FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Frank Capra - It's A Wonderful Life 

Once upon a time Frank Capras It's A Wonderful Life belonged to the forgotten movies until he was rediscovered at the beginning of the 70s. He became a Christmas movie, an annual ritual of families all over the world. I loved It's A Wonderful Life as a child and still do - I think because Capra's work is so honest! But it's not just about the film, it's the memories that are connected to it! It's A Wonderful Life was the declared favorite of director Frank Capra and lead actor James Stewart. Then the worst happened: It's A Wonderful Life was colored and disenchanted afterwards. Stewart himself is said to have said about this version that it would make him sick. The wonderful black and white version is one of those timeless classics that improve over time. Other movies, even very good ones, can only be watched once - Frank Capra's comedy, on the other hand, keeps coming back! He grows close to your heart, becomes familiar. It's A Wonderful Life seems to me like a powerful, fundamental fairy tale. It's the inversion of Christmas Carol: we don't see an old man telling stories of happiness, but a young man throwing himself into misery. The hero is George Bailey (Stewart). He is one who never found out from his small quiet town Bedford Falls, where he was born. As a young man he dreamed of traveling and knocking the dust off his shoes. But there was always something that kept him at home. Most of all his family's savings and his father's building society, which enables ordinary people to have their own house. This building society is the only one that stands between the community and the greedy Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), the local banker. George marries his high school love (Donna Reed in her first role) and helps the poor realize their dream of owning their own home. But then his uncle loses a large amount of cash on Christmas Eve and the way seems clear for Mr. Potter. George is desperate, his face suddenly seems gloomy and thought-provoking. He stands on the bridge to throw himself down when an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) saves him from it. Clarence shows George how life in Beford Falls would be without him. How would the world be without me? - That's the big question in It's A Wonderful Life. Frank Capra never conceived his tragicomedy as a Christmas film. It was the first movie he produced after his military service in World War II and he was supposed to be something special. It's A Wonderful Life celebrates the dreams of the simple American man who tries the best for himself and his neighbors. Capra had established himself during the 30's with a whole series of fantastic comedies in parable form and can be considered THE director of the Roosevelt era. For Stewart, who had also served in the war, it was the opportunity to work with Capra again. Like so many of his generation who embody the "boy next door", Stewart Capra owes the most important films of his career to Capra. At that time It's A Wonderful Life was no success and fell into oblivion. But the comedy isn't just there to warm our hearts! Remember the scene when George's younger brother breaks into the ice. Or the phone scene where angry James Stewart and Donna Reed suddenly face each other! Then the dark passages in which George staggers drunk through his hometown, which he tries to hate. Even the most greasy scenes, so the hint of heaven, work because they are so simple! I also often had to think of Berlin's banking scandal and the European misery, the "rescue" of the banks with taxpayers' money. Unfortunately the film could not inspire the post-war career of Frank Capra. He never again achieved the box-office results of his pre-war classics and staged his last work in 1961. Later, Capra was an esteemed guest professor at the film academy. Once he answered the question whether "nowadays" movies with the message of It's A Wonderful Life could still be realized with the statement that we would all have to give up immediately if we didn't...

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Mustang 

Deniz Gamze Ergüven was nominated for the Oscar and the Golden Globe for her debut. Everyone seems to fall easy on her and so does her film. Above her paintings lies lightness, such a shimmering summer feeling! It is the last day of school before the big holidays. Five sisters - our heroines - are already romping around the sea, each on the shoulders of a boy. They seem to be quite light-hearted and cheerful, but this is deceptive. The five girls are not in the Atlantic, but in the Black Sea in Turkey. At home they are confronted with the angry grandmother. Too much temperament, too much passion! A neighbor snitched on her and called the orphaned girls whores. From that day on, their home becomes a prison. They are no longer allowed to go to school, they are allowed to cook at home. Now it's time to find husbands as quickly as possible. The sisters' experiences get worse and worse, and their urge for freedom is provoked more and more. We experience everything from the perspective of the youngest, Lale. She almost casually mentions that this is probably the last time they will be together. Suddenly a gloomy premonition lies down on the hustle and bustle.............................................. But although the uncle guards the girls night after night - Deniz Gamze Ergüven's film is about the untameable spirit of freedom and that is typical for this generation (Ergüvens is sure about that!). Your whole film is a promise of change and that will shake Turkey.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De David Fincher - Fight Club 

Fight Club allows its heroes to get drunk and get beat up. They even sign a contract for it. Regardless, it's a celebration of fascism like it hasn't been since the dark 80s, a celebration of testosterone! Edward Norton plays a depressive, fear-driven loner. His world looks like a sardonic social satire. To overcome his pain, he attends meetings where the participants hug each other tightly. For example, the meetings of cancer victims. Those with testicular cancer. By the way, Norton appears here as "The Narrator". A good trick, which we will see through later. Then he notices another "miserable tourist" named Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). She also USES these meetings only. Then he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in a plane. He seems to be able to look "The Narrator" straight into the soul. When The Narrator's dismal skyscraper settlement goes up in flames, he instinctively visits Tyler. "The Narrator becomes a member of Fight Club. There, men meet who find their freedom and self-realization in beating each other half to death. Until then, I like Fight Club. Unfortunately director David Fincher tries to show us how clever he is. He will add scenes that turn everything seen upside down. It's called "Mindgame" or "Mindfuck". And what is it really about? About the shackles of modern life that restrict us? Amen. And what is Tyler up to? Just to get men together who'll beat the crap out of each other? Tyler will philosophize a lot and tell very little that makes any sense. Fight Club doesn't follow Tyler's philosophy. But still the (especially male) audience likes him. Because the pictures philosophize for themselves and on them you see the muscle-bound Brad Pitt. He is allowed to sing the high song of fascism and looks really cool. A stupid movie.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Maren Ade - Toni Erdmann 

Imagine if we'd been to Cannes. Nobody had Maren Ade or her new film Toni Erdmann seriously on the list of favorites. A film of three hours in length, whose press release was just as rambling. Many people probably only looked at Toni Erdmann from afar. But they were exactly the same, said later that there could be no such thing as justice if Toni Erdmann did not win the Golden Palm! Here comes such an exuberant comedy, with real thigh beaters, which can satisfy the audience deeply! Rarely has there been such a loving reaction from the audience in Cannes and if you look at the imdb rating, you will see a 9.1! No doubt, Maren Ade has to get her own subject in our film art bar Fitzcarraldo as a director and can count from now on to one of the greatest German filmmakers! Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek) is an aging bear who practices something like a 24-hour show on his own behalf: His hair looks like a gray bird's nest, he seems to dress up all the time in new costumes to make jokes. The daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller) is what is known in the modern world as a "Corporate Consultant". Thin as a model, serious, always on the phone. She is currently outsourcing hundreds of jobs to Romania (she speaks of "outsorcing" in modern asshole German). Ines works hard, she is successful and desperately unhappy. When her father pays her a surprise visit, it goes badly, as expected. They communicate in lukewarm phrases and soon he wants to leave again. A few days later, however, he returns in disguise as a coach for executives: Toni Erdmann. Now he may deeply penetrate Ines life, question everything, confuse everything. The 68er in the life of the daughter, whose market radical understanding of freedom can only be a misunderstanding! How much is in this movie! The non-understanding of parents and children, two different and equally unsustainable life positions and the truth that if everything is stuck, only comedy helps. Toni Erdmann did not win in Cannes. But he can give German cinema the necessary impetus to get to where it was forty years ago: right at the top!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Michel Gondry - eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind 

"The memories beautify life, but forgetting alone makes it bearable," writes the poet Balzac. "From the eyes, from the mind," believes Goethe. In Michel Gondrys Eternal Sunshine Of A Spotless Mind it means for Clemetine (Kate Winslet) that she can simply forget someone like Joel (Jim Carrey). She erases him and the fact that she ever loved him from her memory. Technically, it is explained to us in a friendly voice by a scientist, which means "Brain Damage". The brain is the author Charlie Kaufman's favourite area, whose previous escapades look like pure realism if you compare them to this insane love story. Here the story is radically wound up and unwound and in turn completely redefined. The nice thing is that we feel with the characters, even if they get lost in the middle of nowhere, i.e. run completely off track. It would almost be a fraud to return the whole thing to a chronology: In the beginning there are Clementine and Joel lovers - but this love ends badly. Clementine decides to visit Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) to erase the memory of Joel. And Joel? In return, HE erases his memories of YOU. But the character of love is that it makes her forget the bad ending by the beautiful memories of the beginning. We remember the good much better than the bad. That's why at some point during the process Joel thinks about keeping Clementine in memory. That's why he searches for a few thoughts left, somewhere in the depth of his brain - but the process seems relentless. That sounds like a movie you can somehow get to grips with? Completely wrong! The film opens with Joel getting on the train to meet Clementine. But they've never seen each other before! Everything runs here only by instinct and intuition! Somewhere there is something like a shadow, a deja vu. While Gondry's work is now running forward and then back again and with narrative time simply does everything that works (or not), both fragments follow the common acquaintance they had / will have / had (...) Meanwhile again new complications appear in the laboratory of the experiment, which I don't anticipate any further... But Eternal Sunshine is not only able to make big jumps through the narrative time. The film has an emotional centre and that's why it works. While Joel and Clementine go through different stages of romance and reality in the Ping Pong process, one thing remains constant: the human need for love. Against all resistance, man will take this need! It's also true that Joel and Clementine, as different as they may be (he's shy, she's wild), make a beautiful couple. Therefore they will fall in love again, no matter what science offers against it! For Jim Carrey this role was another chance to show himself as a serious actor. He, with his face for everyone, gives a man who is so lonely that for him a fragmentary memory is still better than none at all! Kate Winslet's Clementine is simply his counterpart and he needs her! Charlie Kaufman's mission is to sictimize the human brain. In his first films, the protagonists tried to archive something outside of themselves. In Eternal Sunshine, memories are all we have! If they disappear, we disappear ourselves.