Change Your Image
SirFlorian@web.de
Reviews
The Big Lift (1950)
Unusual view of bombed Berlin
To say that a film is dated because it was shot on location in 1950 (which, I suppose, is history for most of us now) is pretty inadequate. If anything makes this film still interesting it is BECAUSE it was shot on location in 1950. As a young German who only knows a wealthy comfortable democratic Germany I find the very setting the most intriguing, as is the case with the more serious "Germania anno Zero" by Rosselini. The film has its values, however, but is, admittedly, more on the entertaining side. Nice to spot later Haimatfilm and TV favourites in a Hollywood production. If you like Berlin and don't mind an "old" look, watch Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three", shot 10 years later. To me as funny as "Some Like it Hot", and that means VERY funny.
Sommersturm (2004)
cliché-ridden and badly written
It's beyond me why people would give sommersturm such a high rating, maybe the beautiful bodies were distracting. maybe the raters were not German speakers and hence didn't pick up on the script's clumsiness. when tobi chastely kisses achim, achim physically freaks out, but says, like an analytical 40 year old psychologist, something along the lines of "du, ich find das gerade echt schwierig, jetzt damit umzugehen". the plot is predictable to the last sub-plot development, the portrayal of all the gay characters is so superficial and stereotypical it borders on homophobia, it's utterly unbelievable that 80% of the members of the rowing club starnberg speak hochdeutsch rather than bavarian, most characters are two-dimensional (the predator from the gay team, the girlfriends, schorschi, the catholic saxon girls...) and finally the film fails to find a convincing balance between the highly coarse and stupid comedy (okay, i did chuckle twice) and the heartache and drama of tobi's inner life. stadlober almost saves it, though, with a performance the film doesn't quite deserve, and if you like handsome boys, there are plenty of them to ogle at. disappointing. watch get real!