My Filmviews

It’s that time of the week again when I take a look at the many roles of one actor, this week with Brad Pitt. Pitt was born in 1963. As he grew up he was always very active as he participated in various sports. Once he graduated high school he went to the University of Missour in 1982. He majored in journalism and was interested in advertising. Something which also interested him was acting and he left the university two week before graduation to move to Los Angeles. He had his first roles in 1987 and appeared in shows like Dallas and Growing Pains and 21 Jump Street. His first leading role was in the movie The Dark Side of the Sun in 1988, which wasn’t released until almost 10 years later. His breakthrough came when he appeared in Thelma and Louise in 1991. From this moment his career took off. He has been nominated for an Oscar several times, but has not won it yet. Read more…

No “Story Behind…” this week as time really hasn’t allowed me to write a new one, but I do have a review:

Hunter S. Thompson was an interesting man, which was made clear by the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in which he goes on a drug filled journey and ends up in the most bizarre situations. If you’d like to know more about him I recommend watching the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter s.Thompson,which shows that what was shown in that movie was only a small part of a life filled with extremes. Knowing that The Rum Diary was also based on his work I was looking forward to seeing this, especially with Johnny Depp starring again. Read more…

My stack of of DVDs that I still have to watch has been big for ages. Some movies have been in it for years and Das Boot was one of them. I heard amazing stories about this film, but because of its length (close to 5 hours) I never made the time to sit down for it, until recently. Read more…

As you know I usually go into the movies without knowing anything about it. Albert Nobbs was part of a preview festival I went to and apart from a thumbnail of the poster I went in blank. No idea what it was about and who played in it. When the movie started I saw the name Glenn Close show up on the screen and although it vaguely rang a bell I really couldn’t think of a face that matched the name. When the movie started I got an uncomfortable feeling. Read more…

Welcome to the 25th installment of “The Many Faces of…”, this week starring Matt Damon!

Damon grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and lived close to Ben Affleck, who has been a friend of his since he was little and with whom he still collaborates. I high school he acted in several plays. He went to Harvard University but did not graduate as he decided to head to LA to pursue an acting career. He started acting in small movies (his first at 18 in Mystic Pizza) and starred together with Gene Hackman in Geronimo: An American Legend in 1992. He was willing to do a lot for his roles and proved so in 1996 when he lost 18 kg for his role in Courage Under Fire (he had to take medication for years after it because it took a big toll on his body). His big breaktrhough came with Good Will Hunting. Together with Ben Affleck he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. After this his career took off and starred in popular franchises as the Oceans and Bourne series. Read more…

Recently I visited the PAC festival, which is regularly organised by one of the biggest cinema chains in the Netherlands. It shows previews of quality movies that will be released in the coming months. One of the five movies that was shown was Intouchables. A French movie I hadn’t heard of before based on a true story. Read more…

It’s been a while since I saw a Michael Douglas movie I enjoyed. A while ago a DVD store near me had a big sale and going through stack and stacks of DVDs trying to find my personal treasures I found Beyond a Resonable Doubt. The cover looked cool, it had Michael Douglas in it and it seemed to be a courtroom drama. Worth seeing right? Read more…

Pacino was born in 1940 and grew up in the Bronx. He dropped out of school at 17 and did a lot of small jobs to finance something he wanted to do, acting. He joined the Herbert Berghof Studio where he learned a lot from Charlie Laughton. With his experience there he applied to the Actors Studio and was admitted. He did some plays before making the jump to movies.

The first film he appeared in was Me, Natalie in 1969, with only a small role. He got noticed and his big breakthrough came when he played Michael Corleone in The Godfather (which was only his third movie role), which got him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He later received other Oscar nominations for his roles in Dick Tracy, …And Justice for All, Glengarry Glen Ross, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Scent of a Woman. It was for his role in the last movie he received the statue. Read more…

Humanity has always wondered if we are alone in the universe. Is life on this tiny grain of sand on the vast beach called the universe unique? With UFO sightings and projects like SETI we are looking for answers, but have still not found an answer. In this movie another earth appears and people want to find out more about it. One of them is Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling), a young student who looks up at the sky when she hears about it and in doing so causes a horrible accident which changes her own life and that of others. Read more…

Welcome to this week’s Moviesite Spotlight. For those who wonder what this is:

Every week I read a lot of great movie related blogs and I thought it was time to give the ones I visit regularly a chance to shine in the spotlight, by interviewing its writers.

This week’s interview is with Dan, writer of Public Transportation Snob. Read more…

Who would have thought that a movie about a monk living on a floating temple could be this mesmorising? This is the first movie I’ve seen directed by Korean director Ki-duk Kim, but I’d be interested to see more of his work. Read more…

Looking at the screenshot above you might not know what to think of this movie. I probably would not have giving this movie a chance if I hadn’t seen it in the IMDB top 250. It made me curious about it, but didn’t get around to ordering it (usually buy my movies online). As I strolled through town I saw it in the window of a small record store and immediately went in to buy it. So is it any good? Read more…

It’s Friday Faces time with this week’s star Leonardo DiCaprio. He was born in 1974 and started out doing commercials and moved on to TV shows, appearing in Parenthood, The New Lassie, Growing Pains and Roseanne. He made the step to movies in 1993′s Critters 3 and Robert De Niro (whose many faces you can check out here) picked him to star in This Boy’s Life. He received an Oscar nomination for his role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. His big breakthrough came when he was the lead in Titanic. He has worked with several well-known directors like Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan and Danny Boyle. Read more…

Becoming parents is one of the big changes in your life and Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are on the brink of experiencing it. Verona is six months pregnant and they are getting ready for it. They have moved near Burt’s parents and when they pay them a visit find out that they are planning to move to Belgium just before the baby is due. It’s a big shock for them and they decide there is no reason to stay where they are and search for a new place to settle. Read more…

If you have seen the movie Ed Wood you probably already now a little about this movie. If you haven’t heard about Ed Wood, he was a director who through his career created several movies which were notorious for their strange plots, technical errors and bad special effects. I was very curious myself to find out if his movies really were that bad and decided to check this one out as it was called the worst movie ever made. Read more…