Sunshine (1999)

"... and I knew the only way I could live my life was to account for it." With these words ends the story that the Hungarian Jew Adam Sonnenschein has been telling his tired watcher for three hours. Starting with his great-grandfather, ending with him, the story skims over different masculine extremities: the grandfather serving the emperor in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the father ignoring the fascists as long as he can, Adam himself hooking up with the communists until he comes to the conclusion quoted above and starts leading a less politically extreme life which, unfortunately, we don't get to see. His new life is modelled after the philosophy of his grandmother who, in her own words, "though I could never be a communist quite like you were, felt pity with the poor picking up the crums in the street" and, apart from that, dedicated all the time she didn't spend consoling the male family members with caring looks to taking pictures of what's beautiful in life. --- This was recommended as an introduction to Hungarian history, but really it was but a lovestory repeated thrice and glamourized by different uniforms and stiff faces. The storyline was so... Western.

Saving Grace

England. Some small village at the coast. Graces husband dies. After a short period of sadness she needs to find out that her husband has left nothing but a huge amount of depts. Grace has no income but has to pay back the depts or her house will be auctioned. Her gardener Matt has the saving idea: plating marijuana and sell it later on. Grace has the right touch for plants ,and this crazy idea could change her whole finacial problem. So they plant marijuana in secret, but very soon the whole village is informed without their knowledge. When the time arises where the drug needs to be selled Grace decides to drive to London, even though she has no idea what is expecting her or whome she heeds to talk to. I can simply warmly recommend this mivie. It is so full of heart and humor. Many scurile and funny characters are the essence of this story, especially the main actress is lovely, so full of energy and hope. It´s only about the characters and how life sometimes plays.

Equilibrium

After the third world war humans try to create a cure against agressiveness that could lead to death and desperation of the whole polulation. They find that a liquid that represses all emotions (love, commiseration, anger, jealousy, sadness, and so on) is the right thing. Everybody needs to take it in a defined period of time so the repressed feelings can´t appear on the surface of the mind of a person. The leader of the humans and the ideal of a world without war is called "Father". he makes rules and gives orders. To make sure everybody stays within the system brutal laws are taking place, people that don´t take the liquid are called "sense-offenders". The clerics, a group of some kind of special agents with breathtaking abilities of fight-methods (reminding me a bit too much of Matrix) burn everything that is somewhat connected to fellings like books, art, music,... and kill the sense-offenders (sometimes by shooting them, sometimes by buring them alive). As you probably noticed, this movie is very very violent, many people die and lots of guns are in use.  The main actor, John Preston (Christian Bale), is the best of the best within the clerics. His wife has been excecuted because she stopped taking the liquid, but nevertheless he is still the hard, ideologic man. But then he shoots he best friend and college. After that he changes. Very soon he is hunted, tries to find the undeground that wants to overthrow the system (guess what, of course with bombs and violence and stuff). Well, this movie could be good, it includes lots of interesting ideas but what comes out in the end is a violent and flat movie. The actors are not developing any deep profile and the special effects and action parts have a very much too high priority. Not even the soundtrack is too good. So, if you don´t mind people being shot every five to ten minutes or whatever this is a movie for a popcorn-evening. Not deep, good looking actors and not too much thinking.

Equilibrium

After the third world war humans try to create a cure against agressiveness that could lead to death and desperation of the whole polulation. They find that a liquid that represses all emotions (love, commiseration, anger, jealousy, sadness, and so on) is the right thing. Everybody needs to take it in a defined period of time so the repressed feelings can´t appear on the surface of the mind of a person. The leader of the humans and the ideal of a world without war is called "Father". he makes rules and gives orders. To make sure everybody stays within the system brutal laws are taking place, people that don´t take the liquid are called "sense-offenders". The clerics, a group of some kind of special agents with breathtaking abilities of fight-methods (reminding me a bit too much of Matrix) burn everything that is somewhat connected to fellings like books, art, music,... and kill the sense-offenders (sometimes by shooting them, sometimes by buring them alive). As you probably noticed, this movie is very very violent, many people die and lots of guns are in use.  The main actor, John Preston (Christian Bale), is the best of the best within the clerics. His wife has been excecuted because she stopped taking the liquid, but nevertheless he is still the hard, ideologic man. But then he shoots he best friend and college. After that he changes. Very soon he is hunted, tries to find the undeground that wants to overthrow the system (guess what, of course with bombs and violence and stuff). Well, this movie could be good, it includes lots of interesting ideas but what comes out in the end is a violent and flat movie. The actors are not developing any deep profile and the special effects and action parts have a very much too high priority. Not even the soundtrack is too good. So, if you don´t mind people being shot every five to ten minutes or whatever this is a movie for a popcorn-evening. Not deep, good looking actors and not too much thinking.

Goldfinger (1964)

On my first night with internet at my new home, I was in the mood for exciting entertainment. As I didn't find an online Hitchcock movie easily, I went for James Bond instead. Sean Connery, to be precise. Goldfinger is from 1964, which means it has very enjoyable special effects. The swimwear is also very nice: The storyline is cold wary. A gold-maniac has a deal with Korea: they give him a little bomb with which he wants to contaminate the US gold reserves so that his own reserves would decuple in value. Bond is his prisoner most of the time. Unfortunately this means that there is only one car he gets the chance to drive to pieces in the whole movie. His love stories are also not very successful at first: the first two girls he hooks on to (#1 in the picture) die few hours after their encounter. Fortunately, it's different with the last one whom he impresses so much with his judo tricks that she calls Washington to warn them of the attack. If it weren't for his charms, the USA would be an insignificant country with lots of radioactive gold today...

The Fall

  Alexandira broke her arm and now she has to stay in hospital. There she meets Roy during one of her exploring tours. Roy is an injured stuntman. He starts telling her magical stories, but only to use her for getting him the pills, morphin, enough pills to kill himself. But this Alexandria doesn´t know, so in her fantasy the coloured, adventures tale of five heroes is taking place, in beautiful pictures, full of romatic atmosphere and strong colours. It´s a very nice and imaginative film, with such a lovely main actress, my god she is so very sweet and innocent. I must admitt that this is a different king of movie, it´s all about the two main actors and how their „relationship“ developes, how they start to see each other. There is time for eyecontact, meaningfull looks, understanding problems caused by the language (for English is not the mother language of Alexandria) and lots of heart.

The Machinist

 

„If you were any thinner you wouldn´t exist“. Trevor didn´t sleep for a long time, for one year to be precise. That´s why is is not really aware of the real world, he is always tired and weak. He works in a factory of whatever machines. One day a college has an accident and loses his arm, it was Trevors fault, since then the others avoid being around him. Just before the accident happend he met Ivan, a strange guy with an ugly laughter. Ivan seems to appear around Trevor more often, he drives this red car, Trevor tries to catch Ivan, wants to find out what is going on. Why is there this scary paper on the frdge, who entered his appartment? And what is about the blood that runs out of the frige? He finds some saftey at Stevies place, a prostitute he visits regularly, who dreams of having a relationship with him. And then there is Marie, the waitress with the son. She is so very friendly. But he is sure, there is a plot going on, all against him. This movie is so scary, cold and weard. I had to stop watching it when I tried it the first time, because I was so afraid of what would happen next, what is real, who is good and bad. It took me a long time to see what is real, what is in Trevors head and what not, the story is very good made. And Christian Bale as Trevor is great. And very very thin.

Hellboy II- The Golden Army

Once all creatures on earth lived under the big tree Eden. But men has been created with a hole in his heart that no possession, no power could fill. After a huge battle between men and magical beings the surface of the earth was covered with gobblins, orks, elves and other creatures. The king of the elves was desperate. Then the blacksmith-master of the gobblins offered to the king to build him an army that knows no hunger and could never be stopped. King Balor agreed. The blacksmith also built a golden crown to command „the golden army“. The army was as terrible as the gobblin had said, many men had to dy and again the earth was covered with corpes. King Balor was filled with grief of what he had done, so he devided the crown into three parts, two for himself and one for the humans. They made a contract, the forest would be the place where the magical beings would live, the rest was where the humans would live. But prince Nuada, king Balor´s son, could not believe in this contract and went into exile until his people would need him. And that day he decided is just at that point, when the humans want to auction the third part of the golden crown. His plan is to awaken the golden army to clear the world of the humans. At this point Hellboy is on his way, trying to stop the elve, fighting for humans that are afraid of him and don´t accept him. This movie is definitaly a „must see“. After „Pan´s Labyrinth“ I adore Guillermo del Toro anyway. I like so very much what creatures and characters he creates, and even though this story has many humorous moments, it has even more tragic ones. First Hellboy, a deamon who wishes nothing more but to be accepted as a human amongs humans, but has to experience one time after another the impossibility of his dream. Then prince Nuada, in whose face the despair is engraved, who is so desperate and full of anger. (By the way in my opinion Guillermo des Toro did the elves the best in comparisson to other movies. ) He is fast, strong, elegant, smooth, cruel and dangerous. And I remember the scene where Hellboy kills the forest god, the last of its kind, but he does not feel good. And he did it for the humans. A very sad scene I find, and very beautiful when the god dies. I could go on and on, how Hellboy and Abe (Hellboys college who is some fish-species) sit drunk in the library listening to the most popular love songs. And the troll market is full of wonderful creatures, man, I love this film. It´great.

 

Milk (USA 2009)

"Milk" is the story of the first gay man who made it to be - I forgot which - a senator or so in California. It's a nice story. It makes you feel good even though he gets shot. Because, as he repeats throughout the movie: "Politics is theatre. It's not about winning, it's about making yourself seen." In the end we leave the cinema touched by his achievements and waving our lights like the people in his funeral procession. And he's such a nice guy! Funny combination of an off-story (or is it?) with a Hollywood movie kind of storyline. (Actually, it's not a Hollywood movie.) In the early scenes Sean Penn sometimes reminded me of Lucian: Yes, you may take it as a compliment! Physically speaking, of course.

Jerichow (Germany 2008) / Der Architekt (Germany 2009)

"Jerichow" is the first of two movies I want to write about that have one thing in common: they are set far off in the country side and hardly anybody says a word. A classical triangle-story: the driver falls in love with his boss's wife. The boss saved the wife from prison with lots of money, for which reason she is bound to him. (She'll get the debt back in case they break off.) The lovers decide to kill the boss in an accident-like manoevre, directing his car down the cliff into the ocean. But in the supposedly last talk he breaks it to his wife that he's deadly ill and asks her to take care of him. Unfortunately, a moment later he finds out about the affair and kills himself, directing his car down the cliff into the ocean. Now there's a complicated ending! This movie is set in deserted Brandenburg, the second one is set in a village in Bavaria which is cut off from civilisation by snow: "Der Architekt" (Bierbichler) is a nasty guy who bawls at his family without apparent reasons. Except he is stressed, and, of course, he had a sad childhood with a mother-dragon. Who is dead now. Which is why his family accompanies him to his home village for the first time in a long time. In the village also live his lover and her (and his) son: No doubt a stressful constellation. I don't even remember the plot, except the revelations are awquard all through. And there are some surprising elements: like to see a naked old man, and that he kisses his daughter (but nobody comments on it ever, and it doesn't evolve into an incest story). Mainly everybody is behaving extravagantly excentrically in the movie, displaying the distress they must be feeling on discovering the family tragedy. (Nobody talks of the distress they are feeling.) The similar connection in both movies between far-off-setting and speechless complicated constellations struck me. The rural, isolated setting seems very appropriate as a background for relationships from which you can't escape, and which intensify love and family conflicts, if only by lack of alternative (alternative relationships, alternative topics: there's only the woods / the mountains / the sea and US). It makes both of them intense and purish and (despite all nature) slightly artificial.

Slumdog Millionaire

We watched this movie last week, I had no idea what to expect but I remember this one question a girl was asking: Is this Bollywood? The answer of somebody: Not quite. And it´s true, not quiet. It got eight Academy awards as far as I know and got one commendation after another. A friend of mine (yes you dear Lucian) asked me afterwards if I think this movie earns all the Academy Awards it was then nominated for, and I have to say I was a bit surprised. Not because I didn´t like the movie, but somehow this film seemed very simple in it´s story but at the same time combines a beautiful love story with the unadorned childhood and life from the slums to something bigger.  I liked it very much and there´s a lot to discover and I am sure it´s worth watching it a few more times to catch all the details. The story: Jamal just has to answer one more question and he wins the 20 Million Rupees. But how was it possible for a "slumdog" to come this far? As we learn every question is connected to his life. Jamal and his older brother Salim grow up in the Slums of Mumbai. Their mother gets killed when some violent people come to their place to bring fear and death to the Muslims. The two brothers manage to survive and meet Latika. Maman, a man who deals with children to earn money finds them and takes them with him. When Salim has to decide weather to betray Jamal ot to flee they flee but have to leave Latika behind. She is the love of Jamals life. He can´t forget her and does not give up searching for her. Jamal finds a job in a call-center where he is serving tea. More or less by accident he finds himself in the Indian version of "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" And he simply goes there because Latika might be watching.

 

The International

The IBBC, the International Bank of Buisness and Credit is one of the most powerful banks worldwide. And even though the buildings that are built of glass seem transparent, behind the glasses the very secret and illegal money buisnesses are taking place. Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) who works for Interpol is this close to uncover the trade with arms and the intervention into govermental activities but his college gets murdered what he can not prove and their informant, with whose help they´d have evidence for the illegal deals of the bank gets killed, too. Together with Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) a Manhattan assistant district attorney he keeps on trying to reveal the criminal activities. The further they go, the closer they come to the truth, the more people get killed, never to prove the connection between the murderes and the bank. At one point Salinger has to decide wether to give up or to leave the way within the constitutional state, because the law would never let him do what is necessary, and every government, every one who has a hight position anywhere is corrupt or gets blackmailed. So "the system" would always protect the bank.

I can warmly recommend this one to you, it´s about an idealistic man who won´t give up, gets satisfaction in the end but nothing changes. Very realistic and disillusional, thrilling and close to the characters, you can feel the tension the whole time through.

  

Chocolat

This movie is as sweet as it sounds. I watched it about six times, still it´s great, every single time. Johnny Depp (alias Roux) looks as good as he always does, a bit rugh and independent for he is a "pirate" (a gipsy on a boat) with long hair and some teint. And we have beautiful, witty and impulsive Juliette Binoche (alias Vianne) whome I love here.

Vianne and her daughter Anouk (who owns an inivisible kangaroo with a broken leg) travel from place to place, with the northern wind, because Vianne has this restlessness in her blood for her mother was a nomad in south africa. They arrive at this small village somewhere in Frace, where everything is as it always has been, where everybody knows where his/her place is and what rule is expected, what is allowed and what not. Vianne opens  a chocolaterie next to the church right during the forty days of Lent. Nevertheless it happens that the habitants go there from time to time, and then more often. They talk, get help, enjoy the taste. The Compte de Reynaud is quite displeased by this distrubance of the routine and the decay of manners. And the straw that brakes the camle´s back is when Vianne sympathises with the "pirates" that arrive one day, especially with Roux whome she even invites into her Chocolaterie, even though the whole village agrees about the "boycott of immorality", what means not to sell anything to the "rats of the river". I can only warmly recommend this film to you, you will feel light and comfortable afterwards, with the huge appetite for chocolate.

Sieben Tage Sonntag

(Sunday seven days long)

Me and my friend decided, despite the bad surprises on many Tuesday, to go to the Sneak. And we were both surprised to have such luck, even though most other people in the cinema that I could hear, weren´t as convinced as we were. It´s a true story by the way. When the film ended we were sitting in our seats with just one question in mind: why? And even though my friend Lisa told me many times before that she couldn´t talk about films right after she saw them we were discussing this one the whole way back. Why did they do it? Is it "right" to make a movie about it? Is it a "wrong" certificate in a way for the criminals? First when you watch it, you have to slow down, it´s not one of the fast, thrilling action movies. It developes quite slowly, we see the two main characters, two 16 year old boys that left school already and bore themselves through the days. We have the feeling to get to know them a bit, even that we think we could assess their actions. And for no special reason one night they decide to kill somebody, the next one they meet, no matter who. And they do it, for nor special reason (it seems) with extraordinary brutality. They don´t feel guilty, ashamed or what else you could feel. Nothing. We can´t read their faces, but in the end we realise in a very short scene, when the psychoanalist asks the one boy about some guardian, that his father in in prison, "and the mother?"-"You can forget her", that actually it´s nothing at all we know about the boys, it was just some short cut out of their life. The soundtrack is outstanding, the pictures are intense and like art, the camerawork is very detailled, precise and concentrated. I found the pictures and coulors combined with the soundtrack extremly strong.

Underworld Evolution

Here we go, this is the second part of the Underworld-story. I liked this one, too. Even though it consists a very useless and bad made sex scene, but I think one can easily cut this out of mind. To the plot: Selene and Michael are on the run. She had killed Victor, therefor she has to be judged. Michael has become a new kind of creature, the unimaginable mixture of vampire and lycan. With a power none of them can foresee at this point. The eldest and now most powerful vampire-lord is awoken, Marcus, he hunts the two lovers because Selene is the key to the place where his brother, the first and most dangerous lycan, is imprisoned, never to be found. They learn about vampire-lycan history and Marcus pulls a bloody line wherever he appears. Untill the end-battle decides about the future of humanity.

 

Underworld

You like Vampire movies? Than this is one you should definitaly watch. It´s bloody, brutal, no sense of humor, dark but not this trash shit you get very often in this genre. Basically this is about the battle between Vampires and Lycans (werewolfes) that goes on already for centurie. How it started depends on what story you believe. Selene however thinks that the Lycans started it, as her stepfather Victor (the most powerful of his kind) told her, the one who saved her as her whole familiy got killed by Lycans once. He made her a Vampire, she became a deathdealer, someone who hunts the hated enemie down to make them extinct. And she is completely loyal to Victor whom she has to wake up from his longlasting sleep, because she fears betrayal and she is convinced to have seen Lucian, the supposed to be killed leader of the Lycans. Then there is a more personal problem, she fell for Michael, who got bitten by a Lycan, and this love is not allowed to exist. Michael has also some very special genetic abilities, that´s why the Lycans are so very interested in him. Than Selene has to find out that her stepfather is not what he said he is, that the war between the two species began because of a forbidden love, so what are the consequenses she has to take, now that her whole world broke apart?

 

Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot

I laughed my head off in this movie, my goodness, I laughed so hard tears ran down my face.

I remembered Tanja telling me I had to watch it - had to had to - so I quickly picked it up in the video library, least my chinese pan-fried vegetable-noodles would get cold, from indecision. Then I rushed home, declined dinner with my flatmate and hopped up the ladder into my bed. The noodles were still sort of warm, and a lot, since I chose the big meal for 3,50 rather than the small one for 2,50. What a price, thought I when buying it, but it was really a lot. But back to the movie.

So there's a small boy, elevenish, who thinks he killed his mum. Because she died when he was born. He has very red nightmares of purgatory where a jury condemns him for his sins. Maybe because next to his bedroom, the town's theatre group is rehearsing and he hears their voices through the wall. He also hears them chat about how his dad is lacking female company. So the boy decides to put things right. First he tries for his friend's mom. She is a bit stern, though, and his dad doesn't like her much. Nonetheless, the boy lures her into coming to his dad's house with a freshly baked strawberry cake. Unfortunately, dad is naked at that point in time, putting up the laundry. Too awkquard to dress before she enters the room, he hides under the tables. Under the tables there is already hiding the boy's teacher. She wanted a teacher-parent talk and hid from embarassment when dad entered the room naked. Now they are both hiding from Mrs Strawberry Cake. Dad doesn't see the teacher at first. When he does, he is so surprised he crawls out under the table and finds himself with his nose in Mrs Strawberry Cake's skirts. It's hilarious. He is understandably quite embarrassed, declines cake and coffee and makes her go.

The boy's second try is this particular teacher. This time his method is magical evocation. And - good luck! - in the precise moment of the candle-lit evocation his dad and teacher lean towards each other over the consultation desk at school and burst into an impassionate kiss. That's great, of course, but what's with the teacher's husband? Does the boy have to kill him in order to give way to happiness? The purgatory jury advises it, to lessen his sins. But fortunately, it's the other way around. When he reaches the husband's studio high on the mountain, it's just in time to save the guy from hanging himself. Unfortunately, the boy himself drinks the husband's poisoned water. He swoons instantaneously. There's a lot of white and he meets his mother,S shining, swimming underwater.

When he wakes up the theatre group is standing around his bed, repeating their performance for him.

Revolutionary Road

Are we special? Are we different? Is this it? Is this all? Is this as far as we can get? This idea that you have to settle down and resign from life. Who made these rules anyway? Look at us! Is it possible to break free from all of these ideas, rules, how it supposingly "have to be"? What if.... we go to Paris, start from new, find out what we really want? You only get a few chances in life. But what if you are imprisoned in responsibility, fear, love, expectations? What if you don´t listen carefully to what the other person has to tell you? What if you start to be so frustrated that you only feel the pain, the disapointment, the anger, the cave you built for yourself and the only thing you wish is to live the life you dreamed of. Before. Before it happend to become like you never wanted it.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are the actors this movie lives from. It´s so very intense.

Jackie Brown

First I have to warn you. This movie is filled with swearwords, the two favorite ones are "nigger" and "fuck(ing)" or in combination. I watched it with german subtitel and I only could laugh about the kind and harmless translation. Well, it´s good. It´s extremly good and it´s Quention Tarantino. When I was watching it I didn´t know what this is all about, except that it is about criminal plots. I mus say, that was the best, not to know anything. So the only thing I will tell you is, that Pam Grier (as Jackie Brown) is extraordinary convincing, fearless, sexy and not what she seems to be at all. She is great, I fell for her immediatly, a great actress. We have also Samuel L. Jackson (as Robbie Ordell) who is the boss of some mafia-like buisness, quite arrogant. Anyway, Jackie got caught with money and drugs at the airport and the police scents the big chance to catch Ordell.From this point on everything developes unexpected, fast and last but not least in a very intelligent way, not to forget the almost bored brutality. Quention Tarantino has an unusual way to film his actors, we see all the lines, the sweat, the hairs. I like that, it makes it somehow more intense when he keeps the camera on the lined face of Robert Foster (May Cherry) for a little while, so we can stuy him closely. Or when he shows for about a minute just Jackie who walks. Or so. However it´s intelligent, very good entertainment.