jimtraina

I was absolutely riveted while watching this film. The opening scene exhibits astonishingly masterful camera work and editing, especially for its time. You can tell they put money into the movie, and the production values are surprisingly high so soon after the war. There are also a lot of characters and the quality of acting is high all around.

Though filmed in 1949, the action takes place earlier. Without giving any of the plot points away, the recollected story must take place around 1895/6, as the X-ray machine has recently been invented. Due to timelines mentioned in the movie, we can extrapolate that the framing story probably takes place around 1910 or so.

I couldn't find any versions subtitled in English, unfortunately, but I hope someday this movie will be opened to the English-speaking world as well.

I hope I'm not overselling it, but compare this film to American movies from the same time period and you'll be impressed with what the Germans did here.

This was a film more for young people and gamers, but I found it quite entertaining. The movie creatively mixes game play and real life, as dedicated game players are forced to go on a quest in the real world. The story was a bit simplistic and not very realistic, but I give the movie a lot of points for creativity. I don't know if this type of movie, with lots of cool gaming effects, is becoming popular, but I've never seen anything quite like it. I'm torn on how to rate it, but I'm going to give it a 6½ (rounding up to 7 here).

This won several awards as a youth movie, but there's something to enjoy for fun-loving adults as well.

Okay, so at times it was corny, unrealistic and not overly deep, but I enjoyed this film nonetheless. The bit of insight into Amish culture was intriguing and, as a German speaker, the language differences between Pennsylvania "Dutch" and modern, slangy German were fun.

There were some tender and emotional moments, and it was cool to see heterosexual male characters comfortably expressing genuine affection in a way that didn't seem forced. There are no politics here, no sides to choose, nothing but humans trying to make their way in a confusing world.

At a time when cynicism holds so much sway, it felt refreshing to watch an open-hearted film with likable characters.

The objective part of me rated this movie a 6, but my more sentimental side would have added a star or two.