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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.
La Piel Que Habito
Wow. Where to begin? What a sick movie! And I mean that in a good way. I was afraid that one of my favourite film makers, Pedro Almodóvar, was going to disappoint me, because of the average reviews which spoke of ‘a revenge horror’, ‘a plastic surgeon from hell’ and ‘the new Frankenstein’. This all didn’t sound good. Thank God, La Piel Que Habito (The Skin I Live In) is awesome!
Antonio Banderas is great as the plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard who is dealing with a huge trauma. Banderas manages to make Ledgard pitiable and scary at the same time. The same goes for Elena Anaya, the actress that plays his guinea pig. (The role was written for Penélope Cruz, but she wasn’t available any more when Almodóvar started shooting.) The plot is so mind-fucking and original that I don’t want to say any more about it, in case I might spoil it. Just go see it.
Watch this film in Cineville’s Rialto, Cinecenter and The Movies. Also in Pathe (Tuschinski and City).
Moneyball
I don’t like baseball; high-school traumatised me. We always had to play it during spring time, outside, on grass that was way too long. Nevertheless, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman convinced me to go see Moneyball. Yes, a film about baseball and based on a true story from 2002. But director Bennett Miller (Capote) made a lot more than just another film about one of the most popular sports in the US.
Billy Beane (Pitt) and Peter Brand (Hill, apparently fat again) is one of the most amusing duo’s I’ve seen in quiet a while. Beane is the team manager of a good yet poor baseball team. As soon as his players stand out, they’re bought by the bigger, richer clubs such as the Yankees and the Red Sox. What to do? Well, Peter Brand, a young guy who studied economics at Yale, knows the answer: use statistics. Suddenly the tide turns for the Oakland Athletics and coach Art Howe (Seymour Hoffman) has to change his sceptical opinion. Very sympathetic and entertaining film due to the strong dialogues. Too bad the film is half an hour too long, Bennett!
Watch this film in Cineville’s Kriterion. Also in Pathe (Arena, Tuschinski and City).
Michael
The only thing I really know about this film is that Markus Schleinzer made it and that it’s about a pedosexual. The Austrian that usually works as a casting director for the big names, such as Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl. Het Parool thinks this is why Michael feels a bit like the work of these two famous Austrian film makers. But they also think Schleinzer lacks their talent to get the audience thinking. I still want to see Michael. If only for the fact that the debuting director dared to make an explicit film about pedosexuality.
Watch this film in Cineville’s Het Ketelhuis and Kriterion.
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