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House M.D.: Who's Your Daddy? (2006)
Exposition galore
An African-American teenager has hallucinations during a flight. When he learns that the girl didn't have a cardiac arrest, House, about to inject himself with morphine on his day off, goes to work instead.
In the hospital he meets the girl's father, Crandall, an old acquaintance, and immediately suspects that the girl is not really his daughter but is scamming him. However, Crandall refuses a paternity test.
Who's Your Daddy is the worst episode of House at this point, if not the first bad episode ever. First, the patient and her father offer little of interest. Although Crandall calls House "G-man" and they apparently know each other from before, the friendship between them never seems believable. At one point, House claims they were just friends because Crandall had a car back when he was 20. House later tells Wilson that Crandall's then-girlfriend wanted to leave him and Crandall asked House to straighten things out, but instead House had sex with her. Without this backstory, the episode wouldn't be any weaker. T
he relationship between Crandall and his daughter Leona also offers little that is new. Little is made of the premise of a girl pretending someone is her father. The fact that House withholds the negative paternity test in the end and lies to Leona that Crandall is her actual father has no resonance because no dramaturgical significance has ever been established.
Leona is simply uninteresting. Previous House episodes have always established conflicts that the patients have with the outside world and with their parents (or partners, respectively), but that's not really the case this time. Instead, a lot of time and dialogue is needed to establish the backstory. Leona was affected by Katrina in New Orleans and is also the granddaughter of a musician. Neither ultimately has any relevance to the story, but takes time to be established; time that is ultimately missing to weave the supporting characters into the plot. At one point, House hears a recording of the musician, and viewers might expect him to get clues relevant to the case. There was once an episode in Columbo where a musician makes a mistake, which gives Columbo a clue. But this is not the case here. The episode wastes its potential.
Second, the conflicts from the previous episodes are no longer continued. Cameron, Foreman and Chase are relegated to cue givers who help with the diagnosis. In the previous episode, Foreman had a character change as a result of almost dying, and Chase worked in the ER because he needed a break from working with House. This time both are back at it as if nothing had happened. The episode doesn't take any time for either of them at any moment. Wilson is allowed to interpret that House is helping Crandall out of guilt, and apart from that he has nothing new to report.
Only Cuddy's relationship with House is developed further. She wants to be artificially inseminated and asks House to give her injections, which he does in an unusually taciturn and respectful manner. Instead of clinic duty, this time the meeting with a sperm donor offers comic relief, although the humor does not come close to the level of previous episodes.
Third, the episode never challenges House and his abilities. At no point does he cross the boundaries of what is legal, which would alarm Cuddy. He doesn't do anything unethical or immoral that would cause a conflict with Cameron. The patient's father doesn't object to House when he wants to do something dangerous, unusual, or outside the box. The patient does not have to choose between her life and a lie on which her entire life is based. I don't recall her having any dialogue, anyway.
Ultimately, it looks as if the creators of the series didn't really know what to do with the case and therefore placed it between the double episode Euphoria and the season finale. The dynamics between the characters and the medical case don't come into play here, so you can see particularly well how the good episodes of the series work - and this one doesn't.
Tenet (2020)
Christopher Nolan's James Bond (German dub, brief spoilers)
Vor einigen Jahren gab es Gerüchte, Christopher Nolan würde den nächsten James-Bond-Film drehen. Wie ein Spionagefilm von Nolan aussehen würde, stellt er nun in seinem neuen Film zur Schau: Hier gibt es Bond-typische Szenen, in denen der Protagonist, Protagonist, eine Reihe Handlanger ausschaltet, vom Bösewicht zum Essen eingeladen wird (die Figuren sind alle entweder die Guten oder die Bösen), dort einige Szenen im Mission-Impossible-Stil, wo präzise getimte, unmöglich erscheinende Einbrüche gemeistert werden. Das Spionagefilmgenre wird aber mit dem Zeitreisefilm, genauer gesagt Zeitreise-Actionfilm, gemischt, bei der der Bösewicht durch die Zeit reist, um die Menschheit auszulöschen, und die Helden ihm folgen, um ihn aufzuhalten. Besonderes Gimmick bei Nolan: Die Zeitreisenden, die "Inversen", bewegen sich rückwärts durch die Zeit.
Tenet ist ein Film mit den typischen Stärken und Schwächen eines Christopher-Nolan-Films. Die Charaktere bleiben blass und werden kaum charakterisiert, die Beziehungen sind schwach, die Dialoge sind schwach, vor allem, wenn sie allzu philosophisch werden, und der Film ist kitschig, beispielsweise im Verhältnis zwischen dem Bösewicht, Sator, und seiner Frau. Hinzu kommt, dass der Film sich komplizierter macht, als er müsste, indem er viel dialogbasiert und fremdwörterschwer erzählt, sodass man im Kino mal eins, zwei Sekunden überlegen muss, was mit "bitemporaler Zangenbewegung" gemeint ist.
Die Stärke des Films ist aber gewiss seine Originalität. Wenn Inception "Zeitlupe - Der Film" ist, dann ist Tenet "Reverse motion - Der Film". Vor allem die Szenen, in denen Reverse Motion und Forward Motion zusammen im selben Bild sind, sind spannend anzusehen. Außerdem dreht Nolan auf Film und nutzt praktische Effekte statt CGI, was spätestens dann sehr befriedigend anzusehen ist, wenn ein Jet in ein Gebäude kracht.
Leider lässt der Film auch einiges an Potenzial liegen. Es wird etwa das Problem erwähnt, dass eine Person sich selbst auslöscht (oder mit den Worten des Films: "annihiliert"), wenn sich die "lineare" und die "inverse" Version desselben Ichs berühren. Dies passiert im Film keinmal. Auch die Möglichkeit, sich im Fenster der linearen Welt wieder aus der Zeitmaschine herauskommen zu sehen, wenn man dabei ist, in die inverse Welt einzutreten, um zu sehen, ob man Erfolg haben wird bzw. überlebt, wird kaum dramaturgisch genutzt. Man könnte erwarten, eine Figur bekommt dadurch auch einmal zu sehen, nicht nur ob, sondern auch wie sie Erfolg auf der Mission hatte, wie in einer selbsterfüllenden Prophezeiung - solche sind dramaturgisch immer großartig. Und natürlich, was passiert, wenn eine Person sich nicht zurückkehren sieht - geht sie trotzdem das Risiko ein und versucht, ihr Schicksal zu besiegen?
Wenn man, wie etwa in Interstellar, einen großen Twist erwartet, wird man vermutlich enttäuscht sein, denn diesmal bleibt er aus. Ab der Rückkehr der Helden als inverse Zeitreisende zum Flughafen, in den sie vorher eingebrochen sind, könnte man erwarten, dass sie von nun an gegen ihre früheren Schritte aus der Vergangenheit vorgehen, doch nichts derlei. Auch die Beeinflussung zwischen der Vorwärts- und Rückwärts-Zeitabläufe, die Nolan zuzutrauen gewesen wäre, beschränkt sich auf einige wenige Momente. Und dann geht auch noch eine Aufopferung am Ende etwas unter.
Das klingt jetzt alles etwas negativ. Dennoch ist mein erster Eindruck positiv, vor allem, nachdem sein letzter Film mich enttäuscht hat. Nolan erzählt diesmal nämlich auch teilweise auf filmisch interessante Weisen. Wir haben hier die vielleicht beste Nutzung von Reverse Motion in einem Film, eine gut gefilmte Folterszene, bei der ein Zug vor der Kamera entlangfährt und uns nichts sehen und hören lässt, einen brutalen Kampf mit Küchengegenständen und hier und da Narration via Gegenstände statt Erklärdialoge. Leider limitiert Nolan sich selbst durch kitschige Nebenhandlungen, bei denen die einzige Motivation die Wiedervereinigung einer Familie ist - Inception und Interstellar lassen grüßen. Es wäre interessant, zu wissen, wie ein Nolan-Film aussähe, würde er doch bloß Menschen und Emotionen verstehen. Der beste James-Bond-Film des Jahres ist Tenet vermutlich trotzdem.
Experiment in Terror (1962)
Aesthetically top notch, script mediocre
Blake Edwards is an aesthet. The film starts with a beautifully looking title sequence in which a car with glowing lights drives through a dark city which leads to the greatest scene of the movie - the actually fightening first scene. An astmatic gangster tries to terrorize a woman into stealing money for him from the bank. Then, the film shifts its focus to an FBI agent called Ripely. The more and more the film goes on, the more we get to specify who the blackmailer is, the less we fear him. Thus, his experiment in terror fails. The film fails less but could have worked better with a script that focussed more on the terrorozed woman than on the police investigating the case.
The music from Henry Mancini again is one of the best movie soundtracks ever, tho.
Da uomo a uomo (1967)
Good twists and turns in a rather dull Western
A boy witnesses the raping and murdering of his family. 15 years later, he finds a trail and seeks revenge. During this, he meets Lee van Cleef who is after the same gang and they become rivals for who will get his revenge first.
There are three problems with this film:
1) It looks cheap. Compared to the Leone or Corbucci Westerns, Da uomo a uomo does not look well. Also, the directing feels like a self parody at the end, when we get the last 2 flashback shots almost back to back.
2) The dialogue. The dialogue in this is really dull and uninteresting.
3) The protagonist. There is nothing interesting about the protagonist in this film. It just gets worse looking at the protagonist's line delivery - it may be dubbed badly.
But why is it still worth watching? Well. There's Lee van Cleef. There are plenty pf other well-known Italian Western characters in this. Also, the way they develop the plot dramaturgically makes it very interesting and worth watching. If they had better dialogue, we could even speak of a very good script. And then, of course, a Ennio Morricone score. If that doesnt make it worth watching on its own.
Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)
America on its way to Nazi Germany
The US is doomed. With Trump's presidency, it starts its way to totalitarianism and despotism. The Republican Party is lead by a racist demagogue, the Democratic Party is not there anymore for the people. And the people suffer.
Moore draws an almost apocalyptic image of the US of nowadays which can be regarded as an exaggeration. He jumps from topic to topic, covering school shootings and protests for gun control, covering the water crisis in Flint and its corrupt politicians, the election of 2016 and Donald Trump's strange relationship to his daughter Ivanka.
By that, the film is informative. But only to the degree where you suspect its messages being colored through the director's political lenses.
Hitlers Helfer (1996)
"Historytainment" on important Nazis
This "historytainment" TV series is about some of the most important people of Nazi Germany. Because Hitler sells, they included his name in the title, though he sometimes does not even have a connection to the men portrayed (e.g. Mengele).
The show focuses more on entertainment than on being factual and reasonable which it got some criticism for. By that, Prof. Guido Knopp, the man behind the series, managed to get history documentaries into German primetime at one of the country's biggest channels.
TGo those unfamiliar to what is shown, the show is somewhat informative, but also not accurate every time. Instead, the narrator delivers quite suggestive texts and they connect the documental narration to time witnesses who talk about their own life and experiences which are linked to the topic by the same events.
May also be problematic because of linking the crimes of Nazi Germany mostly to Hitler.
Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
One of these popular around 2000's German films
I watched Good Bye Lenin with one misconception: Due to what I heard about it, I expected it to be a comedy - maybe a tragicomedy, maybe a dark comedy, but not a drama with very rare and subtle comedic moments, as it is in reality.
I have two other issues, though: One, I didn't really get to like the characters. It is usually not good if you don't have a connection to the main protagonist or the other important figures. Second, I did not like the directing. The film is shot quite dull, and I think there were other ways to shoot this screenplay.
THese three points - the general lack of humor, the characterizations and the directing - made this film for me not as enjoyable as for many people. Especially for foreigners, this seems to be a good example for a good foreign arthouse film.
Niedrig und Kuhnt - Kommissare ermitteln (2003)
Sarted off well before getting boring
"Niedrig and Kuhnt" has started off as a fun to watch "scripted reality" TV detective show with the always bored and professional Conny Niedrig and her partner at work, the rakishly casual MSV Duisburg fan Bernie Kuhnt.
The episodes usually begin with us getting a crime teased. Then, after the credits, the detectives come to the crime scene and get information from the securing of evidence service. Sometimes, they also send their co-workers there, which are two of these four: Christian, Thomasy, Kathrin and Nina. They usually have a chat with Dr. Malik, their forensic scientist in charge, and the protagonists later meet Dr. Hohlbein, their pathologist, to get the dead body shown. They meet all characters that are relevant to the story, like friends, familiy, and relatives of the crime victim.
After 20 minutes of exposition, usually the well-dressed Dr. Malik came in to tease the final and decicive evidence which he figured out simultanuously to the story with science, and after a commercial break, they confront the delinquent.
For several years, this structure worked, and the show was fun to watch because of the sympathetic character traits of the main protagonists and their chemistry. Then, budget cuts occurred, and the series became more serious, had less humour and character only scenes in it, and thus became dull. It was a low production show and the changes made it far less than uninteresting: useless. Fortunately, the episodes from the show's golden years are still being shown regularly on TV channel Sat1 Gold, currently on Sundays after "Columbo" and another German scripted reality detective show, "Lenßen & Partner".
A worthy slot.
The Death of Stalin (2017)
Grotesque satirical political crime thriller
Staliin dies, and chaos breaks out. The leading men of the Soviet Union now try to get the biggest possible bite of the apple.
There's Malenkov, who fears for his life the one day, after accidentally asking for a companion who has been sent to the Gulag years ago. A few days later, he finds himself in Stalin's position.
There's Beria, the boss of the secret service, now the inofficial leader and most powerful man at the table. A quite unstable position, though,as there's also Krushchev, who will eventually end up as Stalin's successor after the events occur.
The plot is delivered with dark humor, not really trying to dig deep into Soviet history rather than delivering a political satire than from time to times becomes grotesque. The events linked to the main plot are at times truly shocking and dark, yet held humorously by the main plot of Krushchev and Beria intriguing around Malenkov in a political arm wrestling which will put one of them in charge of being the new political leader, and the other one dead.
Lenßen & Partner (2003)
Hilarious
"Lenßen & Partner" is a German scripted reality tv show about a lawyer and his private detectives who work on lower class cases. It is notorious for its low budget and production values, and a lot of it is clichee and stereotypes, but yet it is a hilarious show everyone seems to know.
The show's protagonist is Ingo Lenßen, a lawyer with a special 18th century french fencer's beard and dapper suits. His team consists of two detective couples, one the bullying Christian Storm and Sandra Nitka, the other of the always annoyed and bored Basti Thiele and Katja Hansen. The show is famous for its narrator pointing out the obvious and its titles, such as "The sex-greedy boss".
It is still running weekly after "Columbo" in German TV, so everyone who is out for a good laugh can give it a shot. Special guest is always the early 2000's hightech gadgets they use.
Homo Faber (1991)
Mediocre novel adaptation of what happens to be two thirds of a great novel
From director Volker Schlöndorff comes another novel adaptation that will find its way as quickly as the director's other literature adaptations from the conemas to the classrooms of German schools.
Not only does the film take out some complexity in the parts it shows, but also does it end after roughly two thirds of the story. The story, thus, feels unfinished, and is unfinished.
I don't want to be that guy, yet I recommend reading the book rather than watching the film. It's worth its time much more.
Er ist wieder da (2015)
Painfully bad novel adaptation
"Look who's back" turned out to be a fine novel maybe lacking some in-depth knowledge about Hitler, yet a very interesting idea to portray current Germany through Hitler's eyes in this satire.
The movie, however, fails in adapting the novel adequately. In addition to that, literally every change is bad. One of the emberassing highlights is a scene that parodies (or so?) a famous scene from "Downfall". Its humor fails completely to be funny, and unwillingly funny are the "dramatic" scenes.
An interesting part is there, however, when we get to see documented scenes of Hitler meeting with people from all over the country.
In conclusion, if you're interesting in this topic, I recommend rather reading the novel. It's worth its time more than the 2 hours it would cost you to watch the film adaptation.