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American Women's Club of Hamburg  Film Reviews -- September 2005Reviews by members of the AWC Film Group of films slated to open in Hamburg in September 2005.
(Adele R) Opening September 1, 2005 The film takes place at night somewhere in a sleepy, small town in America. Jack (Henry Thomas), driving drunk, hits a man with his car. A young woman (Hilary Swank, with braces and no make-up) is shot in a hold-up in the convenience store where she works and then arrested as an accessory. A doting father (Patrick Swayze) covers up a crime he did not commit. Three terminally bored kids drive around in a van playing pranks which don’t end well at all, and a teenage sexpot (Rachel Leigh Cook) brazenly manipulates two boyfriends and her father and tries to frame one of the boys for murder. The film recounts each story with all the threads coming together at 11:14. The mysterious connection between the stories continues to intrigue right to the end and the black humor is bitingly, sometimes raucously, funny. There are no leads. The stars get about twenty minutes each on screen. A terrific script and a superb supporting cast round out a great evening’s entertainment. The film is the first full-length feature for director Greg Marcks and is a virtuoso debut. You’ll enjoy this one a lot.
(Mary W) Opening September 1, 2005 Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) is a failed film actor trying to make a comeback in television. He is cast to play Darrin in a remake of the 60s television series Bewitched. Jack insists on an unknown to play Samantha so that he can be the only star. He sees the enchanting Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) in a cafe and introduces himself, surprised that she doesn't know he is a celebrity. As she wriggles her nose before a sneeze, Jack realizes Isabel is perfect for the part of Samatha. What he doesn't know is that Isabel is in fact a witch who wants to live like a normal girl, buying groceries and falling in love with someone who needs her. Isabel/Samantha gets confused between the script for the show and real life. However, once she realizes Jack is using her for his career, she returns to witchcraft and casts a spell on him. Everything goes wrong from there, including this attempted remake. Various plot turns to re-introduce other characters from the old show fail to conjure up any of the cleverness of the popular series. For fans of the television series, nose-twitching accompanied by little do-do-do-do do tones is all that survived in the film version. Nicole Kidman is quite cutesy as the breathy-Marilyn-Monroe-like Isabel/Samantha. Will Ferrell as Jack/Darrin is bumbling without the charm or cleverness of the original Darrin. Michael Caine is very debonair as Nigel Bigelow, Samantha's father. Shirley MacLaine pops in as Endora and out of mind. Director Nora Ephron must have been going through a bad spell when she wrote, produced and directed this film. No real magic here, but the brew of sumptuous sets, light comedy and a touch of Hollywood satire can suffice for a bit of distraction from reality.
(Patricia R) Opening September 1, 2005 Director/writer Konstantin Faigle worries about bringing his unborn child into a country burdened with so much pessimism and depression, as well as an estimated EUR 16,500 debt per baby born in Germany. Former German President Johannes Rau remarked that he had never seen a country so pessimistic. Faigle begins a journey into the character of the German people to determine the source of so much hand-wringing and complaining. He interviews German psychologists, sociologists and theologians, including Alice Schwarzer, a well-known women’s rights activist, to determine if the reason is genetic or can otherwise be explained. A 2004 poll showed that the happiest Germans live in Starnberg, near Munich – Hamburg was further down the list. Thus Faigle embarks on his road trip through Germany to examine the possible reason for the difference in happiness within the country. He interviews tourists for their input on the German personality; two British women shared that the Germans just took everything too seriously – that they couldn’t laugh easily at life like the British. A Japanese visitor complimented the Germans for their technical know-how but noted their tendency to seem arrogant. Faigle interviews his own parents and takes his father for a ride in an expensive convertible to test the German capacity for envy. Faigle includes pertinent historical information through innovative puppetry and impersonation, including portrayals of King Ludwig and Barbarossa. He wonders if the people would prefer having a king again and tests that thought on visitors at Neuschwanstein. Another suggestion is to have the Germans intermarry with a happier race, that of India for example, to raise a happier generation of offspring. This is a humorous look at a subject that deserves serious thought. If every viewer would hold back his or her initial reflex to criticize and complain and could see the glass as half full rather than half empty, then Faigle will have achieved his goal, ah, the power of positive thinking. Faigles’ first documentary Out of Edeka won the 2002 Bavarian Documentary film prize.
(Becky T) Opening September 1, 2005 Twenty students attend a fifth grade class at Fläming School, Berlin. They are unique in that several are especially slow, several have physical and mental handicaps (one is practically immobile in a wheelchair), some are highly intelligent, some fit in well and others have inter-social problems. The purpose of this documentary, filmed in February 2005, was to demonstrate how the teacher, Gudrun Haase, and her colleagues taught such a diverse group and how the children benefited from each other. They produce a play called The Girl on Harry’s Street, play music, dance, do sports, and take trips, but they also write dictations, prepare speeches, learn arithmetic and receive report cards. By Hubertus Siegert, the film could inspire teachers to rethink their attitude to mixed classes as well as learn ideas for their own work, for which I think they must be highly qualified. At first glance it was never obvious which students were the slow ones because they all shone in some way. The film never shows the parents or home life, nor does it give sources for teaching materials. My favorite moments occurred throughout the film: one girl could not zip her jacket because of a physical handicap (one arm is very short). None of the teachers or children who tried to help her succeeded without a struggle, which shows that anyone can be “handicapped” under certain circumstances – in this case a really unwieldy zipper.
(Shauna K) Opening September 1, 2005 Director George Romero’s fourth installment in his Night of the Living Dead series opens in world that has been taken over by zombies. The living, definitely the minority in this film, live in a fenced-up section of the city. Within this "living" section of town, the privileged elite live in a beautiful tower called the Fiddler’s Green, whereas the rest of the population live amongst the city ruins which surround it. It is the last night on the job for Riley (Simon Baker), leader of a special team whose mission is to patrol outside the boundaries of the "living" section of the city and slaughter zombies. It is also Cholo’s (John Leguizamo), Riley’s second in command, last night. While Riley simply wants to run away to Canada, Cholo has saved up enough money to buy himself a place in the coveted Fiddler’s Green. When Cholo is denied residency due to him not being the right "type" by the founder of the establishment, Kaufmann (Dennis Hopper), Cholo starts to make threats. Kaufmann unsuccessfully tries to get rid of Cholo, and Cholo in turn steals his former team’s super zombie hunting missile launching tank, Dead Reckoning, and threatens to destroy the Fiddler’s Green unless Kaufman pays him a ridiculous ransom. It suddenly becomes Riley’s job to apprehend Cholo, reclaim Dead Reckoning, and save humanity. Land of the Dead is an hour-and-a-half of pure over-the-top gore. It could also easily have been named a thousand and one ways for a zombie to attack the living, or a thousand and one ways to blow the head off a zombie. This film is definitely not for those with weak stomachs. In between all the scenes of zombies eating the living alive, there is a bit of a story. But unless the viewer has seen the entire series, he/she feels as if they’ve gone through some sort of time warp, and waits the entire film for an explanation which never comes. The entire film is so ridiculous, as in horrible rather than horror, that it is funny rather than scary. Add to that several one-liners that are equally horrible, and the viewer finds himself grimacing throughout most of the film. But underneath all the madness there is an attempt at a message. Land of the Dead is not only a horror flick but also a bizarre but creative political commentary on life in America, post 9/11. So for this highly unusual way of attempting to get message across to the masses alone, this film in my opinion deserves one star. (Mary W) Opening September 8, 2005 Bill Murray plays his character Don so straight that he is hilarious. Don is a successful retired businessman who is dumped by his latest lovely girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy). Sherry accuses Don of getting love letters when she finds a pink envelope addressed to him in the mail. The unsigned letter tells Don that his son may be trying to find him. The postmark is illegible. Don is unaware of having fathered any children in his promiscuous past. His crime novelist neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright), is intrigued and asks Don to recall all the women he slept with during the crucial time. Don is not interested in pursuing his son, but Winston organizes a cross-country trip anyway, coercing Don into visiting his former girlfriends. He advises Don to look for clues, like anything pink. Don reluctantly follows Winston’s plan and revisits his past, with his former flames played by Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, Jessica Lange and Frances Conroy. With a very appropriate ending, this film by Jim Jarmusch was nevertheless too short. It was awarded the Grand Prix at the 2005 Cannes Film festival.
(Adele R) Opening September 8, 2005 Stories of success against all odds had special force during the devastating Depression years giving courage to people who themselves were struggling just to be able to feed their children. The inspiring chronicle of the runty racehorse, Seabiscuit, was for millions of Depression-weary Americans in1936 a source of strength. Now along comes another true story of a big win – an astonishing comeback from ruin and loss for a boxer, brought to the screen by Ron Howard (Apollo 13). Russell Crowe plays down-and-out boxer James J. Braddock, who is stunned by his inability to meet the most basic costs of life: food, shelter, heat, and light, for his wife (Renée Zellweger) and their three children in the early 1930s. Those terrible times and the wretched lives of men who tried every means to earn a few quarters to pay for the milk for their kids are well documented in the film. It even includes scenes of Hooverville – a collection of shanties built of cardboard in Central Park where too many lived (and died). Braddock, once a hugely successful boxer, had disappeared from the fight scene with no way to earn a living in a world where the most menial jobs have disappeared. Desperate for money to pay his bills, Braddock accepts a fight despite a broken hand and loses. But his determination to keep his children at home instead of farming them out to relatives who are slightly better off forces him to accept Roosevelt’s new social welfare hand out and then, with luck, he begins to get jobs as a longshoreman on the docks. It is hardly enough. One day his manager, Paul Gould (Paul Giamatti), shows up with an offer: Braddock can win $200 if he agrees to a fight no one expects him to win and which may indeed cause him great physical harm. To the astonishment of his family, the fans and the boxing commission, he wins and his manager puts him back in the ring, although Braddock is already in his early 30s. Braddock’s chance comes when he is pitted, with seemingly impossible odds, against Max Baer (Craig Bierko), a formidable boxer and the reigning world champion. Baer has won all his fights and in the process, killed two of his opponents in the ring. Braddock’s legendary 15-round battle, his sturdy moral character, his strong, loving wife and three great kids were an inspiration to all who followed the incredible events, and is still a moving, uplifting story today. But sitting through this film requires great tolerance for the violence of boxing. Howard does not hold back. The scenes are choreographed to shock – bloody, gory, frightening. The gruelling Baer vs.Braddock scenes are the most difficult to watch and they go on forever. The heartening story of a truly remarkable man keeps you in your seat, but for me, the end of this film could not come quickly enough. (Becky T) Opening September 15, 2005 Nina (Julia Hummer) lives in a home for girls and works as a gardener in Berlin’s Tiergarten Park. Through unusual circumstances she meets Toni (Sabine Timoteo), a vagrant girl who is wise in the ways of the world. Nina, in her loneliness, idolizes Toni and is easily manipulated by her. She invites her to her room, which leads to them both being evicted. They steal clothes in a department store and pretend to be best friends for a TV show. In a second storyline Oliver (Benno Fürmann) collects his mentally unstable wife Francoise (Marianne Basler) from a hospital. Their three-year-old daughter disappeared in a shopping center years ago. Now, Francoise sees her grown child in the faces of other young girls such as Nina, whom she invites for breakfast, until her husband arrives to explain the situation. Director Christian Petzold has made a very slow-moving German film entirely in the Potsdamer Platz area of Berlin (although you won’t recognize it as such). It was in competition at the 2005 Berlinale. Petzold said he was inspired by photos of missing girls in a French post office and by the Grimms’ fairy tale Das Totenhemdchen (The Shroud) about a dead child whose mother’s tears wet his shroud, preventing him from ascending into heaven. Petzold said the title refers to the main characters, ghosts who live outside the real world. In spite of good intentions, excellent photography and acting, the film itself also seems so distant, so unreal, that, for me, it was difficult to relate, except to feel sorry for Oliver, the patient, long-suffering husband who stood by his wife when other men would have left her in the asylum long ago. (Mary W) Opening September 22, 2005 Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) takes her young daughter Cecilia (Ariel Gade) apartment hunting in New York City after leaving her husband who is having an affair. Trying to find reasonably priced lodging in the city is frightening enough, but then Cecilia sees a menacing dark water spot on the bedroom ceiling of a flat. Spot closeup! Ominous music! Most children would flee in fear of such a lack of maintenance but after finding a Hello Kitty backpack on the rooftop of the grim Brutalist Style apartment building on Roosevelt Island, Cecilia overcomes her mold phobia and insists they take the apartment. A dark wet spot on the bedroom ceiling is not scary no matter how many close-ups you take, how large the spot gets or how creepy the music sounds. Although Jennifer Connelly is terrific in her portrayal of a mother driven mad by bad plumbing, she probably wasn't acting after she realized she couldn't get out of making such a ridiculous film. The scariest aspect of this film is that people actually paid millions to make it. Dark Water is sewage that should just be washed down the drain. (Becky T) Opening September 22, 2005 In this French film, Tom (Romain Duris) is a young, hard-boiled businessman who dirty deals in real estate and evicts poor people by letting rats loose in the building if all else fails. In this way he is much like his father, who is past his zenith but still a bully with a blond ding-a-ling for company. Tom reveres his father; he makes excuses for him and aspires to be his equal. At the same time he has the musical talent of his deceased mother, who, as a concert pianist, had encouraged him in his lessons. He resumes lessons with a Chinese woman; their only mutual language is music as she can’t speak French. Will Tom become a washed-up gangster like his father or a chalice of the arts like his mother? Director Jacques Audiard has remade a French version of the 1977 film Fingers, originally by James Toback with Harvey Keitel in the title role. This is another French film which you either like or won’t understand. I admit that I have my problems with French films, but I enjoyed this one, mostly because of the charisma of the main actor, Romain Duris. It would be interesting to locate the original Fingers to compare the two films. (Vicki F-M) Opening September 29, 2005 You cannot go wrong with any of the Little Polar Bear movies, books or T.V. shows. He is adorable, always means well and has funny friends. Mostly harmless (why DO films always have to have the anxious part? Think Bambi or The Lion King or any popular film in past 50 years) and teaching kids a good lesson, this is a film for little ones as well as the whole family. The film is adapted from the books by Dutchman Hans De Beer, who has won various awards for his books which have been translated into 27 languages. Two experienced directors in animation bring the book to life on the screen, Thilo Graf Rothkirch and Piet De Rycker. I asked my three-and-a-half-year old twins what they thought about it: Journalist Mama: How would you rate this film: bad, good or very good?
(Adele R) Opening September 29, 2005 The director, Hany Abu-Assad, knows the location of his film well. He was born in Nazareth and has made a number of documentary and feature films about the desperate situation in the Middle East. His most successful film, Rana’s Wedding (2002), dealt with the virtually insurmountable difficulties facing a young Palestinian pair preparing for their wedding. But this time, Abu-Assad has taken on an even more difficult subject: suicide bombers. The film follows two young Palestinians, Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), who have volunteered to kill themselves and take as many Israelis as they can with them. As we meet the two young men, they haven’t yet learned that their last day on earth will be the next day. As they are told they remain cool and accepting. And we watch them spending their last night with their families, where, of course, they are not allowed to give any hint of the plans for the morrow (Said’s mother is played by the “grand dame” of Palestine films, Hiam Abbass (The Syrian Bride)). The morning comes and the young men are bathed and shaved and dressed in black suits with white shirts covering the vest of bombs strapped to their bodies. They make a video declaring their love of Allah and belief in Paradise and the Cause. And then they go off to meet the Israeli collaborator who is expected to drive them to the destination of the bombing. It doesn’t work out that way, and in the end, the two young men have an extra day to consider their decision. There has been a good deal of debate about this film. Many have felt that the suicide killers are portrayed too sympathetically. But it is also clear that they are being used by their handlers for their own political ends and that the situation in both Tel Aviv and Nabulus is impossible. Incidentally, the filming in Nabulus had to be halted and moved elsewhere because the film crew were in so much danger from the Israeli rockets and gunfire. The film was awarded the Peace Prize by Amnesty International and won the Audience Choice Award at the 2005 Berlinale, as well as the AGICOA (International non-governmental organization) Blue Angel for the best European Film. For more information, click here to read an article about the film by Mary W and Shelly S in the Currents 55th Berlinale Special Issue.
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11:14 
Bewitched (Verliebt in eine Hexe) 
Die Große Depression – Eine Komödie zur Lage der Nation 
Klassenleben 
Land of the Dead 
Broken Flowers 
Cinderella Man (Das Comeback) 
Ghosts (Gespenster) 
Dark Water (Dark Water - Dunkle Wasser) 
The Beat that My Heart Skipped (Der Wilde Schlag meines Herzens, De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté) 
The Little Polar Bear 2 (Der kleine Eisbär 2 - Die geheimnisvolle Insel) 
Paradise Now 
Questions?