Reviews
Die Seelen im Feuer (2014)
Educational
No real acting, more like a documentary. Everybody plays a role, nobody is really present. Found it boring, more like ZDF Terra X than a real movie. No surprises. Some nudity doesn't improve the piece. However, if you know nothing about that time, there will be some educational insights.
The Tree of Life (2011)
Pitiful
This movie is as pitiful as I could ever imagine a movie to be. It spills out a world of self-induced mental pain over you. In case you have children yourself, you will probably find the whole topic unbearable. In case you suffered yourself from the loss of a child, you might feel like burning the movie theater down.
The movie is also religious in a very crude way and shows that the people making it did not understand at all what God could be. For them, God is a "trader" who grants all wishes if paid in good deeds.
Especially US, who like flying to other countries bombing the s**t out of the people living there, yet drowning in an ocean of tears if one of their people dies. What hypocrisies.
I left this disgusting piece of film history after one hour since it became mentally unbearable. It is also unbearably boring.
Jud Süss - Film ohne Gewissen (2010)
poor Goebbels
The movie was rejected at Berlinale for a good reason. Moritz Bleibtreu, an – in my eyes overbooked yet middle class actor – played Dr. Goebbels as badly as a character can be played. There are basically three ways he could have approached his role as Dr. Goebbels: precisely sticking to the historic figure (e.g. Bruno Ganz in "Der Untergang"), a parody / mockery (Charly Chaplin in "The Great Dictator") and his own independent interpretation (Robert Carlyle in "The Rise of Evil"). He was not capable to choose any of them and attempted a rather embarrassing mix. As we know from the few YouTube movies showing the real Goebbels, this man was able to speak very clearly and well accentuated, carefully pronouncing each word with his slight "Rheinland" accent. Bleibtreu is attempting to imitate this accent, but since he obviously never has learned to pronounce clearly (a talent now too often missing at modern German actors) it only sounds funny, but not like Goebbels. It is also a well-known fact that Gobbels limped slightly, the accent is on "slightly", yet Bleibtreu plays him as an almost invalid! At other times he forgets to limb at all! The third and in my eyes most despicable fact is Bleibtreus "over-acting" in a movie which is about the very magic of not overacting! (like Marian as Jud Süß). He is shouting, playing a roaring and rampaging moron who tries to appear devilish and only makes himself a laughing stock as an actor. By the way, the blow-job Britta is giving Gobbels was cut out in the German cinema version. Historic facts have been "klittered" (German word, meaning "gluing together what every you can find") in an extreme way. Too many wrong mistakes for writing them down. The movies deserve 2 stars at max and only for the fact that Ferdinand Marian was so exceptionally well played by Tobias Moretti. I can only recommend buying the real "Jud Süß" at Amazon.com to compare.
Avatar (2009)
Hard criticism for the USA. But will anybody notice??
One of the best movies ever. There was the famous Mr. Gorbachev, who wrote in his book "Perestroika" the remarkable sentence: "Capitalism is incapable of solving mankind's global problems". We just witnessed Copenhagen, where the two most aggressive nations on this planet finally paved the way to global doom.
Avatar shows us the extinction of the Native Americans by the first Europeans coming to America, it shows us the way the Aborigines ended after the English came to Australia, it shows us numerous "smaller" events, where the evil combination of a mighty military machine and insidious commercial interests. This combination (some call it fascism) will do everything to get its profit.
I find it fascinating, that especially a nation like the USA, who can't kick militarism, is making such movies, watching such movies, enjoys such movies and ... continues exactly like they did before. Don't marines visit movies theaters? Don't managers visit such movies? We destroy everything. This process continues, it actually happens each and every day. Each day, "Avatar" happens on Earth. A little Pandora in every hour of our life. But since we don't watch it in 3-D in a movie theater, it doesn't bother us too much and our "Na'vi's" ain't always that perfect and pretty.
So now we watch it in beautiful, magical pictures in a movie theater and the good ones win for once. At least until another profit-hungry corporation comes back and throws some ERW /neutron bombs on the Na'vi, because after that, they can continue making 20 Million bugs a kilo of something mineral - so we can buy more non-alcoholic beer and more blue jeans and more bankers can claim more bonuses.
The movie is wonderful, but the victory of the Na'vi can only be considered a "Little Bighorn". Nothing more.
For the few among us who know about Enlightenment, the movie pictures the Na'vi as beings living in a state of knowing who they are. This alone makes it worth watching the movie.
The Love Guru (2008)
Kind and funny - a must see!
If you liked Austin Powers, this movie is a "must see". While it comes with some heavy jokes, it also serves witty humor far from being superficial stupidities to the more experienced Guru-lover. One Example:
B est I nstructions B efore L eaving E arth
;) - however, if you are a bone dry person with a taste for "political correct humor only" - this movie is not made for you. Myers, however, did it again: a very original and funny movie I enjoyed nearly as much as Austin Powers 1-3. Even my girlfriend who wanted to leave after 15 min told me she liked it after 90 min.
Das Blut der Templer (2004)
mumbling actors
The movie is typical, unfortunately, for the current German movie maker culture. Neither the plot, nor the acting, nor the camera really is the problem: LANGUAGE is. All actors MUMBLE! They speak like teenagers at a low education level. While this this actually might reflect the situation pretty well, however, it still is unbearable. Otherwise, the movie is not that bad. Watch it sub-titled, you might be fine. In addition to that, it doesn't involve lots of good music. I missed some music underlining the potentially dramatic situations (there were plenty) but the soundtrack would have been suitable for any B-movie, it was totally unspecific. I found it boring to watch. It is a bit funny, sometimes, but I'm afraid this was rather unintended.
Sunshine (2007)
cliché at work
Can somebody please tell me, why there are people rating this awfully boring movie with a 10? My friend and I left after 30 minutes, already bored to death. It starts with somebody looking like a DJ (not like an astronaut or scientist) doing something very stupid, means looking directly into sunlight. He is the captain or something like that. It continues with stupid behavior, like people starting to beat each other up on a spaceship, for apparently no reason - who selected these guys to be astronauts in the first place? I thought there is at least some degree of self-control required to get this job? Then they need to show how beautiful life can be, by some waves breaking on a wharf with some people enjoying this. Give me a break! Watching this pathetic attempt just made me miss "Alien" so much, I couldn't stand it any longer. This is a 100% artificially constructed movie with boring wann-be actors, with no style, and with no character at all. It shows no own identity and is mounted together from "if we add this, we will reach this target group" scenes. Please stop it!
Apocalypto (2006)
"My son... don't be afraid."
This movie really is wonderful. Thanks, Mel. I have to say that I read critics before and they have been disgusting. As it seems, there is a specific group of people who are ideologically unfit to judge Mel's work with fairness
I believe the movie has lots to say but the basic message for me was "Don't be afraid." This message should be targeted right at the heart of Americans who are, according to Michael Morre's "Bowling for Columbine", the Nation with the highest fear factor, leaving far behind every other civilized nation in the "murders per inhabitant ratio" and being ready to follow their "leaders" in whatever bloody war they ask them to fight. In beautiful pictures it shows that fear doesn't count. "Fear is a sickness", as Flint Sky rightly says. With fear, you either get slaughtered, or, you slaughter others. Without fear, you do what's necessary to protect yourself, your family and your hunting grounds. And that's it. Then you have always a new beginning. Fear never has done anything to improve a bad situation. Without fear, you are free. So I think Mel wants to say that American can only be truly free if they stop being so afraid. If fear is a sickness, longing for security is a sickness too, because it does not exist and will only poison your heart. That's what I thought when I watched this great movie.
Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe (2005)
a movie for those who already experienced true love
The movie is excellent and one of the few deeply touching me. I had tears in my eyes all the way home. It is a wonderful movie about "true love" and what "true love" on this world really means. It shows that even the greatest love on Earth can not stand the persistence of memory, the impermanence of the body and the insignificance of all our day to day actions. While it doubtlessly demystifies "true love" on one side, on the other side it shows how powerful it is and that the world is empty, dark and meaningless without it. Especially the casting of Alexandra Maria Lara as "Venus Morgenstern" is as brilliant as it gets. She is not only a stunning beauty; she also has so much soul and amiability in her eyes, she should get an academy award for it. The movie basically is re-telling the story of Orpheus and Eurydice from Greek mythology. For this, it is re-using the wonderful music of Christoph Willibald Gluck's Opera. The scenes in the underworld are generally well done, but when Venus (aka Eurydice) sings out her love for Mimi (aka Orpheus), even the God Hermes starts crying and EVERYBODY in the movie theatre will start crying too. However, the movie has one big drawback. The movie is a mirror: it makes only sense to people who have already experienced deep love and loss in their life. For all the others, it will be just "kind of a weird story" as some of the comments here already show. The movie comes with a reflection of feelings of love and loss but only to those who already learned about this before. For the others, it will certainly just be a quite silly comedy. I hope the small group of the others will prevail. This movie is not mainstream.
Alexander (2004)
will Stone make another movie?
I was so much looking forward to this movie. My God, what did Oliver Stone do to poor Alexander? Okay, the scene with him as a child taming that steed - good. The few views on ancient Babylon - cool. But so many other things - just unbelievable. First, he got history, plain facts, all wrong. There was no "Pier One" furniture available in 300 B.C. No tables, No chairs, nor black-white-marble eggs. And no machine stitched leather armor. If Alexander was bi, okay. But who wants to see that (okay, except the homosexuals)? Even this was acceptable, but the Great Alexander behaves like a not much respected platoon leader, constantly in quarrels with his troops. This is so not convincing, if you then know he had to rule x100.000 soldiers over so many years. He might have had an Oedipus-complex, but then he was a Tyran. He can not be a democrat, discussing all his decisions on peer level and be scared about his mum at the same time - doesn't work for a psycho nerd like me. What make the film awful is that Colin Farrell. He has these sweet little shy doggy eyes - not the eyes of a victor. And he is crying 70% of all the time! Was Alexander really such a crybaby? And then this narrator thing... was truly wasted Popcorn.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
One of the best movies about the USA !
Wow, what a great experience. This movie is outstanding, exceptional, unbelievable. I just saw this movie in a large cinema in Berlin, it was full, even if the movie was in original language (this is NOT normal for Berlin) and the entire cinema applauded heavily after the movie was over. Moore is a very brave guy. So much courage! This man has balls! Talking like this to the K-mart guys and Charlton Heston is just like attacking a dragon with a sword. Wow. I want most of all George W. Bush to see this movie. Maybe somebody needs to explain it to him... however. The movie is imho the best explanation of the "American phenomenon" -- 10,000 murdered people per year (!!!) compared to around 100 in other countries -- which exists so far. The USA managed to create a multinational billion dollar industry based on fear (!) and they willingly accept the "collateral damage" in their country for the sake of this profit.
Härtetest (1998)
The worst movie of all times
I warn you, this is a SPOILER!
The movie is not just bad. I manages to create this special feeling in your belly, this feeling of..."oops, where is the next restroom", this feeling of utmost disgust. The characters are unbearable, so artificial, so "pulled on the hair", as the Germans say. I was in there with a group of 6 people, we all left after 60 minutes. The most terribly wasted hour of my life!
Air Force One (1997)
The most ridiculous movie in history
It is so absurd, so ridiculous, so funny. There are many slapstick movies, but this one beats them all. I have been slipping from my seat, laying on the floor, grasping for breath, nearly dying from laughter. Stan Laurel, Jerry Lewis, Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, even Carry - they all can't do what Harrison Ford did in this movie. Outrageous! I would rate it 10++ in the "Comedy Category", but as an action movie, this rubbish just gets a 1--.