Reviews

For the first half this plays like a german/turkish/kurdish version of The Constant Gardener. A turkish cafe owners kurdish wife is murdered and through the investigation he and we seem to discover her secret double life as a PKK fundraiser. Later on this is shown as a fallacy based on prejudices of the german police investigators, who are not really interested in finding the murderer. If you follow the news, you will know that sort of behavior is rather common in german law enforcement.

What could have been a timely and emotionally powerful story is sadly let down by the film's weak script and especially by the terrible dialog script. I first thought it was the actors, but no it was the wooden things they had to say... unfortunately that destroys much of what the film tries to archive.

Wim Wender does a documentary on famous german artist Anselm Kiefer and like his Pina Bausch documentary in 3D. Unlike "Pina" which really benefited from the 3D, because dance is an art form where space is important, you don't need to watch "Anselm" in 3D.

The first 70 minutes are very impressive shots of Kiefers vast former studio complex at Barjac and of Kiefer artworks. Intercut with contemporary media reports and recreated scene from his childhood (played by Wenders son) and the beginning of his career (played by Kiefers son). All of this is very good, Wenders let's the images convey the connections between work and life and other inspirations. Everything is filmed and staged nicely. But in the last 20 minutes the actor playing childhood Kiefer climbs into Kiefers big 2022 Venice exhibition where the real Kiefer is also present. And what follows is 20 minutes of a visual metaphor so flat and obvious every first semester art film student would be too embarrassed to put that into his film. Do yourself a favor: once St Mark's Square in Venice shows up flee the cinema.

Ps. Last years documenta scandal looks even weirder once you get reminded that Anselm Kiefer started his career with a photo series of him traveling the world and doing Hitler salutes in his father's Wehrmacht uniform. While last year germany's biggest art exhibition was branded as a whole antisemitic because of a single motive within one huge "Where is Wally"-like work.

I grew up a Star Wars fan, but lost any interest when prequel movies came out. I did watch the sequel ones and like those even less, since they basically badly copy the story from the original trilogy. Then came the tv shows and I had little interest in those, I rather to watch a spaghetti western or The Wire then watch their Star Wars copies and the less said about the Book of Bob Fett the better.

But Dave Filoni does seem to understand what makes the original Star Wars formula tick, fantasy. Space. Adventure. And leave some things ambiguous. It is not for nothing that the biggest inspiration for Ahsoka besides Samurai movies is the Lord of the Rings. This show brings Star Wars back to being a fantasy story in space. Sometimes badly written and with some plot holes, but the original trilogy had that as well, even if nobody wants to admit that nowadays.

I have read some reviews that complain about the shows slow start, but I felt like I needed that to settle into the Rebel characters, being only familiar with Ahsoka and Thrawn (and you have to wait quite a while for him to show up) previous. But even by the end these Rebel characters, especially Sabine and Ezra, still felt a bit out of place in story. They kind of feel like kids show characters in a show for much older kids. This becomes even more apparent since they are contrasted by some of the best bad guys & gals we had in Star Wars for a long time Baylan and his apprentice Shin, which chew up every scene they are in. And also of course Thrawn, which I only know from the books and who is very well transplanted onto screen.

This is in no way a perfect show, there is some annoying stuff like people surviving severe light sabre wounds, but it has kept me intrigued and entertained for the entire run. Which is more than I can said about most of the other Star Wars stuff. To my own surprise: Yes, I actually enjoyed a Star Wars show.

I really don't get why people love these films. I mean all they have to do is deliver action scenes and the rest should not be too annoying that it's detrimental to the film. Shouldn't be too hard. Maybe we are spoiled nowadays by stuntmen directed movies like John Wick or the Extraction films but I found the action scenes in this very underwhelming. The Rome car chase is cut in a way that would put Taken to shame (with which I mean it is cut fast & allot). Later there is a scene where Tom Cruise jumps down a balustrade, which cuts to him having already landed. But he seems to be really good at running, if you like scenes of Tom Cruise running this is the film for you. The ending action scene was interesting when I played it in Uncharted 2, seeing someone else playing Tom Cruise through that scene... not so much.

The rest of the film is the same mix of extra pathos and ironic retorts that seem to be standard blend in all Hollywood productions nowadays. They are really sad spies but they still have some funny lines to say. At least Ethan Hunt doesn't have daddy issues, but hey there is always a Part Two for that. Because you could not fit that much great story into one 3 hours movie. Also this film seem to have studied at the Oppenheimer school of how to overwhelm everything with your score music.

I think I'm done with the Mission Impossible films for now.

I start with the good, I like the colour grading. The colours of this movie look very nice. Everything else: not so great. Well all the actors do a decent job, the special effects crew did a decent job most of the time, the deaging in the beginning is actually quite impressive.

Sure, Indiana Jones was always Schlock. But man, this movie is stupid. I'm not a stickler for plot holes or realism in movies, but... why did Mads Mikkelsen not die in the opening, I thought there would be some plot point explaining this, like he touched the real spear of destiny or something and that would also be the reason he didn't age much. No, he just survived getting his head knock off, hitting a pole from a moving train. I mean this is a movies that does not expect us to notice that Indy enters a Casino by night and when he leaves it 20 minutes later it a bright daylight. Because who wants to see a tuk-tuk chase at night.

The climax of all the stupidity is the diving scene, with it's swarm of murder moraines. Because moraines, you know they sort of look like snakes. And we all know Indy hates snakes. Apparently the writers have also never heard of Decompression sickness or depth limits or losing all colours but blue at about 50 meters down or anything else having to do with diving.

I should have listened to myself when I thought I had no interest in watching this...

If been an on and off listener (if I find the guest interesting) of The Treatment for way over a decade by now. So for a long time I've been aware that Elvis Mitchell is a very smart and thoughtful person. When I found out Mitchell did a documentary on Black Cinema I instantly watched it.

The documentary mainly focuses on Blaxploitation movies of the 1970s, basically 1968-76, the introductory bit deals with movies before that time. Killer of Sheep and Symbiopsychotaxiplasm get special non-Blaxploitation mentions. I'm not sure I heard Blaxploitation discussed from an afro-american perspective before, certainly not to this extend. Like most people of my generation I learned of these films first from Tarantino. Who as Mitchell points out here got his start by putting dialogues common in black films into the mouth of his white actors. Which, as much as you might dislike that take, is true. And yes you want so say: But, Samuel L. Jackson... and I tell you: he is not in Reservoir Dogs. Now, is he? He is in this documentary though.

Mitchell make quite a number of other interesting point throughout, highlights some of the forgotten pioneers and gives you a good overview of the film of that time. Unless you are easily offended by black view points and you are interested in movies, this is way worth your time. Does it at times makes points I disagree with. Sure, but I am an adult, I don't need people to agree with me 100% to find it interesting what they have to say. And yes sure it could have talked about more or other movies, but it already crammed a lot into it's run time.

Ps. I read in another review here that is very telling that Sidney Poitier wasn't interviewed for this. No, it isn't. Poitier already quite sick by that time, do your f--ing research. Do you really think Poitier was not aware of the things Mitchell says about his career? I'm a white European and I was aware of them beforehand. Also, if you want to know why Roots isn't discussed, because this is about movies not TV.

Let's get this straight form the start I'm not saying this is a bad movie, I'm saying it is a good movies with some issues. I know Christopher Nolan is the last director in Hollywood who gets a big budget to make original movies, but that doesn't make them automatically great.

Apart from the general current movie problem that movies are unnecessarily too long, my main issue is that the direction often feels what I would call "inelegant". Like someone had learned all the wrong lessons from watching Terrence Malick's movies. The movie bombards you with it's oppressive score and rumbling sound effects for pretty much 3 hours straight, only letting up once when they actually detonate the Trinity bomb. Usually a movies uses this amount of stirring score if it has nothing else going for it, which isn't the case here. You have great actors and awesome cinematography. Why doesn't Nolan rely those a bit more instead of drowning everything with Ludwig Göransson's score. During the Trinity test it becomes very apparent how hollow this approach is. Göransson's score becomes minimal, 2 repeating, increasing faster notes. People run around, a person throws a switch. The score lets up and a person says: "test minus 20 minutes". Yes, all this build up for a person flipping an insignificant switch. And I mean, I know a little history, I know how the Trinity test went, as I guess most people do. So I guess the outcome is not that exciting to me, because I already know what happens.

My other main issue is the female characters in Oppenheimer, which are embarrassingly badly written, like Nolan doesn't know what to do with them. I sort of felt bad for Emily Blunt give how little she gets to do in this movie. Basically looking pissed off and saying: "You got to fight Oppi !". But not to worry they gave her a bad-ass interrogation scene.

Which bring me to my final issue. Which is that Nolan wrote typical Hollywood badass comebacks and moments into this historical movie which at least to me felt sort of out of place.

I haven't quite decided yet if this is a 6 or 7 out of 10. At the moment I feel like it has too many issue to give it higher that a 6, which in my rating translates to "good movie with some issues". Don't hate me but I think I enjoyed the unapologetic Schlock of Tenet more...

On a side note: Gary Oldman is now the only actor who has played an American president and the person blamed for shooting an American president, isn't he?

Vocational school teacher Brasch (Helmut Griem) gets into the crosshair of the west german state security. After one of his pupils commits suicide Brasch finds out that he used to work as an state security informant tasks with spying on his classmates. Soon his handler Körner (Martin Benrath) tries to recruit Brasch. Who not only refuses but also makes this connection public. This leads not only to Körner dismissal but also his own. When Körner meets with Brasch a last time, before vanishing to East Berlin, he gives Brash his state dossier and makes him, through this knowledge, an enemy of the state. Having his flat searched and losing custody of his daughter (Meret Becker in her first acting role) Brash tries to reconcile the situation with Berlin's minister of the interior.

This film perfectly captures the mood in West German in the last seventies, early eighties among the political left. After the police had been given more and more freedoms because of the Baader-Meinhof crimes, in 1972 the so called "Radikalenerlass" was passed. This was a decree prohibiting members of extremist organisations from becoming civil servants or teachers. It lead to the covert inspection of around 3,5 million people in Germany and the firing or non-employment of about 1500 people. The films plot is of course slightly (or not so slightly) exaggerated and dramatised.

Always in the background of this film what was back then considered the spy capital of the world, West-Berlin. Even in the scenes where Brasch is just going sledging with his girlfriend you see the American radar station (or weather station we had to called it back then) in the background.

The movie Armin Mueller-Stahl rather not talk about must on of the weirdest in german film history. Stylistically it borrows from Cinéma vérité and the Nouvelle Vague, content-wise it is a loyal justification of the building of the Berlin wall.

The story is a love triangle between loyal communist electrician Ulli (Mueller-Stahl) and his, corrupted by the west, foster brother Klaus (Ulrich Thein) working as a taxi driver in West Berlin. They both fall in love with postwoman Eva (Kati Székely). Ulli knows the regime is planning to build the wall and that will be the end of Klaus' job, he tries to help him find his place in communist Germany. Klaus gets Eva pregnant, Ulli goes to visit his comrades in Cuba. Upon his return Eva tells him that Klaus wants to flee East Germany. Ulli hinders his escape attempt and gets shot by a border guard. Klaus goes to jail. Once released from hospital Ulli and Eva will bring up the child loyal to the party.

The weird thing is that it tells this extremely communist loyal story, with the means of modern and western film styles. But unlike those films who often feature characters in varying shades of grey, this features purely black and white characters. Klaus is all bad he is lazy, untrustworthy and violent and so of course he can not understand why the wall needs to be build. Ulli is all good and loyal who does not even need to question the betrayal of his foster brother.

Four years later director Frank Vogel had his own films banned in East Germany in the famous 1965 mass ban of East German films. He nonetheless later directed the episode "Materna" in the other more famous Berlin Wall justification movie "Geschichten jener Nacht".

This movie is an early, forgotten example of Germany trying to make more ambitious art house films in the post war period that only produced light comedies, genre films and so called Heimatfilms (rural life love stories). This is the first movie in what would later be called "New German Cinema" with much more successful directors like Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Edgar Reitz or Alexander Kluge. It was released just three month after the »Oberhausener Manifest«, the declaration that Germany will now make more ambitious films and the Father's cinema is dead.

"Das Brot der frühen Jahre" is an adaption Heinrich Böll's novella of the same name, about young washing machine repairman Walter Fendrich. The privation of the post war years has made him a hungry and cold, only interest is having enough to not hunger. Even in the present where, because of his job, he is a prosperous sought-after person. When he is asked to help student Hedwig Muller from his village to settle in the city, he start to consider if another life, if love is possible.

The pretty obvious model for "Das Brot der frühen Jahre" are the European art films from the likes of Alain Resnais or Michelangelo Antonioni. It features the same disjointed, unconventional narrative techniques with an emphasis on the images. Those images by cinematographer Wolf Wirth are the best thing about this movie and are on par with what they tried to archive here. The structure and narration are not. Herbert Vesely tries to lay »Nouveau roman« style a mosaic of memories, reactions, internal dialogues and dialog fragments that are sadly only a pale imitation of his role models and seem a bit forced and repetitive. Main actor is Christian Doermer, who germans will know as Horst Buchholz's young brother in »Die Halbstarken« (Teenage Wolfpack), he does an okay job as Walter Fendrich.

The film premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film festival, because director Vesely was understandably more interested in the opinion of french film critics than german ones. Those panned the film, let's not forget Antonioni's »L'eclisse« ran at the same festival and does this style so much better. Upon returning home it did receive the German Film Award but was soon forgotten. To this day not available on DVD or BluRay. It took decades for Vesely to make a film again and all of those where panned by german critics.

So, not a great film, but interesting one, that is beautiful to look at.

Now, I know very little about League of Legends, I know it is a very popular video game, I know it is a MOBA, although I am not sure what that means, except it has something to do with »lanes«.

I got interested in watching Arcane because the trailer featured a very impressive, sort of painted 3D art style. And the style does hold up, over the nine episodes there are maybe 3 or 4 scenes that are not great looking and that alone is an impressive achievement.

But there is also the plot and character development which is nuanced and very well thought through.

The thing I found a bit lacking are the characters themselves. Stoic Badass with a golden heart, Vi and legally distinct Harley Quinn, Jinx. Everything written around them is good, just the characters themselves are a bit boring. This is true for some of the side characters as well.

In conclusion, yes I'm recommending this. If you like the trailer you will likely like the show. This easily one of the best film/series based on a video game.

(based on season 1)