of links to really old blog posts. Welcome to the Lolita Mausoleum:


1.Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you.

I believe that I already share too much about myself that you now know about me, but would prefer not to. But I can share something with you. I know that I am cool and all that. Super cool. Tough. Ice cold Queen of Scandinavia. But I'm afraid of spiders, which is totally ridiculous. Snakes - no problem, I grew up with them. I don't even mind the big, hairy tarantulas. No, the spiders I'm afraid of are those icky buggers with teenie tiny bodies and enormously long legs. (A quick Google search informed me that the correct Latin appellation is Daddy Longlegs.)
I blame my father, who traumatized my big sister by chasing her through the house with a spider in his hand. Guess he mistook her crying for hysteric laughter. So, some cognitive behavioral therapy:

2. Link to one of the posts that I think best fits the following categories:

a. Most beautiful piece:

My top 20 favorite actors. Obviously. Lots of sexy dudes there.


b. Most helpful piece:

Pictures Galore: Paul Newman. Seems like I helped my readers regain their sanity with sexy pictures of the late Mr. Newman. Going on my bitchy remark in the beginning of the post, it seems like I  in the previous post had tried to demoralize my readers by shoving post-colonialism in their cute and naïve little faces. Sorry about that.

c. Most popular piece:

According to the statistics, my review of Barbarella (1968) is the post with the most pageviews, closely followed by Ilsa, Swe Wolf of the SS (1975). Dear readers: you are filthy.

"Whaat? I'm just sittin' here lookin' all innocent with a fallic symbol in my hands."

d. Most controversial piece:

Controversial? Petite moi?

Well, perhaps The Strong White Man vs. The Rest might qualify. I was pretty brutal in my sarcasm with that blog post, and those who didn't get that... probably thought that I would enlist with the KKK any moment now. I think it was after that post I put up Groucho excaliming "Warning! Sarcastic bitch blogging" at the top of this site, for those who thought this was a genuine article:

"Interesting thing that natives from other countries can show their breasts and genitals all they want in photographs and in films, but we normal people just get censored. I bet it's because animals have no concept of moral". - A quote I just made up

I recommend to any one going the Cinema Studies route to throw yourself at a colonialism class when the opportunity arises. You may get sick to the stomach, but it's fascinating and important.


e. Surprisingly successful piece:

I'm surprised any piece of this blog is successful, if it is. But I enjoyed the reactionson Lars von Trier's Cannes fiasco (or rather, Cannes' fiasco of banning someone who just didn't express his sarcasm clear due to language difficulties)  in the comment section to my post "I understand Hitler, I do". Come on, it's one of our greatest modern auteurs. Let him be a little clumsy...


f. Most underrated piece:

Boney M. - Rasputin (1978). I am sad that so few people see the value of teaching history with the help of disco. Too further prove my point, here is the absolute, true, historically correct story of Ma Barker:



g. Most pride-worthy piece:

If one takes pride in exaltation without limit, slightly bad English and inexplicable amounts of bold text (don't ask me... I guess I thought it was a good idea at the time for those who only want to read little snippets of a text): Inglourious Basterds (2009). There's a lot of (perhaps too much) love and nerdiness there. I would love to feel that rush I had when I wrote that piece again. Without the help of cocaine, that is. (But one should never underestimate substance abuse.)


I nominate the following seven bloggers. Let your cinematic slime swirl to the surface so that it, once again, can see the light!


David C. - The Marx Brothers

Matthew Coniam - The Marx Brothers Council of Britain

Dymon Enlow - Happyotter

Kate Gabrielle - Silents and Talkies

Millie - ClassicForever

Flapper Flickers + Silent Stanzas

Particular Girl

Uhm... hello.

It's depressing to think about how long it was since my last blog entry. But perhaps we can ignore that teeny tiny little detail and pretend like everything's normal, mmm'kay?

I'll try to whip this dead horse alive again. I think I need it. I know the world needs it.

This blog may not be as strictly about classic films as it used to be. It may consist more of narcissistic rants about how society is too stupid to realize that I am The Almighty Lolita of the Classics! - nowadays a divorced 24 year old steaming pile of shit that can't even hold down a job as a hotel maid. Not even Dominique Strauss-Kahn wants me.

Juuust kiddin'! I'm not that down in the gutter. I'm awesome. Just a little... out of sync. With everything and everyone.

This time it's personal. This blog will keep me sane while I, for the umptyfifth time, sit at home looking for a job and wonder how the hell I will be able to afford my rent, my booze and my Virginia Slims. It won't be pretty. But it will satisfy your deep down, dark, hidden desires to gloat at other people's misery.

Nah, kiddin' again. I'll try to be pleasant. And those who know me also know that I am at least trying, though not always succeeding.

I am now a resident of Greta Garbo's home town. Also the home of our Whore King. (Seriously, not my invention: false 1 SEK coins are now circulating in my beloved country of the North. Instead of the text "The King of Sweden" on it, there is the phrase "Our Whore/Adulterer of a King". So funny. But silly. A king should sleep with whomever he wants, whenever he wants. The same goes for the queen. And if the people don't approve: let's do away with the damn monarchy then. Yes, this was a long and pointless parenthesis. Sorry about that.)

So I live in Stockholm now. Guess that was what I was trying to say. Uhm... yeah. I'll be back with some exciting stories. Or movie reviews. Or narcissistic rants.

Hey ho, let's go!

(Does anyone know how to get rid of those annoying advertisements that appear as links in my blog post? I feel violated.)

Update: I'm a computer whiz. Got rid of the ads. Ain't sellin' my soul over 'ere!

Gee, I'm so stylish!

Thank you, Monty! His reason for giving me this blog award was that my blog is "awesome!" - and I bet the awesomeness of my blog lies in the fact that I update just seldom enough to lose the interest of my blog readers. Or just that I am awesome. Anyway, thanks again, Monty! Check out his blog, if you have a fetish for classic films.

I'm supposed to list seven facts about me, and I'll try to pick a few that aren't too obvious. It may be some repetition since I've done this before, but it was such a long, long time ago that I won't bother to check my old answers.

Then I will pass along this award to seven other bloggers, and let is spread like chlamydia. So here goes:

1. Some time between the age of 10, when I was deeply in love with Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby (who wasn't), and the age of 14 when I wanted to sexually assault Chico Marx every time he played the piano, I had a serious fling with $crooge McDuck. I can't find any word for that kind of infatuation, but I think I really was attracted to the idea of him being an older, wiser dude. With lots of money. Anyway, this little trivia brings the is-manga-pornography-debate to another level, I think.
2. I'm married to the most cynical, intelligent, entertaining (not necessarily haha-funny), non-jealous man that I could find that doesn't want to have kids. Too bad he wasn't rich too, though. But I think that's about to change - he's studying to work at the hospital. My Manolo Blahnik shoes are just around the corner! (That was haha-funny.)
3. My favorite stand-up comedians are Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, George Carlin, a couple of Swedish guys you won't care me to name and, recently, also Doug Stanhope. Apart from Izzard, I like my men bitter and broken. And of course, the occasional transvestite always liven things up.
4. I have a thing for taking pictures of dead animals. I don't kill them myself, mind you! But if I run across a dead pigeon that's had its gut ripped apart by crows, I just have to pick up my camera. The whole beauty of death thing, I think. Anyway, my camera is broken now, so I guess Allah was trying to tell me something about my hobbies.
5. I love Braindead (Peter Jackson, 1992), and in my humble opinion that was about the last good move Mr. Jackson did in his career. But money makes the world go 'round, and makes artistic souls cry blood.
6. I'm currently blowing out my brain through my nose. There is nothing as horrible as a bad cold, as any man would say while his wife gives birth.
7. I am a student and the Department of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University, and it makes me feel awesome.

Now to the nominations! Other stylish bloggers are:

Millie at classicforever

Darsh at Happyotter
Mykal at Radiation Cinema!
Avalon76 at Silent Stanzas
Jenny the Nipper at Cinema OCD
Matthew Coniam at The Marx Brothers Council of Britain
Kate Gabrielle at Discovering Dirk Bogarde

Keep up the good work!

I'm not that stupid

To those who may interpret me as a misogynist, feminist hater or terrorist supporter:
(For those who haven't even had the thought that I would be a mean person - just look at the pictures and enjoy.)


I may be blonde in the picture above, but I'm not that stupid. This is a film blog, and it would be stupid (which I'm not, at least not that stupid) to sneak in upsetting political comments to scare off my readers. One could compare that hypothetical deed to the popular urban legend that Tommy Hilfiger once said that he didn't want black people or Asians to wear his clothes. That would just be stupid.

Even though this is a classic film blog, I have obviously made some political comments every now and then - but that is either for harmless comical reasons or that the Swedish minister of justice has an IQ of a football and recently has proven it yet again. I.e. nothing that should upset my, mostly American, readers.

Why do I then feel the need to explain myself? I have no fucking idea, and I despise myself for it. It's fucking common sense that I do not hate women for being women, that I do knot know enough about feminist history to know that some amazing things have been accomplished, or that I would be as ignorant as to have some underlying hatred for all Americans just because your ex-President was considered totally loopy by great parts of the world population.

My real political opinions are rather normal and boring, to tell you the truth, and therefore I may spice them up with obviously bizarre comments if I feel like making a brief reference to political opinions. Like "all women are usually whiny bitches".

Thankfully, 99% of my readers seem to have brains enough not to think twice about it. Thankfully, most of those people who do find my blog disturbing just go to some other area of the pretty big world of the Internet. Thankfully, most people probably don't want to waste their valuable time giving pathetic life lessons in the comment section of a blog post they didn't like.

Thankfully, most of my dear readers also understand that this is a classic film blog for movie nerds - and that politics have nothing to do with the subject.

I guess everyone that was born with a sense of humor can see the difference between making fun of innocent victims of a national disaster, and a lighthearted reference to the incident as a whole. The latter does not mean "yay for terrorism and loads of civilians ending up dead".

In Sweden the MS Estonia disaster of -94 (852 deaths, read more about it here) is still a touchy subject, especially with the state-smuggling-weapons-on-board-and-therefore-didn't-raise-the-ship conspiracy theory attached to it. Just adorable.

That doesn't mean that we would go berserk if someone mentions it - or even jokes about it. If it shows to be a tasteless joke, then one can be pretty calm with the notion that it was spoken by a pathetic person not worthy of my attention.

So... are we cool now? If not, just remember that I will not beg on my knees to explain something obvious and (for the theme of my blog) irrelevant again. I will do a lot for my readers, but when it comes to this shit once is enough. When (hopefully "if") similar comments about me being an asshole reach my comment section, I will just answer with a link to this post.

Notice that I never delete the comments - they are pretty entertaining in a way too.

Inception (2010) was, by the way, a mind blowing film that I would recommend to about anyone.

It's clever (took about eight years to write!) and original - something that I never dare to expect to come from Hollywood since the 1960's. Don't read too much about it before watching it, though. Or, do - you will not understand a thing anyway and will not be able to spoil it for yourself. You only have to know that the film centers around the concept of being able to break into and manipulate dreams - an ability that some would pay a lot to be able to exploit. Oh, and that dear, dear Marion Cotillard is in it.

And the film nerd's favorite:

Do not forget!

Come on now, people! You only got to March 1st!

Give me some MS Paint scribble or a stick figure hastily drawn on the back of an old notebook: there is $10 to spend at one of Kate Gabrielle's Etsy stores, and those money need a spender!

Another Kreativ Blogger for the road

Was that a too far fetched paraphrase of Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee"? That's a great song, by the way.

Thank you so much for the Kreativ Blogger award, Andrew! Since I already went through the heart straining procedures of receiving this award and passing it on in October [post], I will just go ahead and include the very sweet description of my blog that was Andrews motivation for giving it to me:

There are many blogs dedicated to classic cinema, I'm following quite a few, but Lolita is one of the best. She makes the classics seem new every day and sometimes she'll even start talking about a current piece. Lolita is fun to read which is always nice and necessary.

That is exactly what I dream that people will feel about my blog, so reading that was a nice pat on the back! Especially since I'm lost in the pessimistic daze of a hangover for the moment. (Has been that a lot recently, hasn't it?)

I will also take this opportunity to congratulate a certain Austrian-Hungarian actor by the name Paul Georg Julius Hernreid Ritter Von Wassel-Waldingau on his 105th birthday. Some of you might recognize him as "Paul Henreid", but that is highly unlikely. Oh, I like that man.

Now, Voyager (1942) could survive a re-watch.

Portrait competition!

Dear readers!

I hereby announce the starting of a competition. The winner wins $10 discount on a Kate Gabrielle's Etsy store of his/her own choice:

Silents and Talkies (colorful portraits of actors and actresses)
Kate Gabrielle (funny art - give your walls a sense of humor!)
flapper doodle (where I could spend the rest of my life)


The assignment is for you to make a portrait of my Lolita persona. The caricature to the right is only an example - the portrait can be a serious one or a funny interpretation of how you think of me.

You may use whatever medium you like for the portrait: Photoshop, Paint, charcoal, your own blood - anything. The only restriction is (of course) that the painting isn't offending in any way. And I bet you all know that I, myself, am hardly offended that easily, so just use your common sense.
In the end of this post I have added a couple of pictures for help or inspiration, if needed.

The competition ends on March 1st 2010.

Audrey Hepburn Pop Art

8"x8" print, $15

4"x4" print, $5

Moreau Moreau Moreau Your Boat

Signed numbered matted art print, $15

Flapper Doodle Birthday Card Set

Six cards, $10

Everyone that enters the competition gets a reward even if they don't win, meaning: all entries will be displayed (unless you say otherwise, of course) on my up-coming website http://lolitasclassics.com.
It's still under construction, I need to beef it up a bit before it's ready for a premiere!

Send your entry to lolitasclassics@gmail.com
Add your name or alias and website (if you have any) and also city, state and country (that's optional) in the email.

I hope you will think this is fun: no professional artistic talent is required, after all!

[If you want to go back to this post later on you can just click on the icon on the far top of the right column.]

Love //Lolita

I'm a co-blogger on Spiffy

Just a little pronouncement that I now have joined a fun little blog called Spiffy. Look at the left sidebar to see a photo of a ca four year old Lolita! The other co-bloggers are for the moment Kate, Casey, Sarah, Nicole and Elizabeth.

Oh, and don't you want that gorgeous Gloria Swanson knitted hat? There's a Spiffy giveaway going on, follow this link to read the rules.

I think Miss Swanson, Raquel Torres and Evelyn Brent agrees with me that it's a really fancy kind of hat.

Kreativ Blogger

I have received the Kreativ Blogger award (must be some Swedish, Danish or Norwegian invention with that weird spelling?) from Trixie at That's Just Stupid What You Said - thank you!

There are some rules attached to the award, so here they are:

1) Tell you seven things that you don't already know about me.

2) Name seven other blogs to receive this award.

3) Leave a comment on each of the blogs I have nominated letting them know that I have given them an award.

4) And lastly, thank the blog that gave you the award.

Well, I did rule # 4, I will attend to # 3 as the last thing I do, I will ignore the amount of blogs allowed to nominate in # 2... so I guess I'll take the # 1 rule next!

• I have already mentioned that I love squeezing pimples, so instead I can tell you that I love to photograph dead animals for some reason - the more gore the better. I find it morbidly fascinating and beautiful. Here's a bird, a pigeon, some flies and a squirrel.
• I get anxious when the wind is blowing.
• "I've had many meetings with strangers." Just a quote from A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).
• I once stayed at the psychiatric ward for three nights. I met many interesting people, to say the least... And I brought home one of those comfy nightgowns.
• I have two cats, one of them becoming more and more weird for each day. Seriously, is a cat supposed to sit like this?
• I never liked beer or whiskey, but my boyfriend has taught me otherwise now. A little Laphroaig on the rocks wouldn't be too bad just now...
• I have a little surprise for you in December!

Well now! The award is passed on to:

• Millie at ClassicForever (a blog now looking better than ever!)
• Kate Gabrielle at Silents and Talkies and flapper doodle (one award for each lovely blog)
• Sarah at Cinema Splendor (such a charming blog)
• Matthew Coniam at Movietone News, Carfax Abbey and The Marx Brothers Council of Britain (yes, three awards to one of my blogging icons!)
• Avalon76 at Flappers and Flickers and Silent Stanzas (read her classic film poems if you haven't!)
• Elizabeth at Oh By Jingo! Oh By Gee! and The Flapper's Personal Kinetoscope Parlor (just the blog titles are "kreativ"!)
• Nicole at Classic Hollywood Nerd (old time favorite of mine)
• Casey at Noir Girl (she's a-mazing)
• Mykal at Radiation Cinema! (one of the coolest blogs I've laid my eyes on - fantastic reviews and an amazingly awesome layout)

Congratulations, my creative co-bloggers!

100 followers - 100 movies (pt. 2/4)

Part two of my 100 one-sentence-movie reviews!

1909-1934

1935-1959

1960-1984

1985-2009

1935

Top Hat

The most celebrated Fred & Ginger film with incredible dance numbers and songs written by Irving Berling.

YouTube link

1936

My Man Godfrey

A classic screwball comedy, with William Powell as the butler Godfrey in an insane high society family, including a deranged Carole Lombard and a vicious Gail Patrick.

1937

The Prisoner of Zenda

See it for following reasons: The perfectly put together trio of Ronald Colman, David Niven and C. Aubrey Smith, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as the suave villain, Raymond Massey as the purely evil villain, Ronald Colman playing opposite himself, Ronald Colman in a turtleneck, amazing b/w cinematography that plays with lighting and shadows - and of course, the swell swords fight between Colman and Fairbanks Jr.
YouTube link

1938

The Adventures of Robin Hood

An absolutely essential adventure movie, complete with Michael Curtiz behind the camera, a beautiful Olivia De Havilland in distress, Errol Flynn in green tights, Basil Rathbone in a form fit villain role and Claude Rains as Prince John.

1939

The Wizard of Oz

You will find the most impressing Technicolor experience you ever could achieve when Dorothy opens the door to the land of Oz, and meets munchkins, a stupid scarecrow, a rusty tin man, a frightened lion, a green witch and a lot of flying monkeys.

1940

Rebecca

Laurence Olivier is pure eye candy in this Hitchcock thriller about a naive young woman (Joan Fontaine) who marries the rich widower Mr. de Winter (Olivier), only to notice that the presence of Mr. de Winter's first wife gets more and more evident.
YouTube link

1941

Love Crazy

A screwball comedy with William Powell, Myrna Loy, an annoying mother-in-law, misunderstandings, divorce, insane asylums, a drag queen and once again a vicious Gail Patrick.

YouTube link

1942

Cat People

A surprisingly scary film without people in cat costumes - the scaring technique instead relies upon camera angles, lighting, sound effects and other innocent everyday ingredients (not to mention a cat looking Simone Simon).

YouTube link

1943

Shadow of a Doubt

Possibly my favorite Hitchcock, with Theresa Wright as the young girl who starts to suspect that her loving visiting uncle (Joseph Cotten) may not be the person she thinks he is.

YouTube link

1944

Lifeboat

In a more unusual Hitchcock film a ship gets torpedoed and the survivors get into a lifeboat and has to cooperate in order to survive - a mother with a baby, a German and a Tallulah Bankhead among others.

1945

Brief Encounter

A lovely David Lean directed British drama about a woman who meets a stranger in a railway station, and starts having indecent thought about cheating on her husband.

1946

A Night in Casablanca

Three Marx brothers smoking hookahs at a hotel in postwar Casablanca and a nazi villain played by Sig Ruman couldn't get any better.

1947

Dark Passage

In a thriller with innovative camera work, Bogart is convicted of murdering his wife and escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence - but first he needs to undergo plastic surgery and change his appearance.

1948

Rope

In a thriller filmed in one long take (almost) two boys kill a friend to prove that the "perfect crime" exists (based on the real Leopold and Loeb case in the 1920's) - but their old teacher (James Stewart) gets suspicious.

YouTube link

1949

A Letter to Three Wives

On the way to a day-long trip together, friends Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern and Jeanne Crain receive a letter from another female friend - she is running away with one of their husbands, but doesn't tell which one...

YouTube link

1950

Harvey

James Stewart plays a pleasant, well-mannered man who has an imaginary friend in the form of a six foot tall rabbit called Harvey - something that concerns his family who wants to get into the high society.

YouTube link

1951

The African Queen

Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart manage to find themselves in a little boat in the middle of Africa during WWI, with the mission to attack an enemy war ship.

YouTube link

1952

Singin' in the Rain

There is a lot of singing in Hollywood, during the transition from silents to talkies in the late 1920's - and where does one sing best if not in the rain?

1953

House of Wax

A disfigured sculptor (the irreplaceable Vincent Price) opens up a Wax Museum in New York, much admired for its realistic wax dolls - could that have something to do with the fact that bodies have been stolen from the morgue?

YouTube link

1954

Seven Samurai

As was usual in the samurai-era of Japans history, samurais are hired to protect a poor village from bandits stealing their crop - an absolutely amazing film by Akira Kurosawa.

1955

East of Eden

James Dean in his smashing film debut (and the only film of his that got to have a premiere before he crashed to his death), complete with the essential father complex and the disillusioned youngsters.

YouTube link

1956

The Ten Commandments

Yul Brynner with bare upper body and Charlton Heston as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's most awesome mastodon film, famous for its revolutionary special effects.

1957

12 Angry Men

A young man is tried for murder, and the jury may not leave the room until they all agreed whether the defendant is guilty or not - 11 persons vote guilty, one (Henry Fonda) votes not guilty.

YouTube link

1958

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

Sinbad fights his way among cyclops, giant birds, dragons, evil magicians and a by magic shrunken fiancée, with special effects by the legend Ray Harryhausen.

YouTube link

1959

Some Like it Hot

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon witness the Valentine's Day Massacre and has to run for their lives with the maffia running after - they dress up as ladies, join a ladies chorus and picks up the charming (but brain dead) Sugar Kane Kowalczyk along the way.

YouTube link