Saw this trailer last Saturday when going to see Prince of Persia. Really looking forward to this third part of the Twilight Saga, hope to be able to finish the book in time though…
The Butterfly Tattoo (Trailer after the break) is a British movie made after the novel with the same name by Philip Pullman. The description of the plot of the movie was intriguing: “She was his first love, He was her killer”, so I decided to watch it yesterday. The Butterfly Tattoo is an independent movie, and while the budget was obviously a lot lower than most Hollywood productions, the story and young but skilled actors make it an interesting watch. The Butterfly Tattoo tells the story of Chris, a student, that works for Oxford Entertainment Systems. When installing the light & music at a posh party, he meets Jenny and helps her to hide from some ex-boyfriend who has been harrassing her. Gradually, the relationship between Chris and Jenny develops, and it becomes clear that Jenny has a troubled past. More than that, Chris discovers that his boss has some troubles of his own and is hiding from a criminal who is searching him. How this ends in the death of Jenny I will not spoil, you will have to watch it for that 
. And although the story does not end well, and leaves you with a slightly unsatisfied feeling, I think the movie portrays a much more honest, true, tragic, and interesting story than we know from those Happy End movies, all so common in Hollywood. Moreover, the movie’s brilliant Brit Pop sound track adds another reason to watch!
Since the Namesake introduced me to 1947 Earth, I have been exploring some more Bollywood movies. New York is a movie filmed by an Indian director Kabir Khan, mostly filmed in Hindi, but takes place in the city that never sleeps. The movie, featuring the lovely Katrina Kaif, portrays a somewhat different vision on the world after 9/11. The movie starts when Omar, a taxi driver, is falsely accused of terrorism and interrogated by the FBI. It seems one of his college friends Samir, is suspected to be a leader of a terrorist sleeper cell in NYC. Already soon, Omar realises that the FBI has a double agenda, and probably planted the weapons on his taxi on purpose to force him to spy on his old friend. Omar, however, broke of contact with Samir just after 9/11, and gaining his former friend’s confidence will also entail meeting Samir’s Wife and Omar’s former crush, Maya. While Omar believes in Samir’s innocence, his work for the FBI reveals otherwise, and suddenly Omar has to do everything possible to stop his friend from committing a terrorist attack. As said, New York portrays a somewhat different perspective to terrorism that we see in most Hollywood movies, which makes it an interesting watch. Right after 9/11, Samir is illegally held, interrogated, and tortured by the FBI, to reveal nothing but his innocence. Free again, his plans are revenge and this leads him to the path of terrorism. While providing a different viewpoint on terrorism, especially condemning the American actions that resulted in thousands of innocent muslim men being detained without any form of process, the movie unfortunately fails to give the necessary depth to the topic. A depth that would really make its audience think about this topic. Instead, the characters remain shallow, and the movie addresses the theme quite lightly, without the necessary tension and drama to make it credible. Still it sparks some thoughts about terrorism and is fit for larger audiences. Summarising, a relaxing movie to watch on a Friday evening, that at least provides something to think about…
Ok, I admit that although I’m not a teenage girl, I still liked the Twilight Movie a lot. The movie already starts with a catching quote that must have been taken from the book directly, and gathers momentum as it goes. In the beginning, I was still sceptical, thinking for example that Bella’s friends were too damn shallow (they are) and that would they have come at me on my first schoolday I probably would’ve been freaked out by them. While most of the supporting characters stay shallow, the relationship between Edward (a Vampire) and Bella (Human) develops during the film and the tension between them is clearly felt throughout. Most of all, I think the movie was a good mixture of romance, tension and action and is beautifully shot; especially the American scenery is breathtaking. And hey, a movie that has Flightless Bird of Iron & Wine on its soundtrack has to do a lot to lose my favour 
. Anyway, a good way to spend a Friday evening and the film has made me curious about the books too. One thing I thought quite funny was that both this movie & the True Blood series have Vampires and mind readers in them, and both use the theme of attraction between them, wonder whether that was a coincidence.
Yesterday, the drizzly winter weather in the Netherlands lend itself for a visit to a nice warm cinema. I already decided to go and watch Avatar since I saw its movie trailers in the States, and I had been playing around with the idea of going to see it; yesterday I finally got round to see it, and I’m glad a did. The movie is just awesome! The story tells us about a paraplegic marine, Jake Sully, who is shipped to an earth-like planet to help the mining operations there. The mining company is searching for an ore ironically called “unobtanium”, but met fierce resistance of the humanoid Na’vi, the original inhabitants of the planet. Jake is hired to control an avatar, a Na’vi-like body, to win the confidence of the locals. However, in his contact with the Na’vi he starts to admire their ways and falls in love with Neytiri; one of the Na’vi women. When a confrontation between both peoples is at hand, Jake has to choose his allegiance. Thus, enough matter for an interesting movie, and although I feel the story and characters could have been worked out better, the movie is shot beautifully: you’ll find yourself emerged in it from the beginning to the end. The 3D graphics were also astounding and set a new standard for the industry. Moreover, this was my first 3D movie and I was quite impressed by the effects; my seat right at the front row probably wasn’t ideal, but it was really interesting to see parts in the movie where objects suddenly started to float towards me. All in all I would really want to advise you to go and see this one, you definitely won’t regret it.
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