Film Critics And Other Smart People Disappointed

February 19, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Berlin Film Festival#, Berlinale, Film, Film Festivals, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Intellectuals, Movies, Satire, The Golden Bear 1 Comment

This year’s winner of the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlinale was actually a real dog, German film critics and other intellectual thinking folks and artist types everywhere are saying.

It’s not that the Italian film “Caesar Must Die” was bad in a cinematic sense or anything. It just didn’t meet the standards that modern film-makers and their kind aspire to, that’s all.

It was, in other words, too “humanist,” not at all a “strong, political film from young, engaged film-makers” (the film-makers who made this non-political film are old, engaged film-makers) and, worst of all, “it was a very conservative selection.” Pfui (yuck)!

Geez. If they had wanted to watch human, uplifting drama they would have gone to some other film festival. I don’t know which one that would be, of course, but it certainly wouldn’t/shouldn’t be the Berlinale.

“The jury shunned almost all the contemporary films that were admired or hotly debated at an otherwise pretty remarkable festival.”

Not One, Not Two…

February 15, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Atomic power, Berlin, Berlin Film Festival#, Berlinale, Film, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Movies, Nuclear power, Political Agendas, Satire, The Greens 2 Comments

But three films about Fukushima are being shown this year at the Berlinale.

That was to be expected, I guess. Especially now since Fukushima hysteria has all but disappeared from the Bildfläche (screen), even here in Germany.

It’s hard to keep people scared for months on end, now matter how important you think your agenda is. They just get tired and want to move on with their lives. The latest media stunt I just barely heard about had a lot of potential, for a few minutes, but then it rolled over and died, too.

I am looking forward to the big one-year anniversary media terror show bombardment to be held here in Germany next month, of course. But what are they going to be able to scare us with then? The German nation threatening to shut down all it’s nuclear power plants? Been there, done that. It makes you wonder sometimes why they even take the trouble to keep on agitating at us like they do. Now that the war is over and all, I mean. There’s just no place else to agitate at the moment, I guess (thanks for nothing, “Occupy Movement”). It must be hard being progressive sometimes. Much less all the time.

The 11-day film festival, which prides itself on its generally edgier and more politically-overt line-up over other film showcases, was perhaps a fitting backdrop for the documentaries.

Berlinale Predictably Boring

February 11, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, High Art, Home Cooking, Hotness, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Berlin Film Festival#, Berlinale, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Hollywood, Humor, Movies, Satire 1 Comment

As usual. But at least we get to look at Angelina Jolie for awhile this year.

She and her husband what’s-his-name have been here for days now and refuse to go home, giving the notoriously anti-Hollywood Berlin Film Festival that all important Hollywood touch.

But as for the movies, the only Lichtblick (bright spot) I have heard about so far is a film called Barbara, “a harrowing reminder of what life was like two decades earlier behind the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall that stood just a few meters to the east of theatres where the Berlinale is based.” You know, it’s a film about how suffocatingly horrible communist East Germany was. But who wants to see that? Here in Berlin of all places, I mean.

That and that flick about the Nazis on the dark side of the moon, of course.

“It’s not a film about East Germany, it’s a film about how people survive in a country that was on its way out.” – Hmm. Sounds like a film about Syria.

Talk About Your Hollywood Nazis

January 26, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, High Art, History Tags: Berlin, Berlinale, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Hollywood, Humor, Iron Sky, Movies, Nazis, Satire 1 Comment

How about Nazis from the dark side of the moon?

Well, this isn’t quite Hollywood. It (Iron Sky) is actually a Finnish-German-Australian co-production that will concur the earth next month at the Berlinale.

And it’s a comedy. I think. Isn’t it?

We come in peace.

German Hostages Released in Iran Shortly After Which Iranian Film Takes Top Prize at Berlinale

February 20, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, High Art Tags: Berlin, Berlinale, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Iran, Movies, Satire 1 Comment

Two German hostages have suddenly been released after four months of imprisonment in Iran.

Shortly after their release, an Iranian film took the top prize at the Berlinale.

I’m just sayin’, OK?

Jury president Isabella Rossellini said the choice of Farhadi’s film was “pretty unanimous.”

Hot Dog It Another Baader-Meinhof Film!

February 18, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hate, High Art, History, Hypocrisy Tags: Baader-Meinhof, Berlin, Berlinale, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Movies, RAF, Satire 1 Comment

The Berlinale is always good for a surprize. But it’s always the same one: No surprizes.

How original, sort of. Hopeless romantics that they are, politically correct Germans everywhere will be as enamored as they should be in this latest “political love story” about (with?) the RAF, “If Not Us, Who?”

Specifically, it’s about two fine young terrorists who fell in love, made love and then went on to become key figures in that wacky and fun-loving leftist group that carried out a bloody campaign of kidnappings and murders in the 1970s. You know, kind of like the Manson clan only, this being Germany, their madness was more political?

It’s a film that wants us to truly understand these folks with, I dunno, understanding, understanding how their political consciousness arose, with a special emphasis being placed on the conflict between the Nazi and postwar generations–an aspect that has never ever, ever been addressed here in this country before, ever, not once, honest. In other words, they were the victims (again).

Be sure to see it. It’s so… Political. And Romantic with a big R. If it doesn’t win the Golden Bear than… If not them, who?

3-D Big At The Berlinale This Year

February 17, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, History Tags: 3D, Berlinale, Films, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Nazis, Satire Leave a comment

They won’t be showing these, though.

Unlike Hollywood’s 1950s 3-D movies, which used two projectors, the Nazi version used standard 35mm film cut in half into a split-screen. When it was projected, a prism would combine the two images.

Ironically, he first disclosed the find during the Berlinale, the Berlin film festival, this week, where filmmakers worldwide were rolling out 3-D movies.

Ghost of Madonna Haunts City

February 14, 2011 By Hermann Observer in High Art Tags: Berlin, Berlinale, German, Germans, Germany, Ghosts, Humor, Madonna, Satire 3 Comments

Her career having died long ago, residents of Berlin, of all places, have for several nights running found themselves subjected to a series of ghostly encounters with the ethereal non-being of “the Queen of Pop.”

One visitor to the Asphalt Club became terrified when she accidentally captured a ghostly apparition that resembled a woman dressed in black on her phone’s camera. The incident happened while snapping images of herself in a mirror in the lady’s room. When she returned home later that morning, she viewed the pictures and was stunned to see the gruesome phantom in one of the frames, clearly recognizable as Madonna, circa 1993.

Other witnesses saw the spooky specter wandering aimlessly along Potsdamer Platz, accosting bystanders and asking them if anyone had seen her “baby,” twenty four-year-old boy toy Brahim Zaibat.

No one can explain why the brazen banshee is here right now and no one can say for sure just how much longer these hideous visions can last, but one zombie expert here believes that once this year’s Berlinale is finally over, this Spuk, as the Germans say, too shall pass.

And the winner for best director under house arrest is…

February 21, 2010 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, High Art Tags: Berlin, Berlin Film Festival#, Berlinale, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire 1 Comment

Who else?

And even if he could have come, he wouldn’t have come, Roman Polanski said.

Der Silberne Bär für die beste Regie wurde in Abwesenheit an Roman Polanski verliehen.

Teheran has visions of its own

February 17, 2010 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, High Art Tags: Berlin, Berlinale, Film, Film Festival, Germans, Germany, Humor, Iran, Movies, Satire Leave a comment

And it hears voices too, for that matter. But just like with YouTube, it doesn’t do cinematic visions.

Nix Berlinale for you, buddy. The Berlin Film Festival is just too political, I guess.

“We are surprised and deeply regret that a director (Jafar Panahi) who has won so many international prizes has been denied the possibility to take part in our anniversary festival and to speak about his cinematic visions,” Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement.

On July 30, Panahi and members of his family were arrested in a Tehran cemetery at an opposition protest in memory of demonstrators killed in street violence after the election.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Berlinale