Guus Bosman

This weekend we saw another Oscar winning movie: Capote.

The movie describe an episode in the life of Truman Capote, an American author. Like Walk The Line this is a documentary, without the singing of course.

The role of Capote is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who really deserves the Oscar he got for best actor in a lead role. The movie describes the events of Capote's book In Cold Blood and the process of interview the murderers and writing the book.

Saturday evening we saw X-Men 3, The Last Stand, the third film adaption of the X-Men comic books.

We saw the first movie about a year ago, and two weeks ago we saw X-Men II on TV, so we were well prepared. We had enjoyed the first two movies very much, and yesterday we were very pleasantly surprised with the 3rd one.

It is not common for a sequel, let alone a second sequel, to be as good as the first movie, but X-Men the Last Stand was delightful. Intelligent, surprising story lines, good acting and of course brilliant special effects made for a really good Saturday night movie.

The movie theater was packed, and most viewers were very enthousiast about the movie as well. For those of you who are planning to see it: make sure you stay all the way until the end of the credits -- there is an interesting surprise scene.

After the movie we went to Four Courts and had drinks and a light dinner.

Saturday night we saw Walk the Line, an award-winning movie on the lives of Johny Cash and June Carter.

The acting by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon was very, very good -- the Oscar for Witherspoon was truly deserved and I'm surprised that Phoenix did not receive more awards than he did. Both of them performed all the songs in the movie themselves.

I didn't know much about Johny Cash or June Carter before I saw the film, but I'd seen the famous concert in Folsom Prison, which place a part in the movie too. It must have been a really nice concert to attend, except for the fact that being in the audience implied that you would stay in that jail for quite some longer time.

Usually I don't watch the movies in the plane but today I saw a really entertaining movie, The Man
.

Samual L. Jackson, in his role as rough cop was great but his involuntary partner, Eugene Levy, gave a great performance in his role of traveling dental tools salesman who just doesn't stop talking.

Sasha and I are visiting Irena and Jonathan this weekend, to celebrate Irena's birthday. We both arrived late last night, and this morning we went to see Ilana play her soccer game.

A little while ago I rented Get Shorty. We saw Be Cool last November, and both movies were equally funny.

John Travolta played his usual character -- a cool, tough and funny loan shark who makes his way into the Hollywood movie business. The movie is from 1995, so Travolta played this role one year after his come-back role in Pulp Fiction.

A couple of weeks ago we saw Brokeback Mountain in the Loews theater in Georgetown.

The story is about two cowboys who fall in love while they are herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain when they are young. They continue their secret relationship in the years to come, although they both get married to a wife and even get children while they're still in love with each other.

The subject of the movie is intolerance towards homosexual people. The story line starts in the 1960s the two men meet, and the movie plays in Wyoming and Texas.

Brokeback Mountain and its director, Ang Lee, won many awards this year, including 3 Oscars.

IMDB has some funny trivia about the movie, especially about director Ang Lee and his experiences with sheep.

Last night we saw Lord of War, a movie about international arms trade.

The movie was made as if it were a documentary about Yuri Orlov, a trader in arms or "gun runner" played by Nicolas Cage. Orlov grows up in Little Odessa and slowly becomes the world most successful arms trader. His big boost comes when the Iron Curtain falls and he starts trading huge amounts of weapons between his native Ukraine and other countries to West-Africa.

The movie had an interesting, if at times cynical plot as it deals with the conflict that Orlov faces between his drive for success and the immorality of his work.

Some of the scenes were cruel to see, which was part of the movie's message of course, but over-all it treated the subject with a mixture of moral analysis, reporting-style objectivity and humor.

Yesterday we went our for dinner in Georgetown, to Bistro Francais. It's was the first time we were in this nice french restaurant, with a beautiful interior and good food.

We had a really good time and stayed till late in the restaurant. Afterwards we went for a late movie; we saw Match Point in the Georgetown Loewie theater.

Match Point is a story about an ex-tennis player who joins high-society in the UK by marrying a rich girl, and who falls in love with his brother-in-law's fiance. The film is directed by Woody Allen, and the main theme is Allen's long-held belief in the power of luck in determining people's destiny.

It's a good movie, a thriller, and although Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is not playing a very good role as the main character, the other actors are compensating for this (most notably Scarlett Johansson).

Sunday a week ago we saw March of the Penguins, a documentary about the Emporer Penguins of Antartica.

The documentary describes the life and breeding habits of this penguin that lives in one of the coldest places on earth. It's a very nice movie to watch, and you get a lot of sympathy for the penguins who endure the freezing cold, icy storms and every year walk many, many miles between the sea and their safe breeding place. I like the movie's theme: "In the harshest place on earth, love finds a way."

We saw the movie using Comcast's movie-on-demand. The camera work in the movie is outstanding -- beautiful landscapes and very vivid close-ups of the animals; it's as if you're right next to them. The team that filmed the penguins must have spent many months in the freezing colds to capture these great images.

The narrative was done by Morgan Freeman. I have been told that in the Dutch version it was Urbanus, a Belgium comic, I am not sure if that is a good combination with the sometimes sad content of the film.

Sunday evening we went to see Munich, a new movie by Steven Spielberg.

The film is about the terrorist attacks on the Olympic Games of 1972 and of the aftermath of these attacks. It describes how Israeli agents hunt down the terrorist who were responsible for the brutalities in Munich.

The movie is long and tense, with a lot of violence, and the sad thing is that is based on the real tragedy of what happened.

On a lighter note: a small eposide is played in the Netherlands, on a houseboot (woonboot) near Hoorn, a Dutch city.