35th Rotterdam International Film Festival

I have a few hobbies that I really enjoy and one of them is films, I have been to more than a few Film Festivals in my life but none more than the Film Festival in Rotterdam.
Last week was the opening of the 35th annual Film Festival in Rotterdam. Now if I am not mistaken I have been coming to it for at least the last 4 years, It is a world class festival with usually a huge variety of films.
To date my record is 16 films in 8 days, I have just beat that record. 13 films in 3.5 days. Sadly that average is also countered by the fact that I have walked out of 4 of those films this year as supposed to 3 years ago when I only walked out of 1 of 16.

My friend Jacco always volunteers his time for this festival and when he is not working we often either plan to see movies together or we end up choosing the same movies for our picks to see.
My first movie was on Friday afternoon called The Fishes fall in Love, a first time feature by Iranian director Ali Raffi. I really liked this film it was sweet, well shot and showed a real insight into the day in the life of Iranian people from a poor coastal town. Of 5 I gave it a 4.
Next was the French Film Alex. A typically French film with long quiet pauses and minimal dialogue. Not my favorite film but worth the time I spent watching it, and the acting was really quite good. also a 3/5

Saturday was a little earlier than I wanted but I made my way into Rotterdam for a movie at 10:15. Ode to Joy a Polish movie made by 3 different directors. In fact it was 3 mini movies in one. It could have been shorter or 3 shorts but I really liked it,the mood and the style and the stories as well as the acting, there are some very talented actors from Poland. 4/5
The second movie was cocaine Angel a American movie that was kind of pointless but I guess interesting, there was no real plot or end to the story other than an excess of drugs are B.A.D. 3/5. Klimt was number 3, with John Malcovich as Klimt. It was shot in such a way that we were supposed to see how he might see the world, but again I just did not get where the story was going, there were lots of people coming and going from the story and much of it in a psychedelic way. I actually left the film before it was over because I was not getting any feeling for it and was annoyed about the inconsistency. 2/5. Then Jacco and I met up for Bubble the new movie from Steven Soderbergh which was a neat premise of going to some nowhere town in America and getting people to act who have no experience. It was not a bad movie, but nothing amazing 3/5.
After a few hours of having a bite and waiting for Jacco to finish with his movie I then met with Jana and Nico who had come down for another movie that in hindsight I maybe should have seen instead of our next film. Living and the Dead. A British movie where the synopsis sounded really interesting and the Director was quite funny, the movie started alright the plot interesting enough but.... then it when all went horribly wrong, seriously wrong and after not much longer we left, it was just stupid 1/5.

Sunday thankfully was a later start. 13;15 I met Jacco for Mutual Appreciation. another American Film which was done in such a way that I was not sure if I liked it or not. the people were annoying 20 something who had nothing better to do with their lives than hang around and talk about things. I guess it was fairly close to reality but strange enough on it's own. 3/5. Opal Dream was next, a sweet Australian Movie that actually made me happy to go and see it because the plot, acting and direction was good enough to make me want to vote higher than 3. It got 4/5 because it was pretty much the nicest film I saw at the festival so far. A good family movie about the importance of having imaginary friend. Writing on the Earth was another Iranian firm, which I really did not get. The director before hand said that it was told in the language of film and not a conventional way.. He was right. I left because it was just to strange for me to get my head around. 1/5. And last for my Sunday night was Mary about the story of Mary Magdalene and an actress who gets obsessed with her. It had a great cast but a shit story, I really did not get it over all. And was sad that I was not ticked up in bed instead of being bored and confused.

I took Monday off from the FF but Jacco found me two tickets for two movies on the Tuesday that I really wanted to see. Look Both Ways, another Australian film which was getting great reviews. I loved the idea, the plot and the actors were all very convincing. I recommend this movie to anyone who would maybe like to think about the bigger picture. The last movie was one I was interested in because it had Donald Sutherland and Ralph Fiennes (Yum) and many other very respected actors; Land of the Blind. I might have liked it more if it moved quicker. It was so convoluted and mixed in it's plot, it was just not a great movie. I left just before it ended because I would rather have caught my train than the last of few min of such a movie it just was not convincing enough for me to stick around to know how it ended which I am fairly sure I know anyway. 1/5.

All in all probably one of the most disappointing lineups for the Film Festival that I have experienced. Perhaps we will have better luck and a better line up next year. In fact the only big name movie that premiered at the Film Festival in Rotterdam was Brokeback Mountain, which as most of you know is not only nominated for Awards but also caused quite a stir with it's homosexual content. I watched it last night (Feb 12) and indeed it was quite interesting and well portrayed by both Jake and Heath. When the movie finished I thought to myself even if that was supposed to span 20 years from the 1960's such bigotry and hatred of the unknown still exists. A very good movie! 5/5.

Paris

Last weekend (well it was when I wrote this intro) I went to Paris to see the special exhibit of Klimt, Schiele, Mosser and Kokoschka at the Grand Palais museum gallery.

I have been wanting to see some of Klimt's work for sometime now and it was the last 2 weeks of this special exhibit. It is one of the major advantages of living in the Netherlands, the proximity to so many other wonderful countries.

Anyway arrived by the fast train on Friday late morning and made our way to our hotel in the Latin Quarter, dropped off our stuff and then decided to head down towards the Grand Palace where the exhibit was being held to see what the lineups would be like and gauge if it was worth waiting for. The weather was crisp and sunny and as we arrived we noticed that that line up was not even a 1/4 of what we expected so we joined and after about 1.5 hours got into the exhibit.

It was wonderful, I knew already much of Klimt's work but to see it in real life, the subtleties and softness of the colours was breathtaking. I also was fairly familiar with Schiele, and was impressed with also his abilities. Having known nothing about either Mosser and Kokoschka it was quite interesting to compare their works to their masters. The exhibit was done in quite an interesting way and provided the viewer to experience several themes of their painting.

What did disappoint was the fact that the exhibit catalogue came only in French, not one other language, and there was not a lot of posters or other merchandise for the Klimt items. But I got to tick off my list one of my favorite artists and also intrigues me to want to go to Vienna and see more of his works.

As we left we decided to go shopping along the Champs de Elysees take some photos of the Arc de Triomphe as it was getting dark and then head back towards the Latin Quarter and look for some food. Which we found in a cute little restaurant with really nice service.

Saturday morning we decided that having not been to the Louvre it was time to go past and see if it was perhaps worth trying to get it, because every other time I have been in Paris I have been put off by the very long line ups. We walked straight in to it's wonderful and open entrancfe hall. I must admit how interesting it was to overhear several Dan Brown refrences from others in the line. Having decided on which wing we would tackle of the Louvre's 35,000,000 works of art we headed towards the Egyptian wing within the Sully wing. It was impressive but in my taste to many fragments, then again considering that I have seen much Egyptian stuff still standing more or less where it was left 3 thousand years ago I guess one could get blase about the whole thing. And after that we decided to go and check out a few Italian masters, as we came into the hall voila, Botticelli and a few paces further Da Vinci, and Michelangelo. All impressive and all to much. I think we might have been in for 2.5 hours and that was more than enough it was time to get out in the sun and cold and explore more Paris.

Walking through the Jardin des Tuileries towards the entrance we then headed into Madeleine and just poked about looking at the things the caught our eye. Eventually we gave up on trying to find something that we wanted to eat and sat down, as it turned out we were sitting across the road from the Grand Palace, exactly where we started from the day before having somehow taken a few to many left turns. Decided to go back to the hotel freshen up and then go out again for food.

On Sunday we did not really have a plan other than perhaps more wandering so we took our bags to the Gard du Nord and wandered to Montmartre for some breakfast and coffee and a hike up a little hill. The View is impressive but in some ways I prefer the Montreal version to the Paris one. After a few more hours we headed back to catch our fast train back to Holland. It was a wonderful weekend of relaxation and culture and exactly what I needed.

Abigail's Party

Happy New Years everyone. I have been really lame this holiday season with hardly any Christmas greeting via postal services or email and for that I am sorry if anyone feels hurt or offended it has just not crossed my mind.

To continue; My last few days at home in Canada were spent in Vancouver with my older brother Chris, his wonderful partner Freya and my dear friends Jen and Merlyn.
As I was only there for a couple of days we made the most of it. I arrived in the evening of the 27th from the Island. Met up with Chris and went for a sushi dinner on Davie street, it was not that good but passable. Then we had a couple of cocktails and back to his place to watch a movie. Freya got in from her shift around 2-230 and we opened a bottle of wine and next thing I knew it was 430 in the morning.
The next day we went over the bridge to Yogapantsilano to look for some Lululemon yoga gear for Helen that I did not get in Victoria on boxing day after standing in line to shop.... Now I can't remember if I have talked about this brand before but it was created by a couple of genius people in Vancouver; who as legend has it met snowboarding on one of the local ski hills and decided that there was just not enough good Yoga clothes in the world. So they created a monster. This brand can be seen on so many bums, heads and shirts you would not believe it unless you saw it.
The crazy thing is that the products which are really quite expensive are really really good and well made with high durability and tons of wash and wear... Anyway this is not an advert my story for the day goes like this. After some window shopping we went for more sushi before both Chris and Freya went to work. I would meet with Freya later when she got off her shift and not long after Chris would join us before we headed on a cocktail and small plate tour of a few choice restaurants.
I wandered around the city and then made my way back to kits where Freya worked to try some of her wonderful cocktail inventions at Abigail's Party where she got to invent the cocktail list which you can find via the link on the title. She is great!
Check these out... Dangerous Liaisons: Woodford reserve bourbon, vanilla bean infused Cognac, sweet vermouth, chilies, honey. Directions: sprinkle chilies at the bottom of glass, take ice cubes, pour bourbon, cognac, sweet vermouth and then the honey, which will slide to the bottom of the glass and stick the chilies to the bottom giving you a sweet and spicy kick...
After we went back across the bridge to Nu, where their friend Jay worked as the bartender and cocktail chef. He fed us with some great cocktails and food and wine, then back to their place for more wine with some of the rif-raf we met at Nu. Next thing we knew it was 4;30 again.
The next morning I was a little worse for wear and slipped out to get some coffee and fresh air. Back to the apartment and after the other two woke went for a walk downtown and the other two went to work while I waited for Jen and Merlyn to meet up and we went back to Kitsilano to Hell's Kitchen where Freya works as well. Some great ceasers and food a few more drinks and then Jen, Merlyn and I got some beers and went to Chris and Freya's place for some more drinks and chats before they left and I finished packing.
The morning came all to quickly and I was up and getting ready to go and catch my ride to the airport. Chris came with me and had some breakfast and I jumped in a cab to get to the airport.
The flight was uneventful although I got little sleep and arrived in Holland to really cold weather and preparations for New Years eve. I was supposed to go to Bremen for the night but I could not imagine getting on a train for 4.5 hours and then partying all night. So I stayed in the Hague and went to a house party of some friend who live smack in the middle of town and brought in the New Year with some fine drinks and friends.
Now back at work, it was a great blur of a memory to be home for the holidays to hang out with my family and friends. Sadly I did not get to see everyone I would have liked to but I guess you can't win them all.
On a side note I was watching something on the BBC and it was a guy talking about his favorite TV and music and one movie he mentioned was Abigail's Party I guess it was a cult classic.