Category Archives: Historic

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Neerja (2016) – Review

Review Neerja

This review contains spoilers (if that’s possible for real life events)
Neerja, with Sonam Kapoor in de starring role, tells the dramatised story about the hijacking of Pan Am flight 73 by four armed men. On september 5th 1986 they entered the plane at the airport of Karachi. Their goal was to free prisoners and with 361 passengers on the plane they have the means to get that done. Neerja Bhanot was the purser on this flight and thanks to her actions the number of victims was dramatically lowered. She didn´t survive the events, but this movie gives the viewer a good idea about what she did in this situation. She was the youngest person to receive a prestigious award for bravery posthumously. Continue reading →

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From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years (2016) – Review

Review From bedroom to billions the amiga years

Although I now spend more time watching movies than I do playing games, they were my first love when it comes to entertainment. My father was always interested in the latest developments and as a little boy I was therefore lucky to be able to enjoy that. It all started with a Pong machine from Tandy and I must have spent hours playing tennis on a small black and white TV. The next machine was an Atari 2600 and I used it for years, even liked playing E.T. (which is generally seen as one of the worst games ever made). After that we went through a lot of machines in a very short time (like MSX, MSX2 and Commodore 64), which meant I kept playing the latest games. I still have fond memories of those machines, but it was the Amiga 500 which really left a huge impression. Continue reading →

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Son of Saul (2015) – Review

Review Son of Saul

The way in which a movie is shot can do a lot to set the tone. Wes Anderson played with the formatting in Grand Budapest Hotel, which all represented different eras. Director Xavier Dolan wanted to show the emotional state of the main character in Mommy by using a 4:3 format and only once using widescreen in order to show the feeling of liberation. Son of Saul, which is set during the second world war inside a concentration camp, immediately chooses its tone from the start. With a claustrophobic 4:3 format and only having the focus close to the camera, making everything far away blurry, you are glued to the main character, Saul Ausländer (Géza Röhrig). Continue reading →

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A Trip to the Moon (1902) – Review

Review A Trip to the Moon

I should hang my head in shame, but as long as I’ve been watching movies I had never seen A Trip to the Moon. Not because I wasn’t interested in seeing it, but simply because I didn’t free up time to look for it. It should have been on my Blindspot series, because it’s easily accessible through Youtube and with a length of only 16 minutes (for the restored color version) quickly watched. I’m happy to have finally seen it. Continue reading →

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Land of Mine (2015) – Review

Review Land of Mine

Over here in the Netherlands you still hear, more than 60 years after the second world war, news about unexploded bombs being found while digging. When I was young (end of the eighties probably) I remember we had to stay at my grandmothers place during one weekend as a bomb was found quite near to our house and it needed to be defused. I can still remember seeing a drawing of the blast radius of that bomb and had it gone off it would have had a huge impact on the area. It is hard to imagine how many bombs were used during that war. The beaches in Denmark were carpeted with two million landmines, protecting the German army from an invasion from sea. After the war though these mines needed to be removed and what the Danish did, was use German soldiers to do so. Land of Mine tells the story of a group of young soldiers who are forced to do this extremely dangerous job. Continue reading →

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The Revenant (2015) – Review

review The Revenant

Although I personally was not a fan of Birdman, the previous film by Alejandro González Iñárritu, I think he is a director whose films I’m always interested in seeing. Babel impressed me and his 21 Grams is in my top 100 favorite movies. On a technical level he has grown a lot and through his collaboration with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (who worked on movies like Gravity, Children of Men, Birdman and The Tree of Life) you are assured of visual splendour. The Revenant is certainly no exception. Continue reading →

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Russian Ark (2002) – Review

review Russian Ark2016 Blindspot Films

After seeing the fantastic (it ended up in my top 10 of the year) Victoria last year, a two hour long movie shot in one take, I was very interested to see this movie which has been shot in the same way. According to IMDB: “2000 cast members, 3 orchestras, 33 rooms, 300 years, all in one take”. I had bought the film a couple of years ago after the rave review, but never bothered taking the plastic of and actually watching it. So a good reason to add it to my blindspot list for this year as it would make sure I’d finally come around to seeing the movie. Continue reading →

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Everest (2015) – Review

Review Everest

We all, in one way or another, are looking for boundaries. Of course as a kid we often go past boundaries set by our parents, but in life we also try new things to test ourselves. We want to see what we are willing to do, to face a challenge. How far someone goes with that is different for everyone. I never felt the need to tie a huge elastic band to my feet and jump of a bridge, but a lot of people need that shot of adrenaline and some go even further. Some don’t seem to realize that they are gambling with their life, because I don’t understand what motivates them. This was also the case for me with Everest. Continue reading →

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The Insider (1999) – Review

Review The Insider

Sometimes you realize that when people are used to something it’s difficult for them to face the truth. In The Insider that something is nicotine. And it’s not about someone who is addicted to nicotine, but about the companies who, as research on the effects of smoking progressed, remained quiet, simply because they were accustomed to their income. Such a company has become an entity which will maintain itself even though each individual person working their knows what it can do with your health. The Insider is about a whistleblower who dared to tell the truth, despite the great risks attached to it. Continue reading →

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The Walk (2015) – Review

review The Walk

The Twin Towers will always be in our collective memory because of the events in 2001. The buildings were an iconic part of the skyline of New York and it is still weird to not see them when you’ve seen them in so many movies and TV shows in the past. Still they were also the place where in the seventies one man wanted to realise a dream. That man was Philippe Petit from France (played here by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and he wanted to his high wire act between the to buildings. Continue reading →