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).
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…
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:
Yes, we have another update to the best actors list, this time courtesy of Okinawa Assault. The choice has fallen on a character actor. Who? Find out here:
Another Friday, another installment of “The Many Faces of…”, this week with actress Naomi Watts. She grew up in the UK and moved to Australia at the age of 14, together with her mother and brother. She had acting lessons and went to high school where she was classmates with Nicole Kidman. She didn’t graduate and had different jobs, even trying modelling, after which she found her way into acting. She appeared in commercials and TV series and started acting in movies. She’s starred in movies like The Ring, Mulholland Dr., King Kong. Read more…
Back in October last year one of the Monday questions was about the first movie you saw at the cinema. I remembered the movie and the location of the cinema, but not what the name was. It was the start of journey into the history of cinemas in Rotterdam. I bought the book “Fantasy, Illusion and enchantment: Memories of cinemas in Rotterdam” by Herman Romer and found out more about the rich cinema history the city I was born and grew up in has. Henk Berg has also written a great book about the subject. In this new series I literally look into that history (using information out of their books as a source), one cinema at a time, starting with “Centraal”, which gave me my first movie going experience. Read more…
The loss of someone can be devestating and it has had its effect on William Keane (Damian Lewis). He has lost his 7 year old daughter at a bus station a while ago and regularly returns to the place with a news clipping to ask people if they have seen her. He replays the situation constantly hoping to find a new clue to find out where his daughter might be. Read more…
With the actor relay race going strong thanks to a lot of great bloggers, I have been getting questions about a list for the actresses. Well, the wait is over as I’ve decided to kick of “The Ten” for the best female actresses. The rules will be exactly the same, but for those not in the know:
I’ve created a list of what I think are the best actresses of all time. At the end of the post I, just like in a real relay race, hand over the baton to another blogger who will write his own post. This blogger will have to remove one actress (that is an obligation) and add his/her own choice and describe why he/she did this. At the end the blogger chooses another blogger to do the same. The idea is to make this a long race, so that enough bloggers get a chance to remove and add an actress. We will end up with a list (not ranked in order) which represents a common agreement of the best actresses. It will also mean that those who follow this relay race will get to know new blogs as well!
So let’s start the race. Who have I chosen for the starting grid? Who are The Ten? Read more…
Today is “Koninginnedag” in the Netherlands (where everyone is celebrating the queen’s birtday), which means a day off work. For a lot of people it also means selling things they want to get rid off on the streets (one day in the year this is allowed), dressing up in orange clothes and of course drinking a lot. I don’t do any of those as I can’t stand the enormous crowds, but I will have a very relaxing day.
Despite the festivities I didn’t want to disappoint you, so this week the Monday question is actually me asking a bit of advice from you. When I was growing up there were classic movies which I absolutely love and as two of the kids are getting old enough (there are starting their teens) to start watching “normal” films instead of all the Disney and children’s fare I recently introduced them to some older movies. Time to educate them a bit I thought!
Today’s question is: Which classic movies should kids growing up be introduced to? Read more…
Wow, I was stunned when I found out that this blogathon has quickly gained speed as I had missed several updates. There have been some big changes to the list and you can check them out (in order) below. Next week I’m planning to also start this for the best actresses of all time, so keep an eye out for it. For now enjoy (or be frustrated by) the changes that were made by these fine bloggers:
