Filmfetish Friday: Midnight in Paris, Hoy Como Ayer, De President

Filmfetish Friday: Midnight in Paris, Hoy Como Ayer, De President

Sep 16, 2011 |  by  |  Art, Event
About the author
As a freelance journalist, Anouk (26) usually writes about what other people do or like. In her precious spare time she watches arthouse films. Not a few. A lot, thanks to her trusted Cineville pass. Here she can finally share her film-fetish with the world.

To watch or not to watch? I will tour around Amsterdam’s cinemas and answer this crucial question every Friday. Without mercy, of course. Sucky movies will be slaughtered, cinematographic pearls will be appreciated as such. Or the other way around. After all, good taste is in the eye of the beholder.

Midnight in Paris

It has been a frustrating week. Yesterday, the new Woody Allen premiered in our little country, but I already knew I wouldn’t have the opportunity to see it right away. I can’t wait to see this film about screenwriter Gil (Owen Wilson), who finds a portal to Paris in the 1920s. He finds it at midnight, of course. At the other side of the portal he can drink and talk with great writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Good for him, because he doesn’t feel like spending time with the snobby friends of his demanding fiancée (Rachel McAdams). This is more of a romantic and charming Woody Allen than a melancholic one, but I will enjoy it anyway. President Sarkozy probably enjoyed it too, as his wife Carla Bruni plays a small part in it as a tourguide.

Watch this film in Cineville‘s Cinecenter and The Movies, and in Tuschinski.

Hoy Como Ayer

‘Today as yesterday’ is a documentary about the Argentinian tango singer Juan Carlos Godoy. It’s a ‘fairly quiet film’, like Godoy himself remarks after twenty minutes of silence. Yes indeed. We see Godoy, a man in his eighties, getting dressed, driving a car, eating a sandwich, singing in a small bar in Buenos Aires (finally), drive back home. That’s it. Filmmaker Bernie IJdis doesn’t ask questions, taking the ‘show, don’t tell’ principle to the next level. IJdis didn’t want to wait for his grants, so he just started filming. After twelve hours, the filming was finished. Het Parool gave the film one star, de Volkskrant gave three. I’ll go for the average value of those two ratings.

Watch this film in Cineville‘s EYE.

I couldn’t find a trailer!

De President

After Het Schnitzelparadijs and Pizzamaffia, another book of Khalid Boudou has been made into a movie. I saw him two weeks ago and he didn’t seem happy with De President. No wonder; according to the critics this film, from director Erik de Bruyn (Wilde Mossels), is wafer-thin. The plot is messy, although the starting point is witty enough: Holland, say five years from now, is a Republic. The first chosen president is an illegal guy from Marocco (Achmed Akkabi) who barely speaks Dutch. Sounds good, but De Bruyn can’t choose between ‘sharp satire and flat entertainment’ (Volksrant). I will watch it anyway, just to see Najib Amhali, Frank Lammers and Matthias Schoenaerts (Rundskop!) act.

Watch this film in Pathe Arena and De Munt.

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