a new year

Our house is finally back together! Yesterday we made a 3 course meal with a spinach salad contribution from Marcel, a delicious nutty moussaka from Alexander, and I made my first scones ever, lemon cranberry scones, out of "fresh" cranberries left over from Thanksgiving. Marcel whipped the rest of the cranberries into a sauce for on top of the scones. I guess one perk of being unemployed (and all three of us are) is that you have time to cook.

Afterwards, some of us went to see the Monday night sneak preview at the film house. The movie was Un prophète, a good movie, but incredibly hard to watch. I squirmed through the whole movie. Tonight I'm going to check out the Money Fix, which is being screened by Transition Towns Rotterdam. Next week IFFR starts!

Vijf bij Vijfeest

Another year rolls by. I hope I'm this suave by the time I'm 26...

Eve: I’m Eve Kendall. I’m twenty-six and unmarried. Now
you know everything.
Roger: Tell me. What do you do besides lure men to their
doom on the Twentieth Century Limited?
Eve: I’m an industrial designer.

--

Lieve vriendjes,

Ik ben bijna een kwart eeuw oud!! Daarom wil ik graag mijn verjaardag vieren op een fijne (hoop ik) zondag in mijn nieuwe buurt.

Programma, Zondag 23 Augustus
- 17:00 Eten (Rochussenstraat 297A, Rotterdam)
- 21.30 Klassieker North by Northwest (I <3>

A Weekend of Movies

Without planning to, it seems like I spent all weekend watching movies and eating spinach (2 spinach salads in two days!). Here are my reflections:

No Country for Old Men - I watched this movie on account of having seen two seconds of a guy's skull and brain neatly punctured through with an air tank and cattle something. It starts out like a straightforward modern Western. It is obvious who the good and bad guys are; the bad guy is a great, twisted, and admirable bad guy. The good guy is slightly morally shady and very likeable. Straight forward right? It lives up to this first impression with great pacing, action, and character development until the very end where the film jarringly prompts the viewer to reflect on the past 90+ minutes.

Breathless (1960 version) - Wow, really great movie. I can't really say why I liked it so much. Neither of the main characters were as lovable as much as they were gorgeous, flippant, and unscrupulous. Awesome dialogue, nuanced, convincing love story, and a beautiful ending.

Terminator 2 - nuff said. I only want to comment that it is a good thing Arnold dies in the end so he and Linda Hamilton don't have to compete over who has bigger biceps.

Juno - When I went to New York a month back, I kept hearing about this movie (people going or wanting to see it), even though all I wanted to see was There Will be Blood. I finally watched it last night. It was funny and enjoyable despite the fact that the kid from Arrested Development and the girl from Hard Candy had the same exact personality as their other roles. The supporting cast was also great with Jason Bateman, that Alias chick, and the psychiatrist lady from 10 things (RIP heath). It didn't get too preachy and handled serious issues in a thoughtful, refreshing manner.

Assassination of Jesse James - Watched this movie at Inga's house waiting for dinner time (corn chowder, spinach salad, and Inga bread). Waiting for dinner time turned into waiting for the movie to be over. Although IMDB gives this movie high ratings, I felt like the whole production should have gone straight to the A&E channel. Good acting by the two main actors (too good by the villain - I couldn't bear to watch the movie because he was so convincingly disgusting and creepy), but the plot dragged and the story was only almost engaging at points. Oh yeah, and the movie took itself WAY too seriously and didn't measure up. I hate that.

IFFR

Last year I volunteered for the IFFR, International Film Festival Rotterdam as a member of the bouwplug. Under the dreads supervision of Waheed, I became one of the little minions who run around building things up before the festival i.e. stringing fiber optic cables across buildings and painting insides of warehouses). Unfortunately, I was so busy at that moment with school (damn you PAP), I didn't even go see one movie even though I had free tickets. I still haven't seen I don't want to sleep alone or various other movies that were on my "list" for last year, though the aforementioned has been rotting away in C:\ for ages now.

This is my one and only chance almost this year to see a foreign film (not English or Mandarin) on the big screen and subtitled in English. I regularly call the Filmhuis Lumen in Delft to ask if their sneak preview is in English or Mandarin. This is how I came to see the Marriage of Tuya in Delft. My other gripe is that films come so slowly to the filmhuizen here. Any independent English film takes half a year after its release before making it to theaters here (i.e. Scoop)

This year, I have bought some tickets though many movies I would like to see were sold out. To remind myself what I will watch at the festival or must download later, I am listing the ones that sounded interesting here:

1. De Stille vor Bach - Feb 1st
2. Le voyage du ballon rouge
3. Secret Sunshine
4. Flower in the Pocket - Feb 2nd
5. Naissance des pieuvres
6. Shanghai Trance
7. Hotel Chevalier
8. REC
9. This world of ours
10. Tout est pardonné

Also watched recently: Flodder - 4.0, Flodder in Amerika - 3.5, There will be Blood - 8.5, Bender's Big Score - 6.5

need for documentation

MERRY SINTERKLAAS IEDEREEN!

starting a blog again. here we go...maybe more elaboration and less shopping lists later

films i watched recently, and my ratings:
- the marriage of tuya 8.0
- das leben der anderen 9.0
- rescue dawn 7.5
- crash 8.0
- ichi the killer 7.0



other recent activities:
- STRP festival, Eindhoven
- search for graduation project
- addiction to Heroes (oh no!)
- visiting Lanna in Goettingen
- search for new years plans

upcoming activities:
- grote pris Nederland, Melkweg Amsterdam
- opening from Anouk van Dijk's new studio
- Ivo's house warming
- playing in christmas concert in the St. Bavo Kerk, Haarlem