#56, 4/29 – Black Book (2006) (tofw)

I feel an odd connection, even if it’s not always a positive one, to directors whose films I grew up watching. I have very little positive to say about Adrian Lyne, for instance, but I still feel some sort of obligation to see his movies because he’s one of the directors who made an impression on me in the 80s. Similarly with Paul Verhoeven I make a point to see what he’s done. I tend to be very forgiving about his movies ever since he became slightly legendary in my teen mind with unstoppable Flesh + Blood, the nearly perfect marriage of absolute nonsense, pure adventure, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. And after that, Verhoeven had his little run of reasonably entertaining, if somewhat ridiculous, Hollywood hits. You know them. Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct. That’s a pretty good run for a Hollywood director and I remember making a point to see each of them. After that, things got perhaps a bit patchy for Verhoeven, though his adaptation of Starship Troopers was every bit as entertaining and ridiculous as Flesh+Blood or Robocop.

I think he’s returned to form. Black Book, which reunites Verhoeven with Gerard Soeteman (a writer he’d last worked with on… Flesh + Blood and someone who’d collaborated with Verhoeven on another film about the Dutch Resistance some thirty years ago), is every bit what I expected. Yes, it’s both entertaining and somewhat ridiculous and I’m happy I saw it.

On a completely superficial note: Carice van Houten? So very pretty.