I cannot say it is one of the best movies I recently saw, but I can say it is one of the movies I liked best (recently).
May be because I feel personally involved in it, living in the ex DDR (GDR) Republic.
I like to read History, not the one written in books, the one told by ordinary people, living an ordinary life, happening to be more or less in places where history is made.
And I saw that whatever is the frame, the life is similar.
Good or bad, better, sometimes good and sometimes bad.
It is the ordinary life made by ordinary people.
Good people and bad people.
I liked this movie, because it is a fair mirror of unfair events.
Not just one sided right and one sided wrong.
Mostly both sided feelings, including the ones we mostly despise which are oppression, unjustice and arrogance.
From a diamond nothing grows, from manure flowers do.
Watch the clip
It is in German.
Here is the text:
I've got a new one.
Honecker comes into his office,
opens the window, sees the sun, and says...
What's wrong?
Oh, excuse me... I just...
No, carry on, colleague!
No harm in laughing about
the Party Chairman, is there.
I probably know the joke anyway.
Come on, tell us!
Well... Honecker...
I mean, the Comrade General Secretary
sees the sun and says,
- "Good morning, dear sun!"
- More like, "Good morning, dear sun!"
The sun replies, "Good morning, dear Erich!"
And at noon, Erich goes to
the window and says,
"Good day, dear sun!"
The sun replies, "Good day, dear Erich!"
In the evening, Erich says again,
"Good evening, dear sun!"
and the sun doesn't reply.
"Good evening, dear sun... "
"What's wrong?" he asks.
And the sun replies,
"Screw you, I'm in the West now!"
Name?
Rank? Department?
Me?
Stigler.
2nd Lieutenant Axel Stigler. Dept. M.
I don't have to tell you
what this means for your career.
Please, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel,
I was just...
You were just deriding the Party!
That's incitement,
and likely just the tip of the iceberg!
I will report this to the Minister's office.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The secret life of bees
The bees are just the background.
Lily Owens, a 14 year-old girl, is haunted by the memory of her late mother whom she accidentally killed when a child.
But it is more a story as "how we were" of course we being the Americans.
And what they were is not always nice to remember.
But past is something you have to accept and if it is too painful you can always build a wailing wall and put small messages on a piece of paper...
That was not the right or at least a satisfying solution for May.
Lily finds five mothers, Rosaleen a new home, a new name and the right to vote.
T. Ray is a loser from the beginning to the end.
It is the classic example of "when you do not understand your mistakes you are going to repeat them endlessly".
He lost a wife, a daughter and the respect of the others.
Neil is the incarnation of the "American dream", a "negro" who wants to be a lawyer.
We do not know if he will, but we hope...
Lily Owens, a 14 year-old girl, is haunted by the memory of her late mother whom she accidentally killed when a child.
But it is more a story as "how we were" of course we being the Americans.
And what they were is not always nice to remember.
But past is something you have to accept and if it is too painful you can always build a wailing wall and put small messages on a piece of paper...
That was not the right or at least a satisfying solution for May.
Lily finds five mothers, Rosaleen a new home, a new name and the right to vote.
T. Ray is a loser from the beginning to the end.
It is the classic example of "when you do not understand your mistakes you are going to repeat them endlessly".
He lost a wife, a daughter and the respect of the others.
Neil is the incarnation of the "American dream", a "negro" who wants to be a lawyer.
We do not know if he will, but we hope...
Thursday, April 16, 2009
10 surprises for Summer
By now, it’s easy to know what to expect from the summer movie season. There will be a few movies with big robots (Transformers 2, Terminator). There will be at least one superhero movie (Wolverine). At least one Judd Apatow movie (Funny People) and at least one Adam Sandler movie (Funny People, again). Then there will be another movie only produced by Apatow (Year One). Finally, there will be a critically-acclaimed Pixar movie (Up) and, yep, it’s also a Harry Potter year.
Chances are, they won’t all be good. But we’re excited about them anyway, because they deliver everything we want out of summer movies: explosions, laughs, and, well, that’s pretty much it. We’re easily satisfied.
But then there are other movies. Movies that somehow find themselves in the summer season amidst all these blockbusters that just don’t jive with the summer spirit. They’re too serious, too treacly, or too completely, horribly awful. We present to you the top ten summer movies of 2009…that we guarantee will bomb.
Full article
10. Dance Flick (May 22nd)
Does anyone lament the death of the spoof movie? They were on a big roll for a while with the Scary Movies, and then on a smaller-but-still-profitable roll there with Date Movie and Epic Movie, but finally — after the painfully diminishing returns had hit their lowest point with Meet the Spartans — Superhero Movie and Disaster Movie flopped. And it was about time. But apparently the Wayans brothers, who did the first two Scary Movies, never got the memo. So they’re coming out with Dance Flick, and the title is all you need to know. To avoid paying money to see it.
9. Away We Go (June 5th)
Unlike Dance Flick, this is a movie that actually has higher aspirations in mind. In fact, on paper, it sounds terrific: The Office’s beloved John Krasinski and SNL’s undervalued Maya Rudolph team up for a comedy written by author Dave Eggers and directed by American Beauty’s Sam Mendes. It looked good, until we saw the trailer and realized it was so hipster-pretentious that it made us want to claw our eyes out. (No no, it’s deep, see, because he has a beard. And they stare off into space a lot while indie music plays.) Who’s not tired of that?
8. Final Destination: Death Trip 3D (August 28th)
Aren’t animated movies kind of embarrassed that the only other genre embracing 3D is B-grade horror? My Bloody Valentine 3D came out in January, and now we have this, actually the fourth Final Destination movie. (We imagine they were afraid Final Destination 4: Death Trip 3D would’ve been too confusing.)
7. Battle for Terra (May 1st)
Remember Delgo? Delgo was a computer-animated original story that took over $40 million and six years for an unknown independent animation studio to finish. Unfortunately, unknown independent animation studios don’t know much about marketing, so it set the record late last year for the worst per-theater opening weekend of a wide release ever. Battle for Terra, which screened at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival (yeah, it’s been sitting around not getting released for two years) looks like the next Delgo.
6. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (July 17th)
Battle for Terra premiered at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, right? Well, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. It’s been mishandled by the Weinstein Company (which recently gave up the film to Senator Distribution) ever since. Not that that means we want to see it — it looks like the umpteenth crappy horror movie of recent months — but it does have rising star Amber Heard (the chick from Pineapple Express who also just booked a Johnny Depp movie) going for it. Of course, if you’re an Amber Heard fan, just go see The Informers when it comes out later this month; she spends the majority of the movie naked.
5. The Time Traveler’s Wife (August 14th)
We hear “Time Traveler,” we think: hey, time travel, sci-fi, that sounds cool. (Yes, we’re that easy to please.) But then we look at the official still photos from the movie: nothing but Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams staring at each other. Seriously, a bunch of production stills have been released, and that’s all they are. What a lame bait-and-switch. When you drop phrases like “Time Traveler,” we want Lost meets Back to the Future meets Star Trek IV, not a romantic drama!
4. Jennifer’s Body (September 18th)
At first, any movie starring Megan Fox with the word “body” in the title sounds like a winning idea. That is until you find out it’s written by Juno’s precocious one-hit-wonder, Diablo Cody. Not to mention Fox’s topless scene is said to have been cut. And on top of all that, it’s being billed as a “horror-comedy” which is just Hollywood speak for “we have no idea how to market this piece of crap, but we’re sure as hell going to try.” Sorry, Megan - we love you. But this one is going to be one for the sh!tter.
3. The Ugly Truth (July 24th)
At a glance, it looks like a pretty harmless romantic comedy. And we haven’t picked on Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (May 1st), starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner, or When in Rome (August 14th), starring Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel. So why are we complaining about this one? One, because it stars Katherine “I’m such a jerk that I publicly insulted the writers of my own show via not a slip of the tongue but a full-blown official statement” Heigl. And another, because the story seems sexist. Seriously, we know we just made fun of Heigl, but go with us here: she plays a morning show producer who can’t find love because she’s apparently too self-confident and successful — until a chauvinistic correspondent comes along who apparently tames her into falling in love with him. Kind of weird, right?
2. Imagine That (June 12th)
Eddie Murphy scored at the box office with Norbit, then failed badly with Meet Dave. So in a world where Daddy Day Care can gross over $100 million, what will audiences make of his return to family-friendly territory with Imagine That? Hopefully, that it looks like an even blander version of Bedtime Stories.
1. My Sister’s Keeper (June 26th)
Let’s see…My Sister’s Keeper, starring Abigail Breslin and Cameron Diaz, is the story of a girl who was genetically conceived as a bone marrow match for her leukemia-ridden older sister so that she could help her fight the disease via lots of surgeries and blood transfusions, and once she discovers this, takes her parents to court in order to emancipate herself from them. Who knows what happens to the sick sister (actually, we have an idea), but we are sure that we’re never watching this movie in a million years, and for something that sounds this emotionally devastating to be released in the otherwise happy-go-lucky whiz-bang summer season seems like it should be illegal. Just writing that synopsis made us want to crawl in bed for three days and sob.
Chances are, they won’t all be good. But we’re excited about them anyway, because they deliver everything we want out of summer movies: explosions, laughs, and, well, that’s pretty much it. We’re easily satisfied.
But then there are other movies. Movies that somehow find themselves in the summer season amidst all these blockbusters that just don’t jive with the summer spirit. They’re too serious, too treacly, or too completely, horribly awful. We present to you the top ten summer movies of 2009…that we guarantee will bomb.
Full article
10. Dance Flick (May 22nd)
Does anyone lament the death of the spoof movie? They were on a big roll for a while with the Scary Movies, and then on a smaller-but-still-profitable roll there with Date Movie and Epic Movie, but finally — after the painfully diminishing returns had hit their lowest point with Meet the Spartans — Superhero Movie and Disaster Movie flopped. And it was about time. But apparently the Wayans brothers, who did the first two Scary Movies, never got the memo. So they’re coming out with Dance Flick, and the title is all you need to know. To avoid paying money to see it.
9. Away We Go (June 5th)
Unlike Dance Flick, this is a movie that actually has higher aspirations in mind. In fact, on paper, it sounds terrific: The Office’s beloved John Krasinski and SNL’s undervalued Maya Rudolph team up for a comedy written by author Dave Eggers and directed by American Beauty’s Sam Mendes. It looked good, until we saw the trailer and realized it was so hipster-pretentious that it made us want to claw our eyes out. (No no, it’s deep, see, because he has a beard. And they stare off into space a lot while indie music plays.) Who’s not tired of that?
8. Final Destination: Death Trip 3D (August 28th)
Aren’t animated movies kind of embarrassed that the only other genre embracing 3D is B-grade horror? My Bloody Valentine 3D came out in January, and now we have this, actually the fourth Final Destination movie. (We imagine they were afraid Final Destination 4: Death Trip 3D would’ve been too confusing.)
7. Battle for Terra (May 1st)
Remember Delgo? Delgo was a computer-animated original story that took over $40 million and six years for an unknown independent animation studio to finish. Unfortunately, unknown independent animation studios don’t know much about marketing, so it set the record late last year for the worst per-theater opening weekend of a wide release ever. Battle for Terra, which screened at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival (yeah, it’s been sitting around not getting released for two years) looks like the next Delgo.
6. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (July 17th)
Battle for Terra premiered at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, right? Well, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. It’s been mishandled by the Weinstein Company (which recently gave up the film to Senator Distribution) ever since. Not that that means we want to see it — it looks like the umpteenth crappy horror movie of recent months — but it does have rising star Amber Heard (the chick from Pineapple Express who also just booked a Johnny Depp movie) going for it. Of course, if you’re an Amber Heard fan, just go see The Informers when it comes out later this month; she spends the majority of the movie naked.
5. The Time Traveler’s Wife (August 14th)
We hear “Time Traveler,” we think: hey, time travel, sci-fi, that sounds cool. (Yes, we’re that easy to please.) But then we look at the official still photos from the movie: nothing but Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams staring at each other. Seriously, a bunch of production stills have been released, and that’s all they are. What a lame bait-and-switch. When you drop phrases like “Time Traveler,” we want Lost meets Back to the Future meets Star Trek IV, not a romantic drama!
4. Jennifer’s Body (September 18th)
At first, any movie starring Megan Fox with the word “body” in the title sounds like a winning idea. That is until you find out it’s written by Juno’s precocious one-hit-wonder, Diablo Cody. Not to mention Fox’s topless scene is said to have been cut. And on top of all that, it’s being billed as a “horror-comedy” which is just Hollywood speak for “we have no idea how to market this piece of crap, but we’re sure as hell going to try.” Sorry, Megan - we love you. But this one is going to be one for the sh!tter.
3. The Ugly Truth (July 24th)
At a glance, it looks like a pretty harmless romantic comedy. And we haven’t picked on Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (May 1st), starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner, or When in Rome (August 14th), starring Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel. So why are we complaining about this one? One, because it stars Katherine “I’m such a jerk that I publicly insulted the writers of my own show via not a slip of the tongue but a full-blown official statement” Heigl. And another, because the story seems sexist. Seriously, we know we just made fun of Heigl, but go with us here: she plays a morning show producer who can’t find love because she’s apparently too self-confident and successful — until a chauvinistic correspondent comes along who apparently tames her into falling in love with him. Kind of weird, right?
2. Imagine That (June 12th)
Eddie Murphy scored at the box office with Norbit, then failed badly with Meet Dave. So in a world where Daddy Day Care can gross over $100 million, what will audiences make of his return to family-friendly territory with Imagine That? Hopefully, that it looks like an even blander version of Bedtime Stories.
1. My Sister’s Keeper (June 26th)
Let’s see…My Sister’s Keeper, starring Abigail Breslin and Cameron Diaz, is the story of a girl who was genetically conceived as a bone marrow match for her leukemia-ridden older sister so that she could help her fight the disease via lots of surgeries and blood transfusions, and once she discovers this, takes her parents to court in order to emancipate herself from them. Who knows what happens to the sick sister (actually, we have an idea), but we are sure that we’re never watching this movie in a million years, and for something that sounds this emotionally devastating to be released in the otherwise happy-go-lucky whiz-bang summer season seems like it should be illegal. Just writing that synopsis made us want to crawl in bed for three days and sob.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
