🎥 Lost in Translation (2003) ★★★★½
🎥 On the Rocks (2020) ★★★
Certainly not Sofia Coppola’s (or Bill Murray’s) best movie, but it does successfully make the case for not overthinking everything or being too suspicious in long term relationships.
🎥 Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001) ★★★★★
Tonight, we watched Amélie with the whole family, 20 years (!) after we first watched it, and it was again a memorable experience. It instantly became our daughter’s favourite, which shows how great and timeless this film is.
🎥 Captain Marvel (2019) ★★½
90s music in The Marvel Universe… It just didn’t work for me.
🎥 Billie Eilish: The World’s a little Blurry (2021) ★★★½
Katy Perry, backstage with Billie Eilish at Coachella: “..and I love you, and… ehm…, I just wanna say that… this is gonna be wild for ten years… it’s gonna be crazy… If you ever wanna talk, because it’s a weird ride…”
🎥 Nomadland (2020) ★★★★½
Definitely one of the best films of the past year. Written, directed ánd edited by Chloé Zhao, who instantly made it to my list of favourite film makers. And Frances McDormand is such a great actress, I just can’t get enough of her.
🎥 Star Trek: The Search for Spock (1984) ★★★
🎥 Call Me by Your Name (2017) ★★★★½
🎥 Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) ★★★½
🎥 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) ★★★
I was pretty sceptical at first, but it was way better than I expected. The obvious visual spectacle served the story well and I liked the calm pace of the film.
🎥 The Fly (1986) ★★★★
I almost forgot that I had already seen this film in my teenage years. Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis are both at their best in David Cronenberg’s most commercial horror film, which could just as easily be regarded as a tragic, heartbreaking love story.
🎥 Animal House (1978) ★★★
A bit underwhelming, but typically John Landis. And at least John Belushi was funny.
🎥 Dog Day Afternoon (1975) ★★★★
🎥 Trading Places (1983) ★★★½
This comedy is about as 80s as you can get. A lot of humour aged very badly, but the themes covered are still relevant. Made me want to watch more films by John Landis.
📺 I.M. (2020) ★★★★½
The true story of the all-consuming love between writer Connie Palmen and journalist Ischa Meijer. Based on Palmen’s novel of the same name.
Excellent directing by Michiel van Erp, superb acting by Ramsey Nasr and Wende Snijders.
🎥 Critical Care (1997) ★★★
If you watch this as entertainment, this is not a good film. But as a pamphlet against the commercialisation of healthcare and medical bureaucracy, this is an important film, made by Sidney Lumet. I don’t see these kind of films being made nowadays.
🎥 Soul (2020) ★★★★½
What a great new Pixar movie! We watched it with the whole family on Disney+ the day it came out. I find it very admirable how they time and again manage to put real, existential life problems in very personal and identifiable storylines.
🎥 A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) ★★★★
🎥 The Mandalorian ★★★★
I’m not a big Star Wars fan, but The Mandalorian was totally worth the watch. Of course Jon Favreau deserves all the praise but to me the most impressive feature of the series is actually the theme song and original music composed by Ludwig Göransson. 🎵
🎥 The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) ★★★½
🎥 Mother Dao, the turtlelike (1995) ★★★★
Entirely consisting of archival footage, this intense poetic documentary by Vincent Monnickendam depicts how Dutch colonial imperialism was imposed upon the Indonesians. I was very impressed by the sound design of Jandries Groenendijk.
🎥 Kerstmis in Floradorp (1997) ★★★★
A great documentary by René Roelofs on Christmas celebrations in a working class area in Amsterdam-Noord.
📺 🇳🇴🎄The Norwegian series Jul i Svingen (Christmas in Svingen) (2006) has a cult-status over here in the Netherlands. Every year around Christmas, whole families gather in front of the TV to watch the adventures of Linus. I wonder if that’s the same in other countries?
🎥 Little Women (2019) ★★★
Excellent acting by Saoirse Ronan. The intertwined storylines with lots of flashbacks made it all a bit too artificial to my taste though.
🎥 The Trial of the Chicago 7 ★★★★
Aaron Sorkin at his best as a screenplay writer. The real events and trial were restructured to make a convincing story (lots of flashbacks and flash forwards). Also perfectly timed, with all protest movements and upcoming elections in mind…