Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Now you don’t see it, now you don’t
And still don’t, actually, the Berlin Wall, I mean. It’s time for another documentary about an invisible wall that used to be all too visible here a few years back but that was then and this is now so lights, camera and lack of action anyway.
Actress Tilda Swinton will be biking along the same ex-Berlin Wall route she and filmmaker Cynthia Beatt took ten years ago when they filmed the wall that wasn’t there then, either. This Gesamtkunstwerk (total art form) will then be put together in a piece to be called “Cycling the Invisible Frame.”
Whatever. But if I were her I would take it easier on myself and travel along what used to be the Berlin Wall on what used to be a bike – and take a car instead.
“The title refers to the fact that most of the wall has been torn down, though many Germans still speak of an invisible wall in the minds dividing east and west Germany.“
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Beam me up already
I guess they have to premiere these things somewhere (it’s the eleventh one). Might as well be here.
Gee, I had no idea. But, then again, I never do.
“We have never wanted to go to Germany until we got this notice via e-mail this morning. We even checked cheaptickets.com.”
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Fantasy detective Cold War underground spy Manhattan murder mystery thriller
Without the Manhattan part, of course. This is a whole new genre or something. And the plot behind this soon-to-be-aired-made-for-German-TV movie (tonight on SAT1) sounds so bad I bet it’s actually good. I don’t often win bets, though. It’s called Murderers Know No Borders.
It goes like this: There’s a strange series of murders going on in Berlin, the victims get dragged into the city’s U-Bahn tunnels and poisoned there. The main detective dude, his girlfriend to be the next victim of course, gets hit by a subway train while investigating the crimes and knocked into the past (I’ve heard of getting knocked into next week, but this?). And this is not just any past, of course, it’s the 1984 East German GDR Berlin kind of past. And there, where the same types of mysterious murders are taking place, and working together with the nice East German detective Onkel (man) assigned to him, he solves the case (I assume) and finds a way back to the future to save his girlfriend (I assume again) in the nick of time, so-to-speak.
„Mörder und Langeweile kennen keine Grenzen.”
PS: Thanks for the life on mars link, Joe.
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Heidi H.
Monday, February 23, 2009
This film was Baader than the other ones
Or at least that’s what the folks over at the Academy Awards thought about The Baader-Meinhof Complex last night. Movies like this are just too complex for American audiences, I guess. The award for the best foreign film went to some undertaking flick from Japan instead. Nothing complex about that. Go figure.
Bonnie and Clyde bloodbath romance films are OK, I suppose, but it’s difficult for an American to get all hot and bothered about a bunch of confused German post-war revolutionaries, no matter how revolting they are. Better luck next time or something.
„Produzent Bernd Eichinger, Regisseur Uli Edel und nicht zuletzt die Hauptdarsteller Johanna Wokalek, Moritz Bleibtreu und Martina Gedeck mussten in der glamourösen Oscar-Nacht im Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles eine Enttäuschung hinnehmen.“
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
More cinema, more peace
This cinema for peace stuff really works, I guess. Take Leonardo DiCaprio (please). When he was 13 years old he visited Berlin and banged his fists against the Berlin Wall in frustration and desperation and, through this, may have been the one who got the karma going that brought the awful thing down a year and a half later. Of course it could have been somebody else’s karma instead, but that’s hard to say for sure.
And it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we all recognize how peace-loving Hollywood millionaire and international film-making types have, can and will continue to achieve more peace and understanding through their movies (or cinema, if you prefer) much more than bullets, rockets, planes, trains and automobiles ever can and war is over if you want it so that’s why they have this Cinema for Peace (see the dove?) Veranstaltung (event) every year here in Berlin during the Berlinale so people like DiCaprio can stop by and pick up a prize for saving the environment which is pretty much like a peace prize, too. If you stop and think about it, I mean.
“Damals, als die Mauer fiel, war Leonardo DiCaprio gerade mal 15 Jahre alt. Gut anderthalb Jahre zuvor war er zu Besuch in Berlin und hieb mit seinen Fäusten auf das Bauwerk ein.“
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Berlinale starts off with a bank
Or a film about a bank, I should say. It’s the sign of the times or something. I’m with this guy down here (it’s from another film).
Everything in town (im Land Berlin) ist aus den Fugen greaten (is coming apart at the seams). It always does whenever those big Hollywood star types stop by to promote their wares. But, then again, it always does the rest of the time, too.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Anja K.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Hugh Jackman to the rescue…
…of the German Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Ursula von der Leyen last month on the German television program “Wetten, dass..?” (Wanna bet?). What does he have that the other (male?) guests don’t? Nothing, really. Well, not a whole lot more anyway. He just “does” something, that’s all.
