International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) (2)

Here is a list with the movies from the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) that I've seen so far with my ratings. Those who are interested in the content of the movies can click on the title for an English description.

The rating goes from 0/+ to +++++ meaning:

0 = very bad
+ = bad
++ = not so good
+++ = good
++++ = very good
+++++ = excellent

Election (+++)

Election2 (++++)

The bare footed kid (+++)

Justice my foot (+++)

Throw Down (+++)

The last dining table (++1/2)

Hana (++++)

Anxiety (++++)

No Mercy for the Rude (++++)

The story of my son (+++)

PTU (++++)

Strawberry Shortcakes (++++1/2)

Living in Fear (++++)

Summer Palace (++++)

Ex-drummer (++++)

Fourteen (++++)
Unfortunately had to skip Fourteen because the movie before this one got delayed and then I would have missed my last train, so the rating is based on the contents and other reviews I saw. Hopefully I will be able to watch this one some other time.

The Matsugane Potshot Affair (++++)

Freesia (+++)
Due to a headache I decided to skip this one. So the rating for this one is also based on my judgement of the content of the movie and reviews that I read elsewhere.

Das Leben der Anderen (+++++)
This excellent German movie was the most impressive movie that I saw during the festival and that I saw for a long time. It's Oscar nomination for best foreign movie is well deserved. I haven't seen the other candidates for the Oscar, but they must be of an outstanding quality to beat "Das Leben der Anderen (Lives of Others) in my humble opinion.

Driving the lover of my wife (++++)

The 13 remaining movies of my list and my ratings I will post later this weekend.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)

Since Thursdaynight I spend a lot of time at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The IFFR wil finish on Sunday February 4th. This year I will set a record by watching 33 movies(!!!). When my mother heard that I was going to see 33 movies she said yuck. Actually she said something else, but this is a proper and decent weblog (wink).

I saw 2 movies on Thursday, 5 on Friday and 5 today (Saturday). So 12 down, 21 to go. Here you can check the festivalprogramme. The festival has a wide range of different movies from all over the world. My main focus is Asian cinema, so the most movies I normally watch at the IFFR are from China, Japan and South Korea and sometimes from Taiwan, Malasia, Thailand (this year a lot from Hong Kong) depending on the supply. That doesn't mean that I try to watch all. It also depends on the subject/story of the movie. The IFFR always has a wide and interesting range of movies from the Asian region. But I also watch movies from other countries if I find the reviews/descriptions interesting or appealing. I always have to make a selection. On my first longlist for this year I had 45 movies, so on my final list of 33 movies I had to skip 12 . The agony of choice (me in my ironic mode). Later I might post a list af the movies (with links) and my ratings.

Last Friday my girlfriend joined me with the last movie at night. Before the movie we had to kill almost three hours, so we went out for dinner. I also could use a break after four movies. We went to a place called Sumo, a Japanese (Chinese management) restaurant with three parts, a teppanyaki part where the food is prepared in front of you on a iron plate (teppan in Japanese, yaki means baked/grilled), a set of tables where you can eat à la carte and a part where they offer all you can eat. We reserved a table at the all you can eat part. For just 19 Euro 50 (about 15, 16 Dollars) you could order anyting you like, from all kinds of sushi, dishes like yakitori, tempura, different types of udon and some ricedishes and other small dishes. The sushi wasn't the best we ever eat, but still more than reasonable with an extreme good price/quality ratio related to the all-you-can-eat-concept. The yakitori and beef dishes were nice, but the udon was so so good. The (young) staff was very friendly and helpful. Surely a place to go back. The pictures below were taken by my girlfriend.

Some delayed pictures

Here are some more pictures from our last visit to England around New Year, as I promised.

Meet Noodles, my friend's cat, a bit of a chicken-cat, but cute and funny.

And this is Sushi, a less chicken than Noodles and very playful.

A part of the church belonging to the tower from my former post.

And a detail from one of the sides of the tower

This was our New Year's Eve dinner, soba noodles, very yummy.

Compared to Holland the fireworks was minimal, but there was some nearby. I manage to shoot this picture without a tripod. The first time my friend from England experienced the fireworks in Holland at midnight, he thought that World War 3 broke out.

For some reason I always have to think of Mr. Bean when I see a Mini

This picture and the next three were taken at my friend's parent's place, a small countryside village in Devonshire, which name I forgot

On our last night we went to a nice Indian restaurant in my friend's hometown Weston Super Mare.

Quick Post

It has been two weeks since my last post. It's not that I didn't had anything to post about. I made quite some pictures the past few weeks, but I simply was too busy with other things.

We were in England from December 28th till January 3rd were we visited a friend around New Year. I haven't sort out all the pictures yet, but here are two pics for now to keep my visitors happy :-).

I will post more pictures soon, I promise.

Bye for now.

This is a pic from the tower of the Parish church of St. Mary Magdalene in Taunton

And this one was taken near my friend's parent's place in Devon, a county in South-West England.

Just removed some stuff

Welcome and a happy New Year to all my visitors!

I just removed the Neo Counter- and the Neo Earth- banners. I knew when I signed in I could try the paid version for two weeks and after that it would change to the free version. But I didn't expect that the free version would look that crappy, so I just removed the banners. Although the paid version looked nice, there is no way I'm going to pay 30 Dollars ( a year) for some nice banners.