FREE ON ARD MEDIATHEK Dietrich Brüggemann - Renn, wenn du kannst

FREE ON ARD MEDIATHEK UNTIL 7.3.19 Is this the stuff from which cinema dreams are made? A wheelchair user and a person doing community service fall in love with the same girl. No? Yes, Dietrich Brüggemann does and his sister Anna Brüggemann also looks like a "real" movie star! All this takes place in a high-rise housing estate in Duisburg. Here lives Ben (Robert Gwisdek), who sits in a wheelchair and is somewhat bitter about it. Anyway, he uses his handicap to sadistically torture his Zvil servant Christian (Jakob Matschenz). His credo: He despises disabled people like himself and good people like Christian who like disabled people. But with his word Spielchen Ben creates something else (probably rather involuntarily): he attracts the attention of the beautiful cellist Annika (Anna Brüggemann). She also turned Christian's head, but Ben and Annika end up in bed together. Or does Annika really only want to silence Ben? But he wants to "talk". About unpleasant things like a penis pump. And then the greatest scene when Ben shoots his wheelchair out of the underground garage of the high-rise into life! At the latest here we are in a small big movie! Deitrich Brüggemann, who belongs to the narrow circle of Berlin indie heroes, finds his very own tone. Above all, he playfully infiltrates the genre of "handicapped drama". This is the scene in which Annika and Ben meet (which he previously only observed with binoculars). She throws a composer's bust through a closed window and a long splinter of glass bores through Ben's leg. But of course Ben feels no pain! By the way, we dive into the world of the wheelchair user - with very poetic cinema pictures! For may we not translate this splinter as Amor's arrow? Small shortcoming: Although Anna Brüggemann herself wrote the script, her character remains more a muse than a person. Does Annika have a life of her own? Conditionally. But that doesn't cloud the pleasure. When I set the DVD up for the second time, I noticed: "I'm watching a German comedy again! Incredible"

FREE ON YOUTUBE Monte Hellman - Ride In The Whirlwind

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Die Idee eines "existentialistischen Western" an sich kommt mir absurd vor: Bei Western denke ich an Schusswechsel, Cowboy Hüte, weite Panorama Ansichten etc. Existentialismus fehlt auf dieser Checkliste. Oder betrachten Cowboys ihre eigene Existenz? Jawohl! Denn die Wenigen, die das Glück hatten, Monte Hellmans Ride In The Whirlwind zu sehen, die wissen, was ein existentialistischer Western ist. Produziert wurde er in der Utah Wüste mit sehr geringem Budget unter der Produzenten-Herrschaft von Roger Corman. Niemand kannte damals Monte Hellman oder seinen Hauptdarsteller und Drehbuch-Autoren Jack Nicholson. Dummerweise liefen auch Western im Kino sehr schlecht, so dass Ride In The Whirlwind im Grunde keine Chance hatte. Ride In The Whirlwind ist ein sperriger Western. Er beginnt mit dem Trio Wes (Nicholson), Vern (Cameron Mitchell) und Otis (Tom Filer), die sich im Nirgendwo der Wüste wieder finden. Sie versuchen, Mexiko zu erreichen. Die Nacht verbringen sie bei Blind Dick (Harry Dean Stanton), der wegen eines Postkutschen-Überfalls und Mordes gesucht wird. Das realisiert die Gruppe aber erst am kommenden Morgen, denn in dieser Region wird jeder, der auch nur an Blind Dick erinnert, sofort aufgehängt. Es kommt zum Gemetzel, Blind Dick wird gelyncht, seine Männer getötet. Einzig Wes und Vern können entkommen, stolpern ziellos durch die Landschaft, erreichen eine Farm, nehmen das Bauern-Ehepaar und deren Tochter (Perkins) als Geiseln. Ironie des Schicksals: Die  falschen Anschuldigungen gegen Wes und Vern treiben sie zu Taten, die genau diesen Anschuldigungen entsprechen... Wer sich etwas mit dem Frühwerk von Hellman beschäftigt, der stösst auf das Motiv der rätselhaften Jagd, bei der unklar bleibt, warum gejagt wird und wer der Verfolger ist. Wes und Vern sind ungewöhnliche Western-Charaktere: Oberflächlich wirken sie hat, doch in Wahrheit sind sie verwirrt. "It's peculiar sitting here playing checkers while a bunch of men wait to string us up."; fragt sich Vern. Die Gewalt in Hellmans Western ist kurz, böse und schmerzhaft. Wir können sie uns wohl wie im richtigen Leben vorstellen. Hellman ist kein Erzähler, der irgendein Interesse an einer einfachen Handlung aufweist. Ihm geht's um Charaktere und Stimmungen. Ride In The Whirlwind ist ein erstaunlicher Western, der endlich seinen Platz in der Riege der Klassiker verdient hat! Kein Alt-Western, sondern ein mehrdeutiger moderner Western. Ein grosser Film!

Christmas 80s Retro Fantasy

Of course Christmas has a lot to do with nostalgia and therefore there are only movies from the past. Like The Never Ending Story, which I can see every year. Or E.T. and very important; Labyrinth with David Bowie (although he's a bit creepy). If you have ideas, just add them to the list. It goes really fast. And if we really don't have the title in our video store, I can get it on DVD in time.

FREE ON VIMEO Exit Through The Gift Shop

FREE ON VIMEO (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF VIMEO) It's rumored that Exit Through The Gift Shop is all just fake. At least that's what customers here in our video store like to tell me. But doesn't that contribute even more to the fascination of this "documentary"? So here comes an anonymous graffiti artist from London (let's just call him Banksy) and tries his hand at the walls of Los Angeles. There he meets an obscure Frenchman named Thierry Guetta, who dedicated his life to graffiti artists like him: He records them on video. Hundreds of video tapes are created and disappear into the trash. Banksy has an idea: why not produce a film from the material? That's why Banksy Guetta advises Guetta to create his own artwork: Exit Through The Gift Shop. Guetta follows the council, calls himself Mr. Brainwash, organizes an exhibition of his work, and earns a fortune. Surely this Guetta can't be real? With its strange French accent and moustache? Of course, that's not real either: ten thousand people queuing to see a debutante's work! Is it? And Guetta's works of art? They look like plagiarisms of "real" artists. Do they? Who would go to such lengths just to produce a fake art documentary? But Exit Through The Gift Shop was really cut together from the material of a whole decade. Secretly recorded videos of artists who risk arrest and death. And Guetta, the French cartoonist who constantly talks about how much he admires these artists. Real artists and real works of art that decorate the public space. And Guetta? He paints a can of tomato spray (if that seems familiar to anyone). What would the original Andy-Warhol have said? Surely Guetta has an absolute right to call his tomato spray can a work of art and earn a fortune with it! Let's go one step further. Let's enter the room of my bouncer Ali with his friends. They play the Fifa World Cup daily as a video game. The Fifa World Cup Game - Art? Lies in the eye of the beholder! Conclusion: Exit Through The Gift Shop is a great documentary! Definitely not a con. Who wants a real Thierry Guetta? (Not me.) Banksy should be the Dr. Frankenstein of Guetta and I think both are great! And is that all art? Never mind.

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. ist eine absichtlich chaotisch angelegte Collage aus dem Leben der britisch/sri-lankanischen Sängerin/Songwriterin/Produzentin/Rapperin/Polit-Aktivistin M.I.A. mit zum grossen Teil nie gesehenen Materials, das von ihr selbst aufgenommen wurde. Wir bemerken das Streben, dieser überlebensgrossen Künstlerin, auch Dokumentarfilmerin zu werden (obwohl M.I.A. alter Schulfreund Steve Loveridge im Regiestuhl sitzt). Hier verschmelzen also sämtliche Standpunkte von Mathangi Arulpragasam in ihrer unvorhersehbaren und oft auch ärgerlichen Natur. Finde ich zumindest. Die lose Strukturierung der Doku springt munter vorwärts und rückwärts in der Zeit, was auch sinnvoll ist bei Arulpragasam, deren Kunst und politische Haltung gleichermassen fasziniert und verwirrt. Finde ich zumindest. Ihre vielfältigen kulturellen und künstlerischen Existenzen erhalten zumindest genügend Raum. M.I.A. Leben geht so: Tochter eines tamilischen Widerstandskämpfers aus Sri Lanka, Flüchtling, Immigrant, dann weltberühmter Popstar. Die bewegendsten Szenen sind die, wenn sie nach Hause zurück kehrt, ihr altes Haus und ihre Grossmutter besucht. Welche Identität hat der Mensch als Immigrant? Wir lernen die rebellische Haltung M.I.A.s nachzuvollziehen, auch dann, wenn sie rote Linien übertritt. Dabei ist Arulpragasams Transformation von einer mutigen, aufstrebenden Künstlerin zu einer lauten Popkultur-Figur doch faszinierend! Wer erinnert sich an ihren Mittelfinger 2012 neben Madonna? Wer ihn aus der Perspektive dieses Films sieht, wird noch viel wütender! Mich jedenfalls hat diese lässige Ungerechtigkeit, ja der Rassismus der Medien über M.I.A.s Mittelfinger zu berichten, fuchsteufelswild gemacht! “Why are you so problematic?”; wird M.I.A. vom Film gefragt. Systematisch schiesst diese Doku gegen eine Reihe von M.I.A. Kritikern (zurück) - ohne sie dabei selbst zu verschonen. Vielleicht kann uns Loveridge ja die Inkonsistenzen seiner alten Freundin erklären? Ich würde es so zusammen fassen: Wir erleben die Biographie einer jungen, rechthaberischen und sehr, sehr talentierten Immigrantin, die sich durch ihr oft ungerechtes und unregelmässiges Leben singt, um ein Versprechen zu halten, das sie einst ihrer Grossmutter gab.

FREE ON YOUTUBE My Dog Tulip

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) My Dog Tulip handeltvon inem Mann, der nur ein einziges Mal in seinem Leben Liebe findet. Ganze fünfzehn Jahre lang. Es ist die Liebe eines Hundes. Es könnte sogar die einzige Liebe sein, zu der er fähig ist. So viele Männer haben Bücher über die Frau ihres Lebens verfasst! J.R. Ackerley schrieb ein Buch über den Hund seines Lebens. Einen Schäferhund, den er aus einer grausamen Umgebung rettete. My Dog Tulip ist ein Animationsfilm, der keineswegs für Kinder gedacht ist. Erzählt wird von Gefühlen wie Einsamkeit und Dankbarkeit. Christopher Plummer spricht Ackerley, wohnhaft in London nahe Putney Common. Aus dem Buch wissen wir, dass Ackerley schwul war. Dem Film ist das egal. Hier erscheint Ackerley vor allem zänkisch, missmutig und einsam. Tulip aber schenkt ihm seine bedingungslose Liebe. Neben einsamen Menschen produzierte die Evolution zum Glück eben auch Hunde, die selbstlos lieben können! Ich glaube, dass im Grunde jeder Mensch Hunde liebt. Ausser diejenigen, die keine Hunde kennen! Wer würde schon diese Liebe eines Wesens, dass für uns stirbt, ablehnen? Eines Wesens, dass auch noch niedlich aussieht! My Dog Tulip wirkt fast wie ein Naturfilm. Der Hund wird erzogen, gepflegt und versorgt. Wie ein Kind. Paul und Sandra Fierlinger haben My Dog Tulip inszeniert und animiert, unter Verwendung der Aquarelle von Sandra. Am schönsten die Szenen, wenn Ackerley, der offensichtlich in einer Art Zölibat lebt, eine Gefährtin für seinen Hund sucht. Womöglich anstelle seiner selbst? Eine kluge und witzige Komödie über die Liebe des Lebens.

Bernardo Bertolucci 1941-2018

Visual splendour was both a means and an end in Bernardo Bertolucci's cinema. He was a real cineaste, a great geek! Bertolucci came from an artistic family and his father got him his first job as assistant to Rossellini. If you come across the early films Before the Revolution and Partners in our video library, you will first meet a filmmaker who wants to convince us of his left-wing political views. And of his love for Jean-Luc Godard. But Bertolucci also devoted himself to the unconscious. Is Last Tango In Paris really about suppressed homosexuality? At least everything in this work is out of control. Quite different in The Conformist. It's smooth and controlled. A fascist. The Last Tango and The Conformist seemed like a double strike that set Bertolucci's career in motion. Then came 1900, an All Star epic over five hours long; bold, exuberant, visually grandiose. Who remembers the sex scene with Robert de Niro and Gerard Depardieu? And Donald Sutherland, who kills a cat by repeatedly hitting it with his head? La Luna, who follows in 1979, is considered a failure. After all, a really crazy film with some fantastic scenes! The work of a filmmaker who wanted everything, tried everything! In the early 80s, Bertolucci spent several years in Hollywood; inconclusive and certainly frustrating. Then he reappeared with a Chinese epic: The Last Emperor - which works best in its small, intimate moments. In the 90s he directed four films, and I can only remember the highly erotic Stealing Beauty in which Liv Tyler uses her virginity as a lure. The Dreamers is regarded by many as a comeback, on the one hand returning to his lust for incest (La Luna), but can also be enjoyed as a cinephiles guessing game. The last Bertolucci movie we had on our shelves was Me And You and it's also about the love relationship of half siblings. We remember how the mother gave her son a hand job in La Luna. As if she were giving him a strong medicine. Bertolucci must have had a lot of fun breaking the taboo!

Ab 6.12. im Kino: Gaspar Noe - Climax

Gaspar Noe, full-time provocateur, has made a new film that will split his audience. As always. Climax is of course not a "real" horror movie (contrary to the imdb genre definition) and also not as horrible as earlier works of Noes. Nevertheless, it's a movie you should watch at night. As a video retailer I advise: Climax is not a film you experience in daylight. I am and I have never been a friend of Gaspar Noes, but I was all the more surprised to enjoy Climax! Here we try to translate the uninterrupted energy of the protagonists through imagery. The music fits to this: very restless. The plot is simple: During a party a dance group mixes sangria with LSD and chaos develops. The pre-LSD half of the film is even stronger, thanks to the incredible dance sequences. Who knows, maybe Noe should direct a teen dance film? In Climax at least, he follows the dramaturgy of such films, divides the action into a series of dance numbers. In between, there are "solos" and interview sequences of the individual dancers (who are probably also "real" dancers). Here we learn more about their passions and fears. Then LSD is swallowed and Climax develops into a group number. Some will have noticed that Climax is less ambitious than earlier Gaspar Noe movies. But very effective! At least for those who wouldn't mind being trapped for a limited time in a house with stumbling young people.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Thomas Arslan - Geschwister (Kardsler)

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) When I look at the German films in which the role of the "Turk" is awarded, the following stereotypes can be enumerated: 1. the gangster Turk, who with glittering eyes and far too much testosterone very quickly has his hand on the knife. Often this type plays the older brother who goes crazy, for example when the sister (who is usually to be married by force) doesn't run away. 2) The funny foreign Turk who makes stupid jokes with a strangely high voice and wrong grammar. 3. the victim Turk who does not want to wear a headscarf and also does not marry. Often she is rejected by the (before still cosy) father and chased by the gangster Turk brother. Of course, Thomas Arslan is annoyed about this and wants to show "real" Turks! Erol (Tamer Yigit), Leyla (Serpil Turhan) and Ahmed (Savas Yurderi) are siblings from Kreuzberg. They all come from a Turkish family, with their mother being German. Erol is a little gangster and fence who dropped out of school. But now he has trouble with his "scene" and also with the police. He wants to leave Germany to do his military service in Turkey. He believes that this is the only way to get his life back on track. Leyla tries to escape the confinement of the family. She is at the age when her best friend is the most important person in the world. That's why she spends most of her time with her friend Sevim and would love to move in with her. Unlike Erol, Ahmed has no desire for the street scene around the Kottbusser Tor. He wants to graduate and then study. That's why Ahmed and Erol keep getting into each other's throats. At Kottbusser Tor, Ahmed takes the position of someone you know from childhood, but who is now different. We also hear the parents talking about what is Turkish and what is German? How does a Turkish-German family work at all? Thomas Arslan himself comes from such a family with a German mother and a Turkish father. Apparently he also knows the area around the Kottbusser Tor quite well. He has studied in Berlin since 1986; his debut is as a sibling. Fortunately, Arslan is not an educational filmmaker. He doesn't try hard to tell a story either. Instead, this unpretentious sketch just slips out. By the way, I didn't get the impression that hanging out and wandering around at Kotti was a bad thing in the film. Arslan's movie is also quite often very funny. This works because siblings are staged in "youth language", but in one that is really spoken that way. More precisely: The film was spoken, because it was made in 1997. Arslan, a worthy successor to the Nouvelle Vague, also leaves enough room for me not only to look at his family, but also to take a look at the milieu behind it: Somehow the Kottbusser Tor in Geschwister seems much more harmonious to me than it is today. Or am I suffering from a symptom of old age? By the way, siblings have also become one of my favourite Berlin films.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Salami Aleikum

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Culture Clash doppelt gemoppelt; ein Exil-Iraner fährt in den wilden Osten und trifft dort seine grosse Liebe. Das Schöne daran: In der deutschen Culture Clash Komödie Salami Aleikum gibt's endlich mal was zum Lachen. Und zwar dauernd! Das geschieht spontan, scheinbar ganz ohne Anstrengung! Das geht so: Ein schrulliger Deutsch-Iraner namens Mohsen Taheri (Navíd Akhavan) soll die Nachfolge seines Vaters als Metzger antreten. Blöd nur, dass er es nicht verkraftet, Tiere zu töten. Deshalb folgt er einem dubiosen Angebot und fährt von Köln nach Polen, um geschlachtete Schafe zu kaufen. Auf dem Weg dahin strandet er in den neuen Bundesländern, also im deutschen Osten und dort trifft er Ana Bergheim (Anna Böger). Nach allerlei Irrungen & Wirrungen wird sie seine grosse Liebe sein! Und wie ist es so im deutschen Osten? Dort heulen die Wölfe und Glatzen promenieren durch die Altstädte. Regisseur Ahadi geht es übrigens nicht darum, dass etwas abgestandene Culture Clash Thema noch einmal zu bedienen. In seiner Doku "Lost Children" (bei uns in der Videothek als DVD5255 zu haben) hat er sich ernsthaft mit Themen wie Fremdenfeindlichkeit, Terrorangst oder Heimatlosigkeit (=Ostalgie) beschäftigt(...)

FREE ON YOUTUBE Satyajit Ray - The Home And The World

The very first thing we learn in Satyajit Ray's The Home And The World is that Bimala has traded her parents' house for her husband's house. Noticeably, in the interiors of his palace, because Nikhil, the Maharajah, is the only man Bimala has ever seen. Bimala lives in Purdah. She is satisfied with this life. She never has the desire to follow the long corridor, past the outer houses of the palace into the sunlight. But Nikhil has other plans. He is a modern Indian, educated in London. Although his wife loves him, he believes that this love has no value, since she only knows him - Nikhil! At his request, she is taught by an English governess to finally follow the corridor out into the open. Bimala is to meet Nikhil's friend Sandip, the great nationalist leader. Sandip leads the boycott of imported goods and is against the British division of Bengal. Sandip is also an impostor who borrows money from Nikhil and soon also the affection of Bimala. Sandip acts like a storm on Bimala - the exact opposite of her prudent husband. Everyone, including Nikhal, feels; the two are in love. But he does nothing, observes everything through his quiet reason. Sandip's revolution he basically distracts and yet he lets him live in the palace. He also understands that the boycott of foreign goods is primarily intended to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims. He lets all this happen... But the actual story takes place deep inside Bimala. Between heart and mind. Over a period of five years it outgrows the fetters of the Purdah. Her most formative time takes place in seclusion. She is fascinated by Sandip and even steals money from her husband's safe (who in turn only watches). For me, Nikhil's distance is the greatest fascination of the film! The Home And The World is based on the novel of the same name by Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. Ray turns it into a slow film, whose tension results from the change of Bimala's character. In total seclusion, she develops the ability to act ruthlessly and courageously. She is played by the beautiful Swatilekha Chatterjee with a fiery look and full lips. Soumitra Chatterjee, whom we know from numerous works of Ray, gives the revolutionary. Finally, Victor Banerjee embodies the turned husband. Within these three persons, everything takes place that would once change India as a nation.

Film List: Bohemian Rhapsody + Rock Biopics

Biopics tend to show us only the sensational. But are we really interested in the private lives of rock stars and not their music at all? Bohemian Rhapsody is just as bad at that as other rock music biopics. And more problematic: Freddie Mercury is shown as a colorful bird of paradise in his gay world. He only gets support from his stable heterosexual band members. We look at Freddie with discomfort, as he behaves "queer". But Freddie doesn't even seem to be sure about his sexual desires. Then he falls in love with Mary. Bohemian Rhpasody now turns out this romantic liaison - of all things. There's an expression for that: homophobia. It's no wonder that Bohemian Rhapsody shows us the emergence of AIDS like a punishment...

Cult Movies 70s

The 70s were the wedding of the Midnight Movies (=Independent, Low Budget, Sex, Violence & good mood). The performance of a Midnight Movie starts at 0.00. At midnight it has to be bizarre and grotesque! Time of obsession! The best thing about it: Midnight Movies are not marketed by distributors, but discovered by the audience! The phenomenon of the midnight performance also plays an important role. When Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo experienced a second "commercial" cinema release - not at midnight - the...

FREE ON YOUTUBE Divine Trash

Why do we love the early John Waters movies with Divine (if we can love her...)? Because everything is real. Everything you see is really happening. If it were played, it would just be disgusting, but... So the films gain a certain documentary size, precisely because they are "real" people who perform. So if you have a good stomach and don't get sick, you could praise John Waters' early films. Action of all early films: "The filthiest People alive". First and foremost Divine, who looks like a mix of showgirl, housewife and garbage can. A bit like a dominatrix and Hanzo-The-Razer, too. Of course, Divine also gets family members from John Waters: A mother lying in a crib eating eggs and a son including chickens in his sex games. Of course, there is also a lover who likes to watch her son have sex with chickens. Waters' films also offer decent neighbours like the Marbles, who kidnap hippies to get them pregnant by the butler (the babies are sold later). Waters shows us every detail. The most famous scene with Divine: Divine eats dog shit. In real. Short and sweet; whoever lends us the movies of John Waters and Divine in the video store would like to brag about it (show the cover of the girlfriend and boast that the fat transvestite eats dog excrement). No one is surprised that the outtakes of the John Waters and Divine movies are less disgusting than the scenes that stayed in the movie. Then Divine and her son "We Are the Filthiest People Alive" sing Latin in Pigs. Waters and Divine are childhood friends and that's why they worked together. Simple, because there was no budget. Divine and Waters did what they could to provoke. That's how they became famous. For a long, long time the videothecaries of this world had to fear police officers in civilian who could spoil their business with the wonderful films. That is why the last surviving lady of the Maryland film Censor Board has her say in the documentary Divine Trash. An elderly, Christian woman. A singing asshole, artificial insemination, chicken fuck scenes... Enough stuff for this lady. And then the blowjob scene! A 300 kilo heavy transvestite sucks her son out! Is that actually pornography? Richard Kern, his character erotomaniac, notices in Divine Trash that pornography is supposed to be exciting. In Divine movies, however, no one intends to masturbate. When a remake of Hairspray was made, I remember a John Waters interview. He was proud that his characters had finally reached the middle of society. Divine had become mainstream! I'm sure Harris Glenn Milstead (=Divine, deceased 1988) would have found this to be the most beautiful confirmation of his work.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Walter Hill - The Warriors

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Here comes a variant of Walter Hills Warriors, which has been traced by rotoscopy. Appropriate, because even Hills Original doesn't look real, but like an artificial ballet. The Warriors from 1979 (the year in which all the big gang movies saw the light of day) is a speciality! This work about the street war in New York turns into a single stylistic exercise of mannerism. Hardly a moment when we want to believe that the Warriors, their enemies, even the streets where they fight, are real. I don't think it was Walter Hill's intention to accept that. That's why The Warriors is so unusual, because we get a "Male Rampage" action movie presented as a ballet, as an opera piece in different acts. A typical Walter Hill, because even his first movies were far away from reality. Here everything is myth, legend, even a living statue. Hill stylizes so much that every life is kept out of its tableaux. There are great choreographed scenes and a lot of energy, but when the Warriors talk to each other, you think you have a fairy tale in front of you. Before the fight, they position themselves in a row. Then the leader speaks, then his deputy, finally the third in the row. Only then is the fight started. And the police? Just as exaggerated! Here they fight in symbolic places, not in Brooklyn or anywhere else. I was astonished by the cast, because only a few gang members seem to be able to hit it at all. Most of them just look wonderfully disguised. All this was sold by Paramount in 1979 as an action movie. Seriously? How about that? How about that? The Warriors, a masterpiece of the avant-garde by Walter Hill (with a lot of scraping).

FREE ON YOUTUBE Andy Warhol - The Chelsea Girls

FREE ON YOUTUBE (YOU FIND THE WHOLE FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Warhol is best understood on a Sunday morning on Weser Street. That's how it goes: If you break Andy Warhol's art down into its individual parts, none of them have any intrinsic value. To find Chelsea Girls great, you must first believe that Chelsea Girls is definitely a great masterpiece (= made by Andy Warhol). The film itself can't convince you at all. Three and a half hours split screen. Probably just improvised. Badly filmed and hardly reworked. Warhol has no message. He doesn't want to tell us anything. He has no technique either. If Chelsea Girls had been shot by Herbert Müller from Berlin Reinickendorf, Andy Warhol would probably have agreed as well: This film is simply bad. To understand Andy Warhol and Chelsea Girls, you now go back to Weser Strasse, Neukölln. All full of party lions. Fashionably up to date. It is hard for us reasonable people to criticize them because they are much better dressed and have a high social acceptance. Just like Andy Warhol back then. We do not understand Warhol, but we believe we should do it better. It is consensus. That's why we still say at parties today that we like Chelsea Girls. We have weakened our senses, whether a film is good or bad. Uniform. Warhol's movie has neither title nor credits. The soundtrack is unclear, hard to understand. It starts in black and white and ends in color. The film is either overexposed or underexposed. Sometimes it zooms in on an unimportant detail (and ignores the important ones). Warhol's superstars like to undress, are sadistic, masochistic or addicted to drugs. Warhol tricks us, makes his movie seem pregnant with meaning and profound. Above all, it's fashionable. That's what every Neuköllner "Hipster" on instagram does exactly the same way. Of course, Chelsea Girls isn't a real New York Underground movie. Certainly most of the party lions on Weser Street aren't "underground" either, in the sense that they make some kind of cultural contribution. Warhol's film is underexposed, while the hipsters from Weser Street are undressed. Does Chelsea Girls have any artistic purpose? No. Not at all. Absolutely not. You just have to promenade along Weser Street to understand that.

Cult Movies 80s II

More than any other decade, the 80s were the time of great cult movies. Of course, the invention of home cinema made it possible to celebrate the Blues Brothers at home. Characteristics of cult films: 1. Clear distinction from mainstream films. 2. beautifully provocative! 3. orientation towards a niche audience (keyword: counterculture). So you have seen something extraordinary and want to join a cult afterwards. Have fun!

Cult Movies 80s I

Practically from the moment I saw him for the first time at the age of thirteen, when in 1984 I put the entrance fee on the counter of the musty box office at the Filmbühne Wien on Kurfürstendamm, I knew what my absolute favourite film was...

FREE ON YOUTUBE David And Lisa

FREE ON YOUTUBE (YOU FIND THE WHOLE FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) This is one of the most beautiful love films I've ever seen! A work full of tact and insight! Not least a film about psychological problems. About schizophrenia. David (Keir Dullea), a young, cultivated, somewhat arrogant man, is brought to a mental hospital by his mother, who takes precautions. David cannot bear to be touched by anyone. There he meets Lisa (Janet Margolin), who suffers from a so-called endogenous psychosis. Lisa is schizophrenic. She thinks she is two girls and speaks backwards in verses that rhyme. But David reaches Lisa. She knows his weakness and he knows hers. A love that slowly builds up without compulsions and that is presented without clichés. Finally David can bear to be touched and Lisa is able to reveal her feelings. Free from false drama. Never maudlin, but very touching! David seems almost icy in his fear of touch and death. Lisa, on the other hand, is of beguiling beauty and has a strong need for someone to help her. Director Frank Perry has a feeling for what is important. He saves everything unnecessary. His film never sounds like a pseudo-physician's report. Interesting is the fact that Eleanor Perry's script was taken from the records of a psychiatrist. David And Lisa was a cult film among students in the 60s. An early indie that anticipated New Hollywood and later movements.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Juraj Herz - The Cremator (engl. subt.)

FREE ON YOUTUBE (YOU FIND THE WHOLE FILM WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES FREE ON YOUTUBE) This is the story of a man who is driven to the peak of his career by the spirit of his time. Everything happens by itself; he gets a huge crematorium with massive ovens and all the facilities for mass burning. It is the story of a man who believes he feels the drop of German blood strengthening in him. Even the problem of his beloved half-Jewish wife and children seems solvable to him... Prague, end of the 30s. Karl Kopferkingl leads an orderly life in which everything has its place. He loves his family and his work of cremating corpses. Thanks to his Buddhist faith, the cremator is convinced that it shortens the path to the Kingdom of Heaven to be cremated in 90 minutes instead of time-consuming rotting in a coffin. When the Biedermann hears about the successes of a certain German party at the same time, he considers whether he really has already made enough people happy? The horror sneaks up on us deliberately in Juraj Herz's second film. In passing, the monstrosity behind the façade of the pestering citizen is unleashed - with success, because we have long been in his head! The fascism parable involves us in the events, even deceives us, because we become accomplices. How mean can cinema be? Juraj Herz tells this grotesque story using the typical means of Eastern European cinema of the 1960s; a mixture of theatrical irony and bloated film technology. A cinema that sets its own limits. The Cremator in the pretty DVD edition of the label Bildstörung is one of the greatest discoveries in our video library! In the staircase area I have set up a film series with films of the Eastern European new wave of the 60s. For the geek: Please watch them all! Each of them is really worth it!

FREE ON YOUTUBE Black Box BRD (engl. subt.)

FREE ON YOUTUBE (YOU FIND THE WHOLE FILM WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES FREE ON YOUTUBE) Stupid! Someone "borrowed" our DVD Black Box BRD and didn't bring it back. We'll reorder it as soon as possible! The private catastrophe of two men triggers the fight of the RAF against the FRG. Two men who could hardly be more different. On the one hand, Alfred von Herrhausen, trained in an NS elite school, later board member of Deutsche Bank. A businessman whose judgement also carries weight in politics. Towards him: Wolfgang Grams, a child from simple backgrounds who rebelled against "normality" as a teenager. He will join the hard core of the RAF. Who wouldn't be tempted to make a biased film with this material? But not Andreas Veiel, whose Black Box BRD does NOT derive feelings from facts. Let us now approach these two men - through stories by friends and relatives - the picture becomes blurred. Neither of the two is as clear as we thought. Herrhausen is not only a cold capitalist, but also a charming bon vivant. He often cannot cope with the merciless practices of his business friends. And Grams is not only an aesthete and "revolutionary", but also a fanatic. He dreams of being able to strangle his opponents with bare hands. They stand up for their ideals, but also suffer from inner conflict. Also Grams. Black Box BRD is not a simple attempt to set the life of a murderer against that of his victim. By the way: Was Grams at all involved in the assassination of Herrhausen? Veiel does not even speculate at this point. Dark hatred and feelings of revenge have no place in this documentary. When the relatives cry in front of the camera, the camera doesn't stop because we spectators have to satisfy our voyeurism. She continues filming as the narrative continues. Fortunately, we are also spared a kind of educational film (with the obligatory stipendium from the off). Do we need thinking aids? I think we can make our own picture. Sometimes Black Box BRD is even funny, for example when another bank board complacently babbles about the "Er A Ef" or when a former "revolutionary" theorizes in his bourgeois allotment garden that Herrhausen had to see in his function at that time. Not least Helmut Kohl, who raves about the "patriotism" of Alfred v. Herrhausen. Veiel keeps all this together with a lot of creativity. It results in a seamless whole. Above all, he captures the restlessness of his two main characters. Grams like Herrhausen was in motion until the end, whether on journeys or on the run. So Germany must have been at the height of the fear of terrorism. Headlines, hate letters - and ordinary, perhaps boring people turned into infamous enemies of the state who were hated by strangers.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Rana's Wedding

FREE ON YOUTUBE (YOU FIND THE ALL FILM WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES FREE ON YOUTUBE) Rana's father will be at the airport at four. She can either marry or leave the country with him. The father gives Rana a list of candidates; men who have asked for her hand. But she only loves Khali. Can she find him? And she manages to make all the preparations for a wedding: Invite the relatives, choose a dress, do their hair? Everything before 16.00? Are we in a romantic comedy, brand Hollywood? By no means! Yes, we are in the middle of a romantic comedy, because romanticism survives in the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. No, it's a film from Palestine and yet a little different. Rana's Wedding is set on both sides of the armed border between Jerusalem and Ramallah. A comedy against the background of checkpoints, soldiers, street burials and the normal state of siege. Rana (Clara Khoury) is a 17-year-old Palestinian, her lover Khalil (Khalifa Natour) a theatre director around the age of 40. Ranas father has doubts about the marriage, but the couple invokes the Islamic law that they may marry if they inform the father in the presence of a registrar. So Ranas has to find Khalil and a registrar and then the father. All at the same time. That means driving back and forth, past roadblocks and barbed wire. By the way we notice how the Palestinians are watched suspiciously every day. Interestingly, Rana's Wedding is not a film that emphasizes politics. Politics is everyday life in Palestine, with comedy in the foreground. Just as complicated as her country is Rana herself: Sometimes she seems to be older, then again like a child. To fix her hair, she risks missing the deadline. And the premise? Does her father really want to leave the country at 16.00 or just set a deadline? Does all this happen at the last moment or would preparations have been possible? We will not know how the father thinks. Who he is just as little. Surprisingly also Khali's reaction. What would you do if a woman took you from the theater stage to marry immediately? We have to accept this somewhat constructed action because it is an instrument to create tension. Even more tension is created because Rana is sometimes in no hurry. The strength of Rana's Weddings lies in the observation of details. Little boys throwing stones at the barricades, soldiers shooting back. Is this what life in Palestine looks like? Unbelievable! Oh yes, and when Rana forgets her suitcase once, the police have blown it up. After all, there could be a bomb in it. However, Rana's Wedding does not preach, but observes. A beautiful RomCom, but above all a fascinating contemporary document! We get a much clearer picture of the Palestinian settlements off Jerusalem than the news could ever offer us. Palestine is in a permanent state of emergency and yet people have the same goals and desires as we do. The political situation, however, deprives them of air to breathe. They may not even notice that this country is like a vacuum. But who can survive like that in the long run?

FREE ON DAILYMOTION Woody Allen - Love And Death

"All men live under a sentence of death. They all go sooner or later. But I'm different. I have to go at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. It would have been 5, but I had a good lawyer..." (Boris Gruschenko). This is how Woody Allen thinks and this is how Love And Death's strategy works: serious things are hidden behind cheerful slapstick. An ominous situation is simply attacked by the punch line and Allen often finds the right images to bring his philosophy to the point. Love And Death is certainly Allen's first serious film experiment! Of course, he is first and foremost a comedian of polished dialogue. The philosophical and moral decisions that follow his characters every step of the way also serve to let go of a whole chain of jokes. Yet Love And Death seems much more mature than any of Woody Allen's early films before. Allen's premise; imagine his basic character: Shy, incompetent, secretly romantic, fascinated by women and scared to death. Then you put him in a time loop and let him appear in Russia at the time of Napoleon's campaigns. He meets his childhood and death (which of course looks like death in Bergman's Seventh-Seal) - Then the Allen character may ask death: "What's it like after you die? Are there any girls?" Afterwards he has to fight against the French as a pacifist =militant coward and may marry a beautiful girl (she feels sorry for him and hopes that he will be shot in a duel). Basically, he turns Tolstoy's war and peace on its head and tries to hide in a cannon on the battlefield. He returns as a hero and loves Countess Alexandrovna, who admires him as a great lover: "Thanks"; he replies; "I practice a lot when I'm alone". Not an easy encounter, because his love forces him into his greatest moral crisis. A crisis that paralyzes him... Unlike the serial comedians of the 70s (that's what I call those who stick together like Allen Pointen), Allen doesn't try to make us all laugh by any means. He chooses a quieter path and that's that we start to like his character. He is cute, wants to do the right thing and convinces us that simplicity can still dominate the world.

Filmliste zu Terry Gilliams The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

To really enjoy a fantasy comedy like The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, I have to remember how I saw the world as a child. What is more beautiful than to take the mind of a child literally or to capture it in pictures? Terry Gilliam does that with his pictures and of course his effects. We adults would call The Man Who Killed Don Quixote a special effects film. Behind it hides the typical Terry Gilliam humor and some satire. Of course, this isn't a children's film, but one that is fascinated by children. That is to say, a tribute to the spirit of a child. It's from this point of view that I have compiled this list of films.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Alejandro Jodorowsky - Santa Sangre

Above all, Santa Sangre is a return to the wild days of cinema when it could still be scandalous and unique! Santa Sangre is a movie I've never seen before! Very bloody, glamorous, glorious! Basically, Santa Sangre is a film about the mystery of the night. Jodorowsky returns to his roots and offers a two-hour trip, an excess for the senses. In Mexico, Fenix travels with his father's travelling circus. The father is a strong man with tattoos, the mother an acrobat on a trapeze, wrapped in her curly mane. She is also something like the leader of a secret cult of women devoted to a goddess without arms (a man hurt her, took her arms). The blood of this saint: Santa Sangre. As the mother swirls through the air on the trapeze, she watches her husband leaving the circus with another woman (full of tattoos). She follows him, kills the woman and gives the husband poison. He cuts off her arms and finally commits suicide. Years later we meet the son again in a mental hospital. He sits on a tree and refuses any form of communication. The mother manages to bring him back into the world, where he meets a deaf-mute girl. His way out seems like a symbolic trip for Freudians, because he mutates into the slave of the mother without arms. While they perform together in a nightclub, one wonders whether all this is actually happening? But Jodorwosky won't answer these questions for us, instead he throws us into the whirlpool of events that drive the film forward. Unforgettable the scene of the elephant burial...

FREE ON DAILYMOTION Ernst Lubitsch - Trouble In Paradise

FREE ON DAILYMOTION (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF DAILYMOTION) When I look at adult people in a modern cinema film, it usually fails because there are simply none. Grey youths probably fit better. In Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble In Paradise it's different: Here, unbelievably grown-up people appear who can only be found in the cinema. They are cosmopolitan, cynical, cultured - almost that they leave a trace of slime. Herbert Marshall plays a jewel thief, Miriam Hopkins a thieving woman who admires him and Kay Francis a rich widow who thinks she can buy him. They live in a pure cinema world full of exquisite costumes, butlers, Venetian hotels, lofts in Paris, cocktails and lots of jewels. Impressive how they move in all the adornment! The Love Triangle was Lubitsch's favourite plot, especially when there is a sexual rivalry. Here we realize from the beginning that the thief Gaston Monescu (Marshall) and the pickpocket Lily Vautier (Hopkins) are meant for each other. Not only because they like each other, but also because their profession basically excludes civilians. When Gaston meets Mariette Colet (Francis), both know that it can't last long. The sexual undertones are played out surprisingly openly, at least Lubitsch's film was made in 1932, before the censorship of American movies took over. So we can be sure that none of the three characters runs the risk of thinking sex is love. Lily and Mariette know what they want and Gaston knows that he has! He masterfully hides his true feelings behind the mask of cultivated jokes. Herbert Marshall fills every scene with suspense, simply because he eludes the emotional script through his play. His whole appearance is so elegant that he seems to float through the room! He knows exactly the requirements of a social comedy and finds the right tone to talk to a lady. The dialogues of Lubitsch's favourite author Samson Raphaelson sound like foreplay from Marshall's mouth... Take another look at the scene where he dines with Lilly. He pretends to be a baron, she a countess: "You know," says Lily, "when I first saw you, I thought you were an American." - "Thank you," he replies seriously. (...) "Then I heard your name and found out you were just one of us," she enthuses. - "Disappointed?" - "No, proud. Very proud". Then they kiss and steal from each other. Something feverish resonates in the dialogues and that's what makes Lubitsch's Screwball Comedy so special. Lubitsch had his very own way of transforming the given material through his style: The famous "Lubitsch Touch", which allowed him to express certain things unsaid anyway. The most amazing thing about this style exercise, however, is the fact that his characters still seem to be alive. There is a lot of irony in this director's game, but we are allowed to let ourselves fall into his movies. Ernst Lubitsch is our greatest director in Berlin. Born in 1892, he began to direct himself in 1915. In 1923 he moved to Hollywood to make a lot of successful silent movies. During the 20's and 30's you can call him the regent of the Paramount Studios. Best were his musicals and comedies, where Trouble In Paradise is his masterpiece! Finally, one publicist pointed out the "Lubitsch Touch", which the director himself didn't want to accept. In Trouble In Paradise it's a small wonder how the actors lend dignity to their comic-like characters! In fact, each of the characters here seems full of life experience and with a certain heaviness. Lubitsch's comedy is full of melancholy, even in the funniest moments! Just the scene in which Gaston and Mariette say goodbye to each other. It's clear, both love each other and yet they stole from each other. They try to defuse this situation with a gallant joke - and so does Lubitsch's whole comedy.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

FREE ON YOUTUBE William Friedkin - Killer Joe

This isn't a movie! It must be hell! Did I like Killer Joe? Or did I hate the movie? Anyway, Killer Joe left me speechless. Killer Joe is flawlessly staged and shows raven-black humor. The focus is on the Smiths, the stupidest family ever shown in a film that is NOT a comedy. They live in a trailer somewhere in Texas. Killer Joe himself uses a police car from Dallas, so it has to play somewhere nearby. Killer Joe himself is not stupid. But he makes the mistake of never realizing how stupid the Smiths are! Matthew McConaughey plays killer Joe during the phase of his career, because he was a character actor before he mutated into a Hollywood lover, only to switch back to the character business afterwards. His killer Joe is a cop who also works as a contract killer. He is hired by Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch), who owes money to drug dealers. So that they don't kill him, he suggests his father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) to hire killer Joe to kill his mother. Little sister Dottie (Juno Temple) overhears the plan and thinks it's a good idea. Who would miss her? Who needs her? Note: It's Chris' mother, the first woman Smith. Besides there is another woman Smith: Sharla (Gina Gershon), the stepmother, made up in such a way that we finally understand what a slut is! The Smiths live in a world of chained pitbulls, burning barrels and monster truck videos. A world where the TV is on all the time (at least until killer Joe hits it on the floor). Anyway, almost everyone in this movie gets beaten to the ground once. There are broken noses, bruises and so on. Of course, there is also a lot of naked skin and sex, like when Dottie gets deflowered. Director William Friedkin, New Hollywood legend and promising queerhead of our time, has earned himself the NC-17 rating! Already before he had attracted attention with the claustrophobic masterpiece "Bugs" and had easily gained a new following. Not only in our small video store! Killer Joe ran first in small program cinemas, in order to change then into the large cinemas. At that time we also tried Killer Joe in our open air season: The audience laughed in the right places, even applauded, went out and talked about how disgusting it all was.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense

Stop Making Sense hinterlässt einen überwältigenden Eindruck! Gar nicht die hektische Energie einer Rockband auf der Bühne, sondern reine Lebensfreude! Weshalb sollte man sich einen Konzertfilm ansehen? Normalerweise werden als Gründe angegeben: 1) Die Musik 2) Die Kinematographie. Stop Making Sense ist anders. Hier ist es die physische Wirkung, die wir meinen zu spüren! Die Talking Heads im Konzert, das muss man sich wie ein sportliches Workout vorstellen. Vielleicht wie Aerobic. Mitgeschnitten wurden zwei Konzerte der Band in New York, wobei sich der Film ganz auf das ungeheure Talent von David Byrne konzentriert. Seine Bühnenpräsenz hat etwas von Pantomime - und die besten Effekte auf der Bühne werden durch Kostüme und Handleuchten erzielt. Fast wirkt es wie Schattentheater. Am Beginn aber erleben wir Byrne ganz leise und konzentriert. Auf einer nackten Bühne allein mit Ghettoblaster. Er schaltet ihn ein und singt Psycho Killer. Dann setzt der Bass ein und nach und nach die ganze Band. Das Tempo nimmt zu. Die Musik der Talking Heads darf von Musik Nerds auf viele Einflüsse untersucht werden. Für mich hört man am stärksten den Rock'n Roll der 50er durch, aber auch Country Sänger wie Hank-Williams. Wahrscheinlich erreichten sie dadurch, dass man auch Reggae oder Gospel durchhört auch Menschen, die Rock nur noch als Lärm empfanden. Die Talking Heads dagegen klangen wie Musik!(...)

Film List: Magic Realism Comedies

comedies, in which we feel like in a fairy tale...

FREE ON YOUTUBE Into The Wild

Who read Jon Krakauer's novel of the same name? Did you then imagine - if only for a moment after reading it - living in a lonely hut, somewhere out by a lake? I mean DRAUSSEN, not somewhere in Brandenburg near Berlin! Does it seem tempting to you to plant beans there and go hunting? A pure life. The fulfillment. The search for meaning. In the past this would have been interesting for me, too, and that's why I read Krakauer's novel with fascinated fear. In the centre, a twenty-year-old university graduate who dissolves his lawyer's fund in order to enter the "territory" (in the language of Mark Twain). He drives west until he can't go any further, then north into the wilderness of Alaska. In his luggage, a handful of books and edible wild plants. His role model seems to be Jack-London and yet I'm not sure if he really read it. This is followed by Sean Penn's fascinating film adaptation. Appearance Christopher (Emile Hirsch), an idealistic dreamer. He is the pride of his parents with good grades in law school. Why did he disappear from their lives? Why didn't he explain himself? In his diaries he describes himself in the third person as a heroic adventurer. A loner who renounces civilization and returns to the womb of nature(...)

FREE ON YOUTUBE Hannah Takes The Stairs

Isn't Greta Gerwig great? She looks so open-minded and reasonable. We almost think we know her. Gerwig could sit in a hip cafe in Neukölln on Monday morning. With a well-dressed Penguin book in his hand.  Type: Pleasant, smart university graduate who has no benefit for the job market. Gerwig looks real. Not like the typical Hollywood actress, who is polished on all corners and edges. In some pictures Gerwig looks like a student, then again as beautiful as a real movie star! Aaaach, isn't she great? And her film direction? Mumblecore? What was it like with "Mumblecore"? Films produced on an incredibly low budget. It plays non-actors or semi-professionals or something like that. Everything (or almost everything) is improvised. The semi-professional actors appear as students, unemployed artists or young employees in low-paid jobs. Mostly they sit around somewhere (for example in a cafe) and talk about their relationship problems. Hannah Takes The Stairs is set in Chicago. It's summer. Greta Gerwig works for a media company and suffers from her narcissistic boyfriend and his affairs with neurotic students. A perfect example for the "genre" of Mumblecore! Hannahs (Gerwig) biggest wish is: "I wanted to be the funny one". Isn't she? I mean: Yes, she is neurotic, sarcastic and quite cute. Her odyssey through modern relationship life was conceived as a non-film by director/screenwriter/editor Joe Swanberg. A collaboration of all greats of Mumblecore like Gerwig or Bujalski(...)

FREE ON YOUTUBE Breaking Glass

This is a film that makes you melt away! A film after a true event. It all starts with the phone ringing in a London indie studio. The receptionist who picks up the phone does it for the first time, because it's her first day at work. On the phone, a casting agency. They demand Hazel O'Connor. The receptionist is visibly surprised! She IS Hazel O'Connor! That's exactly what she tells the callers, but they say: "Oh no, this one's a singer." At the same time O'Connor was reading a book called "Bring Out the Magic in Your Mind". It's about thinking positively. To live one's dreams simply by focusing very strongly on them. O'Connor wanted to make it as a singer and songwriter, but she had only composed four songs. It was her brother who showed her how to write songs and with him she hung around in London most of the time. It was the late 70s and O'Connor's brother played as a pre-program for the Buzzcocks. London had so much to offer; The Specials, The Clash and the Rich Kids with singer Midge Ure! O'Connor wanted to be part of it and wrote more songs. Albion Records believed in her, but offered her only a pound as a reward. A pound! To pay the rent, she worked as a receptionist. Albion Records were new to the business and had produced a single artist until then: Ian Gomm, who in turn had a recording studio where the Stranglers were also customers. Do you realize how much fun Breaking Glass is?(...)

FREE ON YOUTUBE Kriegerin - Combat Girls (engl. subt.)

Films with Neo Nazis are always creepy, not only when they play in the new German states. Kriegerin leads us into an undefined small town in East Germany. There live Marisa (the great Alina Levshin) and her gang of racists, skinheads and Neo Nazis. A little bit of everything somehow... Anyway, it seems to be one, threatening and harassing everyone who doesn't share her ideology. Muslims, East Asians, long-haired people - all enemies. Only a matter of time until Marisa's boyfriend and finally herself cross a red line... But is it enough to self-knowledge to regret one's own deed in order to free oneself from the disgusting world view of National Socialism? Is he not regarded as a natural attitude where Marisa lives? Marisa suddenly learns about feelings such as decency and compassion. Yes, she can even imagine what it is like to raise a child. Much of what is going on inside her can only be guessed in her sad eyes. Is Marisa a tormented soul? Kriegerin is a German film with a relentless pace and some drastic scenes of violence. A film that heads for a tragic climax, from which there seems to be no escape. The city in which Marisa lives is grey. An eerie, grim city. Warriors were accused of presenting the neo-Nazi scene as "cool" and "rebellious"(...)

FREE ON YOUTUBE B.R. Rent-A-Cop

The death of B.R. Burt Reynolds was the epitome of a sonny boy. He captivated his audience effortlessly, seemed happy and a little conceited. But anyone who reads interviews with Reynolds experiences a serious, analytical man. Perhaps the turning point in Reynolds career was his collaboration with Peter-Bogdanovich? During the 70's Reynolds shot in series. Bad films were hardly noticed. I imagine it that way: At the moment when he was unhappy with one of his films, the next one already started. B.R. - a trademark. But Reynolds also filmed with stars like Catherine-Deneuve and she knew nothing about B.R. It must have been like a liberation for the star! Reynolds even went on tour with Deneuve and then said: " I'm not sure my heart could stand a tour with Catherine Deneuve. I'd take along a physician - except he couldn't stand it, either..." So he was! Charming and quite naïve! He was sexy in a clear and funny way. An original, a modern Cary-Grant! I never expected B.R. to play big dramatic roles. Others should do that! All the worse I found it when during the 80s his performances were ripped off. For example, does anyone remember Rent-A-Cop, his second collaboration with Liza Minnelli (after all, an Oscar winner alongside B.R.!)? Rent-A-Cop works somewhere between Hollywood formula and a relationship story. Of course, the Hollywood clichés take over at some point, but not until the relationship story has given us some nice moments. It's the unlikely friendship between an outcast cop from Chicago (who knows) and a prostitute (Minnelli). She hires the outcast cop because someone wants to kill her. What's the next step? The policeman snaps at the prostitute and tells her to get the hell out of here. Then he gives in. She gets into danger, he saves her and in the end they fall in love. Beautiful, isn't it? Of course there are still some subplots, because the outcast cop has to be rehabilitated in the end. The director obviously switched to autopilot. But if you take a closer look, you'll find something. Reynolds and Minnelli build up a charming relationship, both are witty and quick-witted. Sometimes this relationship even has something touching (and sometimes I just enjoyed Minnelli's cynicism). Rent-A-Cop is not an ambitious movie. Nothing should stand in the way of the plot. Even details remain within Hollywood formulas. And Reynolds? Does he even seem a bit tired? Does the script prevent us from experiencing a better Reynolds? Just imagine what B.R. and Liza Minnelli would have achieved together in a quality film!

Film List: All The President's Men

Bob Woodward's new work "Fear", which deals with time in the White House under Donald Trump, is currently being published. What interests us all: Are there any new insights that are sufficient for an impeachment? A second Watergate?(...)

Film List: Chemnitz 2018

"There was no mob ... and there was no Progrome in Chemnitz" (Michael Kretschmer, CDU, Saxon Prime Minister, 9/18). Who remembers? After Daniel H. was killed by two men presumably from Syria and Iraq, the police searches for a third man, while the AFD and Pergida call "concerned" rabid citizens on the street, who walk through Chemnitz with the Hitler salute. Of course, this must not be called a "chase". The spit stays away and therefore I collected in our video cellar after films with Neo Nazis. That's what they call the rabid citizens who pull up their right arm.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Jean Eustache - La Maman Et La Putain

(YOU FIND THE WHOLE FILM WITH ENGLISH subtitles FREE ON YOUTUBE) If you want to rent the DVD of La Maman Et La Putain from us, you will be disappointed. It only runs with the original French sound. There were geeks like Sulgi who simply set out with the dictionary to understand Eustache's classic. What a job! An epic dialogue film! The problem: There is still no adequate DVD version. Worse still, you don't get the masterpiece as a silver disc at all. Today (2.9.18) but during my daily YouTube check I noticed that we can enjoy La Maman Et La Putain in good picture quality with English subtitles! Let's get going! Here comes THE unknown classic of the Nouvelle Vague!  Eustache's most famous film came to the cinemas in 1973 and an entire generation embraced this permanently lamenting slacker, who prefers to conduct endless conversations in Parisian cafes. Jean-Pierre Leaud plays Eustaches idol Alexandre. He lives with one woman and tells another that he loves her. Then there's the one who rejected him and various other women. Marie, played by Bernadette Lafont, lives with Alexandre and also supports him, since he usually stands "between two jobs". Veronika (Francoise Lebrun) is Alexandre's blind date in a cafe to which he presents his not really soaring thoughts (while his eyes follow other women in the immediate vicinity). Alexandre is not stupid, but neither is he intellectual. He does not make any significant progress in his self-discovery. He likes to babble about movies and about life (which often confuses him). He wears a dark coat and a scarf that reaches down to his knees. His friend wears the same. Alexandre spends the days holding Proust in front of him in Cafes, but not reading in it. I think, although Alexandre seems to be the center of La Maman Et La Putain, Eustaches film is more interested in his women characters. Couldn't it be that the women are just circling around him because they are curious about what strange things he will tell next? What idiocy is he about to expose? Leauds best role was that of the young Antoine Doinels, since then he has varied this as a childlike side in what is actually already an adult man. While Alexandre struts through the Paris cafes like a puppet, the real drama takes place in the character of Veronika. Veronica must know that Alexandre only talks to her about love while Marie is absent. When Veronika talks about herself, we experience deep and unadulterated knowledge of herself. The portrait of a childish man exerted enormous influence from his time - but it is time to see Eustaches film in a different way.....

FREE ON YOUTUBE Dr. Ketel

There are two things I like to see in the cinema. 1st science fiction films based on an IDEE (no action in space). Second films from the neighborhood. And here comes a science fiction film from Neukölln, set in the near future. Dr Ketel is a gigantic man who travels at night to treat patients for free. A strange saint. Ketel must be told by clinic doctor Dr. Wissmann, who disapproves of his work, that he is not a real doctor at all. Dr. Ketel is deliberately photographed flat (the camera moves very close to the protagonists) and mounted in leaps and bounds. That's exactly how Dr. Ketel is told: His relationship with the pharmacist (Franziska Rummel) is introduced and then simply disappears from the film. Dr Ketel is a driven man and that's why such a romance can't last. Finally he loses his Tarnjob as a janitor and his basement flat. Dr. Ketel has to live on the streets and gets sick himself(...)