FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Boys On The Side 

At the very end of Boys On The Side, you see an empty room. And then we remember who was in that room before and how much we grew to love them! This is amazing, because Boys On The Side seems a bit contrived at first and not special at all! It all starts with a typical Meet Cute. Jane (Whoopi Goldberg) is fired from a seedy club in New York. She decides to take her fate into her own hands and move west. Therefore, she answers the ad of Robin (Mary-Louise Parker), who has a car and is looking for a driver. Robin, who is definitely "The whitest human in America"; according to Jane. One whose favorite movie is "The Way We Were." Nonetheless, Jane needs a ride. So they both hit the road and we suspect that now follows one of Whoopi Goldberg's stellar performances in which she gives us lessons in black appreciation. Then they make a stopover in Pittsburgh to visit Jane's friend Holly (Drew Barrymore). One can only wonder; Holly, of all people, whose boyfriend Nick (Billy Wirth) is a paranoid drunk who beats her up? This time it's Robin who calmly intervenes, as if domestic violence is no cause for alarm. Everyone falls silent in astonishment and it gets quiet. But Holly still has to tie Nick to a chair and bring him to heel with a baseball bat before the trio disappears. Three women on their way west. three orriginals and suddenly we are in the movie. We like Jane, Robin and Holly, we want them to be okay! (Sometimes the story that ensures the three are on the run seems a bit contrived, but so be it). What's it about? It's about diving really deep into the lives of Jane, Robin and Holly. What do they think about each other? What do they feel? It quickly becomes clear that Jane is a lesbian. But what does Robin think about it? Does she even realize it? The catalyst in this constellation is Holly with her energy and good humor (but still brooding all the time). It is Holly who welds them all together into a family. She is the secret center of the film and is therefore allowed to fall in love with Arizona police officer Abraham Lincoln (Matthew McConaughey). (And he even takes his name seriously) And the great Whoopi Goldberg? Here, for once, she doesn't waste her talent, but exercises restraint, appearing mature and wise. She never looks for laughs, instead she approaches her character almost genteelly. Boys On The Side is one of the great women's films of the 90s. It's about female bonding, unspoken love, and women on the run. When a video store owner asks me if I have a movie like Fried Green Tomatoes, I answer, "Sure - Boys On The Side." A road movie that shows us how strangers become friends. And from friends to family. It's so hard to get to know someone. But if you succeed, you should be able to ask them anything. You can just talk about anything! That's where Boys On The Side takes us.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE David Holzman's Diary 

L.M. "Kit" Carson of Dallas has died. Who. The actor, filmmaker, producer. A maverick no one could probably get along with. During the New Hollywood era, he made David Holzman's Diary with his friend Jim McBride, the incredibly great remake of Breatless in 1983 that everyone hated. As co-writer, he penned Paris_Texas (his son plays the boy). And he served as mentor for Wes_Anderson's first short film Bottle_Rocket. Enough? So we're dealing with a maverick legend! One who never settled down. David Holzman's Diary is a mockumentary from the fabulous year 1967, a mock documentary about a young filmmaker working for director Jim McBride. Along the way, a new genre is invented here, that of a first-person character study (=the first-person narrator) who delivers his confession here. This form has been copied countless times and serves as an original for video blogs or reality TV. Of course, none of the copycats knows who is actually responsible for the original! Do you know Sidney_Lumet's Running_On_Empty? Carson also stars in this melodrama. He plays a terrorist who stays underground and is shot while on the run. Carson himself also lived a lifetime underground. David Holzman's Diary is not autobiographical, but therapeutic. Carson's David Holzman is so obsessed with making movies that it obscures his view of "real" life. He sees everything through his very own glasses, in which life becomes film material. Between the world and his imagination stands the camera. A kind of buffer. I wonder if Carson was aware of this. He certainly seems to enjoy "real" life! You could say he identified with his own film character and built a world around it. Very sincere, very honest. And very self-confident.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Sophia Coppola - The Virgin Suicides 

Why were the nurses locked up, anyway? But that is the wrong question. They are. More important is the question of how they see the pubescent boys from the neighbourhood. Every teenage girl sees the world pink at some point. She feels like a princess in front of a shining sky. But The Virgin Suicides is told by an adult. He looks back 25 years to Michigan. And he says "we". He speaks for all the boys who also lived in the suburb and looked up to the imprisoned sisters. The title tells us that the girls killed each other. That may be why the customers who rent the DVD from our video store always talk about the girls. But what about the other awkward sex? The "we"? I think The Virgin Suicides is about the "we" - the boys. Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett) is the leader and he is blinded by the most beautiful sister Lux (Kirsten Dunst). Who still remembers the seventh grade: There was always the one couple who already had sex. Here it's Lux and Trip. The next morning she wakes up alone. She's lying on the football field. The end of puberty, the beginning of life. The platonic ideal gives way to the exchange of bodily fluids. Life means disillusionment. Trip does not leave Lux because he is such a pig. He leaves her because his ideal of her had to break. Lux is now real. That's why the girls kill each other. Not because of their horrible parents, but because their dream has fallen apart. Before sex and after sex. The idealism of inexperience. Like in the seventh grade. We were not in love with girls, but with love itself. Of course the mother (Kathleen Turner) is hysterical and makes her beautiful daughters dresses that look like sacks. The father (James Woods), a scientist who prefers to talk about photosynthesis, plays no role. They are bad parents, but not the trigger for suicide. With this, her debut, Sofia Coppola follows the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. She has the courage not to fill the blanks of the original! There is enough room for us in The Virgin Suicides. The girls who live imprisoned at home are adored by the neighbor boys. Then the sex comes along and reveals something brutal and animal. Before, neither the sisters nor the boys existed. Only in their minds. Then they become "adults" = they look for happiness that does not exist.

Coming Of Age incl. FREE STREAMS 

Not fully grown, unfinished, the hero of the coming-of-age film orients himself in the world. He experiences his first love, friendship or despairs of his parents' house. New Hollywood classics like The Graduate, The Last Picture Show or American Graffiti are the models of a search for meaning that is often characterised by laconic humour. Coming of Age films are by no means an American phenomenon, they exist all over the world. They result from the fact of a rapid coming of age to early maturity, although everyday life with work, marriage and children is pushed further and further back. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya 

Teona Strugar Mitevskas film is about violence against women. The weapons: Words and gestures. This is how the conversation between Petrunya (Zorica Nusheva) and her boss works: That her study of history is useless and that she can't even fuck. That's why Petrunya jumps into the water on Epiphany Day and pulls out the holy cross. And only men are allowed to do that! Actually. It should be the beginning of her martyrdom. The film is based on a true event from the north of Macedonia. In fact, a woman grabbed the cross and was chased by a mob mob, as you can read in the Berlinale text on the film. The film doesn't want to portray this incident quietly and subtly, but as a confrontation. Underlaid with heavy metal. We experience a patriarchal society on the level of the Middle Ages. The state is not secular, men and women are unequal. Therefore Petrunya is brought to the police. There they discuss with the priest what should happen now. Hate strikes against her. At the precinct, from her own mother. Petrunya is constantly expected to be attacked. Zorica Nusheva plays this woman as a true heroine, who is not mistakenly heroized here. She does nothing but simply stand up for herself. And what will happen to her in the future? Maybe she will experience a year of happiness like the catcher of the cross is entitled to.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Berlin Mumblecore: Philipp Eichholtz - Liebe Mich 

Eventually I had bar shift in our Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo and a nice man with some beard came in. Philip Eichholz, Berlin Mumblecore director. With her, a girl who seemed kind of prolific. I thought, where did he get it? What does he want with her in a movie? Now I know it: Create a star of the street! How do you do that? Your picture must seem larger than life, as huge as a cinema screen. Sarah (Lilli Meinhardt) fills the whole canvas with her face. She's vulnerable, aggressive and sexual. Sometimes even threatening when she throws a laptop out her ex-boyfriend's closed window. He tried to break up decently or comfortably. Sarah needs drama, though, and that requires items to fly out. Sarah doesn't want to be abandoned, she wants to be loved. It was her own laptop, by the way, so she takes the junk and tries to get it repaired. The nice salesman reacts to Sarah just like I do in the store. In any case, her job as a graphic designer no longer turns into anything, because her data is in the piece of junk. Sarah always stands in her own way. Her father explains to her that this is probably "the solution of a brain amputee" and he is not completely wrong either. Fortunately, Eichholtz does not want to tell us a medical history, but that of a young Berlin woman with great feelings. Everything would be hers, she wants to have a lot of fun here and now! Because she's sexy and young, she always meets new men and destroys everything that's about to happen. Over and over again. Sarah feels lonely, alone or with others. When Eichholtz and his team shot a new film with Lilli Meinhardt in our shop, I noticed that instead of a script only a few sheets of paper were flying around. Meinhardt lay sunken with his head on the bar. Maybe she was asleep, too. Then turn again. Suddenly she seemed present. The camera loves her face. Your story touches us. She touches us. Thanks from here!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Herr Lehmann 

Mr. Lehmann, whose real name is Frank, sleeps little and drinks a lot. He is a bartender at the "Einfall" (the "Einfall", that is the "Madonna" in the Wiener Strasse, which today adorns the postal code 10999 and formerly Kreuzberg 36). Mr. Lehmann is often asked what he does for a living. Mr Lehmann does not understand this. He is a bartender. Yes, but OWNLY; if you ask him again. Barkeeper, actually. I find that very realistic, because many people have completely forgotten the equation from the Tom Cruise film "Cocktail": "A bartender is the aristocrat of the working class." Compared to "Cocktail" the film "Herr Lehmann" knows a lot about bars and also about alcohol. To the outside, the "Einfall" or "Madonna" looks like a run-down drinking hall - but the inmates of the "Einfall" believe they are some kind of bourgeoisie. But at least Mr. Lehmann's best friend Karl (Detlev Buck) ends up in a mental hospital, because his nights became too long after all. For a bartender - the movie knows this, too - it's not easy to find love. Mr. Lehmann falls in love with the beautiful cook Katrin (Katja Danowski), but... Sometime the wall falls. "They're all coming over now", says a drunkard. Mr Lehmann remains unmoved as always: "First drink up". That really happened. All of Berlin was on its feet in 1989, just not Kreuzberg. A few autonomous people went over to occupy a few houses in Mainzer Strasse. But most stay west of the border. And for a few years you could rent apartments here in Reichenberger Str. Actually Kreuzberg has always been a village and what the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't want to know. The most amazing thing about the film (which is based on the novel of the same name by Element Of Crime singer Sven Regener) is the art of turning Kreuzberg 2003 back into Kreuzberg 1989. Many facades had long since been renovated! Kreuzberg 1989 looked no different from the GDR. With coal stoves in the apartments. Kreuzberg 2003 was already a mum's district, where there was even latte macchiato. But I had privately boycotted the film for a long time anyway, because I didn't want the MTV presenter (!!!) Christian Ulmen to play Mr. Lehmann. Today I like him. Even if you see a few beautiful houses with facades in the background...