Reviews

For years I've been running around in countless music stores searching for a record of that fantastic composer Van den Budenmayer, maybe even the actual record Valentine bought for the old judge in "Red". Only after reading the credits here at IMDB, I discovered that the name is just an alter ego for Zbigniew Preisner, who is also in charge of the musical score in some of Kieslowski's other films. Nevertheless, it is still great music that supports the story told by the movie very well.

...isn't it? But Billy Crystal still does great screenplaying. Keeping his sardonic smile, even when it's his task to bury his late father side by side with his World War-II-comrades. Also a great piece of moviemaking: Billy sending Kareem Abdul-Jabbaar off the court during his farewell match.

I like watching this film every time they repeat it on TV, because I can't stop counting the dozens of references to "Casablanca".

My favourite is without doubt the final - guess what? - airport scene, where Isabella Rossellini (Elsa, err, Ingrid Bergman's daughter!) gets on board the propeller-engined plane, this time (surprise, surprise!) with the aging American and leaving behind the boring spy-guy, who is (dramatic change of scriptbook) not Czech, but British.

Graf's masterpiece is a rare example of German moviemakers' capabilities to produce real action stuff. Engaging a top cast of young German actresses and actors, he made a thrilling movie about secret agents, politicians and - yes - even some erotics.

This miniseries has been broadcast only once on German TV, but a piece of it had been used by TV years in advance. The frightening scene where Mr and Mrs Lustig discover that the Martian pretending to be their long-lost son might not be David Lustig, but actually some stranger knowing almost everything about them, had been used by ZDF, the Second German Television station, to promote the possibilities of stereo TV. To demonstrate how to use two-channel sound, they first showed the scene where the suspicious Mr Lustig asks: "You are not David, but who ARE you? Tell me who you are!", then repeated the same scene in German sync: "Du bist nicht David, aber irgendwer bist Du. Sag mir, wer Du bist!" ZDF repeated this broadcast EVERY WEEKDAY at 13:30 for about 2 years, AND I LOVED TO WATCH IT!