Martin Geisler Online

We returned very early this morning (at 2:30 AM) from our trip to Bornholm.

We had a wonderful week there. The weather was nice most of the time, so we walked around the rocky terrain quite a bit. It was kind of funny to walk in a forest, and then seeing cliffs sticking out of the earth, when you’re not used to it.

I also read two books while I was there, “Rendezvous with Rama” and “Rama II”. “Rama II” is the sequel to “Rendezvous with Rama”. I read them in just a couple of days — they were that good. Arthur C. Clarke is a fantastic writer, read these books (and also the follow-ups: “The Garden of Rama” and “Rama Revealed”. I haven’t read those yet) and you’ll be amazed yourself.

I’ll be away from home all next week, since I and my family is going on holiday. So things will be a little quiet here at gimpster.com.

We are going to a little Danish island called Bornholm. It’s situated in the Baltic Sea and it’s actually closer to Sweden that it is to the rest of Denmark. It differs from the rest of Denmark by having lots of rocks (like Sweden does). Bornholm is called the “Sunshine Island” in Danish, and we hope that it can live up to its name.

Wow! What a great movie! I’ve just been in the cinema and seen The Gladiator — and I liked it very much.

The plot revolves around the great Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe) who it betrayed by Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and becomes a slave. He is then trained to be a gladiator, but being a great warrior already, he meets little resistance on his way to Coliseum in Rome. Because he is such a good fighter, the crow is very pleased with him. The Emperor had to decide whether a gladiator should live or die, and because Maximus has become so popular, Commodus can’t just turn his thumb down and get Maximus out of the way. But he tries, and Maximus is helped by Commodus’ own sister, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen — a Dane :-)

There’s a lot of different things in this film that makes it great. First there’s the battle-scenes — and there’s many of them. They are all very brutal, the cutting is fast and you makes you kind of confused. That just help to emphasizes the chaos that rages on a battlefield. But although the pace is fast, the choreography is very good — they move and fight in a very spectacular way, using all sorts of weapons.

Later when we see Rome, you’ll notice how beautiful it has been recreated. The Coliseum is just so big! You really get to see Rome as it properly looked at it’s greatest. One cant help but marvel when you think about the sheer size of the city — 2,000 years ago they had a fully functional city with many of the things we have in a modern city.

There’s also scenes without the constant sound of swords clashing together. Scenes where the actors show their emotions, and are very good at it. The film is also about things like honor and justness. Maximus possesses all these virtues, whereas Commodus doesn’t (of cause :-)

It’s a long movie — about two and a half hours — but it’s well worth it. Go see for yourself.

It’s hot — very hot. The temperature is about 30 degrees Celsius in the shade — thats about 86 degrees Fahrenheit for you Americans. The worst thing is that it is warmer outside than indoor, so you really don’t want to go out — even though you know that you ought to…

I don’t know if it is the heat, but I haven’t got my Webalizer to work yet. But I’ll keep trying!

Now my new script is working — the last piece of news had to be helped a bit before it found it’s way here.