My Filmviews

For this week installment I’ve picked actress Julia Roberts. She was born in 1967. Her parents acted as well and many of her relatives have made a career in acting too (for example her brother Eric Roberts). When she was growing up she wanted to become a veterinarian, but after graduating from high school she did pursue a career in acting. She appeared in some smaller movies and televsion series (she did an episode of Miami Vice for example), but her breakthrough role was opposite of Richard Gere in Pretty Woman and has appeared in a lot of movies since. She won an Oscar for her role in Erin Brockovich. Read more…

In this series I take a look at cinemas in Rotterdam that have closed down. This week it’s the Oscar cinema. It opened in the centre of Rotterdam in 1975 at the Meent and closed it’s doors in 1989 and had 215 seats.

What surprised me though is that I didn’t know it existed even though I could have walked past it when I was younger. I asked my parents and other people about this, but no one could remember it. It was the one where the original location eluded me. I had an idea of its location, but no one could confirm it. I came into contact with someone who’s grandmother used to work there, but even he couldn’t pinpoint where it was after I sent him some pictures. It took me two weeks of research to finally track it down and once I thought I found the location I couldn’t wait to see if I was right. Read more…

Since my post last week on my blogging frustrations (which a lot of you share) I started to think about other (albeit smaller) frustrations. One of them is about subscribing to a blog via email. For me it is the perfect way to keep up with lots of movie blogs without having to visit all of them regularly (I will do so if I want to comment to something I have read). But it’s something that’s not always possible.

Looking at my current WordPress subscriptions alone there are 67 movieblogs I’m currently subscribed to. When it comes to Blogger blogs however there aren’t as much. One of the reasons for that is that a lot of them don’t offer any way to subscribe to them. By the way, there are also some WordPress blogs that haven’t enabled the feature. Here is how to change those settings. Read more…

So I already put up a post earlier, but now also have made a banner to give an extra push to get My Filmviews nominated for an LAMMY award. For those wanting to vote (or those who have already done so, thank you), My Filmviews is LAMB number 790.

LAMB members can turn in their votes here

I have had a very busy weekend (I was best man at a friend’s wedding) and didn’t have any time to prepare my posts of this week, so I thought to turn the roles this week. It’s up to you to ask me questions!

So please ask me a question in the comments and will try to answer it (if I want to of course).

In the best actresses race there has also been an update and I love the way it is written. Head on over to Just Another Movie Blog to see what changes were made to the list:

Another update in the best actors relay race courtesy of Amiresque with the addition of a comedic actor. Who was removed to make place for this actor? Find out here:

With the Best Actresses Relay race on its way I thought it would be a good idea to pick one of the chosen actresses for this week’s installment. Frances McDormand was born in 1957 in Chicago and was adopted by a Canadian couple and she moved around a lot with her parents. When she went to school she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theater. Her first movie role was in the Coen brother movie Blood Simple. Besides movies, she also appeared on TV, for example in the police show Hill Street Blues. She was nominated for an Oscar four times and received the statue for her role in Fargo. Read more…

My search for cinemas that were lost to time continues. This week with the Alhambra cinema, which opened in 1979 and closed in 1995, had 195 seats and was located on the Coolsingel. It’s a cinema I do remember because it was converted to a “riskbioscoop”, which meant that it showed older movies which you could watch for just 2 and a half guilder (which would be around 1 euro 10). As a teenager it meant a very cheap way to get out of the house and watch a movie and I would be there often. Read more…

Imagine this situation: You are eating at a restaurant and have just had the greatest meal ever. You want to thank the cook for his wonderful creation and ask the waiter if you could speak to him. The waiter says you can, but first you will have to translate the menu card into another language you speak. If you do it wrong you will have to ask the waiter again if you can speak to the cook and again he will ask you the same. You might be wondering what I’m getting at with this, but it’s the frustration I sometimes feel when commenting at other blogs. It’s been a frustration I’ve had for a while and when my fellow blogger Jessica from The Velvet Café mentioned it on a recent LAMBcast I just had to get it off my chest as well. Read more…

A new award season is about to start as the nominations for The Lammy Awards 2012 were opened this week. Now I’m not one to start begging for nominations, but looking at all the different categories, there was one I really would like to be nominated for and that’s the one for Best Running Feature.

With Ruth from Flixchatter already having called me “King of the blog series” it would be the crown to that awesome title. For those who have been reading my musings for a while you will be familiar with my regular features “The Monday Question“, “The Many Faces of…“, “The Moviesite Spotlight“, “Lost cinemas of Rotterdam” (which I started last week) and smaller more irregular ones like “The Ten” (for both actors and actresses) and “The Story Behind…“. In the end I’ve all started these for your enjoyment and would like to ask if you would consider nominating my humble blog. I would really appreciate it.

If you would be interested in doing so, you can do it here (please note that you have to be a LAMB member to be able to take part):
http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/557532

I’m a big fan of the movie Once. If you have not seen it and like romantic movies I suggest you check it out. It’s about a street artist who falls in love with a girl he meets and the two create music together. The songs were great (the movie won an Oscar) and it’s one of the few movies where I still listen to the soundtrack. The roles were played by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, who at the time were a real life couple. They formed a band (The Swell Season) and toured a lot. Read more…

Recently I read an interview with Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg at Kid in the Front Row. They are the ones who wrote the Harold and Kumar movies and were also responsible for American Reunion. In that interview Jon Hurwitz said about review of movies: “reviews bring the reviewers own perspective before they walk into a movie” and I think that is often the case with some of the big action blockbusters that come out each year. Most of them seem to get trashed in reviews and I always wonder what the expectations were when going in to see it. When I go in to see them I usually expect big set pieces, lots of explosions, paper-thin characterisation and just a fun time. It’s the reason I’ve enjoyed movies like Prince of Persia, Battle L.A. and even the Transformer movies. So going into Battleship I had the same expectations. Does it deliver? Read more…

With the start of a fresh week it’s time for a new Monday question. Hope you all had fun during the weekend and managed to catch some great movies. I went to see The Avengers yesterday (I’ll let you know my thoughts in the review) and read this week that in America the movie would have an extra scene after the credits. It made me wonder about the credits themselves:
Do you sit through the end credits? Read more…

The actress race has had a good start on Tuesday as the list already has had 4 updates. Check out these wonderful sites to see if your favorite actress might have been added or removed: