The Movies I Watched in February

1984 1984  7

A Suspicion of Innocence 2010  6
Flash Gordon 1980  5 
Gigi 1958  6 
Gone Girl 2014  6 
Green Zone 2010  6
Hollywoodland 2006  6 
Jurassic World 2015  6 
Le coup du berger 1956  6 
Miles Ahead 2015  6 
One, Two, Three 1961  7 

Paris Belongs to Us 1961  7 

Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead 1971  6 
Seventh Son 2014  5 
Stay 2005  7 

The Chronicles of Riddick 2004  6
The Frozen Ground 2013  6 
The House I Live In 1945  7 

The Iceman 2012  7 

The Lovely Bones 2009  6 
The Manchurian Candidate 1962  9 

The Manchurian Candidate 2004  7 

The Neon Demon 2016  7 

Whiplash 2014  6

One, Two, Three (1961)

In West Berlin during the Cold War, a Coca-Cola executive is given the task of taking care of his boss' socialite daughter.

Wild and keen Cold War spoof is fast-paced, and its humor is keen, cynical and - accurate; the cast seems to be enjoying the madness.

Halliwell**: "Back to Ninotchka territory, but this time the tone is that of a wild farce which achieves fine momentum in stretches but also flags a lot in between, teetering the while on the edge of taste."

Maltin****: "Hilarious Wilder comedy...Cagney is a marvel to watch in this machine-gun-paced comedy..."

La religieuse (1966)

In eighteenth-century France a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun.

Intense and inspired adaptation of the classic Denis Diderot novel, subtly directed with a superb lead performance by Anna Karina.

New Stuff: La religieuse

I have been eager to see this movie for so long: a Jacques Rivette with Anna Karina and Liselotte Pulver!

A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)

On the Russian front in 1944 a German Private receives a leave and visits his family in Germany but Germany isn't the same country he left behind.

Well-produced and tasteful adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque (who even plays a bit part) is unfortunately turned into a romantic melodrama.

Halliwell*: "Interesting but preachy and generally misguided attempt, by the studio which made All Quiet on the Western Front and The Road Back, to repeat the dose in colour and wide screen."

Maltin***: "Intensely dramatic love story...Well-directed version of Erich Maria Remarque novel..."

Liselotte Pulver

The Movies I Watched in November

Absolute Power 1997  6
Angel Heart 1987  6
Avalon: Beyond the Abyss 1999  3
Casino 1995  8

City by the Sea 2002  6
Full Metal Jacket 1987  7

Gaslight 1944  7

Hanna 2011  6
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 2011  6
Jew Suss: Rise and Fall 2010  5
Madigan 1968  6
Midnight Run 1988  5
Parkland 2013  6
The Affairs of Julie 1957  7

The Breed 2006  4
The Family Stone 2005  5
The Hunger Games 2012  5
The Next Three Days 2010  6

Die Zürcher Verlobung (1957)

A love-struck movie writer fabricates a wildly fictitious romance for herself, while a serious suitor, waits for her fiction to be suitably exposed.

In Germany a classic as something that seems to be the Teutonic version of a screwball comedy it has its irrepressible star and the director's craft to its credit, but hardly will appeal to an international audience.

Ich denke oft an Piroschka (1955)

A German exchange student on his way to Hungary falls in love with a girl he meets in Budapest. Arriving at his destiny, a small Hungarian village, he falls for the station master's daughter, who takes his attention more seriously than he intends. Eventually the two girls find out about each other, and the student should make a decision...

This movie is a typical example and is considered a classic of the German genre of Heimatfilm. Therefore the story is deeply steeped in a whole world of shoddiness, false sentimenality and racial and cultural bias which has made this genre often unbearable for me to watch. The German student appears to origin from a superior culture, and the Hungarian people are colourful and lovable for all their fallacies, but are also shown as backward, unreliable and lazy, more interested in wine, drink and dance than in anything 'substantial'. Likewise, this German student is actually just having a summer affair between his studies, a forgivable 'adventure' before he becomes a full member of the hard-working German 'civilization'. All through this movie you feel the reverberations of the Nazi ideology hardly overcome just a decade before this movie was made. In several scenes I consider the student's behaviour downright despicable.

But what makes this movie not quite so unbearable as my words above make it sound is Liselotte Pulver! You quickly forget the falsehood of a Swiss woman playing a pagan Hungarian girl (with a fake accent on top of that!), cause she just radiates beauty and a personal naturalness that's all hers and kind of transcends the blunt cliches of the whole story. She's also the most complex and therefore realistic character in the movie, and all throughout you yearn to take her by the hand and free her from that Aryan imbecile...