Was bleibt (2012)

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Was bleibt (2012)

(no real spoilers)

Was bleibt (Home for the Weekend is the English title) is another good movie by Hans-Christian Schmid who, in my opinion, has not even made an average movie yet. It’s a family drama about a son coming back home to his family and his mother who announces she has decided to live without her medication, which upsets her husband and her other son. It is really fascinating how the drama unfolds, how the family constellation is shifting and how Marko, the homecoming son, tries to remain as a good a man as possible throughout. And even he is not perfect, which makes him all the more relatable. The film challenges us to work through all the family problems and does so very effectively by making all the relationships authentic and not painting anyone as particularly good or bad. The last ten minutes or so didn’t really work for me because the movie sets us up for a more satisfying conclusion we don’t get and the last line is too much on the nose. Apart from that, this is a really intriguing and well-made movie.

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Jonas (2011)

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Jonas (2011)

(no real spoilers)

Jonas is an unusual and unique movie that is hard to categorize. It is a German movie, first of all (which I have been trying to catch up with a little bit more), but it only features one real actor in a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Christian Ulmen is put into a real situation, acting as a student in a school, surrounded by real students and teachers and seeing what happens. To me, it mostly worked because of the fascination with his character and how much you can learn about school from it. Still, the problem is that the movie never really lets you know how much is orchestrated and how much is spontaneous. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but there is an uncanny feeling that remains. Still, Ulmen’s acting is really amazing, especially since he does not turn it into a caricature (apart from the silly love story which is not really working).

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The Story of "Here's Your Future" (I)

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The Story of "Here's Your Future" (I)

I mentioned Here’s Your Future, the play I wrote for the school drama group, several times but never detailed how it came to be and what happened afterwards. I always wanted to tell that story (in fact, whenever I tell that story I say I could write a book about it), but for one thing it’s very long and for another, there are many details I probably can’t tell. I got into a lot of trouble at my school and I’m still working, so I have to be careful what I tell about things that were talked about behind closed doors. I would like to talk about them and some day in the future I will, but I’ll be cautious for now. But it is a good story, a cautionary tale if you want and definitely a life-changing event for me. So, here goes part 1, which will mainly focus on the writing process.

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How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

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How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

How to Train Your Dragon is a good animated movie but saying that seems like a backhanded compliment. And it is because it is hard not to say: “That was good… for an animated movie!” The problem, I think, is that most mainstream animated movies are so similar in their structure and their characters. Of course there are great animated movies, like really good movies, but there are hardly any coming out of Hollywood, I think. And I’m still on the fence for Pixar, personally, but that’s another story. Anyway, this one is good, it’s funny and entertaining and exciting. I saw Wreck-It-Ralph not so long ago and liked it, too, but when I looked at both of them I thought, wow, they’re really always the same thing: underdog becomes hero or some variant of it. And sure, you could say that about any genre probably, but there’s so much work and thought put into animation that it baffles me that there is not more variety, but always the same mix of kids-friendly adventure and adult-friendly humor. Anyway, How to Train Your Dragon is certainly one of the better examples of those movies.

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Book Report: Dave Eggers' The Circle (2013)

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Book Report: Dave Eggers' The Circle (2013)

(no real spoilers)

Dave Eggers’ The Circle is a fascinating book that takes a topic that you think you thought about a lot already and makes you think even more and in a different way about it. The topic is the internet in general and social media and privacy specifically. Eggers is always a brilliant writer and his versatility is simply impressive. But still I wouldn’t have expected this book from him, not because of its quality, but because of its themes. It’s a highly enjoyable but at the same time incredibly thought-provoking book that makes you reflect on your attitude towards social media. Sure, you could argue that he is overdoing it a little in depicting the future and the consequences, but then again, who knows? Together with Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s The Private Eye, the question of how far are we willing to go and are we aware what it means is really prevalent.

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This 90s Movie: Cool As Ice (1991)

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This 90s Movie: Cool As Ice (1991)

Cool As Ice is not the best movie in the world, believe it or not. It actually is something like the antithesis of a movie, having no real plot, no real characters, not great acting and no coherence whatsoever. It’s very entertaining because you’ll constantly wonder if what you’re seeing is really true. Or possible. Or if anyone thought about anything for one second. This movie is beyond belief. Unfortunately, for long stretches, it’s pretty boring but the entertaining bits are really good. Did I mention that this is the Vanilla Ice movie? When I was 9, I was a fan of Vanilla Ice for some months until I realized he wasn’t really cool compared to real hip-hop. So even little me was beyond Vanilla Ice when this movie came out, making me wonder how it ever got made since I can’t imagine what the audience for it was supposed to be. But I know, making fun of Vanilla Ice is somewhat lame and I should save that at least for my Did I Like This? post on his album (yes, that category will come back).

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Lessons from the Cosby Case

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Lessons from the Cosby Case

I read this fascinating (and very, very long – it has 15 chapters) article by Max S. Gordon about Bill Cosby and I couldn’t stop thinking about it because the author poses so many interesting questions, not only about Cosby but also about our society. It is interesting how we deal with guilt in our society, how we use double standards depending on gender, race, class, “even today” or more precisely, just like we always did. Things are changing because more and more people write about these issues, but it still happens all the time, everywhere. Gordon has many compelling things to say and I really urge anyone to read his essay, even if I will quote from it.

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Trespass (2011)

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Trespass (2011)

(spoilers ahead)

Trespass is a movie you can only call ludicrous. It starts out like a standard home invasion thriller and then somehow never gets anywhere. Basically every minute of this movie feels like it could be anywhere, making it hard to remember any chronology of the movie. Some gangsters enter the house of a family (Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman) to get something and it goes back and forth forever without anything actually happening. There is a lot of threatening and gun waving and lots and lots of shouting, but for most of the time this group stays in the same room to argue. At first it is an okay movie, but it becomes annoying and boring pretty fast. It’s good not to think of the talent involved in this, not about Joel Schumacher, Kidman and even Cage. The basic problem is probably the screenplay, because it is so full of twists and turns and doesn’t notice that this stops being exciting at some point. Watching this movie, it's no surprise to read about its problematic production, in which Cage decided to switch roles between being the hero and a villain for a while.

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Fur (2006)

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Fur (2006)

Fur is an odd, weird film, but unfortunately not in a good way. It’s one of those rare movies I haven’t heard before, despite its star cast of Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr., but I guess there is a reason this has been fallen out of the general consciousness. It’s not a sleeper or anything, it’s just an oddity. It attempts to tell the life of Diane Arbus, who I didn’t know much about and still don’t know much after having seen this movie, because it refuses to tell her story, but instead some fantasy version of a story that tells us nothing.

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Fifty Shades of Pink

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Fifty Shades of Pink

The holidays seem to allow me less time to actually write something, but if I do, I thought it should be “seasonal.” A while ago I flipped through a store’s toy catalogue, just in time for Christmas and I was amazed and shocked by the strict gender policy. There is nothing new there, nothing you haven’t seen before, but all of it packed together, again and again, in every possible variation… it’s somewhat terrifying. Let’s take a look.

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After Earth (2013)

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After Earth (2013)

(spoilers for a movie without surprises)

After Earth is a movie that earns my respect for being incredibly bad. A $120 million budget, a big name star and a script revised many times by some big names (that don’t appear in the credits), and this movie still looks and sounds like no one knows what they’re doing. It’s an amateurish, convoluted and silly attempt of pretending to be a movie. It is incoherent in its excuse for a plot, ridiculous in coming up with a future world where nothing is practical and delivers a message that is incredibly dangerous and stupid. I know, if you just squint a little, this might look like a harmless sci-fi movie, but if you really look at it, it is a total mess that made me laugh out loud several times. And let’s not even talk about the (non-existent) acting or that it’s directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

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Strike One, You're Out

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Strike One, You're Out

As a teacher, you have a certain amount of possibilities how to deal with classes. Or, of course, loud classes. You can be strict, using authority to keep everyone quiet, working with punishment and clear rules. You can also be somewhat indifferent, not really trying much, accepting that no one cares and not caring yourself. Or you can try to listen to your students and involve them in decisions. For each of these teaching methods there are many varieties again, so there are endless possibilities, in theory. Not surprisingly, I prefer the last method.

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Source Code (2011)

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Source Code (2011)

(spoilers ahead!)

Source Code is a clever thriller, that toys with its sci-fi elements without ever becoming too much of a geekout. It has an interesting premise that might be familiar, but not so familiar that it’s boring already. Jake Gyllenhaal is brilliant in the lead role, exactly the right actor for this part, showing us the confusion we would expect but also the determination to get out of it without becoming a cleancut hero. He makes mistakes and overreacts at times, making him all the more believable. The movie has fun with its premise and the direction and screenplay constantly keeps up the suspense and surprises.

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Kids With Guns (2)

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Kids With Guns (2)

After my article on school shootings, I immediately wanted to do more, although it was relatively hard work, just because it’s not so easy to find helpful information. But I really want to dig deeper into this and find out more, find similar threads and patterns and ways the media deals with this. So, today, three more examples, all from 2006.

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The Conspirator (2010)

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The Conspirator (2010)

The Conspirator tells an interesting story in a boring way, which is too bad. The casting and acting is excellent and if nothing else, the movie is almost worth watching many good actors. But not much is done with it, at least not more than is absolutely necessary. It’s a solid movie with an obvious message, which I will get to in a second. The movie takes too long to get going, giving us the whole Lincoln assassination without giving us a clue what the movie will be about for fifteen minutes. Only then the real story comes through and inbetween the movie also spends time with too many things that seem irrelevant.

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The Unmaking of a Teacher

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The Unmaking of a Teacher

I was sitting in a teacher’s room yesterday when a young teacher came in. He just had a lesson for his teacher’s training in which his supervisor observed him. The way this works is that you plan a lesson, meticulously, then you give the lesson and afterwards there is a discussion if you did well. The trainee teacher was optimistic at the beginning of this talk, obviously satisfied with the lesson. At the end of the talk, after about fifteen minutes where I partially eavesdropped on it in the teacher’s room, he had his head in his hands, slumped in his chair, defeated by the criticism he had to hear. Granted, I didn’t see his lesson and I don’t know him very well. Maybe he sucks as a teacher, maybe his plan was awful, maybe he is really delusional about his teaching abilities. But something about that progress from enthusiasm to slump stayed with me.

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Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (2011)

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Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (2011)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (I’ll never fully get used to those semi-part names) is, well, an entry in the Twilight series and I’m not surprising anyone by saying it’s not great. It’s silly and boring and too long and weird. I haven’t seen the last part of the series but it didn’t really matter, I had no problem getting into the story, which mostly comes from the fact that there is a minimum of story. Enough people wrote about this movie, too, so I don’t need to get into the whole abortion/pro-life debate, also because I find it somewhat boring. I feel the movie is more ambiguous about it than most angry people say and it fits that it raises question it doesn’t want to answer. Just like its incredibly passive main character Bella, the movie is very good at whatever.

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