Watched in the cinema (149th visit in 2024)
It seems as if the success of "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" in 2018 has encouraged the big Hollywood animation studios to leave the perfect recreation of reality to one side for a while and instead go all out artistically again. The makers behind "The Wild Robot" are also following this trend in their adaptation of Peter Brown's three-part children's book series, with the backgrounds in particular being inspired by Impressionism. As the…
Watched on Netflix
It is now 52 years since a horrific massacre took place during the Summer Olympics in Munich, which ultimately claimed the lives of 17 people. Unsurprisingly, there have been numerous attempts to commemorate this incident over the years. Of course, "Munich" should not be missing from this series. Director Steven Spielberg tells less about the terrorist act itself. Instead, his film is dedicated to a hit squad that, following the motto "an eye for an eye", wanted…
Watched on Blu-Ray
Actually, the series developed by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg around the somewhat unorthodox archaeologist Indiana Jones was designed as a trilogy from the beginning. And yet they had a hard time with the third part. The predecessor, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", was also largely to blame for this. The adventure was successful, but is still controversial today. Some people are bothered by the dark elements, which at times turned the film into a…
Watched on Amazon Video
The cinema has an iconography of the suburbs that every cineast is now more than familiar with from various films: rich, clean-washed colours greet you there. Freshly painted fences, red roses, meticulously tended front gardens, white front doors. People smile incessantly at each other, squirrels cavort in the trees and the flock of birds in the blue sky, completely free of clouds, sings a lovely song. David Lynch also gives these canonical impressions their place in…
Watched on Blu-Ray
When a film breaks all previous records at the box office and, what's more, earns huge sums thanks to rampant merchandising, it's really only a matter of time before the sequel is due. In the case of "Jurassic Park", it was to take four years until the sequel, "The Lost World - Jurassic Park", trampled into cinemas worldwide. There, the film left a powerful mark, and part two also meant a real windfall. Compared to the groundbreaking…
Watched on Blu-Ray
Even though the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago and we only know them from fossils, the fascination with the giant lizards lives on undaunted. Research is still being carried out on the reptiles that once ruled the earth, stimulating the imagination. After all, the idea that such gigantic, sometimes bizarre creatures once existed is extremely exciting. In this respect, "Jurassic Park" struck a nerve in 1993 when it brought at least a few of these…
Watched on DVD
"We are consumers. We're by-products of a lifestyle obsession."
David Fincher's "Fight Club" was a real punch in the face in 1999, a relatively faithful adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel published three years earlier, which only received widespread attention through the film version. Even generating real controversy, sympathetic, fascistoid comparisons were drawn at the time, but this ultimately only doubles and triples the work in its ambivalent, sarcastic ambition. In that respect, similar to Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece…
Watched on Blu-Ray (borrowed)
Without a doubt, you can say that "War Horse" or "Gefährten" (companions) in the German version (if you don't count the fourth part of the Indiana Jones series) is the most scolded Spielberg of the last decades, is always treated a little bit stepmotherly, which is probably simply because so-called "horse movies" just don't fit into this era with their unrestrainedly trusting and blue-eyed attitude. Only one more seems to believe in this and that is…
Watched on Blu-Ray
It's starting.
The landing in Normandy.
The troops are ready.
We are ready.
They face their fate.
They will all fight, hopeless as it may seem.
Some will survive, some will fall.
War has no mercy.
It always has been, it always will be.
The opening sequence in "Saving Private Ryan" is one of the most haunting cinematic moments of all time. With goose bumps all over the body the viewer follows the events of D-Day and…
Watched on 4K UHD Blu-Ray
"Jumanji" is based on the children's book of the same name by author Chris van Allsburg, which was published in 1981. At that time it was still unimaginable to bring the fantastic story as a real film to the screen in a credible and visually impressive way with animated animals. At the latest after Spielberg's animated dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" (1993), there seemed to be no limits to the trick technique. The direction was therefore…
Watched on 3D Blu-Ray (Theatrical Version)
After the gloomy, grim, urban horror of The Terminator (1984), James Cameron continued his vision seven years later under changed circumstances. In 1991, the reinterpretation of the T-800 from a killer to a protector and father figure in a not-so-networked world and despite a major advertising campaign, must have been quite a blast. It was undoubtedly a clever move. The humor now finds its way into a place where before only overwhelming hopelessness prevailed.…
Watched on Amazon Prime (The Complete Novel Version)
"The Outsiders" is a novel from 1967 written by Susan Eloise Hinton. She wrote this book because there were "two kinds of people" in her class. At that time she was only 16 years old. Coppola chose that the plot, as in the original, takes place in the 60s. To what extent, however, the youth culture of the sixties is authentically depicted here remains doubtful. It is probably more the young people's…