A modern fable about loneliness, emptiness, alienation, and the demonization of minorities. A young zombie, Otto, crawls out of his grave and unlives on the Berlin streets. There he meets an avante-garde film-maker who gives him a part in her political-porno-zombie movie. Otto discovers information about his past life that allows him to move on. Is it the living or the dead who are the zombies?
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Tag Archives: Germany
Grimm’s Fairy Tales for Adults / Grimms Märchen von lüsternen Pärchen (1969) Rolf Thiele, Marie Liljedahl, Eva Reuber-Staier, Ingrid van Bergen, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
The characters from the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tales engaged in activities the Grimm Brothers probably wouldn’t approve of. Imagine the classic fairy tales Cindarella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. Now imagine these stories set to a bad knock-off of the soundtrack to Hair. Now imagine that they’re set in a magical kingdom where the women are typically unencumbered by clothing. Now imagine that this magical kingdom is populated by mushrooms that turn into dwarves, men in bear suits with tiny golden crowns, and witches with neon-blue hair.
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Un uomo, un cavallo, una pistola / The Stranger Returns (1967) Luigi Vanzi, Tony Anthony, Daniele Vargas, Ettore Manni, Western
Taking the identity of a dead postal inspector found on the trail, a stranger rides into a small western town and finds himself in the middle of a stagecoach robbery perpetrated by a gang of twenty ruthless desperados. Finding out the object of the heist was not a strongbox as it seemed but a solid gold stagecoach, he enlists the aid of a down-and-out old preacher and tracks down the dangerous gang and their unsuspected ally.
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The Twist / Folies bourgeoises (1976) Claude Chabrol, Bruce Dern, Stéphane Audran, Sydne Rome, Comedy
French New Wave director Claude Chabrol steps away from his usual style of mysteries and psychological dramas for the sex comedy Folies Bourgeoises, based on the novel Le Malheur Fou by Lucie Faure. Bruce Dern is the American writer William Brandels and Stephane Audran is his French socialite wife, Claire Brandels. The story follows the confusion of the infidelities of the wealthy upper class.
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Julia / Es war nicht die Nachtigall (1974) Sigi Rothemund, Jean-Claude Bouillon, Sylvia Kristel, Teri Tordai, Drama, Erotic
A lonely teen spending his summer at a posh Swiss villa, is going through agony as it seems that everyone has somebody except for him. He finally learns that good things happen to those who wait, as he meets a gorgeous, virginal, nymphet, played by Syllvia Kristal. Lots of T&A, together with plenty of laughs, in this romp in the Swiss hillsides.
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Mädchen mit offenen Lippen (1972) Erwin C. Dietrich, Rena Bergen, Nadine De Rangot, Libero Guidi, Erotic
At the girls’ school, the young teacher requests the young women to prepare a lecture on the topic “The Preliminaries”, for next week, before the year’s end. The girls would contact him if they had any problems with their work. Thus a series of sexual experiments start, which will involve the whole class, and even the teacher.
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The Upright Sinner / Der brave Sünder (1931) Fritz Kortner, Max Pallenberg, Heinz Rühmann, Dolly Haas, Comedy
Leopold Pichler (Pallenberg) is a very orderly and trustworthy chief cashier who is asked by his boss to get a large sum of money from the bank which the boss urgently needs on a trip to Vienna. Due to some circumstances, getting the money takes a little longer than expected and the director leaves for Vienna without it. But Pichler sees himself as a reliable man, and so he and his assistant Wittek (Rühmann) follow the director to Vienna with the money kept in a bag. In Vienna, the two provincials however are mistaken for guests of the director and spend an evening at a posh night club. But when it transpires that the director actually won’t come to the night club that evening, Pichler and Wittek have to pay the bill with the money from the bank. And their subsequent attempts at reimbursing the money lead to situations of ever-increasing hilariousness…
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Der Schritt vom Wege / The False Step (1939) Gustaf Gründgens, Marianne Hoppe, Karl Ludwig Diehl, Paul Hartmann, Drama
Theodor Fontane’s novel about a young girl who as a teenager marries a stiff bureaucrat, has a love affair out of boredom and loneliness and has to suffer the consequences years later should be well known.
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Wenn’s juckt wird gejodelt (1975) Quirin Steinar, Fritz Korn, Olli Maier, Erich Kleiber, Comedy, Music, Erotic
The ship’s captain Sepp Brunn Höfer (Willy Harlander) returns after nearly twenty years, back to that passenger boat, which he took a long time with tourists down the river Rhine. Here he meets an old acquaintance, the pastor Bollinger (Helmut Gauer), who was one of the three former playboys on this boat, who all had all given birth to sons the world. All three are kind of same like Brunn Höfer, all of them left their numerous mistresses down. So they set out to make the search for the relatives, but soon reveal themselves and rather by accident to be daughters.
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Tag der Idioten / Day of the Idiots (1981) Werner Schroeter, Carole Bouquet, Ingrid Caven, Christine Kaufmann, Drama, Fantasy, Erotic
In this non-story of the mentally and emotionally impaired inhabitants of a clinic for the insane, the medical profession along with humanity is distorted into a long, filmic exhibition of sado-masochism, urination, and ample nudity for its own sake.
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Bliss / Glück (2012) Doris Dörrie, Alba Rohrwacher, Vinzenz Kiefer, Matthias Brandt, Drama
Bliss – directed by Doris Dörrie and adapted from the short story by Ferdinand von Schirach – recounts the tale of Irina, who leaves her war-torn country to become a prostitute on the streets of Berlin and Kalle, also living in on the streets of the German capital. These two individuals are alone and lost in the world until they are brought together through a chance encounter. As their relationship blossoms, a cataclysmic event threatens to destroy their fledgling love, with Kalle forced to extreme measures in order to preserve their happiness.
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Two Mothers / Zwei Mütter (2013) Anne Zohra Berrached, Karina Plachetka, Sabine Wolf, Florian Weber, Drama
Katja and Isabella decide to have a child. However, like many lesbian couples they soon discover that this is much more difficult than they first imagined. Citing legal reasons, most of the sperm banks and fertility clinics refuse to treat them. Fortunately, they are able to find one doctor willing to help – for a large sum. After a while, Katja decides she wants to call a halt to their ‘project’ on account of the toll it is taking on their relationship, not to mention their beleaguered bank balance. But Isabella refuses to give up. She finds a dealer who sells them a kit allowing them to perform the insemination in the comfort of their own home. There are plenty of men on his website willing to sell their sperm for various sums and sometimes one or two additional conditions. And so they begin ‘casting’ for a potential donor – a process that drags on for several difficult weeks. This fictional story is part experiment and part salutary tale. Containing all manner of sensitive material such as research, statistics, facts, prognoses, dreams and realities, this exciting work charts the vibrant terrain between fiction and reality.
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What Will Become of You / Was soll bloß aus dir werden (1984) Horst Flick, Michael Karnowsky, Peter Seum, Anita Lochner, Drama
In this 1984 West German film, a 12 year-old street kid in a slum of Berlin struggles to stay afloat through a commitment to his compassionate teacher and ambivalent classmates, aged 11-14, who also bear the harsh marks of impoverishment, which manifest themselves in peer ruthlessness and disrespect of adults. Film contains frequent profanity, alcoholism, mild crime and peer violence, brief male nudity.
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Kameradschaft / Comradeship (1931) Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Alexander Granach, Fritz Kampers, Ernst Busch, Drama
An old German mine was split in two after the end of WWI because of where the new border was located. In the French part a fire breaks out; the German miners send a rescue group in, helping their French comrades. Three old German miners, who were not treated friendly at a French inn the night before, start their own private rescue through an old tunnel that separated the two mines. Will the official rescue party realize there are others left behind in time to save them?
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Vortex (2001) Michael Pohl, Hardy Krüger Jr., Harald Leipnitz, Arne Fuhrmann, Sci-fi
In the near future crime rates are at an all time high. The government counters this development with a new prison: The Vortex. Innocent citizen Vincent is sent there, after he killed a man who tried to rob him in self-defense. In the Vortex everybody has to commit their crime over and over again. Vincents first victim is his neighbour Carl.
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