22. The definition of cool
I.
The 1967 French film Le SamouraĆÆ is one of my favourite films. Everything about it is just so cool. The rainy Paris, the long coats and hats, the beige and blue tones in the shots, the jazz, but above all Alain Delon as the lone hitman Jef.
In the film he is hired to murder the owner of a jazz bar. He does so in cold blood, but afterwards the police are on his trail. At the same time he is plotting revenge on his employer, who is trying to eliminate him to erase all traces. Several cat-and-mouse games become intertwined, and you watch them being meticulously constructed and played out.
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Barely anything is spoken in *Le SamouraĆÆ*. You learn almost nothing about Jef. There is no backstory. What you see is what you get and based on what happens between the lines, you fill in Jef's character yourself. A man with nothing to lose.Nine years ago I saw Le SamouraĆÆ for the first time. I re-read my review on Letterboxd and thoroughly agreed with myself. Tl;dr: watch it!
II.
Iāve been walking around with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 for a while. That is Samsungās newest foldable phone, which works like a flip phone. In other words: you have a standard smartphone and you fold it in half. Youāre left with a smaller device that fits better in your pocket or bag.
This makes more sense to me than Samsungās Fold 5. That one opens like a book to give you a tablet-sized screen (but in an inconvenient square shape). Fold it shut and youāre left with a normal but twice-as-thick smartphone.
In my view, phones donāt need more features at all ā they need fewer. Samsung says the Flip 5 ensures people spend less time on their phones, thanks to the smaller screen on the outside. You see a message come in, tap out a quick reply, and get on with your life. Without unfolding the phone. You only do that when truly necessary, so the idea goes. When reading a long article or watching a video.
That is a good sales pitch but also an idea with some merit. As long as you canāt Instagram or TikTok on that smaller screen, youāre less likely to fall down the rabbit hole while the phone is closed. We all know how that goes on a regular phone: a message comes in that you can quickly reply to, but then you end up in five other apps and three quarters of an hour have passed. Time to fold? My review will appear Sunday evening on NU.nl, but you can already read my analysis of the foldables market (where Samsung reigns supreme).
One more advantage of a foldable phone: you can suddenly use branches as a tripod for your selfies.
III.
Ever heard of VTubers? These are people who make videos without using their own face. Instead you see a virtual character that responds directly to the movements of the person in front of the camera. Some of them are mega popular on Twitch and YouTube.
Polygon made a long video about the phenomenon and it is really worth watching if you want to immerse yourself in this world. The fun part is that presenter Christina Gayton (herself a streamer) interviewed a number of VTubers on camera ā in their virtual form, of course.
PS.
Films you once saw as a child can take on an entirely new life in your head. You might even remember things you never actually saw. That is something film journalist Kevin Toma also discovered when after years he went back to the science fiction film Invaders from Mars.
In Good Omens, a book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, an angel and a demon form a friendship to stop the impending apocalypse. Because the second season of the TV adaptation has been released on Amazon Prime, the BBC has also re-posted its 2014 radio drama online. In six episodes (five of half an hour, the last an hour long) you follow the story from the book. Donāt wait too long, as the BBC will lock them away again after a while.
Ever since YouTube was born there have been viral silly clips. Sixteen years ago I found the one by PWee28 one of the funniest. You see him sitting in a room, sunglasses on, bike chain around his neck, and then he gets slapped in the face. His reaction is more British than British. āAh fuck. I canāt believe youāve done this.ā
After all those years the creator has made a new video explaining the context around the clip. He still has no idea why the original clip (now at 15 million views) went viral.
Illustrator Matt Stevens makes beautiful book cover-style posters of films. He sells them in poster format on his website Good Movies as Old Books.
Here you can see how a fish is filleted to make sushi out of it. But made of LEGO!
Iām on holiday for the next few weeks, but Iāll keep blogging. Next week, probably a report from the Ardennes.
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