Watched on Amazon Prime Video (Theatrical Cut)
Until 2018, Christian Gudegast has primarily attracted attention as the screenwriter of movies like "A Man Apart" and "London Has Fallen". Consequently, he made his directorial debut 7 years ago with a movie with the star of the latter film in a leading role.
"Den of Thieves" is a cops versus gangsters piece in the vein of Michael Mann's benchmark-setting "Heat" and makes little effort to conceal its inspiration from the outset. Not…
Watched on Disney +
Even before Zack Snyder's popular and successful remake of the horror classic "Dawn of the Dead", it was the Englishman Danny Boyle who breathed new life into the languishing zombie film in 2002. In his work "28 Days Later", Boyle had England overrun by the highly contagious "Rage" virus. People who came into contact with the virus mutated into instinct-driven maniacs in a matter of seconds, hunting down their fellow human beings in a zombie-like yet…
Watched in the cinema (199th visit in 2024)
We thought we knew everything there was to know about the bloody protests in Iran. But the documentary cell phone footage that director Mohammad Rasoulof cuts into his feature film far surpasses the television images of the time. Security forces shoot indiscriminately into cars, beat defenceless people lying on the ground and assault children. A film sequence shows the extent of the violence even more drastically. Daughter Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) brings her…
Watched in the cinema (198th visit in 2024)
Hugh Grant is currently experiencing the peak phase of his career. Although the British actor is certainly known to most people from the days of "Notting Hill" or the "Bridget Jones" movies, Grant has been enjoying such success in various roles and genres for several years now that the former British lover boy has probably never been as good as he is now. Whether as a smooth gangster with a penchant for…
Watched in the Arte Media Library
Alfred Hitchcock hated shooting outside a film studio because he could not influence circumstances such as the light or the weather. It is therefore not surprising that he had an entire backyard recreated in a studio for "Rear Window". However, the film adaptation of David Dodge's novel "To Catch A Thief" is a pleasant exception for the director, as filming naturally had to take place on the French Riviera and he therefore had enough…
Watched in the cinema (191st visit in 2024)
Horror films in which a bag plays a central role have become surprisingly popular in recent years. "Baghead", "Bag of Lies" and now "Bagman" could be the first representatives of a new sub-genre - "bagsploitation". Similar to nunsploitation films, which feature nuns as central characters in horror films, the metaphorical wheel is not reinvented here either. A horror film in the run-up to Christmas with an entity that puts children in a…
Watched on Blu-Ray
"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth." An iconic quote from George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead", the pop-cultural significance of which is familiar even to non-genre fans, given how often this classic has been plagiarized, reconstructed and parodied. But what if, and Romero did not categorically rule out this idea in 1978, hell is not a mythical-religious place of torment that is ravished by reality, but the earth, our…
Watched in the cinema (189th visit in 2024)
It may seem paradoxical at first glance, but respect is due to those who meet the films from Sony's Spider-Man universe (SSU) with unbroken anticipation. The characters on which these productions are based are by no means uninteresting. However, their cinematic realizations have increasingly developed into pale caricatures. The once menacing Venom has been degraded to a witty sidekick, the vampiric Morbius has become a bloodless production and Madame Web has involuntarily…
Watched in the cinema (183rd visit in 2024)
Mexican drug lords are not necessarily known for taking an in-depth look at their own identity - and certainly not for undergoing a GAS. It therefore takes a certain amount of "suspension of disbelief" on the part of the audience to get involved with "Emilia Pérez". This also applies to numerous other plot points in this film. The easiest way to do this is probably to see it as a kind of…
Watched in the cinema (181st visit in 2024)
Film reviews often present the challenge of naming recommendations that do justice to the work under review. In the case of "Caddo Lake", this proves particularly difficult, as too many details could spoil the viewing experience. The directorial work of the duo Celine Held and Logan George, who also wrote the screenplay, presents an enigmatic narrative whose appeal lies in the careful revelation of its secrets. "Caddo Lake" is one of those…
Watched in the cinema (180th visit in 2024)
"Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In" is the film adaptation of the novel by Yuyi and the comic by Andy Seto. The project has been in the making since the 2000s, with John Woo and Johnnie To set to co-direct. The cast was also a who's who of well-known stars from Hong Kong, including Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau and Tony Leung. However, the project didn't get off the ground for a long…
Watched in the cinema (179th visit in 2024)
Hardly any other animal instinctively triggers as much disgust or fear in many people as the spider. This naturally makes the little creepy-crawlies ideal antagonists in horror films, where they are allowed to scare the audience. Whether classics such as "Kingdom of the Spiders" and "Arachnophobia" or the more recent horror comedies "Eight Legged Freaks" and "Lavalantula", there are a whole series of examples in the genre of what something like this…