Tag Archives: Movies

Sean Penn’s Ukraine Doc Won’t Be Competing!

January 24, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s that good. Just like the Berlin International Film Festival itself. They’re both so good they’re for the greater good.

Too bad their films are always so no good.

The Berlin International Film Festival unveiled the competition lineup for its 2023 edition on Monday morning, naming the 18 movies that will compete for the coveted Gold and Silver Bears at the 73rd Berlinale…

Berlin 2023, taking place a year after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, will have a major focus on Ukraine. Even the festival’s official pin will be in the Ukraine colors of blue and yellow…

In a late addition, Superpower, Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s documentary on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian invasion of the country and the ongoing war, will have its world premiere in Berlin’s out-of-competition Berlinale Special section.

I Had No Idea He Was Already Dead

November 23, 2022 By in High Art Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Although if you watch any of his last few films…

Berlin film fest gives Spielberg lifetime achievement award – Steven Spielberg will be honored for his life’s work at the Berlin International Film Festival in February.

Festival organizers said Tuesday that the 75-year-old American director, producer and screenwriter will be awarded an honorary Golden Bear, the annual event’s top prize, for a body of work that comprises more than 100 movies and series.

Couldn’t They Just Cancel It Altogether?

January 13, 2022 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Please? For health reasons? And then there’s COVID too.

Berlin Shortens Film Festival, Requires Vaccination and Testing – The 2022 Berlinale hopes new COVID-19 restrictions will allow it to have in-person screenings and events in February.

The Berlin International Film Festival has cut three days off its official screening schedule for 2022 and introduced new coronavirus measures, requiring attendees to be both fully vaccinated or recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection, plus show a recent negative COVID test.

Berlin 2022 will now run Feb. 10-16, with the festival’s Gold and Silver Bear honors handed out on Wednesday, Feb. 16. The final four days of the festival, Feb. 17-20, will feature repeat screenings of festival titles in cinemas around the German capital. Traditionally, Berlin sets aside one day for these “public screenings.”

A Plan To Kill Millions Of Germans?

November 21, 2021 By in Hideology, High Art, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

No need. The Germans are committing collective suicide on their own (no children, migrant madness, etc.).

Max, a German Jew who lost his wife and child in the Holocaust, has gotten a job with the Nuremberg water supply department in the aftermath of World War II. While rebuilding the war-ravaged facilities, he comes across a blueprint of the entire system. Using his artistic skills, he quickly copies it on paper and brings it back to a secret Jewish group that’s plotting a massive act of revenge for the Shoah.

It may sound like a larger-than-life thriller, but this story is actually true — and it’s the subject of a new film, “Plan A,” by Israeli fraternal directors Yoav and Doron Paz.

Crappy Films A Comin’

February 12, 2021 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hype, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Corona Or Not. Crappy and politicized. But crappy.

Crappy

The 71st Berlin festival will be a unique event. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Berlin 2021 will be split into two stages. From March 1 through March 5, the festival will hold an online-only event mainly for the international industry. The European Film Market will also go virtual, following a model established last year by the likes of Cannes and the American Film Market in Santa Monica.

An in-person festival in the German capital, with red-carpet screenings and gala events, is planned for June 9-June 20.

 

I Just Had To Look

April 15, 2020 By in Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Having read the book…

Movie

Not. If it weren’t for Corona, I’d go watch Corona – The Movie. I mean, if it were a movie that acutally existed and all that.

‘Corona – The Movie’ is our project. First we need the kind of director who nails the son of a bitch, a guy who will not rest until the virus is turned into lasagna, in its own movie. We need a director who rocks big-time, a man whose name is Martin Scorsese.

The Cast?

Mrs. Corona: Balle Herry
The bad virologist, Professor Pandemia C. Galore: Sigourney Beaver
The good virologist, Professor Vacuna Matata: Sandra Bullocks
The protective mask: Jim Carrey
The individual on the respirator: Brad DiCaprio
The narrator: Bernie Sanders
The arrogant ICU doc: Harrison Dodge
The helpful nurse: Angela Merkel
The Sheriff: Clint Westwood

The Plot? Who cares.

Corona Spares Audience Annual Lola Award Ordeal

April 7, 2020 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

There are rays of hope out there, if you just look.

Lola

German Film Awards to Go Ahead Without Audience Amid Coronavirus – Instead of canceling the Lolas, the German equivalent of the Oscars, the local film industry has decided to do a live broadcast of the awards on April 24 without the usual gala.

Thanks, German film gala Volk. German audiences have suffered enough.

A Communist Kangaroo?

March 8, 2020 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This can only be a German production. Or a Berlin one, I should say.

Kangaroo

The Kangaroo Chronicles, a quartet of comic novels by slam poet Marc-Uwe Kling that has sold millions of copies in Germany over the last 10 years, is a classic man-meets-beast buddy story in the vein of Seth MacFarlane’s 2012 comedy Ted – only that its animal protagonist is mainly vulgar in the Marxist rather than the foul-mouthed sense…

His only liability, in terms of electoral optics, could be a fatal addiction to booze-filled pralines – and the marsupial pouch in which he keeps his copy of Mao’s red book…

The film, directed by Swiss filmmaker Dani Levy, shows the communist marsupial team up with Berlin locals against Jörg Dwigs, a Trump-style property tycoon and founder of the fictional AzD (“Alternative to democracy”) party: a classic “the people v the elite” narrative, which the German far left has found more difficult to adopt than its counterparts in Britain, America or Southern Europe.

Who Would Have Thought That Possible?

January 30, 2020 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That the film guru in charge of the Berlin Film Festival’s propaganda efforts from 1951 until 1976 was also closely involved with the Nazis’ film propaganda efforts, I mean.

Nazi

Ex-Nazis in Germany? In the 1950s? How could that be possible?

Will the horrors never cease? First all the crappy movies. Now we find out that the whole shebang is Nazi-verseucht (infected). Let’s call the whole thing off.

The Berlin Film Festival turns 70 this year, but plans for the anniversary celebration have been overshadowed by new revelations that Alfred Bauer, Berlin’s first festival director, had deep ties to the Nazis.

33% More Women Directors?

January 29, 2020 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Fine with me. Just as long as they can ensure that 97% of the movies shown at the Berlinale remain as crappy as they’ve always been.

Women

This morning’s Berlinale Competition line-up announcement featured 33% films (six of 18) with women directors, including one project, DAU. Natasha, which is co-directed by a man and a woman (Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel).

That’s a drop on last year’s percentage of 41%, when seven of 17 pics selected were from female filmmakers (the figure is seven of 16, 44%, if you don’t count Zhang Yimou’s One Second, which was pulled before it screened).

Still, the Berlin fest continues to compare favourably to the other major European festivals. In 2019, Venice featured just two women directors of the 21 films in its Competition (less than 10%), while Cannes selected four of 21 (19%).

Berlin Competition Lineup: Kelly Reichardt, Sally Potter, Abel Ferrara, Christian Petzold; Disney’s ‘Onward’ & Hillary Clinton Also Heading To Fest