It's pretty cool to realize that four out of the five Oscar nominees for Documentary Feature played at the Full Frame Festival last year, and I saw all four of them.

Of the four movies that I've seen, Nerakhoon is my personal favorite. I think that Man on Wire has the best chances of winning the Oscar, since it's more 'commercial' and has received a lot more publicity. My least favorite was Encounters at the end of the world, it was just boring.

Encounters at the end of the world was a bit boring.

The documentary maker travels to Antarctica to interviews various people living there. The problem is that the subjects aren't very interesting, and the film never really takes off.

The film Man on Wire is a delightfully entertaining documentary about Philippe Petit, who walked on a rope between the Twin Towers in 1974.

When we saw the initial screening at Full Frame it the audience gave it a huge applause, and later it was awarded the Audience Award of the festival.

In the last couple of years there have been a lot of movies and documentaries about Katrina and its aftermath. Trouble The Water is the best I have seen so far.

I saw this movie on the last day of the Full Frame Festival, when it was screened again on Sunday morning since it had won the Grand Jury Award.

Two 'street hustlers' in the 9th ward in New Orleans have no car, no money and decide to stay in the city during the hurricane ("we have no wheels"). With a hand held camera they record everything that happens during the hurricane, when the levees break, and in the weeks afterwards. The main characters are full of live, and they try to stay upbeat during everything that happens.

The government is completely overwhelmed by what happened, and the film shows how this impacts their lives and that of others around them. It was a great movie, and while I prefer Nerakhoon to win, this documentary is worthy of the Oscar nomination it received.

Betrayal is an absolutely amazing documentary. The movie is filmed during a period of over 23 years, and starts in Laos, where the filmmaker and main character of the movie lives with his parents. They are forced to leave Laos when the Americans lost the war in Vietnam and the Communists come to power in Laos, because the father worked with the Americans.

After many travels the family ultimately migrates to the States, arriving in a very bad neighborhood in Brooklyn. They are without the father who had been sent to a 'reeducation camp' in Laos. I won't give away what ultimately happens in the film, but it's breathtaking to realize that this is an actual, real-life documentary and not a fictional movie. Very gripping, very beautiful.

Sasha and I saw this documentary last year at the Full Frame festival in Durham. It is now nominated for an Oscar.

We saw Slumdog Millionaire last weekend, an impressive movie about a boy from the slums who participates in Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

The film provides a glimpse of life at the bottom of society in India. It has a strange combination of despair about the desperate circumstances the main characters live in, and happy optimism and humor. Over-all it's an upbeat movie with beautiful camera work and great music.

Definitely recommended.

The other day in CVS we saw a pan for "Pancake Puffs". Well, that looks like a poffertjespan to me! (Got to love to nice long Dutch words).

There is a mail order store in the US that sells real, Dutch, poffertjespannen and even a poffertjesvork, for flipping the poffertjes over.

Today there was no new snow but the world was still white.

There were some traffic warnings in effect but my travel to and from work was uneventful, luckily.

The car, before I cleaned the windows.

Today was the Inauguration of President Obama, a beautiful day. Over lunch we saw the swearing-in ceremony and the Inauguration speech. The crowds were amazing, and at the same time I was very happy we were in the warm environment of our home and not on the street since 4 am. CNN estimated that there were about 1.5 million people on the Mall today.

Here at Guus Bosman.nl we had the first article on this candidate back in January 2007. In September I saw then Senator Obama and Senator Biden in Greensboro, and it was great night when he was elected President in November.

It was nice to see the new first family at the balls tonight; dancing like must feel somewhat awkward but it's a nice tradition. The Obama's are such a young family compared to many of the politicians in DC -- truly a new generation.

The snow today impacted a lot of traffic, and I worked from home today. In the afternoon the Governor declared a state of emergency for North Carolina due to the snow. I hope that I can get to work tomorrow because I have meetings from 10.00 am through 5.00 pm.

Today is the first day of snow in North Carolina this winter.

Travel hazardous as snow builds.