Sunday we rented the first season of "The Office" on DVD.

I've seen this British TV show a couple of times in the Netherlands, and the other day we saw Ricky Gervais, the main actor, in Saturday Night Live. Sasha had never seen it and I loved to watch it, so we rented the DVD and saw all episodes of the first season in one lazy evening. Hilarious!

The humor is different than in many other series or movies, but it's really funny and we loved it. The DVD came with a long interview with the creators of the series ("only geeks watch the DVD bonus material") and a few deleted scenes, which was nice. (3 comments | Score: 5)

Kill Bill is a movie by Quentin Tarantino that comes in two parts, on two separate DVDs. We saw the first part on a Sunday evening, the next part on Monday (last week). Two nights of great enjoyment -- this movie is really good.

The story is rather violent and has a large amount of fighting scenes but it comes with a nice plot, a lot of humor and very good performance by the actors. The acting by Uma Thurman was excellent, and so were the visual effects in the movie.

Like the other Tarantino many things were over the top, such as the acting and macho dialogues. The "deleted scene" that was a bonus track on the second DVD was very nice, too. (2 comments)

Saturday evening we saw "Taking Lives", recommended to us by a good friend. To be honest -- I didn't really like it very much.

Taking Lives is a thriller about a serial-killer who "copies" other peoples lives, but the movie was never very scary or even convincing.

The acting by the main character, Angelina Jolie, a FBI agent was in my opinion pretty bad. Ethan Hawke, who played the serial killer, was performing well but that couldn't compensate for the other deficiencies of the movie, such as the weakness of the plot.

We saw the trailer (a short preview) of this movie a few weeks ago, when our cable TV was just installed. One of the features that Comcast offers, is something called On Demand. Using that, you can order a movie anytime you want, and you pay the movie on your TV bill, which is about four dollar per movie. Interesting enough it is cheaper to rent the DVD, which is about three dollar; I guess you pay for convenience. Anyway -- we browsed the existing collection of movies available and saw the preview of Taking Lives. (1 comment)

Yesterday we watched a movie on the computer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sasha took the DVD from an automated machine, which works similar to a soft drink machine: just pay and the DVD becomes available automatically. So instead of going to a DVD rental place you can very quickly rent a movie using this machine.

The movie was about two people and their relationship, and about a company providing a memory-erasing service, to let people forget old ex-lovers. The story was enjoyably complex, which made watching and understanding the movie more difficult than usual but I liked that. One of the main characters was Jim Carrey, who played a very different character than the usual roles he plays. We liked the movie a lot and it's worth seeing. The nice thing about a DVD movie is that there are often bonus things on the DVD. Next to the movie for example this DVD had a commercial for the memory-erasing company.

The movie also played in the Toneelschuur a while ago; I remember reading about it in their magazine. (2 comments)

In preparation of the trip we will be making this weekend we saw the movie "Alamo" yesterday.

This was the first rented DVD we have been watching here and we were watching it on our PC. It worked well, but I'd like to connect to PC to our TV as that screen is bigger and has more contrast.

The movie describes the war between the United States and Mexico about the area that is now the state of Texas. A central building in the movie is The Alamo, a fort in San Antonio, Texas, and that is exactly were we will be flying to this afternoon. We're going to celebrate New Year there. After two very busy weeks I'm really looking forward to spend a long weekend together there, down South. (comments?)

Saturday evening we went to see a movie, Closer. It's a new movie that's been nominated for five golden globes. And with reason!

We really loved it: an intriguing story, great performance and fascinating dialogue. Two scenes I particularly enjoyed were the erotic computer chat-scene, and the break-up fight between Anna and her husband (brilliant).

Clive Owen, who has a marvellous role as Larry in the movie, performed the role of Dan in the orignal play the movie is based on. (comments?)

Saturday evening we went to the movies. We saw "National Treasure", an action movie in a James Bond/Indiana Jones style. Honestly speaking the movie wasn't very good, and I guess it was made for a much younger audience, but we had a very nice evening. It was fun to go out and relax. What I also liked was that so many famous places in the States played a role in the movie, such as the US National Archive.

Afterwards we went to Summer's, a bar in our neighbourhood, where we ate and had a few drinks.

Sunday we spent the afternoon in Georgetown, a nice neighbourhood across the river from Arlington. We had lunch in a place which claimed that many presidents had patronized it. It was a very cozy place and the food was good.

Yesterday I went for fitness in our building for the first time. It wasn't very busy in the fitness room, which is located on the highest floor and has a great view. It had been a while since I ran a longer distance, and I could feel that running took me more effort than it used to do. I guess that's a matter of exercise. I'll also have to find a program that suits my style of running -- there's quite a difference between running a real track and running on the treadmills we have up there.

I've developed a cold over the last days, nothing too bad but a bit annoying. (5 comments)

Yesterday evening my parents and I saw Fahrenheit 9/11.

We went to Cinema7Skoop, a movie theater in Den Helder. It's a cute little cinema with 60 seats which is ran by volunteers.

The movie itself was interesting. Some of the footage was really gruesome; a proof that war is always horrible, and it makes you feel sorry for everyone who is in it.

The central theme of the movie is the claim that President Bush is a villain, who puts the country into disarray and who went to war for the wrong reasons.

Personally, I certainly don't agree with Moore's thesis, and his movie didn't change my opinion. He tries to convince the audience, not by giving a detailed explanation of his views, but by using copy & pasted video material that has been ingeniously mixed and edited to convey his insinuations.

But even though it failed to convince me on an political level, it was a well-made documentary. The movie is often quite funny and the music that accompanies it was well-chosen. It's great to know that in a democracy like the U.S. it's possible for such a movie to be such a success. (comments?)

This weekend we went to the cinema twice; we saw two Spanish movies in the Toneelschuur.

Saturday evening we went to "La mala educación". It was an intelligent movie, with complicated story lines coming together nicely in the end. I enjoyed the music a lot. Yesterday we saw "En la ciudad", a sweet movie about the life of 30-ers in a Spanish city.

After we came back we saw the last part of Moulin Rouge on TV. It was a relaxed weekend. (comments?)

Yesterday evening we went to the movies, to "The Terminal" in Cinema Palace.

The movie is about Viktor Navorski, a traveller from a fictional Eastern European nation who gets stuck in an airport in the US after a military coup in his native land. His passport, issued by his previous government, is no longer valid and he has to stay on in the terminal of the airport for months to wait for the political situation to change.

The character of Navorski, played by Tom Hanks, is wonderful. It's a very sweet guy, who is a total stranger in the US. To our great surprise Tom Hanks was speaking Bulgarian, and in fact his whole character was Bulgarian. His language, some movements, his jokes and the whole behavior were typical Bulgarian which was very nice to see.

It was a great movie; sweet and with a happy end. Personally I loved the older guy from India who Navorski meets on the airport. (4 comments | Score: 4.15)

Sasha, Steven and I went to "Girl with a pearl earring" yesterday. It's a movie about a painting made by Johannes Vermeer.

The movie is based on a book by Tracy Chevalier, which imagines the circumstances under which the painting came to be created.

The movie was marvellous! The story is playing in Delft in the 17th century, and it was absolutely wonderful to see the city as it was 400 years ago. The opening shot of the movie, an helicopter view of the city with the church in the middle and the fields outside the city walls, was just brilliant.

The canals were used a lot in those days, for every day transport of cargo and passengers. It was very funny to see one of the boats being stuck in the suddenly frozen canal; it felt remarkable similar to ice-scratching a car in the morning to go to work.

The story of the movie was interesting, but I mostly enjoyed the great views and superb camera work. The light in the movie was very special; it was similar to the light visible on many of Vermeer's paintings.

After the movie we went for some drinks in In Den Uiver, and later we had dinner together. When we walked back home we talked a lot about the history of Alkmaar and Haarlem. (1 comment | Score: 5)

Ettie and Gerben came for dinner yesterday. The asperge-season just started, so we enjoyed the 'green gold'. After dinner we went to the movies. We went to Cinema Palace, a movie theater I haven't been before. It was really nice, much better than Brinkmann: clean, cosy and a great theater.

We saw Troy, a heroic epic about the Trojan war. Of course, the plot is well known from the Iliad, but the movie was still very dramatic and great to watch. I'd certainly recommended it, especially if you liked Gladiator.

The movie took about three hours and we were home around midnight. (comments?)

Tonight I went to a Bulgarian movie: "Letter to America", or Pismo do Amerika in Bulgarian. My parents had seen it a little while ago and they told me about it.

I liked it a lot to see Bulgaria, and to hear Bulgarian again. It's been exactly a week now (almost to the hour, as I left Sofia Airport around 23:00 o'clock), and I miss it! The movie was playing partly in Sofia, but mostly on the road to a small village in the Pirin Mountains. At one point I saw the signs on the highway leaving Sofia, pointing to Plovdiv.

It was a good movie, with interesting characters and beautiful music. But, to be honest, I think I would have liked it less if it had been in another country.

The movie was playing in the Filmmuseum in Amsterdam; I had never been there before. It's located in the middle of a public park, and it's a beautiful old-style building. (1 comment | Score: 5)

What a marvellous movie! I just came back from the Toneelschuur, where I saw “Goodbye Lenin” with Arjan. It's been a long time since I saw such a nice film. It is warm and human story about life in the DDR, before and after the changes in 1989.

“Goodbye, Lenin!” was chosen as the best European film at this year's Berlin film festival and has won many other awards. The Economist: "It is the warmest souvenir yet of a nation that died almost overnight".

Next to the great story it was very nice to see so many things from the DDR: the TV-programs, the food, the housing... very nice. Recommended. (comments?)

Yesterday I went with Karen and Arjan to the Toneelschuur, a theater and movie house in Haarlem. It's located between the Grote Markt and the red light district, in a beautiful building which has been re-openened a couple of months ago.

The movie, 'September 11', was very good. Eleven filmmakers from around the globe offer various views on the World Trade Center tragedy, everyone in a different type of movie. The only requirement is that their creation takes exactly eleven minutes, nine seconds and one frame (11-09-01).

It's a really impressive movie, although some parts are better than others. I liked the Bosnian, French and Chilean films the most. The Japanese creation was probably too difficult for me. (2 comments)