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Uskonnot Suomessa 2008: Käsikirja uskontoihin ja uskonnollistaustaisiin liikkeisiin
Kimmo Ketola, Jouni Virtanen, Jussi Sohlberg
Religions in Finland 2008: A Manual to Religions and Movements with Religious Backgrounds
Comparative Religion
Definitely just an overview of different religions in Finland, no analysis. Background and main ideas with a list of different organizations. The text could have used more editing in some places. Useful if you just want a general picture of the religious field or want to see in what aspects things have changed.
Comparative Religion
Definitely just an overview of different religions in Finland, no analysis. Background and main ideas with a list of different organizations. The text could have used more editing in some places. Useful if you just want a general picture of the religious field or want to see in what aspects things have changed.
At the Crossroads of Religions: The Roots of Mediterranean Religions
Comparative Religion
Comparative Religion
"A young man in one’s hotel bedroom is capable of being explained, but a corpse is always a hindrance."
Is there a better way to return to reading and reviewing than write about a light, bubbly, vibrant, and sparkly mystery? When my studies calmed down a bit and my brain began to miss fiction, I started a ridiculously long classic, but then I noticed a book whose blurb made my heart beat a little bit faster. A detective story that is set in the roaring twenties and whose main character is a bold and unconstrained female private detective, can't be bad. Am I right?
My expectations turned out to be reasonable. Phryne is the soul of the book. Whenever you start a new series, you want to make sure that you like the main character who carries the weight of the story, so that you're interested enough to continue with the series. Phryne Fisher carries herself with style and enjoys the luxuries of life, but isn't arrogant or afraid to get her hands dirty in seedy back alleys. This unabashed and clever adventuress, who enjoys cigarettes and - quelle horreur! - sex, exists in an entirely different sphere than the rest of the characters. Especially the squeaky clean maid Dorothy seems puny next to her mistress, even though she does find courage in the end when things become dangerous.
On the other hand, the plot itself didn't have the spark I was hoping for. One important identity was easy to guess about halfway through, because Greenwood's hint is pretty heavyhanded. Not knowing Melbourne, I also couldn't pinpoint the events to Australia, because it seemed like any metropolitan city would have been the location, which of course is a shame since Australia is an interesting country. The endless descriptions of Phryne's dresses just radiated iffy chick lit vibes.
Although the fluffiness wasn't entirely my thing and occasionally style moved ahead of substance, I believe I could continue with the series if I ever need something that wouldn't require any brain activity. Based on this first installment the series might potentionally be addictive, and because of that extra that the 20s brings to the plate, things could be worse. Greenwood's writing style has the kind of perkiness and sharpness which in the end makes reading fun, and that's what you want from a cozy mystery. If, however, I don't feel like reading the whole series, there's the tv show that I'm going to check out at some point. Maybe I'll make those cucumber sandwiches and cocktails as seen on Phryne's website to get in the mood.
Is there a better way to return to reading and reviewing than write about a light, bubbly, vibrant, and sparkly mystery? When my studies calmed down a bit and my brain began to miss fiction, I started a ridiculously long classic, but then I noticed a book whose blurb made my heart beat a little bit faster. A detective story that is set in the roaring twenties and whose main character is a bold and unconstrained female private detective, can't be bad. Am I right?
My expectations turned out to be reasonable. Phryne is the soul of the book. Whenever you start a new series, you want to make sure that you like the main character who carries the weight of the story, so that you're interested enough to continue with the series. Phryne Fisher carries herself with style and enjoys the luxuries of life, but isn't arrogant or afraid to get her hands dirty in seedy back alleys. This unabashed and clever adventuress, who enjoys cigarettes and - quelle horreur! - sex, exists in an entirely different sphere than the rest of the characters. Especially the squeaky clean maid Dorothy seems puny next to her mistress, even though she does find courage in the end when things become dangerous.
On the other hand, the plot itself didn't have the spark I was hoping for. One important identity was easy to guess about halfway through, because Greenwood's hint is pretty heavyhanded. Not knowing Melbourne, I also couldn't pinpoint the events to Australia, because it seemed like any metropolitan city would have been the location, which of course is a shame since Australia is an interesting country. The endless descriptions of Phryne's dresses just radiated iffy chick lit vibes.
Although the fluffiness wasn't entirely my thing and occasionally style moved ahead of substance, I believe I could continue with the series if I ever need something that wouldn't require any brain activity. Based on this first installment the series might potentionally be addictive, and because of that extra that the 20s brings to the plate, things could be worse. Greenwood's writing style has the kind of perkiness and sharpness which in the end makes reading fun, and that's what you want from a cozy mystery. If, however, I don't feel like reading the whole series, there's the tv show that I'm going to check out at some point. Maybe I'll make those cucumber sandwiches and cocktails as seen on Phryne's website to get in the mood.
"Directors don’t have much power anymore, the executives make unheard of amounts of money, and budgets are more out of control than they ever were. And there hasn’t been a classic in ten years."
- Francis Ford Coppola
After Bonnie and Clyde opened, Stefan Kanfer defined the New Hollywood in the most perfect way: "disregard for time-honored pieties of plot, chronology, and motivation; a promiscuous jumbling together of comedy and tragedy; ditto heroes and villains; sexual boldness; and a new, ironic distance that withholds obvious moral judgments."
The history of cinema is chock-full of interesting people, tidbits, and large entities that every cinema lover should be aware of to understand why films are what they are. Biskind recounts with vividness (albeit with an unpolished touch) the story of rebellious New Hollywood. It was like a shooting star that shined brightly for a while but which ended up in a crater somewhere in the desert. It was a concept that bit itself in the leg despite the best of intentions, and "the last time Hollywood produced a body of risky, high-quality work—as opposed to the errant masterpiece—work that was character-, rather than plot-driven, that defied traditional narrative conventions, that challenged the tyranny of technical correctness, that broke the taboos of language and behavior, that dared to end unhappily." In this case, it's vital to understand the context of 70s and late 60s movies to fully grasp their ideas and potential.
New Hollywood boiled down to the ambitious goal to override the studio system and give talented people the chance to explore their ideas in a new artistic, auteurish, way, making the 70s the era of directors. It's when Biskind tries to venture to the business side does the text shrivel into mere detailed listings of budgets and how much of the cut each one involved got. He, does, however, manage to convey the feeling that the era was the time for young people to take away the power from the giants of the John Ford era and to take advantage of the executives' confusion about the changes of the social climate, and go completely berserk with their ideas (and personal lives).
Despite having a pretty varied taste in movies, it was fantastic to find out that the NH directors were inspired by (and in some cases even aspired to be) the great auteurs of the European cinema. Arthouse requires a specific kind of attention and the utmost focus of the viewer, but Scorsese et.al. injected their films with their own sense style. Perhaps not always as recognisable as Europeans' (especially Antonioni and Bergman), but slightly more approachable for the big audience (although I still can't believe Raging Bull (1980) bombed).
Not only that, but the small changes in the movie making process Biskind discusses all make sense when watching the movies (Taxi Driver (1976) etc.). Script writers ceased to be disposable and it was important for them to dive headfirst into their work, instead of considering it as a some sort of cheap job on the way to literature. Cast on the other hand was no longer comprised of polished cookie cutter people, but (apart from a few exceptions of course) average looking theatre people that lended realism to the movies. Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) is a prime example. No one was especially looking for stars.
Biskind suggests that NH was partly about anger at authority and celebration of counterculture (like in Easy Rider (1969)). This tapped into a new audience, but unfortunately it didn't last long. Biskind's tone feels slightly derogatory, especially towards Lucas and Spielberg. He also seems to draw his own conclusions and interprets some movies in a way that it's represented as fact instead of as his own opinion. I'm not a fan of non-fiction authors who make their stances known, especially if the manner is bitter and unfairly inculpatory.
That being said, I understand what Biskind perhaps wants to say. The enthusiasm for making art gradually yielded when the studios started to recover. Spielberg and Lucas can't be the only ones to blame, but they did contribute involuntarily to the blockbuster era. Biskind makes a convincing claim that Spielberg's leanings towards conservatism and commercialism, occasional twelve-year-old-like behaviour, affinity with not crediting whoever helped him in his current movie (Rob Cohen thinks Verna Fields was responsible for the idea of showing only little of the shark in Jaws (1975) etc.), and favoring regressed adults and nostalgia for authority lead to tasteless and odourless cinema.
It may not be Spielberg's fault that after Jaws the studios were hungry for equally lucrative profits, but he chose to be part of the establishment. "Us" turning into an all-inclusive everyman instead of the counterculture kids is not necessarily only a bad thing, but it gave way to diluted family fares. Biskind says that Lucas had wanted a wholesome (Jesus Christ I hate that word) tone for Star Wars (1977), claimed it was a Disney movie, favoured happy endings along with straightforward storytelling and accessible two-dimensional characters. I agree with Biskind regarding Lucas and Spielberg bringing back small-town and suburban values. Lucas even said that "Words are great in the theater, but that’s not movies". Chilling.
Can you imagine what Apocalypse Now (1979) would have looked like if it had been directed by Lucas like it was initially intended? Pauline Kael said it well: "Discriminating moviegoers want the placidity of nice art — of movies tamed so that they are no more arousing than what used to be called polite theater. So we’ve been getting a new cultural puritanism — people go to the innocuous hoping for the charming, or they settle for imported sobriety, and the press is full of snide references to Coppola’s huge film in progress... [They were] infantilizing the audience, reconstituting the spectator as child, then overwhelming him and her with sound and spectacle, obliterating irony, aesthetic self-consciousness, and critical reflection." Friedkin compares the change with McDonald's getting hold of the nation. Lucas claims that he and Spielberg "understood what people liked to go see", but that just smells calculating as hell, not to mention that his claim that he destroyed the Hollywood film industry by making films more intelligent is just complete and utter bullshit. He even "believed that the most important parts of a film are the first five minutes and the last twenty. Everything in between is filler, and if there is enough action, no one will notice that the characters aren’t particularly complex, or that the acting is wooden".
The NH era was in a lot of ways wild, in good and in bad. The BBS offices smelled of pot, most were in a democratic mood and ready to help in friends' movies, everyone wanted to go to Peru to work with The Last Movie (1971) so that they could smuggle drugs back to L. A., Hopper's drug problem caused the directors to make notes in the script what kind he could take in each scene, there were some directors with huge egos and some (like Coppola) were simply megalomaniac crazies, women (who often contributed in some way to their men's films) had to cope with their men acting like assholes and thinking the open relationships of the 70s gave permission for cheating (Bert Schneider to Candice Bergen: "I’m sorry it’s so threatening to you, Bergen, but you have to understand that I’m a love object for every woman who walks into my office.... Start dealing with that. It’s time you began growing up."), on the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) the actors were provided with pot as a kind of takeaway so that they wouldn't have to go to the street etc.
We can all agree, though, that most films that resulted from this mayhem are good, and distinguishable as 70s and late 60s films. Biskind says that after their recovery, studio executives are now mostly businessmen who are interested about commercialism and money. Were now in a situation where it's difficult to brief an idea that doesn't promise huge profits. Indie movies do find their audience, but compared to the blockbusters, their market is much smaller. Star salaries are higher than ever. New faces are easier to be pushed around, and when one of the greats got an opportunity to make a comeback, they resorted to a mainstream film and failed.
Altman is not optimistic: "You get tired painting your pictures and going down to the street corner and selling them for a dollar. You get the occasional Fargo, but you’ve still got to make them for nothing, and you get nothing back. It’s disastrous for the film industry, disastrous for film art".
Who knows what will happen in the future. It's clear that we need all kinds of movies, and everyone has their own taste. I still wish there were more brave filmmakers who would get the opportunity to showcase their talents, no matter how wacky their ideas might be, and maintain their distinctive style through the years. I also wish that the movie business would slow down their hunger for money and would actually stop and smell the flowers, and see the talent out there.
Fortunately, these days we have our moments as well. With the explosive Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Miller succeeded in lighting the screen on fire. It was magical and different. Ripped my guts out with its energy and beauty, and that's what I'm personally looking for in a movie. Godard showed that anything is possible, and even Lucas said that "Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anybody can do it blindfolded, get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck".
- Francis Ford Coppola
After Bonnie and Clyde opened, Stefan Kanfer defined the New Hollywood in the most perfect way: "disregard for time-honored pieties of plot, chronology, and motivation; a promiscuous jumbling together of comedy and tragedy; ditto heroes and villains; sexual boldness; and a new, ironic distance that withholds obvious moral judgments."
The history of cinema is chock-full of interesting people, tidbits, and large entities that every cinema lover should be aware of to understand why films are what they are. Biskind recounts with vividness (albeit with an unpolished touch) the story of rebellious New Hollywood. It was like a shooting star that shined brightly for a while but which ended up in a crater somewhere in the desert. It was a concept that bit itself in the leg despite the best of intentions, and "the last time Hollywood produced a body of risky, high-quality work—as opposed to the errant masterpiece—work that was character-, rather than plot-driven, that defied traditional narrative conventions, that challenged the tyranny of technical correctness, that broke the taboos of language and behavior, that dared to end unhappily." In this case, it's vital to understand the context of 70s and late 60s movies to fully grasp their ideas and potential.
New Hollywood boiled down to the ambitious goal to override the studio system and give talented people the chance to explore their ideas in a new artistic, auteurish, way, making the 70s the era of directors. It's when Biskind tries to venture to the business side does the text shrivel into mere detailed listings of budgets and how much of the cut each one involved got. He, does, however, manage to convey the feeling that the era was the time for young people to take away the power from the giants of the John Ford era and to take advantage of the executives' confusion about the changes of the social climate, and go completely berserk with their ideas (and personal lives).
Despite having a pretty varied taste in movies, it was fantastic to find out that the NH directors were inspired by (and in some cases even aspired to be) the great auteurs of the European cinema. Arthouse requires a specific kind of attention and the utmost focus of the viewer, but Scorsese et.al. injected their films with their own sense style. Perhaps not always as recognisable as Europeans' (especially Antonioni and Bergman), but slightly more approachable for the big audience (although I still can't believe Raging Bull (1980) bombed).
Not only that, but the small changes in the movie making process Biskind discusses all make sense when watching the movies (Taxi Driver (1976) etc.). Script writers ceased to be disposable and it was important for them to dive headfirst into their work, instead of considering it as a some sort of cheap job on the way to literature. Cast on the other hand was no longer comprised of polished cookie cutter people, but (apart from a few exceptions of course) average looking theatre people that lended realism to the movies. Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) is a prime example. No one was especially looking for stars.
Biskind suggests that NH was partly about anger at authority and celebration of counterculture (like in Easy Rider (1969)). This tapped into a new audience, but unfortunately it didn't last long. Biskind's tone feels slightly derogatory, especially towards Lucas and Spielberg. He also seems to draw his own conclusions and interprets some movies in a way that it's represented as fact instead of as his own opinion. I'm not a fan of non-fiction authors who make their stances known, especially if the manner is bitter and unfairly inculpatory.
That being said, I understand what Biskind perhaps wants to say. The enthusiasm for making art gradually yielded when the studios started to recover. Spielberg and Lucas can't be the only ones to blame, but they did contribute involuntarily to the blockbuster era. Biskind makes a convincing claim that Spielberg's leanings towards conservatism and commercialism, occasional twelve-year-old-like behaviour, affinity with not crediting whoever helped him in his current movie (Rob Cohen thinks Verna Fields was responsible for the idea of showing only little of the shark in Jaws (1975) etc.), and favoring regressed adults and nostalgia for authority lead to tasteless and odourless cinema.
It may not be Spielberg's fault that after Jaws the studios were hungry for equally lucrative profits, but he chose to be part of the establishment. "Us" turning into an all-inclusive everyman instead of the counterculture kids is not necessarily only a bad thing, but it gave way to diluted family fares. Biskind says that Lucas had wanted a wholesome (Jesus Christ I hate that word) tone for Star Wars (1977), claimed it was a Disney movie, favoured happy endings along with straightforward storytelling and accessible two-dimensional characters. I agree with Biskind regarding Lucas and Spielberg bringing back small-town and suburban values. Lucas even said that "Words are great in the theater, but that’s not movies". Chilling.
Can you imagine what Apocalypse Now (1979) would have looked like if it had been directed by Lucas like it was initially intended? Pauline Kael said it well: "Discriminating moviegoers want the placidity of nice art — of movies tamed so that they are no more arousing than what used to be called polite theater. So we’ve been getting a new cultural puritanism — people go to the innocuous hoping for the charming, or they settle for imported sobriety, and the press is full of snide references to Coppola’s huge film in progress... [They were] infantilizing the audience, reconstituting the spectator as child, then overwhelming him and her with sound and spectacle, obliterating irony, aesthetic self-consciousness, and critical reflection." Friedkin compares the change with McDonald's getting hold of the nation. Lucas claims that he and Spielberg "understood what people liked to go see", but that just smells calculating as hell, not to mention that his claim that he destroyed the Hollywood film industry by making films more intelligent is just complete and utter bullshit. He even "believed that the most important parts of a film are the first five minutes and the last twenty. Everything in between is filler, and if there is enough action, no one will notice that the characters aren’t particularly complex, or that the acting is wooden".
The NH era was in a lot of ways wild, in good and in bad. The BBS offices smelled of pot, most were in a democratic mood and ready to help in friends' movies, everyone wanted to go to Peru to work with The Last Movie (1971) so that they could smuggle drugs back to L. A., Hopper's drug problem caused the directors to make notes in the script what kind he could take in each scene, there were some directors with huge egos and some (like Coppola) were simply megalomaniac crazies, women (who often contributed in some way to their men's films) had to cope with their men acting like assholes and thinking the open relationships of the 70s gave permission for cheating (Bert Schneider to Candice Bergen: "I’m sorry it’s so threatening to you, Bergen, but you have to understand that I’m a love object for every woman who walks into my office.... Start dealing with that. It’s time you began growing up."), on the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) the actors were provided with pot as a kind of takeaway so that they wouldn't have to go to the street etc.
We can all agree, though, that most films that resulted from this mayhem are good, and distinguishable as 70s and late 60s films. Biskind says that after their recovery, studio executives are now mostly businessmen who are interested about commercialism and money. Were now in a situation where it's difficult to brief an idea that doesn't promise huge profits. Indie movies do find their audience, but compared to the blockbusters, their market is much smaller. Star salaries are higher than ever. New faces are easier to be pushed around, and when one of the greats got an opportunity to make a comeback, they resorted to a mainstream film and failed.
Altman is not optimistic: "You get tired painting your pictures and going down to the street corner and selling them for a dollar. You get the occasional Fargo, but you’ve still got to make them for nothing, and you get nothing back. It’s disastrous for the film industry, disastrous for film art".
Who knows what will happen in the future. It's clear that we need all kinds of movies, and everyone has their own taste. I still wish there were more brave filmmakers who would get the opportunity to showcase their talents, no matter how wacky their ideas might be, and maintain their distinctive style through the years. I also wish that the movie business would slow down their hunger for money and would actually stop and smell the flowers, and see the talent out there.
Fortunately, these days we have our moments as well. With the explosive Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Miller succeeded in lighting the screen on fire. It was magical and different. Ripped my guts out with its energy and beauty, and that's what I'm personally looking for in a movie. Godard showed that anything is possible, and even Lucas said that "Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anybody can do it blindfolded, get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck".
Evokes gothic atmosphere maybe with three sentences overall (the first chapter is alright). Varney's interesting in theory, as he's a sympathetic vampire and by far the only character who actually has a soul (ha!). The others are like cardboard cutouts. Not that there seems to be any logic to the story itself, anyway. Rymer either forgot every once in a while what his book was about, or he was so broke that he absolutely had to bloat the text by every means necessary, including ministories here and there that have no bearing on the story whatsoever. A hack writer if there ever was one. Or maybe he just stopped giving a flying fuck.
Would I pay a penny for each installment? Hell no. I knew this would be bad, being a penny dreadful and all, but I didn't expect an exhausting bore. So much so, that it wasn't even funny anymore.
Would I pay a penny for each installment? Hell no. I knew this would be bad, being a penny dreadful and all, but I didn't expect an exhausting bore. So much so, that it wasn't even funny anymore.
I saw the film version a while ago, and it didn't convince me that much, even though Casey Affleck's performance was hauntingly perfect. So, when I saw this in the library, I thought I should at least take a look. What a disturbing experience that was. It was like watching a horror movie: you want to close your eyes, but you can't. I could not put this down. Fortunately this was mercifully short, a larger dose would have been way too much.
Thompson didn't get much recognition while he was still alive, which is a shame since this is in a lot of ways a more interestingly executed piece of hard-boiled literature than Candler's works. The style is concise and intense, and all the characters are in some ways unpleasant. Of course, Lou Ford is the most disturbing of them all. It doesn't matter at all that you can kind of sense the end result from the beginning, since it's interesting to follow how Ford will deal with the situation. Underneath that calm and simple exterior he's a complete psychopath. The violence itself is more unpleasant than usual, even though the scenes aren't bloodbaths. After the finale Ford is sure to haunt you for a while.
By the way, I was reading some of the critique concerning the movie, and it doesn't really make sense. The film is actually a very faithful adaptation of the book, so the critics should have taken that into consideration. Most of the violence is targeted at women, but that doesn't make the director or author misogynists. Sure, I got a bit queasy, but would it be better if no violence towards women was ever portrayed anywhere? I think the audience was just in shock, because they hadn't seen anything that realistic before. Or maybe because there aren't actually that many scenes of violence, so it feels more nauseating. The essence of the story is Ford's inner struggle and keeping everything under control. So, in second thought, I'd recommend the movie as well, since it is actually a quite stylish modern film noir. Just read the book first, you'll get more out of it.
Thompson didn't get much recognition while he was still alive, which is a shame since this is in a lot of ways a more interestingly executed piece of hard-boiled literature than Candler's works. The style is concise and intense, and all the characters are in some ways unpleasant. Of course, Lou Ford is the most disturbing of them all. It doesn't matter at all that you can kind of sense the end result from the beginning, since it's interesting to follow how Ford will deal with the situation. Underneath that calm and simple exterior he's a complete psychopath. The violence itself is more unpleasant than usual, even though the scenes aren't bloodbaths. After the finale Ford is sure to haunt you for a while.
By the way, I was reading some of the critique concerning the movie, and it doesn't really make sense. The film is actually a very faithful adaptation of the book, so the critics should have taken that into consideration. Most of the violence is targeted at women, but that doesn't make the director or author misogynists. Sure, I got a bit queasy, but would it be better if no violence towards women was ever portrayed anywhere? I think the audience was just in shock, because they hadn't seen anything that realistic before. Or maybe because there aren't actually that many scenes of violence, so it feels more nauseating. The essence of the story is Ford's inner struggle and keeping everything under control. So, in second thought, I'd recommend the movie as well, since it is actually a quite stylish modern film noir. Just read the book first, you'll get more out of it.
