I’d been meaning to see this film for quite a while, but it’s hard to come by. As far as I know, it hasn’t been shown in cinemas here in the Netherlands, nor have I ever come across it at my rental store. Luckily, there’s the good ol’ internet. After quite a bit of downloading I sat back (well, as far as my desk chair will go) to enjoy what was to become one of my favourite comedies.

Continue reading…

I wasn’t expecting much when I went to see this movie at the cinema last night. Romantic comedies seem to have become formula films, they’re called “rom-com” now and the people that make them harvest ideas from (mainly British) classics like “Four Weddings”and “Notting Hill”.

Continue reading…

This is the latest movie from Todd Solondz, the maker of The Dollhouse and Happiness (one of the most amazing movies ever, and certainly the darker, less misogynistic/homophobic version of American Beauty.)

As expected, I found myself challenged and deeply disturbed again by Solondz’s grim view of modern American life in Storytelling. The film is really more like two short films shown together, but I think it worked to get his point across about the creating of a story and the relationship between the artist and his/her subject. Any wanna-be fiction writers and film makers should definitely watch it.

Continue reading…

My Big Fat Greek Disappointment is more like it. I had heard so much about this “indie” hit movie, so I rented it only to find myself totally disenchanted. It seemed to me that the plot line was as trite as any Hollywood feel good film. It seemed like “Meet the Parents” and “Father of the Bride” for the cheesy boy meets girl and immediately gets married story that we have all seen a million times before. Except this movie had a smaller budget, no big name stars and threw in a slight dash of ethnicity.

Continue reading…

The sixth film by Swedish director, Lukas Moodyson was part of the Amnesty International film festival in Amsterdam. His last two films, “Fucking Amal” and “Together” share with “Lilja 4-ever” a common perspective as seen through the eyes of a budding pubescent child. Moodyson is sincere in his strong defense of the rights of children and certainly this is his most socially critical film yet.

Continue reading…

Quite a gutsy move to show this movie in the middle of the second Gulf war. Prior to seeing it I had heard that “The Siege” deals with Osama Bin Laden and terrorist bombings in New York, so I tuned in to the Dutch SBS6 channel last night hoping for an intelligent, well-informed thriller. (some spoilers ahead)

Continue reading…

My sister-in-law was over at our place last night, and we decided to rent a DVD. Finding the right title to rent was not an easy task, since the three of us have very different tastes in movies. I like sci-fi, my wife loves comedies and het sister prefers drama. “K-PAX” turned out not to be a bad choice, given that predicament.

Continue reading…

Another from the dual-role department. For those of you residing in the Netherlands, it’s time to program your VCRs (although ‘Deadringers’ also widely available on VHS or DVD. Tonight at 1 AM Net5 will be broadcasting David Cronenberg’s ‘Dead Ringers’ (1988). It’s refreshingly subtle and elegant to those who know Cronenberg of his trashy splatter movies, but much more creepy at the same time.

Continue reading…

A bunch of CoP editors, including me, went to see this movie last night. We were all hoping for an experience as good as “Being John Malkovich” had been for all of us a couple of years ago. When we got out of the theatre we couldn’t decide right away wether we liked what we had seen, wether we had fully “gotten” it, and certainly not on who was going to review it. The fact that I had a day off from work today turned out to be the shortest straw.

Continue reading…

Punkmachine kindly lent me his DVD copy of “Tron” to fill a huge gap in my 80′s cinematic knowledge. I never saw this film when it came out in 1982 and now, over twenty years later, I prepared myself for a hugely dated computer-storyline with not-so-special effects. How wrong I was.

Continue reading…