Death Race

Death Race

 

Again I went to the Sneak this week. Me and my friend where sitting exited in our seats, the regular trailers started, and then, the movie... Well, my friend next to me kept saying for about five minutes: "No no, this isn´t the movie, it´s obvious that this is just another trailer." She was wrong and we were a little schocked even by the start. Just speed in some fucked up cars with guns and whatever other stuff that had a race and the drivers were trying to kill each other. And that´s more or less the story. But I will get a bit more detailed of course:) Ít´s 2012, the financial markets had collapsed, concerns rule the world only with the desire for profit, and not to forget the criminality rate is unbelivable high but for the movie itself this is really not important at all). So we have our innocent but keen main actor Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) whose wife gets killed but he goes to prison for it. It´s all an intrigue against him and for the quotes of death race. This death race thing is an invetion of the female director of the prison, who by the way is wire puller of the murder of his wife. Jensen has to win just one race to become a free citizan again. Ah, this I should mention, the clue is, that after a prisionor wins five races he is free. And the whole battle is coveraged live on TV. Great. I can only say, it was horrible, I never watched any car-race-no-brain movies before and I won´t watch one again. Just senceless. Waist of time.

Nordwand

Nordwand

 

This is also a movie I watched in the Sneak Preview´, it´s very good made, it´s a true story and it´s a german one. The Eiger Nordwand is a difficult and dangerous wall to climb and it lays in the Alps in Austria. To make this clear, this ascent has nothing really to do with climbing anymore, because the weather on the Eiger is very insecure, it changes from day to day and even faster. It takes about two days to reach the top when the weather is good and stabil, this weather thing makes it so dangerous to go on this wall because it doesn´t matter that you are a good climber when you have to fight with extreme coldness, lawines and rockfalls. To the story: It´s 1936. Toni (Benno Fuermann) and Andreas (Florian Lukas) are friends since they can think, they live in the same village and during their free time they go on climbing tours. An old friend of them, Luise Fellner (Johanna Wokalek), visits them, because she wants to write an article about the first ascent of the Eiger Nordwand. She wants to convince the boys to go to the cpmpetition that´s taking place soon, and they could win Olympic Gold for Germany with this. Before nobody was able to reach the top, many tries ended deadly, the second name of the Nordwand is Mordwand (murderwall). Anyway, they go there, everybody is exited, there are other teams from different countries, in the end only two teams start the climb :Toni and Andreas and the other team Willy and Edi. Not long after Willy gets hit by a stone but despertly wants to go on. The weather changes after one day, the four guys are stuck together, lawines, rockfall, snow, storm and freezing temperatures. Willy falls and is injured with an open fracture. They decide to turn and get back. But this is not as easy as it sounds like. They all die. What I liked especially was that the movie was so close to the characters, you get to know them, you feel with them, and the two extrems are very clear: lively and full of impulsive delight in a realistic way in the beginning, and the struggle they have in the end, the fear, hope and hoplessness, death. The pictures are beautiful, the Nordwand seems to be son inviting when they start but changes to hostile place from one moment to another. It´s a sad film and not easy to watch, but very good.

The Accidental Husband

The Accidental Husband

 

Emma Llyoid (Uma Thurman) is a woman that knows what kind of men women need. She moderates her own talkshow in the radio and gives advice to all the unhappy women. And well, they listen to her, take her serious, do what she says. Because Emma is an expert according to true love, you know, there is no prince charming. So one day Sophia calls, she is going to get married on the weekend, but all the five point whatever stuff didn´t fit to her potential husband. Emma is shocked, so Sophia is not getting married and her ex-boyfriend kind of angry about this radio-lady. He takes revange by changing Emma "unmarried status" into a "married status" with a friend of  him who is a hacker. This is a dramatic step, because Emma wants to marry the perfect man, but now first she has to get divorced. She gets to know her husband Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) better, and guess what, she falls for him, he for her, and so on. I watched this movie in the Sneak Preview, I was laughing my head of. All clichees existing about men and women and love are packed here, and of course it´s Hollywood style, it´s a light entertainment, nothing to take serious or to think about. In the end it becomes so horribly sweet and wonderful that I just couldn´t believe people would pay money for this. The actors look extremly good, both men worth watching and Uma Thruman is dressed just great all the way long. There are some funny scenes too, and the indian friend of Patrick is really nice´and smart, but I can´t remember the soundtrack, so this could not have been any special. So in conclusion, I wasn´t convinced.

La graine et le mulet / Couscous mit Fisch (France 2007)

I have a movie to recommend! "La graine et le mulet" is set in southern France, in a pretty deplorable setting for starters - a breaking-down harbour scenery, with people living crammed-ly in GDR-looking apartment buildings losing their jobs one by one. The ship you see on the picture is the corroded cargo ship after it has been turned into a lovely Arabian restaurant with lots of potentiality (couscous and red mullet!) by Sliman and his family. (Sliman is the old guy in the picture who gets fired for being inefficient. He has a wonderfully contemplative look in his eyes.) You cannot see the apartment buildings in the picture, although they make for some quite poetic imagery towards the end of the movie. 

What I liked most about the movie is its way of realistic story-telling that reminded me of "This is England". It's not as harsh but it also must be made by someone (name's Abdel Kechiche) who knows these people in real life. (For instance, the clash between the families of the Arab immigrants and the French officials is hilariously accurate - for all its sadness in the storyline.) With the scenes being seemingly uncut and lots of characters depicted going on and on in their chitchat or crying for minutes on end (great acting especially on the part of the casual and straightforward girl "Rym" - Hafsia Herzi, also in the pic above) many of your cinematically trained expectations go down the drain. Especially at the end! Daniel wondered whether they ran out of money... but no, it's just that you cannot count on everyone to work according to plan nor for fortune to fill the gaps to make a happy ending, not even for great dreams. Nicely, the lose ends in "La graine et le mulet" leave a lot to one's phantasy to complete. 

Batman Begins

Because I was so owerwhelmed by the new Batman movie (The Dark Knight) I decided to watch the previw one, too. The one that shows how and why Batman rises so to say. And I must say I liked it very much. You get lots of background information about the character. In this film Batman is somehow more human, we get to know about his greatest fear and why he chose the bat as his symbol, and that the figure Batman is a symbol for the right path, a sign for hope and justice in these criminal times in Gotham City. When Bruce Wayne was a boy his parents (probably the most perfect parents you ever saw) got killed. Bruce is convinced that it was his fault, he is full of anger, hate, fear and guilt. Therefore he escaped from his life in Gotham, traveled, stole and went into prison somewhere in Asia. Finally he found his master, a Ninja fighter, who tought him about fighting, anger and a bit of philosophy ("Technic is nothing, will is everything") imbedded in the breathtaking landscape of the Himalaya. After this he is ready to leave for Gotham and claim war against criminality. He meets Rachel, played by Katie Holmes here and probably the worst choice ever, she is just not a good actor and was annoying me with her sleepy expression in her face and she just is not able to give her figure character. Well, Bruce and Rachel were friends when they were children and of course they are attracted to each other but nothing really happens. Batman brings one of the worst criminals into prison and then has to face his real antagonist, his old master. What I appriciated about this movie was the connection to the comic. The camera work created pictures that clearly show comic like scenes, they almost looked like drawn (so maybe they were). Christian Bale (who plays the Batman) has more to do than in the following movie, but he was the right choice. I would recommend to make a Batman night, to watch this one and the the second one. They are very different in atmosphere and camera work, but both worth watching.

The Dark Knight

The old battle beetwen good and bad picurized in the new Batman movie. But how... I don´t know where to start, first, even though there were some questions left open in the end (like how did the Joker come to so much power, how did he manage to collect all these people around him and why did none of the policemen shoot during the chase in the tunnel???) I was overwhelmed, this is a great film. It contains love, hate, good, bad, drama, action, fear, revenge, insanity,....and so on. It´s just worth watching to see Heath Ledger in the role of the Joker. I was reading an interview with him about this character and he was saying, that he could invent this character all by himself, there were no fixed items but the clothes. Even the make up was his idea. Well, he does a very good job, he is by far the best actor here. He is so scary all the time because the Joker lives the theory of chaos, you can´t see through his madness and anarchy ideas, he´s completely crazy and highly intelligent at the same time. This coctail makes him so interessting. The battle he and Batman are fighting is the endless battle, because none of them can exist without the other. And sometimes it becomes clear how close they are, how tiny is the step from one side to the other, from love to hate, from good to bad and that sometimes you can´t even see what is what, because we are just humans. I also liked the role of Batman´s butler very much, with his smirk humor, the wise advices and his complete loyalty. The questions comes up, if Batman is fighting criminality in the rigth way, if it is defensible to answer to violence with violenec, even though the movie seems to answer this qustion with yes, it´s still there for me. Christian Bale as the Batman is doing a solid job by having a straight back, a handsome apperiance and a serious, stony face that sometimes shows a smile, but not too often. The dark hero, and dark is this whole film indeed. But we have another hero, Aaron Eckhart alias Harvey Dent is the white hero, the good guy and new district attorney that brings hope and humanity into Gotham City, not having the same abilities as Batman of course, but having a lot of power that he is using for the right and order. So he ist also a target for the Joker and it is Batmans who has to save the hope for the City. Will he succeed?

Lost in Translation

Bob Harris is doing a Spot for Whiskey for a lot of money and Charlotte accompanies her husband, a busy photographer, in Tokio. They are from America and stay in the same Hotel and meet one night at the bar, because they can´t sleep. Charlotte is a young woman, not sure about what she wants and married for just two years. Bob is an aged man, married since 25 years and tired of life. A friendship developes and they are obviously attracted to each other, but none of them makes a step. I liked a lot the sublimal irony, the subtle humor and the tragic. The combination works together very well. It´s nice to get an everyday impression of two very different people in a foreign country, just a cutting from their lifes. Nothing particularly special but very pointed, with many views on the faces.

Transsiberian

Roy and Jessie, a married amarican couple, were doing some childrens-help work in China. After they finished their work, as an adventure in between they take the Trans-Siberian train from China to Moscow. It´s winter in Russia. A couple is sharing the cabin with them, Abby and Carlos. We notice right away that Carlos and Abby are strange, two people you shouldn´t trust. But nevertheless Roy and Jessie come along with them very well, even though we observe the looks that Carlos gives Jessie. On one stop Roy gets lost, Jessie searches the whole train for him, but he vanished. At the next station she decides to wait for him, solidary as they are Carlos and Abby go off the train to wait with Jessie. While Abby is away Carlos and Jessie make a tour to some church ruin. Jessie got a call before that Roy is fine and was just doing some seightseeing. She and Carlos are somehow attracted to each other, but as she backs down he tries to rape her. Jessie is not the helpless little girl as we learned before, and as Carlos doesn´t let go she apparently kills him. When the next Trans-Siberian train stops, Roy and his wife meet again and drive on together accompanied by a police officer, who starts to make Jessie extremly nervous when she finds out that Carlos was in fact a drug dealer and had exchanged the inside of their suitcases while he had had a shower in Jessies room in the hotel. And the nightmare just starts, because the police officer is involved in the drug-dealing. A wintery, snowy and cold movie, somehow weared but fascinating at the same time.

Nirgendwo in Afrika

Nowhere in Africa. Germany during the second world war. Jettl and her daughter Regina follow Walter, Jettls husband and Reginas father, to Africa where Walter works on a farm. They escape from their homecountry Germany because they are jewish. When the two arrive at the farm Jettl is shocked and not willing to accept a long term stay. Walter and her start having troubles, they are not able to talk, Jettl misses their old and luxery life while Regina learns the language of the african people fast and developes a close friendship to their cook Owuor. Meanwhile the war in Germany goes on, the pursuance of the Jews is getting worse, more and more try to escape before it will become impossible. Jettls starts to realise why Walter decided to go to Africa, and even here the war catches up with them. They get incarcerate by the British Army in Namibia, just in case they are symphathizer of the Nazis. Jettl manages to organize a job for Walter and they move to another farm. But still the relationship is brittle. Once in while letters from the familymembers that had decided to stay in Germany arrive, and the news become worse each time. The movie shows in beautiful slow motion views how the life of this family developes during the years they stay in a foreign country, how they change and how different the experiences are for the parents compared to their daughter. The music is very nice and african like. Nothing is rushing, we have a lot of time to get to know the characters, what I like a lot.

Taken

Bryan was a spy for the governement and his wife Leonore and his daughter Kim left him, because he never was at home. Leonore married a rich man who has apparently a lot of time and money for her and her daughter, even though Leonore seems to be still in love with Bryan. The movie starts very much on the birthday of Kim who becomes 17. And soon after she and her best friend want to make a trip to Paris. Bryan is of course very suspicious, because Leonore and Kim don´t know anything about the bad world outside, Kim and her friend are only 17 and too young, and so on. But well, Kim gets the signature she needs from him to make her trip, and guess what, as soon as they arrive in Paris they meet the wrong people and get kiddnapped by slave traders. And now the movie starts to become interessting. Bryan uses all his skills he was trained to have for his further spy job, and promises to find the kidnappers. And he goes his way without compromising and we have no doubt that he will do anything and he really does anything. From here on the plot is very realistic, far away from beautiful pictures and dream-reality young enlsaved prostitudes are shown, under drugs not councious about their environment or not capable to fight anymore. The fury of a father is shown, who has nothing in mind but to fnd his daughter. Very convincing. Really. But the end is again a bit Hollywood-like. So women in the world, never travel alone, never let your daughter travel alone, be scared of men,.... This bores me. But appart from this the film is absolutly worth watching and Liam Neeson is proving his authentic abilities as a actor.