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Es gibt keinen besseren Film über das Leben am Campus als The Wonder Boys von Curtis Hanson. Der Film hat verstanden, dass die Studenten kommen und gehen, der Campus aber tatsächlich dort LEBT. Dabei ist es möglich, dass Fakultäts-Mitglieder jahrzehntelang im Modus Doktorand stecken bleiben - solche wie Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas). Douglas spielt dieses 50jährige Wunderkind, dessen beste Zeit längst vorbei ist ruhig und zurückhaltend, ja staunend. Vor sieben Jahren schrieb der Englisch Lehrer einen Roman, doch seitdem leidet er unter einer Schreib Blockade. The Wonder Boys begleitet ihn nun während eines Literatur Festivals auf dem Campus von Pittsburgh. Seine Frau, die ihn gerade verlassen hat, sehen wir nie. Sein Vater Walter Gaskell (Richard Thomas) ist Leiter des Fach Bereichs. Und Walters Frau Sara (Frances McDormand) ist die Chefin schlicht und ergreifend. Der Lektor Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.) aus New York erscheint, fragt sich, wo Gradys Skript bleibt. Zwei von Gradys Studenten beschäftigen ihn besonders: James Leer (Tobey Maguire), der einen Roman verfasst hat. Dann noch seine Untermieterin Hannah Green (Katie Holmes), die auch gern das Bett mit ihm teilen würde. Doch Grady ist müde und immer bekifft. Keine dieser Figuren ist ihm wirklich wichtig. So funktioniert diese Screwball Comedy, die aber im Tempo so verlangsamt wurde, dass sie dem normalen Leben angeglichen ist. Natürlich gibts jede Menge Verwirrungen und Missgeschicke, doch das nervt nie, da The Wonder Boys wie beschrieben immer einen ruhigen Beat hält. Offensichtliche Höhepunkte werden nur kurz gestreift und Sex ist in The Wonder Boys eh nur Zeitvertreib. Curtis Hanson, nachdem er in L.A. Confidential den Spuren des Film Noir folgt, wiederholt dieses Experiment mit seiner Screwball Komödie, die genauso witzig wie berührend ist - und ein paar schöne Monroe links bereit hält. In erster Linie aber geht es hier um die Menschen. Könnte ein Wochenende auf einem echten Campus ähnlich verlaufen? Na klar, wenn du bedenkst, wie theatralisch Autoren ihr Leben angehen!

Brigitte Bardot 

At some point, Brigitte Bardot decided to give up her prestigious career as an actress and singer to devote herself exclusively to animal welfare. In fact, her last entry as an actress on IMDb is from 1973. She rose to fame in 1956 with the film And God Created Woman, directed by her husband Roger Vadim. Thanks to this production, she played the nymph for two decades. But then BB began to get involved in politics. She supported animal rights and provoked controversy with statements about minorities. And then Bardot also became involved with the Front National, which led to a series of convictions. Racial hatred and animal welfare. She was born in 1934 into a wealthy Catholic family. She was a dancer and appeared on the cover of Elle at the age of 15. She met Roger Vadim at an audition and married him. She was 18 at the time. Bardot played a number of supporting roles throughout the 1950s until she became world famous as an uninhibited teenager in Saint Tropez. She became an icon overnight, inspiring John Lennon and even Simone de Beauvoir, who wrote her famous essay on the Lolita syndrome: Bardot as France's first emancipated woman. This was followed by films such as La Verite by Henri George Clouzot, Le Mepris by Godard and Viva Maria by Louis Malle. And Bardot began to sing: ‘Je T'Aime ... Moi Non Plus’ by Serge Gainsbourg – with whom she had begun an extramarital affair. Then fame began to get on her nerves and she broke off what she had never been prepared for. Her life as a star. 

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You can understand what ‘capraesque’ means very well in this optimistic comedy by Frank Capra from 1936, when a small-town citizen (Gary Cooper) inherits 40 million dollars and has to stand up to capitalists and city dwellers. Charming contemporaries who try to deceive and rob him and have him committed to an institution. Frank Capra tells this story seriously and sincerely. There is no need for artificial laughter; instead, we empathise with the hero. That's what ‘capraesque’ means. It all starts with a car accident. Deeds, who has always wanted to rescue a woman in distress, saves HER and falls in love at first sight. Unfortunately, he has no idea that his beloved is actually the reporter Louise ‘Babe’ Bennett (Jean Arthur)... She writes an article about Deeds that makes his life difficult and makes him look ridiculous. Deeds has a big, far too big heart. He wants to help people. He is constantly thinking about using his money for this purpose. He changes other people's lives (because we are in the middle of the Great Depression), but his own life also changes. He does what makes him happy. And Deeds changes our lives too! Ultimately, he convinces us that we are quite similar to him. He wants us to lead colourful, creative lives full of surprises – just like him – and the best way to do that is to think of other people. 

Rob Reiner 

As the world focused on the anti-Semitic murders in Australia during Hanukkah, the deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife almost went unnoticed. Two bodies were found in Rob Reiner's home in Los Angeles, matching the age and build of the director and his wife Michelle Singer. Rumours quickly spread on the internet, but people began sharing clips and quotes from Rob Reiner's films. Art did everything it could to overcome the tragedy. 

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What a huge success in our video store! How long and how often Garden State has been awarded over and over again! Andrew Largeman, the hero from Garden State, seems schizophrenic. He lies flat on his back in his bed in an almost unfurnished room. Only the answering machine is running. It's his father who tells Andrew that his mother drowned in the bathtub. Andrew stands up and takes a look into his medicine cabinet, where - perfectly arranged! - different doses of sedatives lined up. We learn that Andrew is a would-be actor who once appeared somewhere in a production for cable television. He works in a Vietnamese restaurant and hasn't been home in New Jersey in nine years. The moment he leaves his pills behind to board the plane home to New Jersey, his life starts moving again for the first time in nine years... Garden State was written and directed by Zach Braff. Braff also plays Andrew, whom I would describe as at least dubious. At home he meets his father Gideon (Ian Holm), extremely dry and distant. Gideon is a psychiatrist and is convinced that Andrew will only like himself again then, "until you forgive yourself for what you did to your mother." Gideon blames Andrew for pushing his mother, for falling over the dishwasher and being paralyzed ever since. Andrew finds that he was just a little boy when that happened. The dishwasher was loosely locked and that in turn is the fault of the father, who had not taken care of it! Andrew's new life begins when he recognizes the gravediggers at his mother's grave. They're old friends from school. Soon he will be full of amphetamines and spin the bottle at a party. And very soon he will fall in love with Sam (Natalie Portman), who is just as strange. Sam's a girl from New Jersey and one of those characters that just shows up at the movies, right? She is DA for Andrew - always and at any time! Full of desire and she really wants it. Sam looks as beautiful as Natalie Portman, but apart from a few kind qualities we don't learn much about her. Then there's Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), Andrew's schoolmate, who lives in the shallows of nature in New Jersey (and isn't that a world like Oz?) Mark is a stoner with funny friends like this couple living on a raise in the middle of a quarry. Andrew wakes slowly from a long, blunt nothing. He tries to talk to his father and to understand his feelings. A huge puzzle lies in front of him and nobody represents it better than Sam. What's he gonna do with her now? After all, Andrew has kept his romantic feelings to himself since his first girlfriend (when he was a boy)! I've always compared Garden State to The_Graduate, especially because both heroes are so passive. Compared to everything that penetrates them from the outside, they react almost motionless - and Garden State also offers a song by Simon & Garfunkel! But The_Graduate takes a critical look at the world in which Benjamin lives, while Garden State critically questions only Andrew's OWN world. Everyone Andrew meets is harassing him in one way or another. All except Andrew's father, whose hatred is so deep that he prefers to anaesthetise his son (because the pills in Andrew's cupboard were prescribed by Gideon). Garden State is a gentle comedy with great attention to detail. Like when Andrew finds out in L.A. that the faucet at the gas station is still in the tank hole in his car. If that doesn't say anything about the thought world of Andrew Largeman? 

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Hark Bohm ist im Grunde der Erfinder von Jugendfilmen, die so klingen wie Stand By Me. Schon in den 70ern inszenierte er Coming Of Age Filme wie Nordsee ist Mordsee (1976) und Moritz, lieber Moritz (1978). Bohm kam 1939 in Hamburg zur Welt. Ab den späten 60ern trat der Mann mit dem wetter-gegerbten Gesicht als Schauspieler in Erscheinung (sein Bruder Marquard Bohm hatte ihn inspiriert). Er war in Rudolf Thomes Rote Sonne zu sehen (in einem Date mit Uschi Obermeier) und in einer Reihe von Fassbinder Filmen. Darüber hinaus war er Mit-Begründer des Filmverlags der Autoren sowie des Filmfests Hamburg. Für mich ist Hark Bohm aber nicht nur der Erfinder des "Stand By Me" Coming Of Age Films, sondern auch einer der Ersten, die sich des neuen Genres Culture Clash Film annahmen. Das war 1988 und sein Film hiess Yasemin, die Liebesgeschichte einer türkischstämmigen Frau mit einem jungen Draufgängers, verkörpert von Uwe Bohm. Mittlerweile kennen wir das Culture Clash Rezept zu Genüge, 1988 aber war das alles neu. Seine späte Karriere bestritt er zusammen mit Fatih Akin, der Bohm Drehbuch Amrum verfilmte. Ein Hark Bohm Film von Fatih Akin. Zeit für eine Rückschau!

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Nordsee ist Mordsee ist ein Film über den Wunsch, nicht erwachsen zu werden. Und ganz bestimmt das Vorbild für Fatih-Akins "Tschick"! Im Mittelpunkt steht Uwe (Uwe Bohm) aus Hamburg Wilhelmsburg. Einem Arbeiterviertel. Uwes Vater ist Alkoholiker und verprügelt ihn regelmässig. Dafür schikaniert Uwe den Nachbar-Jungen Dschingis. Es kommt zum Kampf, doch Uwe unterliegt. Er wird sich nicht mehr sehen lassen können in seiner Clique. Uwes letzter verbliebender Freund: Dschingis. Denn eigentlich sind sich beide viel ähnlicher als es anfangs schien! Mit Dschingis will er abhauen. Die Jungs bauen sich ein Floss und damit wollen sie zur Nordsee gelangen... Hark Bohm zweiter Film avancierte zu einem Klassiker, der ebenfalls nicht alt werden wollte. Wer kann die Dialoge auswendig? "Gehst du jetzt anschaffen?" - "Nee, ich sonn mich". Aus dem Sozial-Drama wird ein grandioser Abenteuerfilm, ein verträumtes Road Movie. Nordsee ist Mordsee weiss genau, wie 14jährige denken und sprechen. Nordsee ist Mordsee handelt von dem Albtraum, dass sich das Leben anfühlt wie im Gefängnis. Und daraus will man ausbrechen! Oder in den Worten von Udo Lindenberg, der den Film einleitet: "Ich träume oft davon, ein Segelboot zu klau'n und einfach abzuhau'n." P.S. ich habe mich immer gefragt, ob "Stand By Me" oder "Tschick" nicht Remakes von Nordsee ist Mordsee sind?