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Sei nell'anima (2024)
Good cast and a great soundtrack
When I arrived in Rome the first time, the first thing I did was listening to "Bello E Impossibile" by Gianna Nannini (a song that was mentioned but not featured in the movie, as it was released later). So once I saw that a biopic about this Italian Rock legend is released I was very curious about it. And it was a very interesting movie. Letizia Toni did a great job playing Gianna Nannini and everything is very authentic. However in some moments the movie seems to be rushed. Most of the time we see the development of Gianna Nannini from a bar musician to a superstar, including her hallucinations, with very short flashbacks to her childhood. Unfortunately all is done in a puzzle style so we not often see any background or any deep meanings to the story. Many interesting elements, like her relationship with her friends, her family, her business connections etc. Were done very quickly and abrupt. How did it happen that Gianna became such a rebel as shown in the movie? Why was there so much hate between her and her father? It seems like an element from many different artist biopics that the father doesn't understand what his child feels and what he or she dreams about. All flashbacks, either of her singing lessons, her work in her father's bakery or her recording sessions or writing moments are short and not very deep, which is sad. It could have given us a more inside view into Gianna Nannini's life.
Nevertheless it is an interesting movie which is definitely worth watching, especially due to the great soundtrack and Letizia Toni in action.
Searching (2018)
Don't judge a movie by a crew member name
When I hear the name Timur Bekmambetov, this movie's producer, and his company "Bazelevs" I mostly think of the unnessesarry requel (remake and sequel) of the soviet new year classic "Irony of Destiny", the also commercialized and dated movie series "Yolki" (with which he, apparently, wants to replace classic soviet New Year movies, at least according to reports), "Unfriended", the russian YouTube-styled, badly done remake "Hack the vloggers" etc. And of course "Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter" and the remake of the novel "Ben Hur". So I was very spectical about this movie. But after it was recommended to me I decided to give it a watch. And I was very surprised.
This movie was actually very good. It was not that one-sided like "Unfriended". It has actually a decent story, plot development, good and believable actors and many interesting elements. I especially liked (if you can say it in this way) how some people in the movie are shown, using such tragic event of the disappeared daughter for the own profit or popularity, like a girl who first said that she didn't have much to do with Margot, the missing girl, but suddenly says about how she was her best friend etc., also clickbait articles like "10 reasons why this happened to Margot" etc.
But most importantly it shows how social media or an unlocked account can give you a whole picture of your life, if you see, which sites you visit, whom you have in your friend list in Skype or Social Media (of which some even say: We only met once and that's it. We don't have anything else in common), what you do with online banking and how all of this can connect the dots to find out what you do, who you are, where you were, when and why. Or maybe raise some misconceptions as well, like when the father thinks that a random child, he saw on a website, could be the kidnapper of his daughter. Also it is shown how many people can use disguises on the internet, especially if you on a chat-room-type site and talk about private things. This is actually very good commentary, which also shows how your data can be used in the daily process. And how much people can hide in their real life, which they are not afraid to show off online.
Apparently this is director Aneesh Chaganty's first feature film and he did a very good job with this online thriller. I'm curious about the later projects.
I really enjoyed this movie. If you like, you can check it out as well.
12 stulev (2004)
Is it an attempt of an adaptation or of a parody?
I am a big fan of the great satiric writers Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov, therefore I try to check out adaptations of their work I can find, including this TV movie for the first Russian television and the Ukrainian channel "Inter". But what was it?
According to an interview the filmmakers wanted to bring the young audience to the timeless classics of Ilf and Petrov. Nice thought. But: Good source material and many (also talented) actors don't make a good movie, even if you feature many songs in it, which were even written by the grand-son of one of the greatest composers in Russia, Isaak Dunayevskiy (who wrote also the music to the movie "Tsirk", another Ilf and Petrov adaptation). This movie is basically showing Ilf and Petrov, who don't look anything like their real-life-prototypes, writing the novel and arguing what to do next in the book, while the characters perform it in front of a studio set. And while the first part of the movie more or less follows the original story, in the second part they seemed to be run out of time and desperately tried to put in the rest of the novel as quickly as possible in the left running time, no matter if it fits or not, just to mention it because it is also in the novel. Best example is a chess game on the stage of the Columbus Theater with Bender on stage, who also offers himself as a painter, which in the book are completely different chapters with more plot in-between. Why did they do it? What was the reason behind it?
Considering the fact that everything was shot in a studio (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) and there are no exterior-shots, this movie looks more like a parody of the 1976-adaptation of the novel, which was very long and very detailed and was more of a musical than this one. It seems like the creators just said: Hey, let's play "Adapting '12 chairs' into a movie". This will be a success. And lets add as many actors everyone knows in the Russian-speaking regions as possible." And therefore we have many comedy celebrities in 1920s costumes singing songs. But all these elements don't make a movie.
One good highlight is when Nicolai Fomenko is performing one of the main themes of the movie, his song "Led tronuslya" (The ice is melting), followed by a children march behind him (like in the 1976-version). This is a real ear worm. But the rest is just a "game of adaptation", without the actual satiric idea from the original.
If you want a great adaptation of the "Twelve Chairs", check out Leonid Gaidai's version from 1971. And read the original novel, of course.
But you don't miss anything if you don't see this.
Alice in Wonderland, de musical (2011)
Alice in Wonderland - (mostly) without Alice
It is not a phenomenon that if something is successful others come along who also want to have a piece of that cake. After Disney released Tim Burton's successful adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010, featuring elements from "Alice in Wonderland" and its sequel "Through the looking glass", the less-budget-Benelux-Disney-alike-company "Studio 100" presents us the talented girl group K3 starring in their fourth play "Alice in Wonderland - the musical". The show was announced as the first 3D-Musical ever, meaning the audience in Antwerpen and Den Haag, where the play was showed, were sitting with 3D-glasses, watching the actors on the stage performing in front of a giant screen, with actually decent graphics and some good effects, also on the stage.
Eventhrough the press release announces that this play is based on the famous Lewis Carroll books, this is only very loosely related to the story, featuring less elements from the wonderful stories than in some other Alice-adaptations. OK, they have Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb talking in rhyme, they have a heart king etc., which Tim Burton didn't have in his movie (still he took more care about the source material than here) but a Cheshire Cat or a turtle or Humpty Dumpty from the second book would be nice too.
The plot only features the girls from K3 going to a movie theater after a rainy day to see "Alice in Wonderland - the musical" (how random) and jump into to warn Alice about all the dangers waiting for her in Wonderland. But in Wonderland they don't want to release Alice because (quote White Rabbit named Hestor): "Without Alice there is no fairytale. And without the fairytale there is no cartoon." "And no movie with Johnny Depp?". So they walk around Wonderland, take part of some of the events, meet some characters, like the Mad Hatter and his party, the Catterpillar, the flowers and the once I mentioned here.
Some effects are good, e.g. during the Heartking- and queen song the dancing cards appear on the stage and on the screen and do the same moves as the actors. It looks good.
But I think this project wouldn't be done without the Tim Burton movie. Not only is "a movie with Johnny Depp" mentioned, some of the design and the costumes are very similar to the movie, including the font of the title card. That makes it more like a cash-in of the Disney movie.
And despite the fact that it's called "Alice in Wonderland" the character Alice, who is the main plot point in the play and is named all the time, only receives around 10 minutes of appearing time and appears nearly at the end (being kinda found) before the last two music numbers. Why isn't it called "K3 in Wonderland"? Maybe because there was a K3 concert show with that name in 2003. And K3 took also the most part of the singing. Maybe this is why some of the main actors are playing more roles, like Koen Crucke playing The Mad Hatter in the Act 1 and the Catterpillar in Act 2. Many of the elements are also related to Belgium itself or Studio100, including some of the actors, puns, cultural references. Is it necessary?
In short: this play is kinda fun but not really something we needed. Sure, the songs are nice, and the arrangements are great, Some of the actors have good singing voices and a few lines are funny but: if you want to tell the Alice story, tell the Alice story and don't try to copy existing stuff. The timeless Alice stories have so much potential for new ideas and creativity, but here it is mostly gone.
So if you like catchy music it is worth a seen, but if you want a play which actually tells the story then avoid it.
Schtonk (1992)
Führer Hitler, Fahne Hoch, Führer Heil, Führer's Hund, Führer's Hand, Führer's Haupt, Führer Hauptquartier ...
It was and it is an embarrassing moment for the German magazine "Stern", what happened while dealing with the famous fake "Hitler Diaries" which definitely brought them fame but from a different site. Such a disaster deserves a movie based upon it, describing the creation, the quotes and the medial attention to Hitler's diaries, which later were discovered as a grotesque fake. And here we have it.
In a small charming reference to the genius and timeless Charlie Chaplin satire we got a movie that is based on the famous fake of the 80s in which went out into the world. As it is a satire of the actual events the characters are a bit different than in real life. Maybe a few extra situations were included. But this makes it even more funny.
This movie is starring some famous German actors e.g. Uwe Ochsenknecht, Götz George, Ulrich Mühe, Armin Rohde, Harald Juhnke, Veronika Ferres etc. And they all do a great performance in portraying their characters, especially Ochsenknecht as the faker Fritz Knobel/Konrad Kujau who looks more like Hitler himself during the process (I write his handwriting better than my own) and George as the journalist Hermann Willié/Gerd Heidemann who becomes more crazy about the diaries and everything about Hitler that he is willing to do everything, just for a good story and is even willing to buy a bunch of burned book pages and underwear which is sold to him as the ash of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. And even hopes to find the real Hitler alive.
The story is told with many actual details including the famous FH on the diary's cover, instead of AH (for Adolf Hitler), also including the editors' ideas for the meaning of FH, actual quotes, the press conference with the diaries and many more.
Another interesting fact is that this movie not only features a lot of music from the Third Reich (the great Zarah Leander) or related music (Richard Wagner), it also features people who were related to the Third Reich, like Karl Schönböck who was in some Nazi Propaganda movies, like in 1943's "Titanic". Also Götz George's father Heinrich was the biggest actor in the 30s and 40s, starring in the biggest Nazi (propaganda) movies.
Later I also saw the British TV-series "Selling Hitler", which is based on the same events, but features the actual names of the real people and companies. It was also a very good one but it plays in a completely different league than "Schtonk", not only is it longer and gives a more detailed description of the events. But in this movie the directors were more concentrated on describing the story from the German site. So you can't compare these two at all.
I can definitely recommend this movie. It's an entertaining and funny movie, which can be seen again and again.
Pinky und der Millionenmops (2001)
Nice movie for children, nothing spectacular
"Pinky and the million pug" is a 2001-movie, directed by Stefan Lukschy, and very loosely based on the 80s children book from the GDR "Detektiv Pinky" by Gert Prokop. The original book contains ten stories, about a young orphan boy, who is nicknamed "Pinky" after the American detective Allan Pinkerton. The boy wants to be a detective himself like Pinkerton and is helping rich people in his town with different cases with success, which are charged with small treats for himself and his friends and an animal donation to the local zoo. Pinky and his friends live originally in the a fictitious town Kittsbirgh, NY. In the stories are a few puns to society, like asking a democrat if he's always telling the truth in his speeches and if he will donate an elephant to the zoo.
This movie is transporting the characters to a unnamed town (Leipzig) in Germany in the years 2000/1. This movie features two new stories and only the main characters from the source are included, which are Pinky, his friend (nicknamed as Monster), a new orphan girl named Diana (nicknamed Princess, a reference to Princess Diana of Wales, in the original book she's called Marie-Antoinette), their new parents nicknamed as Blindworm (their mother) and Punk (their father, he was Potter in the original book, cause of their surname, in the movie they are called Pommer). Also there is the multi-millionaire Jonathan Morgan. Also Inspector Columbus is similar to Captain Henderson from the book. Most of the other characters like Morgan's dog, Arnold the pug, his nephews, Frank and Phillip Fräser, who just want to inherit his money, his financial adviser Dr. Webster, his maid Leontine, Pinky's foster brothers Wumm and Peng, two characters who don't have much screen time, etc. are new in the movie. But to be fair: Mostly every story in the book features episodic characters.
In the plot Morgan, dressed as a bum, is stealing DM 2,20 from Pinky while spying on his employees in a restaurant. Pinky followed him and found him. They meet and Morgan asks him if he wants a real case, since he wants to be a detective. His first task is to find him in his shop, disguised, which he can do. Then he gets his first case, in which he has to find the shop robber, who is stealing a lot of things. If he is successful he gets money and a party for his friends. And he will get another case later.
The stories are mostly not from the book (the first story is based on chapter 2 called "At night all cats are grey", but there are a few direct quotes from the book and direkt references to the book, like a scene, where Pinky acts smoking or an adoption at the end of the movie, when Morgan decided to adopt Pinky with all he's got (so he took all his friends, nice ending), however in the original book Monster got adopted by another character.
I myself was able to watch them filming a scene as a child, as I was in Leipzig back then. There I met Lukschy, I saw Morgan/Hans Clarin, more knows as the voice of Pumuckl, an easy looking Jamie Krsto and a few others. It was very nice, Stefan Lukschy showed me the set, explained everything and many years later I found this movie again and decided to see it and to read the book. Well, it is a children crime movie, so you can't expect big action or exact faithful description of criminal service workers, which is also not really featured here. Even if it is for children, it seems like the original book even had a bit more action than this movie.
The movie is a nice try adapting this book, whom not everyone may know. Many nice places in Leipzig can be seen, like the famous Auerbachs Keller, the old city hall, Leipzig City etc. The actors mostly give good performances in their roles, but it is nothing spectacular. You can make more stories or characterization of the characters. Also a few puns or critic to the society could be added too, as it was also added in the original book. It's a nice movie you can watch but it's not a masterpiece, which probably not supposed to be. So for children the movie is quite OK.
Im weißen Rössl - Wehe Du singst! (2013)
A funny way of looking at a classic operetta
"The White Horse Inn" (Im weißen Rössl') is an operetta from 1930, written by Hans Müller and Erik Charell with the songs by Robert Gilbert and Ralph Benatzky a.o., based on the same-name-play by Oskar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg from the 1910s. Set in the real existing hotel "The White Horse Inn" in St. Wolfgang at the Lake Wolgangsee, Salzkammergut, Higher Austria, it tells the story of Leopold Brandmeyer, the head waiter in the hotel, who is in love with his boss, the "Rösslwirtin" Maria Gabriella Josepha Voglhuber who inherited the hotel from her husband. Josepha however is not interested in Leopold and is in love with her favorite customer Dr. Otto Siedler, a lawyer from Berlin, who comes every summer to the hotel. This year also Wilhelm Giesecke is also here, with his daughter Ottilie. However he's not happy about it as Otto Siedler is here, who is in fact the lawyer of a process enemy of Giesecke, Mr. Sülzheimer, who apparently stole a patent from Giesecke. And during the process the characters try either to avoid each other or to try to convince the other, which is pretty entertaining. The play has been adapted into various plays and movies all over the world, including the stage version from 2008 starring Rainhard Fendrich as Leopold and Klaus Eberhartiner as Sigismund or the movie from 1960 starring Peter Alexander as Leopold and Gunther Phillip as Sigismund.
"Im weißen Rössl - Wehe du singst!" (In the White Horse Inn - Don't you dare singing) from 2013, starring Diana Amft, Fritz Karl, Tobias Licht, Edita Malovcic a.o. is a loose adaptation of the original play, which in this case is not a bad idea. In fact, it differers not only from the play but also from all the other movie adaptations of the play and the songs all get great new arrangements. While the original is set in the 1910s, this movie transfers the story to modern times which of course makes the characters from the play differently than the once from the source material and it barely follows the original plot. Here Ottilie, a 29-year-old working woman is the main character. Her boyfriend and colleague Nobbe invited her to the restaurant. However she was disappointed that it's not a proposal. Instead she got a text message from him that he breaks up with her, while sitting in front of her in the restaurant. The same day Ottilies father Wilhelm arrives and wants to take her to the "White Horse Inn" to put his wife's urn in the mountains, away from the city, also because he promised it to her in life. He convinced Ottilie and they are off to Austria. After they enter Salzkammergut the grey world suddenly becomes colorful and on the way she almost hits Otto Siedler who was repairing a flat motorcycle tire on the street and was falling of a cliff. After he easily climbs back up, they talk: Ottilie: "Excuse me, but have you ...;" - Siedler: "(interrupts) ... got nothing better to do than repair my motorcycle on the street? You're so right, miss. If you had hit me right now, I would never forgive myself."
After arriving at the White Horse Inn and Ottilie is declining all the singing, dancing and Otto's flirting, she meets the head waiter Leopold, who is in love with Rösslwirtin Josepha but can't get her cause of Otto Siedler. The two come closer and try learn from each other about love.
The movie is described as an operetta adaptation, but to me it looks more like a parody of it, a good one. Many songs from the play are also spread through the movie as samples or in the background, like "Und als Der Herrgott Mai gemacht", played in a scene where Leopold and Ottilie get drunk from their love sickness. Some musical numbers have some fair of Bollywood, also in the movie, with less violence. This movie also features many humorous puns on German "Schlagermovies", as they are produced since the 50s until today, with many clichés, like the dark rainy city and jolly countryside of Salzkammergut, which is always sunny, has a DOUBLE rainbow, birds fly in shapes of hearts, everybody is happy (Leopold: Everybody sings here) and is in love within 12 hours including getting marriage proposals, without knowing anything about each other. Also there are charming lines like "Your nasal wings flatter my fingers tips. Both are elegantly curved, like tiny Olympic trails." or "You stamped over the white Flokati of my soul with dirty walking shoes".
The plot of the source play is barely in it. No reference to patent problems, different juristic issues, no big references to Berlin, which were prominently in the original.
There are also plot holes, which were never explained. E.g. Josepha is always portrayed as a woman who loved Dr. Siedler but during the movie she seems to forgotten it, as in the second half it is never mentioned and suddenly she even likes Leopold. How comes? Is this one of the many secrets of a woman's heart? ;-)
The actors fit their roles perfectly. Especially Diana Amft (Ottilie), Fritz Karl (Leopold) and Edita Malovcic (Josepha) are pretty good in their roles and give the characters a few twist. Especially Fritz Karl, Edita Malovcic and Tobias Licht also give great singing performances. Gregor Bloéb is also good as Sigismund but he is kinda crazy by portraying his character by acting like Austrian singer Falco. Armin Rohde is also good as Wilhelm, but his singing voice is not that good, which also can be heard in the first line of his song, there you can hear that he didn't get the right note, but catches on later.
It is not a perfect movie but an entertaining one, with many memorable moments, a great theme song, wonderful song arrangements, a movie which I would recommend.
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
When the horse doesn't eat cucumber salad
Movies from the first part of the 20th century that are based on actual facts are combine mostly two elements: one of them is good acting full of passion, joy, excitement, real acting. The other are factual inaccuracies. This thing happened to "Rasputin and the Empress", it happened to "Dracula" (well not actual facts but also not really true to the Bram Stoker novel). The same thing you will find also in this emotional movie. Don Ameche is portraying the role of Alexander Graham Bell full of excitement, as a young man who is dying of showing his telephone to the world, he wants to create something new. But has he really done it? Especially movies with great actors like this (Henry Fonda, Don Ameche, Loretta Young, ... ) creating a new world for the audience. So after watching this movie many people actually believe the legend of Alexander Graham Bell actually invented the telephone, even through it's not true. However now everyone knows or should know that Bell has never invented THE telephone neither the words "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you" are the first words ever spoken in a telephone. It was actually Antonio Meucci in 1860 and Phillip Reis in 1861. The last one make the telephone actually work and spoke the first time in history into the telephone. Afterwards in 1862 he has presented it in Edinburgh, where Bell saw this device and was asked by his father Alexander Bell to make this better. Bell did and made himself a name in history. But this all make the story of the telephone in the movie very inaccurate for a man who takes credit for something he hasn't really done. However this is a feature film, not a documentary about the invention of the BELL telephone, about A telephone.
I like also that they are not basically are telling about the telephone but about the love to Mabel, great portrayed by Loretta Young, the vision of a young intelligent man and also how he helps deaf people to talk. These aspects make this movie a very good drama movie, that is also recommendable to watch (especially if you know the truth ;-) ).