I stopped watching movies for awhile; I can’t focus on a two-hour story with subtitles while cooking or stitching or waiting for Mr Radish’s customers to hang up the phone so we can eat lunch. On couch days, all the trash-TV series that paused during the pandemic have new episodes. It is what it is. The list project continues. I’m up to 149. Here’s a small sample.
Chingachgook: Die große Schlange (1967)
MDR, Deutsch
My obsession with East German Westerns (Easterns) and Gojko Mitic also continues. Mitic does not disappoint; there are enough crazy and improbable stunts with canoes and horses. This movie was “based on the James Fenimore Cooper novel The Deerslayer“, but this film focuses on Mitic’s Chingachgook.
The usual inaccurate costuming, and the arid mountains of Croatia do not look at all like the Mohawk Valley, but it’s a decent popcorn film with a nice explosion at the end.
Kaiserschmarrndrama (2021)
Im Kino, Deutsch/Bayerisch
The first movie I have seen in a movie theater in nearly two years–and in original without subtitles!! Despite missing some of the Bavarian idioms, I was able to follow along. When a character hurls a bottle of urine at a nun from his hospital bed, you don’t need to understand the exact meaning of the swear words to understand the scene. For example.
This is the latest in a franchise based on a series of comic cozy murder-mystery novels set in a village in Niederbayern, with a bit of a cult following (I have seen all the earlier films; the books elude me). The personal life of the main character, Eberhofer, is a wreck, and provides most of the humor and most of the drama. This leads to my only “critic point” for the latest film: the most beloved regular character dies (in his favorite place after a night of eating meatballs; we should all be so lucky), and I loved the fan-service but it overshadowed the actual murder investigation.
The novels have continued on, so I look forward to the next installment.
The Crying Game (1992)
arte, Deutsch
This was a much better movie than the jokes after its release led me to believe it would be. Also the clothes in 1992 were fabulous.
Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale (2019)
ARD, Deutsch
A child’s view of the DDR (Soviet Germany) opening its borders in 1989. I was persuaded not to change the channel* by the animation style, and ended up really enjoying the kids and the story. If you need to explain to a 8-12 year-old child how totalitarian government hurts the people, give this a look. Real radio and TV broadcast recordings from the era are sprinkled in, and the end credits show actual photos from the protests.
The dog does not die, but I was seriously concerned he was going to be shot by the border police.
*German tax-funded TV showed it at 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday, because otherwise someone besides me might have seen it. Don’t ask me, I just live here.
Der Formel Eins Film (1985)
Amazon Prime, Deutsch/English
A movie from Mr Radish’s teen years–Formel Eins was a music television show filmed near Munich that he and his friends watched frequently. Sprinkled amongst an improbable storyline are performances from Meat Loaf, Pia Zadora, Katrina and the Waves, and Falco (this is a Falco stan blog).
It’s very corny (I laughed a lot), but worthy of a watch as a time capsule of idealized young adulthood in West Germany in the 1980s. There’s an oddly-cropped version of it on YouTube.
Content Warning: Die Töten Hosen (a German rock band, very political) appear throughout the film as a running gag, and provide some racist “jokes” while wearing black- and brown-face. Stuff that gets other entertainers erased from streaming services. FWIW.
Because er hatte Flair
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