Film reviews often tell you what would be commercially attractive or to the common expectations. Therefore these descriptions of movies you might want to see but did not decide about yet.

 

 

The latest films.
(Dutch movies are discussed in Dutch)


1.22 2001 - 3.30 2001

 

The Cup (filmclub)

Seen: 03-30-01 Dir.: Lama Khyentse Norbu, with Neten Chokling, Jamyang Lodro, Orgyen Tobgyal. Norbhu is a little boy of 14 years old living in a buddhist monastery. It is the monastery in exile in the North of India. Let the Chinese be the servant, have your belief in Tibet and live in India. Thus buddhism can never be defeated. The game the monks love is that of soccer. Times have changed and now they see the word testing itself over games of soccer. The young little monk wants to see it and believes in the game. He does everything to get the money together to rent a t.v.-set from an Indian from the nearby village to watch the game together with his god-brothers. The abbot of the monastery consented and the boy gets the money together. They fall short of 50 rupees. They take the watch from one of the other boys. He needs to have it back, but they have no money anymore. His instructor says says: 'If you are such a bad businessman, you will be a good monk'. Then the abbot donates the rest of the money. The watch returns. The timepiece is the heritage from the old days. It is the buddhist love for progress and modernity. Everyone is delighted. What is God? T.v.? Soccer. The watch? The Buddhist doesn't ask the question, the buddhist lives the answer. Love the game, play the game, believe in the game. Drink the cup, win the cup, be proud of the cup. Also the footbalcup. This story is a real story. It really happened and the monk Norbhu really exists. He dreams of having Tibet's first national soccer team. The Buddha will win. All is a game. (All Movie info)

 

 

Enemy at the Gates

Seen: 03-30-01 Dir.: Jean-Jacques Annaud. With: Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris. Stalingrad was the city where the tide turned for Nazi Germany. This story pictures this as the test of character of two marksmen who try to put one another out. It is a true story and this makes the film an historical document. Major König and Vassili Zaitsev trying to outsmart one another are tested by the conditions of war. Vassili falls in love and falls asleep on the mission because of which he is almost killed. König is informed by a small boy who double-crosses him. He kills the boy, by hanging him, provocating the anger of the other party. His fate is sealed. He is definitely the real bad guy. This movie is in perfect balance politically. Both parties are hard and ruthlessly killing, both have political ideals. The true war is the war of character. The character shows the underlying motives. The Nazi's are gentlemen-like, strong and disciplined, but in reality cruel and stupid. The Russians are in love in reality. intelligent, desperate, fallen and modest. Love and humanity wins despite of the sleepiness. God is also there in times of war and this is proven by this movie. The cruelty brings everybody down guilty thereof. The movie is realistically set against the very dark and muddy scenes of Stalingrad in ruin. One is always amazed by the modern cinematographic skills of making perfect scenes of worlds that do not exist any longer. No dreams, no illusions. War is a horror and a discussion without words about at who's side God is. In fact this is all and nothing more. (website)

 

 

Traffic

Seen: 03-22-01 Dir.: Steven Soderbergh (Oscarnomination Best Director, Best Film). With: Michael Douglas, Benicio del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones. The director of this movie did his best to make an almost documentary drama giving a sharp description of the war on drugs. To begin with the conclusion: we can't win by fighting the symptoms or catching a few traders. Everything in this movie shows the big lie of our, and especially the american, profit-minded society. The judge appointed head of the drugscommittee has to save his own daughter out of the hands of the heroin-monster and the police in Mexico is completely confused about whom they are serving with their warfare. A materialist system has nothing better to do than to bite its own tail like a dog gone mad. People in this movie do not realize that the whole setup of the drugsgame from both sides is an endless and pointless affair like a chronic disease, but the director knows. This is predator paradise. Human despair could also have been a title for this very pessimistic, but realistic view of our ignorance and learned helplessness. The true merit of this history is its realism. It does not lie and pretend to solve the problem by tracking a criminal or ending one organization. I thought afterwards: if we dare to show the problem full scope as it is, then there must also be awareness somehow of the solution. Well, going to the cinema is maybe a part of it, but it is certainly not enough to suggest that this would do. The endless amount of organizations is what really worries in this movie. CIA , FDA, FBI, etc. The Mexican general pretending to help turns out to be corrupt. Everything goes wrong and organizing the social ego for or against is more the problem than the solution, It seems that everyone, running away from himself, is affected by the game/doe/rush-hunting disease. There are no winners, there is a social disease. Am I the winner as onlooker? The natural product drugs one down, but could nature also offer a cure? This is not answered here. And if I can't give an answer myself to this posing the problem, then I am also a victim in this terrible hell of predator men. So I will do my yoga-exercises and enjoy the true harmony of nature and not fall for the the drugged nature or the dogwar about it. Leaving the cinema afterwards though one is in the mood for a political discussion, for action. That is why this movie deserves an Oscar. Not for offering solutions, but for posing the problem. Our time of hunting is up! Accept it. (Website)

 

 

Miss Congeniality

Seen: 03-22-01 Dir.: Donald Petrie. with: Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine, Benjamin Bratt, Candice Bergen. Ever seen Michael Caine playing a queer, or Candice Bergen as a bad character? Our Sandra knows way with them as an undercover agent. The story is about a serial killer, that we never get to see, who threatened to make a hit at a beautycontest. For the purpose of catching the bad guy Sandra infiltrates. But first a lady has to be made out of the raw unpolished type of girl she is. It turns out that the disturbed leader of the contest and her wicked son abuse the identity of the serial killer to have their sick way. It always amazes me to find people making this kind of stories. Who would do such a thing as blowing the head of a winning beauty? Well this is not a real story, but a parody maybe. Not sure. Sandra is nice to look at and also to recognize as a comedy talent in this shallow story that is apart from the fine cast, mediocre entertainment and pretty predictable out of the Hollywood box. These actors would deserve a better story I'd say. But o.k. not too critical it is entertaining (I didn't fall asleep).

 

 

Chocolat

Seen: 03-15-01 Dir.: Lasse Hallström. Starring: Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp. There are soft-drugs and soft drugs. The harmful ones are: nicotine and alcohol. The more innocent ones are coffee, tea and cocoa. This story is about the stimulant of chocolate. In an old traditional catholic village a young woman arrives with her unlawful child. She opens a chocolate-shop there and refuses to adapt to the local culture of strict catholic churchgoing morality. Instead she tempts the people with her chocolate into a more loose lifestyle. The mayor, a noble a bit too tight and hypocrite she finds against it all. The community tries to ban her, especially when she starts a relation with the leader of a bunch of river-pirats. Meanwhile one of the elder ladies in town finds her old joie de vivre back with her and does another battered woman find shelter with her fleeing from her husband. She really undermines the authority of the mayor and his follower, the parson, who reads the sermons in church that are written by the mayor himself. End of the story is that after a crisis where the boats of the river-rats are set afire, the mayor falls down, just the night before the Easter celebration. He is found asleep, after deliriously crying and eating chocolates , in the window of the chocolateshop next morning. Never again that tight morality against life. From now on the parson will improvise his own sermons preaching the love of life, and the mayor may hang loose with the ladies also a bit, finally admitting that his own wife has left him in stead of just being on a holiday. The statue of the formerly severe ancestor now smiles with a balloon in his hand. The balance between the morality of culture and the lust of life is restored. My conclusion: too much preaching is not good. Nor is too much chocolate or whatever softdrug. The balance between the two is the real message. A sympathetic movie with a lot of heart for people and their moral dilemma's. (website)

 

Quills

Seen: 03-07-01 Dir.: Philip Kaufman, Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix, Kate Winslet, Michael Caine. A quill is a goose feather one wrote with in the old days. In the case of this story it is the quill of Marquis de Sade, the lusty writer who managed to survive the French Revolution with its Reign of Terror. From within the Charenton Asylum for the Insane he writes Justine abreacting all the madness of the revolution and his own cultural demise in pornographic revolutionary tales and even plays. The abbé leading the asylum recognizes his theatrical and literary talents, but has to give in to the pressure of the political and medical authorities to put a ban on the vulgar writings. To kill as a bunch of demons our own nobles seemed to be necessary, the abreaction in literature of all the perverted mind of Europe going mad though had to be banned. De Sade in the end looses in this drama the sympathy of the priest who had to take sides with the authority. The Sade is denied all privileges amongst which the permission to write. He loses his quills. But the pen is the only way to stay healthy in the midst of the madness and madhouse of upcoming modern time with its socialist, psychiatric and, as portrayed here, also religious betrayal of individual selfrealization. The Sade compulsively continues writing with his own blood and even his feces. In the end he dictates his stories to a laundry woman who falls victim of a madman in the process. Everything in disarray. Not just one man dies in torture with the denial of the right to a quill. The whole of western culture drowns in hypocrisy and misunderstood tides from the unconscious that later Sigmund Freud couldn't effectively cope with nor analyze completely either. The West was doomed to fall down from its imagined and infatuated corrupt nobility and falsification of christian compassion. We were colonial murderers completely confused in philosophy, religion, science and politics of timemanagement that had to face their own aggression turning inward. This movie reveals the way out of this all: selfrealization. If we escape it we go stark mad in senseless wars taking it out against one another. The karma has to be overcome by sacrifices. The self confrontation has to be faced. There is no other way. Go see this Academy Award winning movie. An unforgettable experience and a key-movie to our historic selfawareness. (All movie | Imdatabase)  

 

Costa!

Gezien: 07-03-01 Regie: Johan Nijenhuis. Met: Katja Schuurman, Victor Löw, Nadja Hüpscher. Ben je ooit op vakantie geweest en toen gemerkt dat het niet echt vakantie was, maar het inwisselen van het ene materialisme voor het andere ? Vakantie moet eigenlijk een bewustzijnstoestand zijn van bevrijding in de natuur die je het hele jaar bij blijft. In Costa is het een andere ambitie en strijd tussen goed en kwaad waarmee de hoofdpersonen worstelen. Een jong meisje gaat met haar oudere zus naar de Costa op vakantie om te ontdekken dat ze het vijfde wiel aan de wagen is. Niettemin weet ze een populaire jongen te verschalken die deel uitmaakt van een groepje z.g. proppers, jongelui die als gangmakers door de discotheek eigenaren worden ingehuurd. Het is harde business, met jaloezie en veel strijd om de voorrang van de gunst der vakantiegangers. Eigenlijk zijn het mislukkelingen die alleen maar kunnen feesten. De danstenten beconcurreren elkaar. Terwijl zich een zekere verliefdheid voordoet tussen de hoofdpersonen, verandert de concurrentie met de anderen in een strijdtoneel. Het wordt uiteindelijk knokken en die strijd verenigt dan weer. Dat is ongeveer het verhaaltje. Enerzijds is het leuk om weer in de kalverliefde en losse sex-sfeer te zitten met deze film. Lastig al die hormonen enz. Lekker blitzen met de muziek etc. Anderzijds valt het tegen om de dames en heren zo in strijd te zien om wat oppervlakkigheid. Het is een wat zepig verhaal dat bovendien nogal slecht van geluidskwaliteit is; een oude kwaal van de nederlandse film. Jammer. De dialogen zijn vaak moeilijk te volgen. Er is sprake van een droom, een soort van idealistisch geestdrift, maar dat is slechts bedoeld voor het commerciële oppeppen van de sfeer die de proppers moeten maken. De jeugd denkt niet veel na en en wil wat beleven voordat ze vroeg of laat weer naar huis moeten. Het bioscooppubliek moet dan ook maar zo zijn. Gewoon maar leuk vinden al die heisa om niks eigenlijk. (website)

 

 

Memento

Seen: 02-28-01-01 Dir.: Christopher Nolan, starring Guy Pearce. How can you live when you've lost the time? That question is what this movie tries to answer. We see the chopped up life of an insurance-agent named Leonard Shelby who has to live without a short-term memory. His wife was raped and murdered and he suffered braindamage after being beaten down by the murderer. He has a system to cope with his loss: he makes Polaroid's of all relevant situations and writes on the back of them what should be done to that image. He also has tattoos all over his body reminding him of relevant information as: your wife has been murdered and think of Mr. Jenkins. He also manages to remember that the murderer is still around. The story is about him finding the murderer. The problem is that he can't remember whether he already took revenge or not. Somewhere in the movie he finds himself running away while not even remembering whether he runs after someone or whether he himself is being chased. Extra confusion is created by the director who, expressing the confusion of Leonard tells the story backwards cutting the same scene time and again in different sequences. One is witnessing a jigsaw and is like Leonard put in the same confusion of being out of time trying to get a grip on it. Did the man die himself? No this is not the Sixth Sense, but one surely is reminded of how important and life-essential time-consciousness is. Without it one is in a loop, a kind of nightmare waking up to the same reality with no idea of the original sequence of happenings. Did I meet this man before? Didn't I rent another room apart from this one? Is this my wife? Is this my car? My clothes? Who am I? Whom should I trust? Etc. It seems impossible, but still the man persists from his long term memory in hunting down the perpetrator, although in the end he achieved nothing for himself forgetting that he has found him. He's still not sure whether the policeman that helps him isn't really the murderer or whether he should kill him or was set up by a friend to kill the wrong one. To all of us it is a reminder that one needs a system, a basis, a conditioning to find ones way through (the modern braindamaged and braindamaging of standard) time. A must see for filognosy. (further film-info and database)

 

Ik Ook van Jou

Gezien: 28-02-01 Regie: Ruud van Hemert Hoofdrollen: Anthonie Kamerling en Angela Schijf. Naar een boek van Ronald Giphart. Heer Giphart schrijft over het drama van het schrijversbestaan: je hebt een relatie met de wereld, maar die bestaat voornamelijk uit illusies, verbijstering en waanzin. Die prutverhaaltjes van je, daar krijg ik geen kind van is haar boodschap. Zij, Reza geheten, zijn relatie met wereld, draait door. Ze weet niet waar ze het, dat van zijn fictie, moet zoeken. Het is sex, het is leven, maar wat heb je eraan als alles door je vingers glipt. Het is literatuur, het is ontwaken, maar is dat mijn verhaal dan wel die literatuur en dat ontwaken? Illusie zelfmoord en het opofferen van anderen dan jezelf is niet wat we ontwaken noemen mag je wel konkluderen na dit verhaal. Wat het verhaal van de ware zelfverwerkelijking dan wel moet zijn blijft ongewis. In deze film wordt gesuggereerd dat op vakantie gaan en uithuilen aan de borst van een nieuw allochtoon vriendinnetje dan misschien enig perspectief opent op een betere relatie van de schrijver met de wereld, maar filosofisch is dat wel wat kort door de bocht. De natuurlijkheid van de jeugd, de vreugd van de natuur, de geestdrift voor een openliggende wereld, het talent, de fata morgana's van intelligentie. Het is allemaal de werkelijkheid van de worsteling op weg, dat moeten we zien natuurlijk. Maar goed die nederlandse cinema heeft toch moeite de held op het doek te krijgen of te houden, blijkt nog steeds. Om altijd maar aan soldaat van Oranje te denken of Willem de Zwijger (de acteurs ervan nu beroemd in het buitenland) is natuurlijk niet vol te houden. Aan de cinematografie zal het niet liggen, dat vak kennen we zo langzamerhand, het ligt meer aan de rijpheid van onze schrijvers of filmmakers die de boeken ervoor moeten lezen en omzetten in goede scenario's. Toch goed om door te zetten en te volgen. We hebben in ieder geval een zeker europees naturalisme, een eerlijkheid wat betreft de probleemstellingen van de moderne tijd. Of het nu Mulish is, van Gogh of Giphart. Geen overdreven idealen, ego-illusies, gewoon geworstel met het materialisme en niet te veel prediken. Maar nu, wederom.... Meedenken maar. Het zijn uiteindelijk onze eigen verhalen die er moeten komen.(website)

 

Red Planet

Seen: 02-19-01 Starring: Val Kilmer. The mission to Mars continues. This time we have a pretty 'realistic' scenario. Earth in the year 2025 is spoilt. The planet wasted looks for a new habitat and has sent probes to Mars for years sending algy to produce an atmosphere. But something goes wrong. The algy are disappearing and a mission is sent to find out what's wrong. Something else goes wrong too: a solar wind jams the whole ship setting it afire and in great emergency the crew but one exists hurriedly to the red planet. There a gruesome fate awaits them. The survival station turns out to be demolished and a robot called Aimee borrowed from the Navy has crashed in battle-mode. It is out to destroy them and is of the most superior technology. They only have oxygen for a twelve hours and they are about to suffocate in their own space suits. Crazy of that one member is lost in a fight falling in a ravine. The rest discovers just in time that there is oxygen but no algy. How can that be? Investigations prove that a certain bug eats all the algy and produces the oxygen. Do not count molecules here, because the little bastards also eat survival stations and space-suits (...) The battle continues until only one manages to escape back to the rescued spaceship. The guy was in love with that female commander left behind anyhow. So we have an happy end, a failed mission and how Humanity may survive is in the hands of this bug. It is always nice to see a completely new world of possibilities created in the science fiction genre. The movie is technically impeccable and fascinating, but the philosophy is not very deep. It is highly improbable that breeding life elsewhere would be more attractive than keeping the atmosphere here good or restore it. Nor is it very logical that the crew had no oxygen meters to be sure that there was oxygen on the planet. But uncritical about these minor flaws, it is a nice episode of the continuing story of colonizing the outer spheres with life from earth. When everything would be founded on successful management of the earth, then the basis of this story would have been perfect instead of desperate, the way it looked now. A plus was the really cool attitude of the crew facing their own demise. No panic or great drama's and overacting apart from a small bad-buy idea that also had little psychological profile. Nevertheless for the technical dream another great adventure well filmed. (website)

 

Bedazzled

Seen: 02-19-01 Director: Harold Ramis. Starring: Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Frances O'Connor. What does it mean to be tempted by the devil, and how to get out of it once you 'signed the contract'?. Fraser plays Elliot Richards , a nerd with no social talents and little attraction for the woman. He dreams about winning the heart of a beautiful girl at his office where he helps at the helpdesk. He tries to be popular, but fails. Then he prays that he would give anything for the girl. Next a full-blown English beauty appears revealing to him that she is the devil. She drops a huge contract in his lap promising him the girl or whatever in seven wishes in exchange for his soul. He does it and the comedy begins. Then he is powerful, rich and attractive, but turns out to be a drugdealer. Then he is an emotional type, poetic and sensitive, but is dropped for being such a looser. Then he is an accomplished writer, intelligent and with a big john, but turns out homosexual. Then he is a giant, famous basketballplayer with a lot of fans, but has a willy too small to be true. Etc. Nothing really works and the devil excuses herself for not being perfect. End of the story is that he gets his soul back as soon as he wishes something selfless. He wishes the girl he wants a happy life. Then sobered up she turns out to have another friend. Still there is a happy end for him though. Now we see the cinema as another church preaching the truth of God. But the sermon is an hilarious one. The devil is great fun and the conclusion is also nice once we're done with that one. This movie made me wonder though why the devil was such a classy English woman. Does she stand for the English which is the worldlanguage now and which is such a devil of temptation seeing everything too big for those who lack in an alternative local tongue of their own? Always be prepared for the alternative! Then life will be straight. (website)

 

What Woman Want

Seen: 02-12-01 Director: Nancy Meyers. Starring: Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt. One of the last questions Sigmund Freud posed before his death is what the woman would want. This movie tries to show the result of investigating this: penis envy must have been something of Freud himself. No woman has that. No, they worry to much about everything possible: about their looks and about their behavior and careers and so on. Mel Gibson plays the man spoilt by woman. This character grew up with them as his mother was a showgirl and he was raised backstage. He is the ideal type for woman to play around with: trusting , macho, cute, nonviolent. What more does a woman need? Helen Hunt plays his counterpart as a business woman stealing away his promotion. They both work for an advertising agency; lots of woman around there. Woman are the fastest growing market and the agency goes for it. Poor Mel has to try the product before they can sell them and thus we see him trying lipstick, nail polish and panties. Hilarious, but something goes wrong, he electrocutes himself and turns out, no not to see dead people afterwards, that was another hero, but to be able to hear what woman think. Well that he has to learn to live with. First he has to see a psychiatrist (played by Bette Midler; her greatest byrole ever) then he takes revenge on our career woman, but falls in love with her. In the end his ability disappears again when he rescues a young office-help from perdition. She may also join the crew of text writers after that. Lovely Helen is very kissable and Mel does it right. That's it. He who says that he doesn't like this is a liar. Although I wouldn't take miss Meyers as a psychiatrist, it is still an interesting comedy showing what woman can be. Whether Freud is really happy with the analytic conclusion that they factually worry and only want to get rid of that, no matter what, I doubt. I always thought of them as the Lord in disguise, good chastisers as they are confronted with weaknesses of heterosexual interest. Mel tries to declare himself homosexual, but that doesn't really work of course. A failed analysis, but a successful movie. Go and laugh Freud out of his grave. (website)

 

Vertical Limit

Seen: 02-12-01 Director: Martin Campbell Starring: Chris O Donnell . There is a certain rush in climbing mountains. People are not really conscious of what that exactly means, but in this movie it becomes crystal clear: death, Climbing mountains is a game of death like russian roulette. Sooner or later the mountain will take revenge and defeat you for a change. It is wrestling with fate and apart from that a society sport. People pay large amounts for climbing permits. It is a millionaires hobby and there is a whole entertainment industry including the media about it. This movie shows this all: people who climb with the wrong mentality, with characters not suitable for cooperation or rescuing etc. After all, what kind of God is the K-2, the world's second highest peak? Yogi's are supposed to meditate on them and with them for their serenity, but challenging death is an empty passion that must lead to disaster. The vertical limit refers to the altitude above which one is supposed to be dead, because nothing can live that high. Only rushing to the top and sliding down is possible. K-2 is a tough peak and a challenge thus for the big boys. They take some paying people up, the children, brother and sister Garret, of a millionaire who lost his life climbing a peak in America. The film begins with this drama of casually talking at the steepest wall possible, Suddenly everything goes wrong and people die. This goes on throughout the movie. meanwhile one is impressed by the magnanimous scenes and almost impossible climbing tricks and breathtaking adventures with difficult people and avalanches. The sister got trapped in the ice with the more or less bad guy who is a stupid egoist who tried to survive at the cost of other peoples life's. A revenger, 'the mad climber !' tries to kill him as a subplot. But the main portion of the movie is about rescuing the girl from the mountain. No need to explain further what this movie is all about. if you like the highest stunts, nitroglycerine and the most daring shots of mountaineering ever taken go and see. People die, people live, but on mountains one better meditates if you ask me. (website)

 

 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Seen: 02-04-01 Dir: Ang Lee with.: Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Yuen Woo-Ping . The authentic chines dream is what this movie is all about. It is Kung Fu mystified and chinese history mystical. Now we know that Bruce Lee actually had to be flying trough the sky as the fighters do in this movie. There is nothing of the cheap Kung Fu though we are used to see from the Hong Kong Style. Now we have a real story of a noble princess that is captured by a bandit whom she falls in love with. Later she returns to the palace where the Green Lot, a mythical sword is the central object of mystery of eternal heroism and invincibility. The princess is really a goddess capable of defeating any kind of mortal being. Her mentor, the original owner of the sword is fighting a witch who is out to destroy Him. It is the good and evil theme that is the red thread trough this marvelously filmed story that will run shivers down your spine. The authentic chinese dream is discovered. They are no less than godheads. Of course the witch will be defeated, but at a prize. The myth will live for ever of course. A must see for anyone with a serious interest in chinese culture and an unprecedented cinematographic cultural shock. See the gods flying through the bamboos, over waterfalls and on the rooftops. Admire and be astonished. (website)

 

Baby Blue

Gezien 28-01-01.: Regiss.: Theo van Gogh met Roeland Fernhout in de hoofdrol. Een verzekeringsagent wordt verliefd op zijn nieuwe buurvrouw. Haar echtgenoot (of hoe zit dat...), de nieuwe buurman blijkt een verhouding te hebben met zijn eigen vrouw die in verwachting is van Baby Blue (wiens kind?). Door intriges terwille van een verzekeringspremie lijkt het alsof de overbuurvrouw per ongeluk echt overleden is, maar dat is doorgestoken kaart... Degene die echt verdwenen is, is zijn eigen vrouw die bij hem wegliep om met de misdadige overbuurman verder te gaan. Die ruimde haar uit de weg echter op Curacao en heeft ondertussen haar kind (Baby Blue) en het geld ingepikt. Onze held moet eerst uit de verwarring zien te komen van de intrige om, na bijna te zijn vermoord, vervolgens terug te halen wat er terug te halen valt. Niet zijn vrouw dus, maar wel Baby Blue. De film is op zijn amerikaans opgezet. Het gaat over sex en geld zonder al te veel psychologie (kan dat zonder meer?). Dat is harder dan we van de nederlandse cinema gewend zijn. Theo aapt de amerikaans stiel na en likt zich erdoor. Het geeft wel een meer geijkt snel materialistenverhaal met het nodige drama en de nodige complicaties die je denken bezig houden. Typisch is wel dat diegenen die elkaar probeerden te bedriegen en daar ook in denken te slagen met moord, list en bedrog het allemaal overleven met de politie ver buiten schot als een stelletje stomme honden, maar dat de slachtoffers zoals de echtgenote en een andere ongewilde getuige vermoord worden. Eigenlijk had onze held zijn eigen vrouw weer teruggewonnen moeten hebben voor een echt heldenverhaal. Echte gerechtigheid is het nog niet met ons hier volgens van Gogh, maar helemaal gelukkig zijn de bedriegers nou ook weer niet met hun hel van doortraptheid. Misschien is het ook wel goed dat we niet cinematografisch hoeven te dromen over gerechtigheid zoals de amerikanen dat wel moeten... maar we spreken al een aardig woordje amerikaans met deze film. De moeite om te zien, goed verteld, opgezet en verfilmd, maar jongens hoe moet dat verder... nòg 'beter?' (website)

 

Billy Elliot

Seen 01.28.01: Dir Stephen Daldry with Jamie Bell starring. This highly acclaimed story playing in the north of England is about an 11-year old simple coal-miners son who climbs up against all odds to become a professional ballet-dancer. It is indeed a pleasure to see how this movie is made with healthy realism and humor. It reminds one of the riverdance irish dance to see him tapping through the streets of his modest hometown facing the policeforces that want to break a strike in the mines. Billy 's father is the one truly converted in this story. From an ignorant male simplist he becomes a cultural adept recognizing his sons' talent. So after a long struggle the whole community supports Billy to do his audition at the Royal School of Ballet in London. The way he accepts his success carries all the meaning: it is fantastic to become a god of culture, but is it, apart from the honor, a pleasure and solution to the life of problems in the community one grew up with? Does one really hope for the peace and spiritual welfare of a simple life? Or is stealing the show, going for success and fame the way of all us to go? This movie doesn't answer this question. That is where it stops for another movie to continue. First fight yourselves up and then sooner or later return home again having accomplished the mission. And what would that mission be? Go, see and think along with Billy.(website)

 

Taxi 2

Seen 01.22.01.: Dir.: Gérard Kwawczyk. Met : Samy Naccri. This french movie offers us slapstick european style: We may step in with a taxidriver and enjoy his crazy adventures. There are fantastic carcrashes of at least twenty policecars piling up on top of each other and chases faster than formula 1 races. The taxi can even fly! Nothing is impossible. The story is also something: the man wants to marry the daughter of a military officer, but he pretends to be a physician. Later he confesses that he really drives ambulances ... Anyhow he has to help his father in law-becoming to the airport to receive a japanese official under siege of the Jakuza. He has to be protected with a special car and to impress him do the police and the military enact a few fake attacks to demonstrate their protection. Not able to tell the difference with the real attacks of the Jakuza ninja's, is the confusion complete preparing for all kinds of action-scenes in comedy-style. One won't be bored seeing this movie. (website)

 

Cast Away

Seen 01.22.01.: Dir.: Robert Zemeckis. Starring Tom Hanks en Helen Hunt. There are rites of passage to gain access to an afterlife. This movie is about such a passage. Chuck Nolan is a FedEx employee with a pretty aggressive style of managing, but a sweetheart to his loving wife. He lives by the mechanical of clock-time. Going hard in business he is a completely materially motivated person of standardtime. One knows: he is doomed to crash somehow sooner or later. Actually his airplane crashes on his way home from Russia, with him as the only survivor ending up on a tiny little island in the pacific where one can hardly survive. There he has to live with natural time: the watch his wife gave him does not work anymore, For four years he's talking to a volleyball he calls Wilson to the name of one of the deceased pilots he buried on the island. He tries to commit suicide but fails to do so, not able to find himself a proper branch to hang himself from. Instead he hangs a kind of crucifix. After 4 years he takes the chance: he gathers enough material to build a boat and breaks trough over the riffs with its high waves into the open sea. There he covers 500 miles until he is picked up by a cargo-ship and returns home. But now is whole life is changed. He passed through to the other side. He can get his job back, but not his wife. They buried him and she has children now. The last scenes are devoted to delivering the FedEx packages which he had opened on the island and one mystery package he never opened. It was meant for another woman, an artist. His new wife? We'll never know. Chuck ends on a crossroad deciding and we may go home. This remake of Robinson Crusoe shows how peoples lifes change when one is drawn back into nature. One goes on a trip of no return, even if one does physically return. Back to nature is an initiation into the secret of life and selfrealization which this movie shows much better than the Robinson Story. Sooner or later each of us has to return to the original source. How is not known, it depends on the karma, but inevitable it is. (website)

 

 

 

 

 

 previous reviews | index                  

other movielinks and searchengines |             
add a link |             

 

 

backgroundgraphic: Argotique