Director Taika Waititi has shown with movies like Boy and the hilarious What We Do in The Shadows that he is able to make movies which have their own voice. He is also directing the new Thor movie and was responsible for the recent short about what Thor was doing during Civil War. With Hunt for The Wilderpeople he brings the book with the same name about a rebellious orphan who moves into a house of an older couple to the screen. Continue reading
We all know that animation isn’t only used to make movies for children (just look at Grave of the Fireflies). Directors Lou Hamou-Lhadj and Andrew Coats, who both work at Pixar, decided to make an animated short in their spare time. It would take them five years before they’d finish it and it has payed off, as the short is in the race for an Oscar. Enough reason to give this short a look. Continue reading
Samantha Montgomery, who is known to the world as Princess Shaw, is a woman living in New Orleans and who has been singing for years. She’s been trying to make it for a long time, going to talent shows, makes YouTube videos and dreams about performing for a huge audience and being famous. The reality is different though. She works in an elderly home, during the shows she does the number of people listening can almost fit in a car and personally she isn’t doing well either. She sometimes doesn’t make enough money in order to pay electricity, the wheels of her car are stolen and her 8-year relationship with her girlfriend ends. And still, despite all of that she keeps making music. Documentary maker Ido Haar follows her and has told her that he wants to film her because he wants to make a special about YouTubers. The real reason is different though. Continue reading
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
When growing up we are constantly being warned about the world around us. Through that we learn to watch out and also develop a sense of knowing whether or not a situation might be dangerous. Movies do the same in a way, even though that usually isn’t in realistic situations (because when was the last time you had to fight an alien that was present on your spaceship?). They will go to extremes in order to present the viewer something they have not experienced before and entertain them. As you watch more movies from a specific genre, you gain some knowledge which you’ll bring to the table when watching the next one. You use that “experience” in order to predict what will happen to the characters in the situation they find themselves in. Not only guessing what will happen, but also because a good movie will make you forget about yourself and gives you the feeling you are that character. Whether or not you want it your survival instinct kicks in and experience is important in that. And 10 Cloverfield Lane succeeds in playing with those instincts. Continue reading
If you would do a search on IMDB for director Jeff Nichols you’d find out that he only has five movies to his name. You might also think it means he’s not een experienced person, but take a little bit more time to look at the titles and you’ll soon realize that he’s someone who has managed to impress in a very short time with films like Mud and Take Shelter. In those movie the always impressive Michael Shannon played a role, which is also the case for his latest, Midnight Special, where the two have hooked up again. The end result is a movie which shouldn’t be missed. Continue reading
Even though I don’t watch trailers anymore, I’m pretty sure that before this movie came out I still was doing so and can remember watching it several times. It was the fifth Pixar movie and after impressing audiences with their technology for fur used in Monster Inc, it was the first look into the world of Finding Nemo, which was jaw dropping to see. In 2003 computer graphics already had come quite some way, but it wasn’t the level yet it is now and much pioneering was done. Creating a convincing water world therefore was something special. With the release of the sequel, Finding Dory (which I will see next week), and the availability of the original on Netflix it was the right time to revisit this wonderful animated movie. Continue reading
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
Meeting new people can sometimes be a challenge as you never know if you can get along with someone in advance. Starting a conversation might be easy, but if are both on different frequencies it might lead to uncomfortable silences. If you do have that connection though you keep talking, time seems to fly and that meetup with a stranger can turn into a friendship or more. If you meet someone abroad while on holiday and you are both not from that country it creates a bond, something which Lost in Translation managed to capture perfectly. Director Emily Ting had an experience like that when had to work in Hong Kong for a while and she has based her first feature film on her experiences there. Continue reading
When a season of a show has finished it is always frustrating to have to wait a while for the next one. House of Cards is one of those shows where that feeling is very strong for me. Of course it doesn’t help that Netflix releases all episodes at once and for this fourth season it took me only four days to watch it all. At the end of the previous season the tension between Frank (Kevin Spacey) and Claire (Robin Wright) Underwood kept going up and the scene was set for a big battle between these two titans who both are not willing (or able) to give in. Together they reached the top, but now Claire also wants to realize her own ambitions. Continue reading