FREE ON YOUTUBE Bob Rafelson - Five Easy Pieces 

Try showing Five Easy Pieces at a video night with your girlfriends. This is how your evening will go; with explosive laughter, deep silence and stunned attention. Five Easy Pieces is a film of unusual depth and intensity and presents one of the most unusual characters in the history of cinema. Robert Eroica Dupea, whose name was inspired by Beethoven's symphony. He is embodied by Jack Nicholson, who shortly before became a film star through the New Hollywood movement (after a career of almost ten years in smaller films). Nicholson flourished during the early 70s, playing outsiders, capable of anger, sarcasm, self-pity, but also tenderness. And in Five Easy Pieces he is a revelation! Imagine experiencing such a great film in the cinema in 1970! That was exactly the direction in which the New Hollywood direction was developing! With idiosyncratic characters and dialogue with a sense of the vulgar & literary, with a plot driven by the development of the characters (and always surprising us!) and finally an existential ending. That's how New Hollywood works! In addition to Jack Nicholson, quirky supporting characters also appear, embodied by actors who were all newcomers. Director Bob Rafelson is considered one of the most creative minds of New Hollywood cinema and whoever the camera reminds of Easy Rider - both films were made by Laszlo Kovacs. Nothing is predictable in Five Easy Pieces. The screenplay allows itself deviations and excesses that never disturb but delight us every time. and how many moments went down in the collective memory of cinema? Who could fail to quote the famous Chicken Salad scene, called Geek? After all, the chicken salad scene let Jack Nicholson go from movie star to legend. His Deupea, by the way, is a voluntary outcast. A man who cannot return to his former life. However, he also has no way to move on. Somewhere he is stranded. Stranded between different jobs, ambitions, even social classes. He is a character that does not fit into the film. In no scene does he feel at ease with the people around him. Nowhere is he at home. Always Booby Deupea disappointed others or he didn't perform enough or he misbehaved. During the first half, Bobby works as an oil driller in California. He lives with waitress Rayette Dipesto (Karen Black), whose fear of losing him seems pathetic. At one point he learns from his crazy friend Elton (Billy "Green" Bush) that Rayette is pregnant. When Bobby wonders what he's even doing with crazy Elton in his living cheeks, we wonder how crazy Bobby actually is? Otherwise, we follow Rayette and Bobby and Elton in their blue collar world. At one point Bobby has sex with Betty (Sally Struthers), afraid of bonding with Rayette. But Betty, the ripper, isn't what he's looking for either. And at one point we can see Bobby playing the piano (the piano is on the loading ramp of a truck). He plays frantically, furiously, loudly. And at one point, when he meets his sister and learns that their father has had a stroke, the second half of Five Easy Pieces begins.... Bobby will go to the Washington coast, back to family. He meets Catherine, who asks him, "You have no love for yourself, no love for family, for friends--how can you ask for love?" It sounds like Fellini's 8 1/2, which is exactly the depth of Five Easy Pieces. It involves us in the life of Bobby and his friends. It implicates us in its time and place. We remember Rayette and Bobby because they are fully themselves. Needy, tightly driven and so brave in their loneliness! Once you've seen Five Easy Pieces, you'll find it hard to go back to the netflix agenda. 

Black Comedies Pt. II incl. FREE STREAMS 

Most certainly, London's Ealing Studios, which produced a series of black comedies such as Ladykillers during the 1950s, are considered non plus ultra: their series of inspired cheap comedies (which they made in series) thrived on the contrast of nefarious machinations and restrained, almost apologetic behavior. Indeed, Ealing Studios' comedies were above all an exercise in restraint.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Oliver Stone - Natural Born Killers 

Natural Born Killers is an indictment of the way we live today. An indictment against our society, which is more interested in scandals or crimes than in anything else. That's why the "heroes" in Oliver Stone's film Mickey and Mallory (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) represent the new All Americans. They are mass murderers who wreak havoc all over America and make sure that everyone knows their names. They are looking for recognition for their crimes. Natural Born Killers is not just about their crimes, however, but also about how they are exploited by the media to entertain us. We - the public - are supposed to be electrified and exhilarated. Natural Born Killers is about this emptiness, this moral void. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis are able to convey this amorality, this contempt for the human condition (and they are also very scary). At one point, a lawman tries to intimidate Mallory. He throws his cigarette on the ground, she puts it out. With her bare foot. But as described, it's not just about the two killers, it's about the media's lust for their atrocities. Mickey and Mallory are the most famous people in America. Superstars! They print T-shirts and found fan clubs. A particularly bloodthirsty journalist (Robert Downey Jr.) wants to hug them constantly because of it. Likewise, Mickey and Mallory's lawyers react enthusiastically to taking on such a famous case. A touch of hell that excites America. In fact, though, Natural Born Killers is much less violent than I remembered it. The film pushes the pace and uses various visual gimmicks that were hip in the 90s. The basic framework is the satire of screenwriter Quentin Tarantino, whose early work is marked by road movies with killing lovers (Natural Born Killers or True Romance). Oliver Stone adds his breakneck cuts and hyperactive camera. Sometimes the film runs in black and white, then in garish colors, sometimes in 35mm, then in Super 8, sometimes animation, sometimes newsreel, etc. etc. But probably Oliver Stone was right to present his material in such a way as to properly stir up the good culture bourgeois. He hit a nerve and succeeded in making a wonderful production. Seeing Natural Born Killers today, however, is less about the images than the message. Tarantino's script distorts the world into a single cesspool of sin. And everyone is horny for sin! It is a murderous satire of violence and crime. Many murderers were abused as children, so Mallory's horrible childhood (with comedian Rodney Dangerfield as the horrible father) is also shown. Mallory's father is nothing more than a drunken pig who humiliates his wife while groping their daughter. We experience all of this like a sitcom with recorded laughs because, after all, everything is funny to a live audience. And the brutal prison guard (Tommy Lee Jones) also enjoys his appearance on TV, where he is allowed to show off his prison like a modern slave plantation. And the bloodthirsty reporters? They think they're immune to Mickey and Mallory's violence because, after all, they're holding the camera.... So it's not enough to see Natural Born Killer once. Only the second time do you go to the level of content behind all the flash of the camera. Because we are all fascinated by such violence. Finally, a topic where everyone can have a say! We're no longer repulsed by violence, but are thinking about how to present it in an entertaining way.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Aki Kaurismäki - Le Havre  

Here comes the sunniest film by Aki Kaurismäki, who is not exactly known for feelgood movies. His world is usually populated by gloomy losers. Kaurismäki's loners fail at usually hopeless endeavors and their hopes are dashed by cold and uncaring society. Sounds bleak? And yet you can be sure that Kaurismäki was secretly grinning while making it. Le Havre, however, is set in the south, on the French Mediterranean coast. There, in a port city, illegal immigrants from Africa land. They arrive in containers, which are discovered by the police. Only one little boy escapes. His name is Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) from Gabon, shy, sympathetic and clever. Meanwhile, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) is fishing nearby on the jetty - when he sees the boy standing in the water up to his waist, gesturing to him. Marcel returns, leaves some food. The next day, it's gone. Marcel has no plan, but he takes on the task of protecting the boy from being arrested. Around Marcel there are several other characters, all of whom are workers. And in Kaurismäki's world, these workers are on the side of the boy, not the police. Marcel's wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) supports him and even his dog. Furthermore, the grocer, Marcel's shoe shiner colleague and even a local rock star help. Marcel and Arletty have been together forever and love each other like the first day. They remained childless, but now they have the boy. A very French motif is the snoop from whom Idrissa must be hidden (many will remember WWII and the Resistance). But Idrissa is always smarter and faster, rushing from hiding place to hiding place (you know those French comedies of the 50s? Something like that). Le Havre is as endearing as a silent movie comedy. It's set in a world that seems cruel and heartless. But look at all Marcel does to find Idrissa's father in the refugee camp! Or what he does to raise money so the boy can go to England to be with his mother! By the way, Le Havre is one of those films that I call secret children's films. Nothing is cynical or cheap (looking for effects), but it sees the world with a clear eye. A film that simply gives us a good feeling!