Change Your Image
Zombie-mower
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try again- virtuos style in cinematography and editing - bold and original directing - an unique style, while not compensating missing substance of the story - an end product that can inspire movie lovers and people who love to reflect on what they see - certain philosphical topics that stimulates essential matters of life - mind challenging topics and deep exploring of a certain subjects - subjects that derive from original, elaborate thought process - essential message and conclusion that are relevant for certain social or human psychological issues - acting that exceeds stereotypes - musical score that adds an own dimension to the visual level.
Last but not least, this list is an attempt to motivate cinephiles and people appreciating the potential of the audio visual medium to watch important and challenging movies.
Reviews
Hollywood Gangster (2008)
American gangster movies analyzed by a German journalist
"Hollywood Gangster" by the German director / writer / journalist Eckhart Schmidt is a very interesting and informative documentary about the Amercian gangster movie. It has all the essential stylistic ingredients of a documentary (containing interviews with filmmakers, film analysts and journalists as well as comparisons to the authentic personalities behind the film characters) and provides many film examples using different original footages (strikingly often from the black & white flicks) and stills (mostly in the end from the modern gangster movies - perhaps for economical reasons) to illustrate the chain of arguments and theories. The audience faces many old and forgotten movies like "Little Caesar", Howard Hawks' "Scarface", "Boiling Point" with the special offer to look at the message behind the pictures - which reveals the struggling problems of the society of those times and the ambiguity of the gangster's being, moreover crime as revolution against the system and the dubious law. In the last third of the documentary director Schmidt draws a bow on the modern gangster movies (the prominent ones by De Palma, Coppola, Scorsese), ending with Ridley Scott's "American Gangster".
In the end one gets the impression that movies nowadays are made more visually striking and contain less and less social criticism, as well as losing the subtle message towards society and the romantic idea of being a gangster with its own codex system. Behaving amoral has become not that uncommon as it used to be, one might resume, probably because capitalism, egoistic behavior, profiling and senseless consumption has integrated in our daily routine.
Schlaflos (2006)
a sensitive and gripping film about loss and new hope
At last I had the possibility to watch this movie. And actually I enjoyed the 40 minutes of its running time.
The most gripping feature of this short film was in my case the original idea. As I have myself lately experienced a broken friendship with the girl of my life, I was very touched by the movie's theme. And director / writer Genzel treated the subject with lots of sensitiveness.
One can really feel Ben's pain when he gets the message of the terminated relationship which was sent him on a videotape (as this is how the movie starts). Later in the movie we get to know that bringing a message by videotape is widely regarded to be much personal than writing an email or a letter. Ben sets about to overcome the deep loss and depression he is dropped into. And here Genzel puts in some really clever plot points. For example when Ben meets the lonely traveling singer Peter Engel (which is an apparent reference to "the helping hand" or "your best friend in misery" as his name is translated with angel)and they not only talk about the importance of music but also about Peter's own miserably emerging relationship and how he dealt with it.
In a further scene Ben gets to know a father with his daughter traveling from America to Salzburg (I think it's not a coincidence that the mother stayed at home, 'cause the family is now not united and therefore looking for completion which Ben can give, if only just for some moments). And on this occasion Ben is again confronted with the possibilities of a camera - which can actually transport some really warm and personal messages.
What I strongly missed in "schlaflos" was a solid leading part. Ben, alias Maximillian Simonischek, was not really convincing as a person who is faced with an emotional dead end and appears to be often not engaged enough in his role. He also has lots of problems to show emotions and it is sometimes not that surprising that his girlfriend does miss some diversification in their relation. He is also very hard to identify with. All the more outstanding was Stefan Murr alias Peter Engel. He performed so naturally and effortlessly that one had to love his character. He reminded me very much of Paul Hogan's part in "Almost an Angel" (kind of a coincidence that Peter's name can be seen as a reference not only to his function as "the helping hand" but also to Paul Hogan's great debut in John Cornell's film from 1990).
All in all "schlaflos" is a great narrative film about a very personal subject all of us can identify with (altough not necessarily with the leading actor). And that's why this movie gets straight in one's heart.
For a short film it's a very solid achievement. 6/10
Jud Süß - Ein Film als Verbrechen? (2001)
Very interesting and brings some light into a little known issue
Watching this movie was a very gripping experience. I think the best part was the actors' performance (especially of the accused director Vait Harlan, the prosecutor, the judge and of course of the Goebbels-actor). There are three plots inter-winded together: scenes from the movie (in the year 1940), the happenings in the background of the movie development (1939 - 1943) and the Cort proceedings (in 1949). All three of them were very well filled with information, details from the time and the regime and of course very suspenseful authenticity. Now that it is not possible and definitely not easy for everyone to get the original movie, I think this is a very good opportunity to get an insight in the propaganda movies of the Nazi-time. The special topic in "Jud Süß - Ein Film als Verbrechen?" is the moral issue and the question of the responsibility for one's action. What gave me most initiation for thinking was the problem with art and political statement. Can you do art without being political, or not? And which of these two is more dangerous.
If you liked "The Downfall" you will enjoy this movie. Actually as much an authentic documentary as an entertaining film.
Masters of Horror: Homecoming (2005)
Stay away of this one!
I think this movie lacks so much of substance, it is even not worth a discussion.
In the first, the package is really disgusting. Especially the stereotype filming and photographing. Surely, Joe Dante's cinematic stile was appropriate and interesting in "Gremlins" and "Small Soldiers", I mean the imaginative and visual pretty story telling of a Spielberg-wunderkind (I really loved these movies), but in "Homecoming" it was a completely failure. Attacks of toy soldiers and hairy creatures is simply not comparable with zombie-invasions (dead, stinky, rotten beings trying to kill the living - without any logical reason, just because they hate them).
Zombie flicks are characteristic in plain, direct, unconventional and brutal cinematography. Nothing to be seen in Joe Dante's debut. Another point is the annoying content: really stupid dialogs between the two main characters, a gruesome exploitation of the "elder brother dies and leaves the younger traumatized" and bad acting. And, by the way "Homecoming" is neither scary, nor gory - and even less entertaining. You see, it is even not a horror movie.
Zombie movies in the decade of their birth - it the end of 60s/ start of the 70s - used to be revolutionary, provocative (espicially through its gruesome, explicit content) and of subtle social critic. THE ORIGINAL Zombie film was actually a midnight-movie named "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). This one was a low budget movie that covered so many controversial themes, it's hard to name them all: a visual style of Hitchcock/Raimi, the American lifestyle of the 70s, political aloofness, the upcoming breakthrough of the human rights of black people and the even more upcoming racism as a result on the side of the conservative Americans (remember the shooting of the black main character in the end of the movie).
If you are interested in the creativity of midnight movies and want to learn more about the most important ones, I recommend you "Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream ".
So steer clear of "Homecoming" and even so of Romero's "Land of the Dead".