Change Your Image
svaihingen
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Madonna and the Breakfast Club (2019)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman
Sympathetic portrait of Madonna's early days in New York, based on period recordings, images and video, supplemented by interviews of people who were there and pitch-perfect recreations.
Follow her growth from aspiring dancer at the University of Michigan to struggling dancer/ actress/ drummer/ guitar player and finally lead singer. At each roadblock in her path, she learned new skills, took more responsibility and willed her career forward, despite the doubts of those around her.
Even her biggest detractors should find a greater admiration and respect for her early talent, drive and ambition to transform herself into the pop icon she knew she could be.
Random Acts of Christmas (2019)
Batman, Lois Lane and Secret Santa
A wealthy do-gooder with a wise butler who projects Christmas images in the sky, ala the Bat Signal, and a journalist, ala Lois Lane, who falls for his alias while unknowingly working to expose his true identity as the Secret Santa who has been amazing the citizens of Gotham, no, er um, Chicago. Less compelling story arc than the better Hallmark Christmas movies, and an overly earnest kid actor, but saved by good production values and enfaging performances by the leads and Patrick Duffy and Jacqueline Smith.
Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)
Most boring documentary for a fascinating subject matter ever made
Dull, ponderous, lugubrious, depressing - all perfectly describe the mood, tone and music for this film. How could anyone make a boring, nearly unwatchable documentary about such a fascinating treasure trove of early silent films dug up in the frozen tundra? I don't know, but congratulations to the producers - they succeded.
I guess the producers made the film "silent" as an homage to the lost-and-found silent films that form the subject matter of the film. If only the film had been truly "silent" - instead, it had a soundtrack - perhaps the most tedious, bone-numbingly, soul-crushingly ponderous and depressiong music soundtrack since the Virgin Suicides. But in the Virgin suicides, the depression music matched the subject and theme of the film.
Here, the Klondike miners were off on an adventure, digging for gold during the gay-nineties; the bands were playing upbeat fun-loving music like, "It'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight", "Oh dem Golden Slippers" and "A Bicycle Built for Two." But instead they gave us depressiong minor chord progressions that never go anywhere, with moans and dissonant wind-chime effects thrown in for good measure. Yeah, OK, the few disasters in the story might merit some emotionally appropriate music, but the rest of it might have been a bit more fun.
And as a silent film, without narration, all of the information was crammed into very small titles, briefly flashed on the screen for each clip, but always in a different place. So to know what was going on, you had to follow the moving titles around the screen to read them - which detracted from the ability to watch the clips they were showing. As a result, you had to pick your poison - know what the clips are, or watch the clips - you couldn't do both. And in may parts of the film, the clips come in such rapid succession, you can barely read the title before the clip disappears and then you're left wondering what it looked like.
All in all, a very poorly assembled film and barely watchable. It's worth it if you are interested in Klondike goldrush history or early film history, or rare moving pictures of everyday events and newsworthy events in the early 1900s. But it was presented in such a distasteful package that it was hard to watch.
The producers did use one interesting technique, using the found-footage to illustrate historical events that related to the town where they film was found. However, due to the poor subtitles (see above), it was sometimes difficult to be sure whether the scene was an actual documentary shot from the place or found footage of someplace else from 20 years later that was being used to illustrate someting from history.
Only watch this film if you want to see some interesting early moving pictures - but watch it on DVD or DVR so you cans pause and rewind to know what the heck is going on and where the clips are from.
Good luck.
Breakfast for Two (1937)
Arthur (the Pre-quel) with a twist
Drunken New York playboy with kindly, British butler who cares for him like his son, is tamed by savvy young woman who sees the good in him and saves him from marrying the wrong woman. A wedding is interrupted (twice), his fortune is threatened, and everything turns out well in the end.
The twist here is that the savvy woman who saves the playboy is an heiress herself. When they meet, he does not realize who she is, he just assumes that she is just one more in a long line of party girls who end up sharing a Breakfast for Two with him in his penthouse apartment.
Barbara Stanwyck, a Texas heiress who out painting the town on what was to be her last night in New York before returning to Texas, learns of his financial troubles during their first, magical night together (they actually get "lost between the moon and New York City").
She recognizes his wasted potential and sets out to break him like they would break a horse back in Texas. So she buys his shipping company in an effort to cure him of his poor management, spendthrift habits and the gold-digger fiancé that all threaten to ruin his old, family business.
There is a cute dog, a boxing match, six Hasidim window washers, three weddings, a daffy Justice of the Peace, a couple board meetings, a proxy fight, a receivership hearing and a happy ending.
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Grease is the Word
In this film, Maurice Chevalier plays Danny Zuko, Claudette Colbert plays Rizzo and Miriam Hopkins plays Sandy in a delightful musical comedy in which the square Sandy gets a sexy makeover from a bad-girl Pink Lady and wins the heart of the bad-boy smiling lieutenant of the Thunderbirds.
OK, OK, it's not a perfect analogy, but watch the last few minutes in which Sandy, er, I mean Princess Anna, learns to dress sexy, smoke cigarettes seductively and dance - and tell me it's not, at root, the same story.
The plot develops differently, of course. Prince Niki (a name like Zuko that follows the consonant-vowel-k-consonant format) is a prince and lieutenant, as opposed to the captain of a notorious gang. And it's Rizzo, er Franzi, (both names follow the r-vowel-z-vowel format) who gives Sandy (Princess Anna - if you say it fast, it sounds almost like Princesanndy) her makeover instead Franzi's pal Frenchy. Come to think of it, Claudette Colbert who plays Franzi is a real-life Frenchy, so perhaps the analogy is closer than I first thought.
A great pre-code sexy musical comedy that may, just may, remind you of Grease.
Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin (2008)
Very Bad Movie - Historical Interest Only
WAR IS BAD - RAPE IS BAD. If you don't know or appreciate these moral values, then perhaps you should see this movie.
WAR IS BAD - AND IS OFTEN WORSE THAN JUST KILLING BECAUSE OF THE HUMAN TOLL OF RAPE, HUMILIATION, AND PERSONAL MORAL COMPROMISES IN THE WAKE OF THE HORRORS OF WAR. If you don't know this fact, then perhaps you should see this movie.
Other than being the living epitome of the lessons set out above, this movie offers next to NOTHING in terms of the sorts of dramatic tension, human emotion, character development, or other aspects of film that can make the movie-going experience so rich.
OK - so you can read the other reviews to learn that this true story provides an interesting, hushed-up perspective of World War II relating to the horrors of war, mass rape, and living within a world in which mass rape and horror are daily occurrences.
Like the opening minutes of Saving Private Ryan, this movie provides a first-person point of view of the horrors of war. However, whereas Private Ryan spends 20 minutes or so jarring the audience into the requisite horrific frame of mind - before reverting to a more-traditional storytelling mode, A Woman in Berlin is mired from the beginning to the end in a nearly unending parade of horrors including rape, rape, rape, death, fear, intimidation,coercion, personal moral compromises, loneliness, darkness, explosions, death, rape, and fear.
While I appreciate that the move may be interesting from a historical perspective as a window to a little-known perspective on the closing days of World War II, the movie offers little else.
In this movie we learn that the Germans treated the Soviets badly, that the Soviets treated the Germans badly, that the Germans had more money than the socialist Soviets, that soviet soldiers raped German women, that the soviets had women soldiers, that the Soviet army was culturally divers including Mongols, Ukrainians, Russians and others, that people living in a occupied country make moral compromises in order to survive, that some people can't live with the compromises that they make, that human emotions are still alive during wartime, and that rape is bad, war is bad, and that the whole mess is unfortunate.
If you want to experience how horrible war is - go see this movie. It is perhaps the most uncomfortable, least enjoyable movie-going experience I have ever had. Perhaps that is the point of the makers. If so, they succeeded.
If you are looking for a challenging, thinking film - this movie is not for you. If you are looking for an unblinking look at the horrors of war - and little else - go see this movie.
The Red Mill (1927)
Maid in (not Manhattan) but Old Amsterdam
Great silent movie shown in a beautifully restored version on TCM.
Plot summary: Dutch servant girl falls for an Irish Prince during his vacation in Holland - circumstances prevent their coming together.
Later, the Irish Price is back in Holland to be married off to the local rich Burgomaster's daughter. The Burgomaster's daughter, however, is in love with a peasant. The servant girl helps the Burgomaster's daughter dress as a peasant to woo the peasant - meanwhile she dresses as the Burgomaster's daughter.
The Prince mistakes the servant girl for the Burgomaster's daughter, falls in love - and madcap hilarity ensues.
Will the rich guy get his Maid in Old Amsterdam??? Will the rich Burgomaster's daughter get her peasant??? The story plays out in too many mistaken identity plot devices to count - but the story is fun, clever, charming and actually pretty funny. Recommended viewing.
John Tucker Must Die (2006)
Not just another teen movie
This movie is not what you would expect - not what others on this site seem to think it is - and not at all like most other teen movies.
First, it is not just about a "playa" getting his comeuppance for cheating on and lying to innocent girls. It is much more subtle.
While the movie condemns John Tucker's behavior - it also condemns the girls' behavior. Is John Tucker to blame for how easily the girls are impressed by his cheesy lines? Perhaps it is the girls' own shallowness that sets them up to be used by the likes of John Tucker - or perhaps the girls themselves are using John Tucker to advance their own agenda? As the head cheerleader says, "He's mine - I'm the head cheerleader, we're supposed to be together." She doesn't like him because he's particularly nice - which he isn't - but just because he's cool, has a bad boy image and feeds her cheesy lines that any self-respecting girl would find repulsive.
All in all, you John Tucker Must Die haters should watch the movie again, with a different perspective. It is not just a criticism of John's behavior, it is a criticism of the kinds of behaviors and attitudes that let a guy like John Tucker be thought of as "all that" based on his status as star basketball player and bad boy.
Die Geierwally (1956)
Don't Assume - you make an . . . . .
I love this movie. It has beautiful Tyrolian mountain landscapes filmed in lovely, late-50s color that German Heimatfilms are so well-known for.
Poor Walburga (Wally - pronounced Volley - not like Beaver's brother Wally); her heartless father wants her to marry the ambitious, creepy, cruel and possessive foreman Vinzenz. She, however, is in love with the jovial hunter Baerenjosef. When she refuses her father's demand that she marry Vinzenz, her father banishes her to their high alpine summer cabin near the glacier - where she must endure a harsh winter without any human companionship - but not alone.
She has a vulture to keep her company. She rescues and cares for a juvenile vulture who is (IRONICALLY) helpless because her hunter has killed its mother. The two become inseparable - and she earns her disparaging nickname - die Geierwally (the Vulture-wally).
During a later visit to her father's farm, she hits Vinzenz in the head with a stick to protect an elderly servant from a beating at the hands of Vinzenz. Her father wants her locked in a barn - and, in an effort to avoid capture, ends up setting fire to the barn. She then runs away and finds asylum at the home of two bachelor mountain guide brothers.
When the bachelor mountain guide brothers become jealous of one another's apparent affection for Wally, Wally moves out of their home into their high alpine summer cabin - where her hunter Baerenjosef stumbles across her path once again.
But this time, he is not alone. He is with a woman!!! Wally, who has lived alone and in exile for her love of the hunter is furiously jealous that he would be with this beautiful young woman who OBVIOUSLY must be a rival for her affections. Of course, Wally does not ask who she is and makes no attempt to find out. She merely ASSUMES and makes an . . . , well you know the story. It also does not help that the Vulture recognizes the hunter as the man who shot his mother.
It takes several more misunderstandings, revenge humiliations, the death of her father, a murder attempt and a mountain rescue to resolve the tangled mess - but in the end, Wally and Baerenjosef finally profess their love for one another and live happily ever after.
The only loser in all of this is the Vulture - who, unwilling to share the one he loves, flies off alone. The End.
But really, despite the over-the-top melodrama (or maybe because of it) - this is a wonderful movie that holds up after multiple viewings.
The Aristocrats (2005)
The Aristocrats
So a guy goes into a movie moguls office and says, "Have I got a movie for you. It's about the filthiest joke ever written." The guy then tells the filthiest joke ever written, from several points of view, in various styles and with different words, but all sharing the same filthy subject matter and lame punchline. Since the joke isn't really very funny and doesn't really make any sense, the guy and his diminutive, mute, mis-matched business partner act out scenes from the joke to set the right mood for the Mogul. When the performance ends, the Mogul asks, "So what's the name of your movie?" And the guy says, "The - ARISTOCRATS!!!"
Shrek (2001)
DULOC = "Dull Orange County" - home of Disneyland
Am I the only person who noticed that DULOC might mean "Dull Orange County"? Disneyland - one of Disney's most recognizable assets - is located in Orange County California - a notoriously boring area. I read at least one other viewer's theory that the name DULOC is a reference to something related to Notre Dame University (Notre Dame du Lac). The basis for his conclusion was that one of the writers or producers went to Notre Dame and that the castle in Duloc was a replica of the chapel at Notre Dame. However, since the castle is more universally recognized as a stylized replica of Sleeping Beauty's castle from Disneyland - and given the number of Disney references throughout Shrek and Shrek 2 - I like my idea better. Does anyone agree with me?
Der schwarze Blitz (1958)
Did the handsome skier really steal his rival's ski wax?
In this German "Heimatfilm", Toni Sailer, who won three golds in downhill skiing for Austria in the 1956 winter olympics, plays a skier who is falsely accused - (or is he?) - of stealing his rival's wax and causing his rival's training injuries by moving one of the gates on the downhill race course.
I saw this on TV in Germany and it is my favorite movie of the Heimat genre - mostly because of the Alpine views and magnificent ski scenes in garishly beautiful late-50s color. It is the best movie ever made that features a skier bombing down the mountain while playing the accordion.
I frankly don't remember much more about the plot, except that the rival is a well-married local who has returned to win the big ski race, there is a girl, an orphan and a mountain rescue - in other words, all the requisite elements of a great heimatfilm. If you like skiing, gripping drama and good clean Tyrolian fun, this movie's for you.