Reviews
Ghostwatch (1992)
Brilliant Piece of Television
Just to sum the entire ban thing up. The ban now is semi lifted. The DVD seems to be available, and the international iPlayer now has it for everyone interested to watch. I don't have to say to much about the show anymore, but I watched it two weeks ago, and despite knowing it was a hoax it kept me after the first slow going 40 minutes on the edge of my seat. All I can say is, that this is a brilliant piece of television, and I would rate it way higher than Blair Witch Project, which I personally found mediocre.
So anyone who can get hold of the DVD or has the international iPlayer subscribed should really watch this show. It cannot get any better.
Der Knochenmann (2009)
The Problem
If you watch this movie and use subtitles only is that this movie is a very dark comedy with lots of word puns in between which are close to being untranslatable, hence the rating differences we can see here. Overall an excellent movie but if you watch it as a foreign speaker with subtitles only you miss out the subtile humor in the dialogs which probably then results in some weird subtitles like constant yes and nos which probably resmble the local Austrian dialect word Eh which is not quite the same and if applied in the correct situations and Haders down to the bottom intonation quite humorous. This is probably one of those many things which are lost in the translation. As for the main actor Josef Hader he is actually a comedian and one in the dark austrian humor tradition which is close to the English humor. He has done a handful of movies and all of them are worth watching. This movie is the third of a series of criminal movies. The first one being komm süsser tod - come sweet death, and the second one being silentium. The first one is the one which could be considered to be the most humorous of the three, while the secod one being the one with the least humor. Der Knochenmann - the bone man is somewhere in between those two but with the most extreme things going on.
Mit meinen heißen Tränen (1986)
Fortunately
The series has been release in a 4 hour German only version called Notturno over here in Austria on DVD. And the Film is as good as I can remember the series, maybe even better, due to the middle part being cut into various pieces into the other parts which adds a lot.
It is really a funny situation, the entire thing was a European co production with a mainly Austrian / German cast (Udo Samel to my knowledge was dubbed into the viennese accent due to being German) It was shown once, highly praised and then nothing anymore, I can remember one late night return of the series a few years ago which I unfortunately missed. Anyway, if you have the chance to watch this series, this is an absolute masterpiece of European cinema, I would rate it as high as some Tarkovskij movies and Fanny and Alexander in its importance.
Mostly overlooked, but an absolute masterpiece which should deserve more publicity.
Anyway if you understand German, then get this DVD, it is a special edition released in Austria and available currently in the stores for 10 Euros.