Category Archives: Romance

by - 15 Comments

The Way Way Back (2013)

Review of The Way Way Back

Forming a new family feeling when your father or mother has found a new love is challenging. That new person has to find his/her place in the house without forcing themselves into a position where they take the place of someone who is not there anymore. In the Way Way Back we follow a family who is going to a beach house to try and become closer. Duncan (Liam James) is a fourteen year old boy who is the silent type who likes to stay at the house and does not spend a lot of time with other kids. His mother has a new boyfriend (Steve Carrell) who on the way to the beach house makes clear to him what he thinks of him and it isn’t positive. It’s one of those summers which could change their relationship forever. Continue reading →

by - 11 Comments

Obstruction 4: Mr. Nobody (2009)

Review of Mr. Nobody

For my entry for Obstruction 4 in the 5 Obstructions blogathon I decided to rewatch and review (and analyze) a movie which is in my all time favorite top 3 (the other two are Pulp Fiction and Black Swan). There are many reasons I love this movie, but I’ll get to that later. The obstruction itself I though was quite challenging and it did make me look at the movie in more detail, something which I did not mind at all.

Mr. Nobody was the feature length movie Belgian director Jaco van Dormael made since 1996. According to Wikipedia he had been trying to film the movie since 2001. When he finally managed to get financing it turned out that he would be making the most expensive Belgian movie ever made with an estimated budget of €33 million (US$47 million).

When writing the film van Dormael was influenced by movies like Run Lola Run and Sliding Doors. He wanted it to be more complicated than those movies and look at life as a whole and in his words “the abyss of infinite possiblities” that offers and that is exactly was he has managed to do with this movie. It is a movie which unfortunately is not widely known and one I always recommend to people first when they ask me about a movie they should check out. Continue reading →

by - 19 Comments

3 Idiots (2009)

Review of the movie 3 Idiots

In general I don’t tend to watch many movies from India. I have seen a few, but the length is a major factor as is the fact that these movies tend to be very different (usually with lot of singing) means I often don’t connect as much to them. If you look at the IMDB top 250 there aren’t many Indian movies on the list. Actually there is only one and as I do like to still watch as many out of the list as I can I decided to check this one out. Continue reading →

by - 20 Comments

Before Midnight (2013)

Review of Before Midnight

The “Before…” trilogy to me is like a box that is opened every 9 years. You look into it and just for about a short while you are allowed to look into the lives of two people, Jesse and Celine. The first time you met them (Before Sunrise) they did too and when the box closed you thought about what might have happened afterwards. 9 years it opened again (Before Sunset) and you found out what ended up happening, where both of them were in their lives. Also at the end of that movie you start wondering if Jesse went to the airport, if the two kept in contact. Now that the third movie has been released you finally get to see the answers to those questions and know if the theories you might have thought up are right. Continue reading →

by - 11 Comments

Before Sunset (2004)

Before Sunset review in anticipation of Before Midnight

Today Before Midnight is released in the Netherlands and I’m extremely excited to see it (my ticket is already booked), so I thought it was a good moment to revisit its predecessor, just to remind myself what had happened in the previous film (although my memory was quite clear on it). Although i can’t say yet that the “Before trilogy” is possibly one of the strongest trilogies out there, I have the feeling that based on the quality of the previous two movies it is a safe statement. But first my thoughts on the second movie, set in Paris, Before Sunset. Continue reading →

by - 24 Comments

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Review of The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan

I never read books. Unless you consider listening to an audio book reading. I might pick up a magazine once in a while, but the most reading I actually do will be on the sites of other bloggers and when you read the reviews of this movie each and everyone seems to mention what a stunning book The Great Gatsby is and how it is unfilmable. Since I don’t have that knowledge I’ll just assume that is true and focus on my first encounter with the story, through the movie. Continue reading →

by - 24 Comments

Blow Out (1981)

Review of Blow Out starring John Travolta

Movie posters and DVD covers should make you want to see a movie, but if you’d look at the one Blow Out has, you would immediately skip it. It only has a warped image of John Travolta’s head, screaming. Not a great way to sell this movie, but look a bit further and you will see that this movie has been directed by Brian De Palma, who also directed Scarface and the first Mission Impossible (among many others). Heard some good things about this movie so I was interested in giving it a chance. Continue reading →

by - 20 Comments

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Review of Moulin Rouge!

I’m not big on musicals, maybe the reason for it is the amount of Disney movies I’ve seen where they burst out singing, but I always have the feeling they are not for me. Still I do watch them occasionally and there are some which I do like. Singing in the Rain is a good example and so is this one, Moulin Rouge!. It is a movie I’ve had in my collection for years and felt like watching it again. In anticipation to the Great Gatsby I just had to see another movie by director Baz Luhrmann. Continue reading →

by - 15 Comments

Spring Breakers (2012)

Review of the movie Spring Breakers

Life is what you make it. It is one of those phrases which seems to have lost its power and doesn’t mean much anymore, but as Springbreakers shows, it still holds true. When a couple of teenage girls decide that they all want to head to Florida to party during spring break, they are willing to do anything to make sure that they have the money to go there. They want to escape their everyday existence, which has become boring to them. They rob a restaurant and head over to Florida to party and live out their dream, which eventually involves gangsters, guns and drugs. Continue reading →

by - 18 Comments

Somewhere in Time (1980)

Review of the time travel movie Somewhere in Time (1980)

Most people (like myself) will mainly know Christopher Reeve from his work in the various Superman movies and the horse riding accident which left him paralysed till he died in 2004. I had not seen him act outside of his role as Superman, so I was interested to check out some of his other work. When I read that this was a time travel movie, the decision was easily made which one I would watch. Continue reading →