Author: Valur Gunnarsson
A Very Brief History of Icelandic Film Making
The history of film making in Iceland only has an unbroken history going back to 1977, and the somewhat underrated…
Where Is The Icelandic Gandhi?
At first sight, Iceland and India have a lot in common. For one thing, they both start with the letter…
Nazi Zombies at the Movies
Like crossing garlic with blue cheese, it’s hard to see how you can go wrong with two such strong ingredients…
Saving Iceland
Most of the major disputes of the past ten years have now been settled. The War in Iraq was a…
Where is the Icelandic Solon?
Sólon Íslandus, whose real name was Sölvi Helgason, was an Icelandic 19th Century drifter and painter who was arrested for…
Does It Matter
In the film Frost/Nixon, former President Richard Nixon wonders if his legacy will be an entire generation of Americans losing…
Icelands 1000 Years: The Road From and to Serfdom
“Those who are considered chieftains in this country are foolishly susceptible to prayer, drink and bribery, but still the simple…
My Colours, My Honour
Former Grapevine Editor Valur Gunnarsson explains the colour schemes he employs in his piece on the Rainbow Revolution, and why…
Iceland’s Rainbow Revolution
Prologue: By early afternoon on January 20th 2009, it was obvious that it was going to be a historic day….
The Day We Started Fighting Back
“We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on!…
The Last Great American Depression
The Last Great American DepressionThe Great Laissez-faire Dream is over. To many, it always seemed like more of a nightmare….
Can We Love the US Again?
We all secretly love the United States. List your top ten heroes, writers, musicians, actors, anything; chances are most of…
Predator for President
In retrospect it might seem obvious, but at the time no one really suspected that two of the stars of…
Dick Cheney is the Dark Knight
After a slew of thought provoking and intelligent films that helped turn public perceptions against the war in Iraq (remember…
The Future of Rock and Roll
Is India the next Manchester?With the world shrinking at a continuously faster pace, far away places are being exposed to…
The Politics of Archaeology
As if to complete the role reversal, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones falls asleep just as Marion…
The Best Depressing Music of the 90s
The early 90s were not a happy time to be young. In between communism and Al-Qaeda, with a Clinton in…
The Pleasures of Lingua Franca
We don’t get a lot of French up here. We learn English and Danish in primary school, and in secondary…
Can Bobby Fisher be helped?
How Fischer Played his Part in Political Disputes But not between the countries you think Getting Bobby Fischer to Iceland…
The Tragedy of Bobby Fischer
“Nobody has single-handedly done more for the US than me. When I won the world championship, in 1972, the United…
Stockholm’s Great Highway to Hope
Man Bites Dog “Society is madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police,” it said. I stopped, surprised, excited…
STOCKHOLM Picks
The Blue Tower, The Strindberg Museum, Dronninggatan 85 Strindberg’s last home, and where he died in 1912. Apart from his…
IF TRUTH BE TOLD…
This publishing date marks the 20th and last Grapevine I’m editing, at least for the time being. It also marks…
BOMBING-STARVATION-BOMBING:
When I first went to Saudi-Arabia in the summer of 1991, they hailed me as liberator. Granted, they mistook me…
AMERICAN DIPLOMACY AND THE DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY
A nightmare scenario? Well, yes, and also the subject of a new play, American Diplomacy, written and directed by aspiring…