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Sportman van de Eeuw (2006)
Sitting on the top of the world.
When you think of sports, sitting on the top of a pole doesn't really come to mind. Nevertheless, this is the sport we see in this movie. The Frysian Taeke is the best at what he does, and his dream is to set a record, and to marry his dream girl. The problem is that to get the record, he has to be for more than 250 days straight on that pole. Meanwhile his girl marries someone else. Taeke gets depressive, and quits after 249 days. No Girl, no record. The movie follows Taeke during his live, and it explains why someone with such a weird and eccentric sport deserves to be called Sportsman of the century.
The strong point of the movie is not the romance, but Taeke's true love for the sport, and the Frysian country life. This is told with real passion, and the actors are pretty good. The humour and drama are balanced. One of the Dutch movies you gotta see. The main goal of the movie, explaining why Taeke is a true sportsman, is reached.
Ik omhels je met 1000 armen (2006)
Interesting book, mediocre movie.
Movies with euthanasia as a subject are the new rage in the movie world. This Dutch movie is an adaptation of Ronald Giphart's book. It is as if the director and writers only took a look at a summary of the book, and decided that they would only follow the storyline, but change everything else. Characters in de movie do not share any resemblance with their book counter-parts. The characters are all very one dimensional and rather uninteresting. Tijn Doctor as Giph is the miscast of the century (already). He never succeeds in getting the attention of the audience, and when you have the biggest part in a movie, that might be a problem. The biggest crime in this movie is the fact that they sugarcoated the rather depressive ending in the book, and they removed almost everything that was funny to read.
The only reason to watch this movie is the fact that this was Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen's last movie.
The Punisher (1989)
One of the better Marvel movies.
Grosly undervalued, the Punisher is 15 years later still one of the better Marvel Movies. Of course the movie has a weak plot, and sure it never really surprises it's audience, but it captures the spirit of the comic far better than many other Marvel-movies.
After the murder of his family, Frank Castle goes on a rampage against organized crime. He starts a war against criminals everywhere. The movie shows the Punisher for what he is, once a broken man, now a killer with a shade of humanity far hidden inside.
As a movie, the Punisher is average, there are far better movies in the action-genre. But as a comic-adaptation it is at the very least true to the comic.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Not bad for an ending, but i should have been great.
The Matrix was one of the best SF movies since Star Wars. It deserved better sequels than the Matrix Reloaded and revolutions. Revolutions however is not that bad. I was very eager to see the second film, and got disappointed big time. My hopes weren't high for the 3th and final chapter, and maybe that's why I was able to enjoy the movie. The first movie I saw five times in the theatre, the second only once, that says a lot. But this one is worth buying a second ticket and has some great fighting scenes. The special effects work this time better in comparison to Reloaded. However a special movie like the Matrix still deserved great sequels, not medicore ones.
Cloaca (2003)
Cloaca shows that there are still good Dutch movies.
2003 was a good year for Dutch Cinema. Not only did we see the success release of 'Van God Los' and 'Phileine zegt sorry', 2003 also saw the release of Cloaca. This movie will appeal to a smaller audience than the other two i just mentioned, but if you read this, go see it. The movie is about four former student buddyies who meet each other in their mid-40ties. One just left his wife, another was a top lawyer but had a nervous breakdown. The 3th guy has a legal battle with his boss, and the last is a director of a stage play, and he is screwing his main actress, the 18 year old daughter of his best friend. The 4 meet and see that their dreams in college have not exactly come true. The question is, is there still a way out for any of them. This may sound like the beginning of a feel good movie, but it isn't. cloaca is funny, dark, depressing and ultimately without mercy. A must see.
Taboo (2002)
This is really awful
As a movie critic for several Dutch websites, I have to see lot's of movies, and not all very good ones. Some movies are so bad, you won't be surprised that they are released straight on video. With taboo, Iám surprised that it is released on video at all. This is really low budget bad quality bad written rubbish.
A group of youngsters plays a game of taboo. They write down their most sickening wish or act, and later on people are murdered for their taboo's. The question is, should we believe what we see?
The movie has a potential interesting plot-twist, and I won't give it away here. But what could have been interesting stays stupid, bad acted and without any reason.
Some of the actors have played in bigger titles before, so why on earth did they sign up for this? If you see this anywhere, try to dodge it. There is no logic, no human sense of quality in this movie.
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
Not every independent movie is excellent
If a movie has a tribe or race related topic, and is made by and independent group of filmmakers, everyone tends to find it okay before they even have seen the movie. Rabbit-Proof Fence is loved by many lowbudget movie fans, but has all the usual suspects when in it comes to story telling. 3 aboriginal girls are taken by the whites from their familly and brought to a reform school. They deside to try to return to their mothers, and flee from the school (wich is more like a prison than a school). They journey all across the Australian wild, hunted by a tracker and the white police. The experiencend moviemaniac can already tell the story from here. You know who's going to make it, what is going to happend, etc,etc. Even a dramatic slowmotion follows at the end. Nothing to surprise an audiende here. A story that needed to be told, but not in such a dull and stereotype way.
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Not really Scooby Doo.
Scooby Doo is not really a movie about the old Cartoons. It's more like a parody. The cast isn't very spectacular. I thought that Edward Norton would make a great Shaggy... Instead we have this Lillard Guy, not too bad, not great either...