Change Your Image
Hörnla
Reviews
That's My Bush! (2001)
Sympathy with the President
I won't comment on wether this show is better or worse than the sitcoms it satirizes (I liked it, but it is easy to amuse me). What I found interesting though, is, that although the show is dealing with the current US-president in a disrespectful manner, it generates sympathy with "W" among its viewers. Not only did I find him to be the character to identify with, also my girlfriend remarked that this is the first time she actually found George Bush nice.
If this works, then what the world needs is more "That's my Bush"! Show it to the Iraquis, maybe they will understand America better afterwards.
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
One comment on the accents
I noticed that a lot of commentators here had a problem with Sean Connery's Scottish accent shining through in his performance of the Sovjet submarine- captain. I dare to ask a counterquestion: does anybody know what it sounds like when a Lithuanian is speaking Russian? Frankly, I have no idea whatsoever. Not having had the opportunity yet to watch Red October in the English original version, everybody in it speaks accent-free German anyways to me. :-) (I consider the loss of accents the major flaw of dubbing over here- movies like "Forrest Gump" or "O Brother Where Art Thou'" should in my view be done with a Bavarian accent.) But back to the movie in question. It seems like everybody is sharing one's personal experience here, so I will add mine here. And enough has been said about the many qualitites of the movie, as had been pointed out before.
The Hunt for Red October is a memorable movie experience even to the point that I explained the whole problematic of the cold war to my sister (by then 7 years old) while being a really bad babysitter and watching the movie with her. What can I say- it is still one of her favourites (by the year 2004 she would be allowed to watch it legally in a movie theatre here).
Just to complete my contribution to this forum: 10 points for Red October.
Titanic (1943)
Not as bad as expected
Look out for the scene when Petersen forces his Ex to enter the lifeboat and then guess who watched this movie quite carefully...James Cameron maybe? To put it short, if you are able to substract the propaganda and the resulting errors, it is better than the 1953-US version, especially regarding the special effects. Could anyone check out which ship "doubled" the Titanic? If it really is the "Gustloff" then we have a case of very bitter irony here...
Late Show (1999)
Not brilliant, but absolutely entertaining.
"Late Show" is not the piece of art that "Rossini", Dietl's last movie, was. But I'm not sure if we should feel sorry about this. Maybe a topic like cable-TV deserves to be treated in this loud and aggressive way. This is "Kalkhofes Mattscheibe" for the big screen. But although LS is not a masterpiece, it's funny and its satirical arrows mostly hit the point. It's good comedy treating more than relationships, something seldom produced by German moviemakers.
The acting is surprisingly good. Even Gottschalk manages it this time, although it is no challenge to play oneself. The real discovery of this movie is Harald Schmidt if you consider that overacting was the task given to him. Note: If you hate Schmidt, don't watch this movie, but it's a must for everyone who misses "Schmidteinander". Minor roles were casted and played well, especially Pfaff was superb, transporting a sad and desperate tone into the film. Yasmin Tabatabai presents the evilest looking make-up in a movie I've ever seen. Oh- and a law should maybe be passed that hinders directors from casting their girlfriends.
After all, together with "23" a good start into '99 for German cinema.
PS. Enjoy the opening critics, but don't try to read them.
Starship Troopers (1997)
Funniest Anti-War-Movie ever
Reading the other comments, I seem to have experienced a somehow different movie. First, ST is in fact a Comedy, exaggerating everything you would expect from a splatter and/or war-movie. First it seems threatening, but soon it becomes ridiculous and I think that Verhoeven intended this. Then it's a very entertaining satire, especially for somebody who knows WW-2-outfits and because of the newsreel-scene in the beginning (I hope the original version can provide such an impressive voice as the German synchronisation featuring the legendary voice from "7th sense", a serial of 3-minute propagandas for security on roads during the 80s, by then very popular because of the shown crash-scenes.) Somebody in the audience asked if this movie based on the novel "Fatherland", describing a world after a German-won WW 2, but Verhoeven wanted to show something else, i.e. that war itself has won the world presented in ST. At last, ST is an anti-war-movie. How this idea came to my mind? Well, contrary to (the also excellent) Saving Private Ryan, which presents wars as cruelest possible experience, but sometimes necessary, the war in Starship Troopers is (to an intelligent viewer) absolutely pointless (Seen Armageddon? That's a simple way to get rid of Asteroids!). The sense of the whole military operations is hard to follow, the simple soldiers are presented by the director as almost brain- amputated, played by non-actors like Denise Richards (having apparently just two reasons to get casted, both situated on her chest) and Caspar van Diem; and Earth's elite is totally brutalized, moving towards a niveau of civilization near to the Bug's one.
In the end, Starship Troopers, though many wouldn't believe it, is a movie to recommend even for sophisticated viewers - though they will probably take different impressions home than the popcorn munching "Cool! Guts! Cool! F F N!"-guy sitting next to you.
Forrest Gump (1994)
Stupid is as stupid does. So we do...
First, I'd like to say that this movie is formidably made. Referring to acting, storyline and the astonishing FX I couldn't do more than repeating things other admirers of FG have already said. It's got all in it: comedy, romance and the fuel a movie needs to work: the "I wonder how it'll all end!" that keeps (most of) the audience with this character throughout this quite long film.
I can't agree with the points often critizised about FG. And, honestly, I think that the less subtle the critics are, the more hurt is their U.S. patriotism. First, If you wonder if something is realistic here, you should stop watching movies. One good thing about FG is, that it isn't supposed to be realistic, though it almost convinces you that it is, but it is far too overdone to be so. It is meant to be a fable, like Benigni's "La vita e bella".
"Stupid is as stupid does" is to my mind the key word throughout the movie. Forrest Gump stumbles through world history (though only the United States are shown, but Hollywood usually supposes them to be the world so the movie has to be seen more in general than it's usual critics do) and what he sees makes only sense to a dim-whitted who doesn't let himself get stirred by events: Politicians are shot at(though no one elects better ones), Leutenants seek death in battle, "running as fast as the wind" is regarded as sufficient to get a collegue-degree and somebody who wants to change the world ends up in a terrible mess, having somehow missed the point. So we all do stupid often enough, society does and even America does like the rest of the world. Just Forrest doesn't.(Except towards Jenny, but that's a completely different thing, that's love.)He has only an IQ of 75 but he is the only one who behaves in a way we would like to expect from everyone (though we surely don't want them to talk like that). He has nothing to base his actions upon than his common sense and that shows us how far we've come apart from our ideal of rational behaviour.
In the end one word to those who hated the film for Jenny's death of AIDS which they regarded as punishment,decreed by an reactionary movie: to my mind, Jenny's death is not ideology, it's tragedy, though it also conveys the basic idea of the movie. We won't get a better world by revolutions or drugs, we only achieve it if more people would do like Forrest, even when they have a higher IQ.
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Just one word...
I would like two say just some things about this movie. OK, the story isn't its strength, well it could be although it is taken out of the bible, though some of the scenes very really moving, not just because of some superb animations (especially everything covering the presentation of H2O).
And then there I want to add why I really liked POE: No talking animals. Thank you.
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The one that provides the saga's magic
First,I'd like to add two things. I don't think that the whole Star Wars trilogy is an unique masterpiece, but then ESB belongs to my favourite movies. Why? While Episode 4 needs almost an hour to speed up and Episode 6 puts too much emphasis on little cute furballs, ESB is quite different from them. The atmosphere is dark and desperate, the plot as well as the characters are worked out perfectly in this part. Here we find most of the things which made that huge impact of Star Wars on our culture; John William's Imperial March, the first (and more impressive) appearance of Yoda and of course the legendary lightsaber duel at the end- when I think of Star Wars, it's ESB I remind. So there are two things to say:If you don't know the Saga, watch all three of them in the right order but don't give up after the first one, ESB will probably change your mind if you thought it was too childish. And then, may the force be with George Lucas to make Episode 1 look like Empire Strikes Back.