Remember the trailer for Serbian Movie? It seems that it was nothing and that the film itself is much more disturbing, according to comments coming from the people who saw it at SXSW premiere and who generally, liked what they saw:

“This is a film that left me feeling dirty and assaulted, a film that will surely spark protest and deservedly so.” Twitch Films

“For better or worse, A SERBIAN FILM will mark you for life like few other films have managed.” The Temple of Ghoul

“It’s the kind of movie that grabs you by the collar and drags you through shit you’d rather not.” Aint It Cool News

”...the biggest shocks of the experience come from the fact that it looks like a relatively expensive production, moves along at a competent pace and includes solid performances, indicating the filmmakers’ serious intentions lurking beneath the surface.” Wall Street Journal Blogs

The reactions coming from Twitter are equally strong:
“Serbian Film is the movie that will make Takashi Miike blush”, “I was just traumatized by a movie and it was called Serbian film”, “Once you’ve seen SERBIAN FILM you cannot unsee it. It pushes the limits and is disturbing and I thought it was amazing”, “My friends report that the waitstaff of the Alamo were pissed about being subjected to ‘Serbian Movie’” etc etc, you’ll get tons more if you search for “Serbian Movie” OR “Serbian Film” depending on the translation.

I’m still not sure if I have the guts to see this movie.

See the Q&A from the movie premiere below:


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Serbian Eurovision 2010 entry was chosen last night, and, as I mentioned before – we were deprived of the chance to enjoy various freaks posing as singers, trying to get a break to perform in front of the European audience. Instead, someone decided that it would be best, because of the world economic crisis, to try and minimize the Eurosong budget and let Goran Bregovic write three different songs, and three different candidates compete with one song each. Emina Jahovic-Sandal, Milan Stankovic (you might remember him as the first Serbian emo-kid) and Oliver Katic were chosen by the audience as the three best candidates.

The idea to save some cash was good, although I always enjoy watching the real, full-length freakish ESC show, I must say. But the question is – did we really save? Nobody knows how much money Bregovic got in the end, and I doubt he was cheap. Also, all three songs were almost the same. As the competition neared its end, all three candidates started to look more and more like Bregovic to me (which is creepy really, because Emina usually doesn’t really look like him at all). Take a look:

Oliver Katic:

Emina Jahovic-Sandal:

And the winner, Milan Stankovic:

In order to somewhat please audience who wanted to see something creepy, the organizers managed to get Marija Serifovic to wear a Scottish kilt and a wifebeater:

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From Bezanijska Kosa to city center it usually takes around 20 minutes, if you’re lucky with the traffic. This guy, however, managed to get there in under 8 minutes during one of many Belgrade’s rush hours:

Of course, the only way to achieve this is by riding a motorcycle through 5 red lights, passing around cars on places where it’s forbidden, riding between the cars, driving in opposite lanes, and on sidewalk. All in all, enough traffic violations to ban him from the streets for life.
And who knows, maybe he is already arrested since this is his one and only video on youtube, posted six months ago.

As for the rush hour in Belgrade, it can get pretty messy and heavy sometimes, especially in the morning around 8, in the afternoon around 16h and once more in the evening around 19h, and of course, whenever it rains or snows. But the traffic makes a great scenery for a video clip, like this one, made by Davor Bosankic found via Karl Haudbourg. Enjoy:

Hit the full screen button for best effect!
Belgrade: Symphony of a Great City from Davor Bosankic on Vimeo.

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It’s sad when a city tree dies. Usually we, the city dwellers, don’t even notice city trees when we walk past them, they are simply part of the street, just like buildings on one side and the pavement under our feet. But once they are removed, we realize how important they are for the scenery.

In one of the longest streets in Europe, Bulevar Revolucije (aka Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra) a row of some 500 platanus trees (plane trees) were planted somewhere in the 1920s, at the very beginnings of serious urban planning in Belgrade. Most of them somehow survived World War II and every major reconstruction of the boulevard in the past 80+ years. Inevitably, in that period, a number of them got sick and began to rot from the inside. Surprisingly, new city authorities decided, after one study by the Belgrade’s Forestry Faculty to cut down almost 329 (three hundred and twenty nine) plane trees and in their place plant young new trees. Many claim that it’s not possible for 329 trees to have gotten sick, and that even those that were could have been cured. The reason for this hugely unpopular move by the city authorities remains unknown, there are many theories and most of them include corruption, incompetence and general neglect towards ecology, as poor as it might be in some Belgrade’s parts.

This is what remained after the trees were cut down. Let it serve as a warning – it can happen in your city as well. Hopefully you’ll be better prepared and organized to stop it.

This is the last platanus remaining in the naked part of the boulevard now. It was saved by a fellow who put a fence around it and defended the tree around the clock:

photo: Vucko @ Beobuild

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Couple of hilarious video-montages by Lecktor at youtube.
Video 1
And another one, this time from the horror-flick Horizon:

Video 2
via @Beogradoholik

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When two groups of priests/monks enter a fistfight, several questions emerge: In the brawl, how do you tell who is on your side if everyone looks the same? Also, how come they are not flying through the air or showing some fancy martial-arts moves?

Let’s see that from a different angle and with curse words bleeped out:

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