Soloalbum

I'm not a big fan of German movies at all, so I didn't expect too much from this flick, when my girlfriend talked me into renting it. However, "Soloalbum" turned out to be an entertaining little comedy/romance with a well chosen cast and witty dialogue. One couldn't overlook that the model for this movie was another, much better movie/book named "High Fidelity". Ben, the main character, has two friends, just like Rob in Hornby's book, his flat bares some similarities to John Cusack's in "Hi-Fi" and like Rob Ben thinks about calling five of his ex-girlfriends at some point of the story. One dialogue was almost a complete rip-off of the scene in "High Fidelity", where John Cusack asks Jack Black, what he would say, if he told him, he hadn't seen "Evil Dead 2", "yet". Another thing that I didn't like about the movie was the lack of good songs. A story about a music journalist with love troubles should have a good soundtrack. Apart from Elvis Costello's "Almost Blue" the movie only contained throw-away pop songs, which is a shame. Thankfully, "Soloalbum" is still charming enough to make for a pleasant viewing. "High Fidelity" is still king, though.

this is not one of the big ones. but, in fact, it is one of the funniest german movies of the last years. nothing´s really breath-taking, but what we got here is a young and refreshing camerawork and the unconventional intention just to do entertainment. the story itself ("how to get back the ex in 10 steps?")is known, but the young director´s enthusiasm is visible in every scene; and this feeling you get by watching it is what fills some holes considering plot, actors and not-THAT-funny jokes. a try to transfer the specific pop - literature style into the movies. nice one.

I just read the book of stuckrad-barre and for me it is realy the most fantastic one since the last two years. Finaly it would'nt be quite interesting for non-german readers since there are many associations and much critic to german mass media.

No, i would not want to see this film again. The leading character is flat, you don't want to join his life, not even in the "sx"-episodes. You don't believe, what is happening to him, why she, Katharina, the only amiable character, comes back to him (is she this dull?), the plot is thinner than silk. The Californian studios would have made a acceptable main-streamer nothing out of it, but don't waste our (german) tax for "Filmfoerderung". And erase this little boy named Ben, who has lived through such many years of wisdom. Don't compare this to High Fidelity! Have You seen any DVD-Xtra-features: There are none visible...

What I heard about this film, is that it is pretty bad, one critic even wrote that it will harm German cinema just as much as the book harmed German literature. Well, don't ask me why I went to see it in spite of this but I did.

The result is - surprise, surprise - not as bad as I believed. The movie is funnier than most other modern German comedies... well, funny is not a correct word: there's a scene, and you find it utterly stupid but nevertheless you can't help laughing. Also the movie is quite short, so there is no time to get bored. And: Nora Tschirner is really very cute.

Still, after watching this movie, I am not interested in any of Stuckrad-Barre's so-called pop books any more (because I finally know what this word means). They seem to be somewhat exhausting to read, and on the whole, the story isn't worth it.

So, I wasn't completely right regarding my prejudices. 6 out of 10.