Lionsgate dropped some catalog titles on Blu-ray the other week, and the most interesting to me was The Phantom. Most interesting not because it was an amazing movie or anything, mind you, but because it's from that nigh-mythic time when studios were making all sorts of pulp comic movies based on characters that kids were entirely unfamiliar with. It's a couple hours of chuckles to watch Treat Williams getting to twirl the mustache and Catherine Zeta-Jones playing a female henchman who could have easily been named Treachery McSlutbagge.
Wesley Snipes plays a duly-appointed federal marshall in Drop Zone, alongside Gary Busey and Yancy Butler, as well as the late Michael Jeter. It never was (nor will ever be) some sort of action classic, but it'll fit nicely into some bargain bundle by the end of the year.
Anyone remember when Slater was headlining action movies? People on Twitter keep talking about a game called Heavy Rain, and I keep mistaking their huge levels of anticipation as being for the Blu-ray release of Hard Rain, the Christian Slater/Morgan Freeman CG disasterfest from 1998. The all-CG opening is just unwatchable and embarrassing, and probably was 12 years ago as well.
Last but not least is The Running Man, a pre-1990 addition to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Blu-ray Library of Punching (I hope The Villain is next). The movie looks good and grainy, with the Republic Pictures logo really driving home the desired effect of making it feel like a theatrical-quality experience...of a terrible movie. It's been remade and re-imagined a few times, but never better than Series 7: The Contenders. The Running Man includes the only extras of the bunch, two commentaries and two featurettes. All four titles hit on 9 Feb.
Read MoreElectric Shadow
What's "Karate" Got to Do With It?
The last week has been a mix of my wife and I abruptly moving with nothing packed and being sick, so I apologize for my extended absence. The thing that got the blog engine going again is the below-embedded trailer for The Kung Fu Kid. I call it that because the movie about the Chinese art of Kung Fu, not the Japanese art of Karate.
Even though the movie appears to be a very similar remake of Academy Award-nominee The Karate Kid (for Pat Morita), there's not a lick of Karate in the trailer. Unless all of a sudden, the Big Competition is Karate-based and they throw out all the Kung Fu, the title is flat-out wrong and insulting. It's like making a movie about Japanese Emperor Tokugawa and calling it The Greatest King of China. That said, I still like the way the movie looks from this trailer and plan to watch it, but this really, really bothers me.
Read MoreMarried to the Service
While watching a documentary on Iraq War II widows, I didn't expect to find a friend from high school as one of the main characters. I've been as sympathetic as I think I can be to those I know who have friends or loved ones enlisted, but there's no way to honestly know how they feel. The Lifetime network show Army Wives has been on the air for three years now, and it comes off as a nighttime marriage soap that happens to include the backdrop of living in the armed services. The third season hit DVD a couple of weeks ago, and I asked for a copy to give it a test-run, but it just isn't for me. Give me the marital strife in The Hurt Locker and I'm good. The set includes bloopers, deleted scenes, webisodes, and a couple of featurettes.
Read MoreNew Collection on the Block
I took a personal day away from writing yesterday because Ashley and I found ourselves suddenly moving a few weeks earlier than anticipated. As a result, the below thoughts on the StudioCanal Collection titles released today (16 Feb) are much less thorough than I had hoped, but I'll hit the important stuff right out of the gate. Ran looks better than ever (but...), Contempt looks excellent (but...), and The Ladykillers should stand as the standard for the Ealing films to come on Blu-ray. I honestly miss some of the Criterion extras on the prior two.
I was initially unimpressed by the transfer on Akira Kurosawa's Ran, but after further comparison and consideration of other opinions, I'm giving it a qualified recommendation. The color and clarity are far better than any of the DVD versions that came before it. The hang-up I've got is that it isn't as breathtaking as Criterion's work on Kagemusha, which replaced Ran on their Blu-ray release calendar when the Ran rights lapsed. The question is whether it actually can look any better or if guys like me are curling up their noses at "the would-be Criterion".
Ran is five years younger than Kagemusha, and one would assume that better quality original elements would be available for the newer movie, but that may not be the case, as DVD Beaver's Gary Tooze reveals. I have never seen the film projected, but there is apparently a newly-struck print making the rounds as we speak, so I hope to have my eyes on it at some point this year.
The biggest disappointment, for me, is that most of the Criterion extras are entirely absent. In the supplements department, this would be an absolute failure if not for the inclusion of A.K., the hour-plus doc also on Criterion's 2005 DVD set. I know that better extras exist, and I know that Criterion could have released their remastered, cleaned-up Blu-ray if not for the existence of this edition. I tried watching the new extras that the folks at StudioCanal put together, but I was bored by their very elementary "this is Samurai culture" tack.
I wish I could say more than "this Blu-ray is the best option that still exists for watching and learning more about Ran." That being said, the picture is the best available, and Kurosawa completionists can still find the OOP Criterion set marked up all to hell if they simply must have the brilliant, note-perfect extras. Unless something big changes, this is the best home presentation of Ran that one will be able to get for some time to come, and it's far from an aberration (it simply could have been much more). It's the lowest-priced of the three SCC titles at $22.99.
Contempt really looks wonderful, on-par with my recent viewing of the going-OOP Criterion Blu-ray of Godard's Pierrot le fou. Repeat the above refrain of being glad some supplements are retained, but add that the newly-added extras aren't all disposable. The French folks (I assume) who run StudioCanal may just have more cultural commonality with one of the greatest of their great masters, which results in a collection of extras that comes much closer to the Criterion release that preceded this Blu. The Blu-ray is a bit steep at $25.99, but if you love the film, the transfer c'est magnifique.
The Ladykillers benefits greatly from not carrying with it any potential for Criterion baggage. The problem is that the transfer is just terrible. Screenshots make it look worse than it is, but there is a disgusting amount of red-shift in the picture. The supplements are the reason to rent (do not buy) this. Lionsgate had nothing to do with the transfer, as it's identical to the European StudioCanal release. Welcome to what we all feared.
The intro from Terry Gilliam is perfect, and the bunch of interviews are wonderful. On top of that, the Forever Ealing documentary produced for TV is extremely informative and clips along nicely. Holding this Ladykillers disc against other catalog Blu-ray releases, I must admit I would actually consider the $25.99 that Amazon is asking reasonable for someone who loves the film if only the picture wasn't so absolutely unacceptable. For those who are interested but have never seen it, I'd give it a rental and a think.
Read More504: Hunger for Liberty
Most Americans, myself included, do not have much if any familiarity with Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) or the Maze Prison hunger strike of 1981. We certainly don't naturally possess enough investment to react very intimately with the events of Steve McQueen's Hunger (Criterion, 16 Feb). What I find marvelous about the film is that over the course of 96 agonizing minutes, we are driven to feel how close to us all the Hunger Strike was. I mean "agonizing" in the productive, "it hurts but it's good for you" way.
Many have already remarked that Hunger is difficult to watch, more so than the most gruesome horror films. A friend said as much to me the other day, and it reminded me of the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. This isn't because I found them hard to watch, but I had a classmate in high school, a hardcore peace activist, who recoiled while our senior History teacher made all of us watch it on VHS.
Hunger likewise makes so many of us squirm because we aren't accustomed to living in a society where these kinds of violent political movements touch our everyday lives. This film takes us outside of our bubble and shoves our face into the shit and piss and grime of the outside world beyond our homogenized borders. I can imagine some undergrad from a small-town seeing Hunger this past fall during their first semester away from home and having it irrevocably change their life and perspective.
Watching the progression of decay isn't what one would consider thrilling entertainment, but the 22-minute ideological duel between Sands and a priest is positively thrilling. Were the whole film not an effective deconstruction by way of decomposition, this scene would still pop through. Acting teachers should queue up that scene, let it run, and after ward say, "that's what lived-in is." and call off class for the rest of the semester.
Criterion's forthcoming release on Blu-ray and DVD includes a pair of interviews with McQueen and Fassbender that run about 13 minutes each and don't wear out their welcome. A 17-minute Making of Hunger piece covers additional ground and includes McQueen/Fassbender, actors Liam Cunningham (the aforementioned priest), Stuart Graham, and Brian Milligan along with writer Enda Walsh & producer Robin Gutch. It covers additional ground not touched on in the interviews and flows nicely by watching in-between them. The movie (McQueen's feature debut) speaks for itself without a commentary track with the inclusion of these extras and the 45-minute episode of the BBC's Panorama from 1981 that dealt with the strike, titled "The Provos' Last Card?". The booklet tucked inside features an essay by critic Chris Darke that is thorough and thoughtful. Amazon lists the Blu-ray for $26.99 and DVD for $29.99. It's a tough sit, but it's worth it.
Read More502: Bittersweet Revanche
In Gotz Spielmann's Revanche (16 February), tragedy is clumsy, brutal, and blind to class and circumstance. The unrelenting pressure of post-traumatic stress permeates the film from beginning to end, with brief breaths of catharsis sprinkled throughout, but only sparingly so. The movie commands one's attention unlike most films of the last few years in any language. Criterion will release Spielmann's fifth film (the first to be distributed in the States) on Blu-ray and DVD this coming Tuesday, 16 February. The Blu looks stunning, as one would assume.
Johannes Krisch as Alex
Ex-felon Alex (Johannes Krisch) has fallen for one of the prostitutes at the brothel he works for, and he aims to "save" her by robbing a bank and taking her far away. The bank robbery goes wrong and rapidly unravels the worlds of two couples: Alex and Tamara as well as the responding policeman and his wife.
The progression from the city to the country sees the tension gradually diminish, but we are not left with any substantive sense of ease until the closing seconds of the film. Spielmann, his actors, and crew string us along beautifully, keeping the tragedy from overpowering our sympathetic attachment to the protagonists (all four of them) and the story. Revanche is one of the best films that far too many people missed last year.
The supplemental materials on the Criterion DVD & Blu may look minimal, but as usual, they are substantial in quality while being few in number. The video interview with director Spielmann is satisfying, and a thorough portrayal of who he is as an artist. He feels predominantly fascinated with absolute precision when it comes to portraying human nature behavior as authentically as is possible.
Further detail about the director's sensibility is revealed by his award-winning short film, Foreign Land, which features a recently-recorded introduction form Spielmann. Yet more fascinating is The Making of Revanche, a half-hour featurette shot on-set that allows us into the inner circle of Spielmann's work. It's one thing to hear someone talk about their craft, but another entirely to see it in practice. The US Trailer is included, as is a booklet with a very solid appreciation essay written by Armond White. Many hate him, but they would be wise to give the essay a shot, as it's really rather perfect. Amazon has the Blu-ray for $26.99 and the DVD for $29.99.
Read MoreJohannes Krisch as Alex
HD in River City
The extras from the most recent DVD of The Music Man are retained on Warner's Blu-ray, which hit the street last Tuesday (2 Feb). The picture quality bump is noticeable, but more than that, every last word and lyric is clear and crisp for the first time for me. My first viewing of the movie was on a fresh-from-the wrap VHS. The colors have never popped so well.
Yes, this image has nothing to do with the Robert Preston-starring movie. I found it amusing that Jeff Goldblum played Harold Hill back in 2004 in Pittsburgh, so sue me. I would have paid good money to see that.
Read MoreYes, this image has nothing to do with the Robert Preston-starring movie. I found it amusing that Jeff Goldblum played Harold Hill back in 2004 in Pittsburgh, so sue me. I would have paid good money to see that.
Journey Man and Wife
The premise of The Time Traveler's Wife interested me in part due to my great affection for the now-cancelled NBC series Journeyman. In it, Kevin McKidd plays a print journalist who abruptly starts traveling through time as an adult, drawn to different precise moments in history to "fix" something. Eric Bana's Henry in Time Traveler's Wife doesn't have the luxury of changing anything, as in his narrative, everything is fated to end up a certain way. Everything is "written".
Henry first travels as a child, during the most traumatic event in his life. He meets Claire (Rachel McAdams, his destined wife) as a child, and utters the line, "I know you when you are a lady." (paraphrased). Hearing that in the trailer made my wife say, "That looks creepy. And terrible."
She was right that the movie has its share of creepy moments, but it isn't altogether terrible at all. There is plenty that reminds me of the lovely and somewhat forgotten Somewhere in Time, but I was never entirely comfortable with the rather pedophiliac nature of the love story. Middle-aged Henry gives teenage Claire (who has worshipped him since age 6) her first kiss past the midway point in the film, and it was flat-out uncomfortable for me.
The movie is based on an American bestseller*, and I'm certain that most of my discomfort comes from not having that "European" sensibility. Call it a flaw or just who I am, but I just can't get behind the idea of a semi-omniscient adult male psychologically and physically taking advantage of a girl for most of her life. They have a big argument about this, but the only sort of ameliorates the lingering ick for me. Then again, The Phantom of the Opera is considered a great romantic hero, but even in the softened Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical, he's a stalker and creep of the first degree.
My major philosophical disagreement with the film beyond that is that everything is fated, destined. It reinforces the idea that one should never really try to break free of what they feel are their restraints, whether in their home, work, or creative lives. It's an imprisoning ideology, and not one that I find there being a silver lining to at all.
Both DVD and Blu-ray editions of the movie include The Time Traveler's Wife: Love Beyond Words, a 20-minute piece that covers the "why/how everyone got involved and how the book was adapted" ground. The Blu-ray includes the 26-minute An Unconventional Love Story, an exclusive featurette not found on the DVD. Unconventional spends more time trying to explain and justify the movie they made and the deletions they made from the book. I do agree that removing the part where Henry has sex with himself was a good idea. The Blu-ray and DVD hit the street this Tuesday, 9 February.
*CORRECTION: I got this way off, having trusted what I remembered a friend telling me, since I never read the book nor had paid any attention to it whatsoever. An otherwise unhelpful, unstable commenter corrected me on this. I initially referred to Time Traveler's Wife as having been adapted from a German novel, which is obvious to anyone who hits up Wikipedia. That said, the only thing changed in the above article is "The movie is based on a German book," I stand by the "European sensibility" line. Clare confronts him and asserts herself, but still goes passive/submissive in the end, justufying his creepy-pedo thing.
Read MoreOOP Watch: Disappearing Criterion Update
Amazon has adjusted some of their prices on the soon-OOP Criterion titles, going up on eight of them and down $3 each on The Fallen Idol and Forbidden Games. They brought Pierrot le fou's Blu-ray price up to match the Criterion Store. I've updated the original post to reflect the new prices. Below are the titles that shamefully, opportunistically, went up in price $1-3 to even higher than Criterion sells them for:
Alphaville
Coup de torchon
Orphic Trilogy
Peeping Tom
Pierrot le fou Blu
Port of Shadows
Tales of Hoffman
The White Sheik
Reclassification
I've decided to dedicate some time following the lead of many others in chronicling my journey through The Criterion Collection. Since it is ever-expanding by hours and hours each week, I may not be able to put together a feature-length piece on each title. What I will endeavor to do in the short term is cover as many going-OOP titles as I can. Next on the list after Hunger and Revanche is the iconic Spine 1, Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion.
Read MoreOut of Print Watch: Criterion's Contempt
This title is OOP and has been for a while, but I noticed that Amazon is still fulfilling orders on it. This Criterion DVD features a pile of extras not present on the forthcoming StudioCanal Collection Blu-ray (16 Feb). They include three different interviews with Jean-Luc Godard, a commentary by scholar Robert Stam, and a modern-day interview with Godard cinematographer Raoul Coutard. More will be explored in a Then & Now before the end of the week. Amazon has the DVD listed "In Stock" at $30.49. Grab it while they last.
The HD Guide's Out of Print Watch is designed to give a head's up to collectors and fans of movies that are going out of print before they're hard to find, over-priced, or both.
Long Whip
Drew Barrymore's Whip It plays just a bit long for my taste. On top of that, so much of the movie just doesn't look anything like Austin (since it was shot in Michigan), which makes the constant references to Austin fall flat and inauthentic. It's like when Toronto doubles for New York. Bottles of Shiner Bock and trying too hard to shoehorn in Austin references doesn't help (though a cameo by the Alamo Ritz does).
Thankfully, Andrew Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Zoe Bell keep things interesting whenever they pop up. That isn't to say the rest of the cast (including the dynamic duo of Ellen Page and Alia Shawkat) aren't all terrific, but those three are really what kept me from putting Whip It in the "watch later" pile.
The only extras on the Blu-ray are a three-minute chat with the author of the book and some deleted scenes that include an alternate opening and a bit with Andrew Wilson jumping a row of kids on rollerblades. They should have kept that in the final cut.
Read MoreAbsurd Realities and Speculative Fiction
I had more to say about the far better than average, sociologically mature Surrogates, but I needed some more time to really dig into that. The reason you've probably not read much about it all over the movie blogverse is that it cuts a bit closer to the bone than something like WALL-E or We Live in Public on the "slob glued to his chair and screen" thing. Surrogates directly confronts the addiction to little lit-up screens and avoiding real social contact in the world.
Surrogates is set in an alternate (but not so different) modern-day. The only sci-fi leap is the presence of lifelike, human androids being controllable by your thoughts from a chair in your home. 98% of the population uses them. You can be and look like anybody, regardless of your physical reality. It's like playing a massively multiplayer online game in the real world and being able to force a robot to go outside to run errands and do your chores. Everyone lives in a recliner wearing their bedclothes, sleepwalking through existence. In Surrogates, people who go outside physically leave their Surrogate at home are defamed as "meatbags". How dare they go outside!
In the lives we actually lead, social networking sites are very inaccurately named. If anything, they're anti-social, disingenuous buffers against real life. It's easier to call someone a racist fascist asshole with no real-world repercussions. People react violently when their addiction to their smartphones and laptops is questioned, like you're out of your mind. While conducting "conversations" with people, I regularly get active listening cues like "uh huh, yeah, I know, right?" from people I'm talking at, but whose eyes are glued to their little digital crack devices.
Isn't it reasonable to think it's nuts that I regularly see men balance their smartphones on urinal flushers so that they can be "connected" for the 30-90 seconds they stand there and piss? How many cases of hemorrhoids have been caused by people not leaving their digital lives at rest when they go to the bathroom? How many online writers are paying attention to the closing minutes of a movie when they're thinking about how to sum it up in 140 characters the instant that the credits roll?
I can pinpoint the check-out moment in Surrogates for many of the movie bloggerati: when it's found that a highly sexual female surrogate is found to be operated by a bald, overweight, middle-aged man. They react to that as some sort of affront against overweight, indoorsy guys like them, and what's worse, it infers that they're all total gays. Two things that insecure, straight male shut-ins hate is seeing something that could be construed as portraying them negatively or (the horror) homosexually.
I'm not saying that all of these guys are unshaven, unclean, passive-aggressive, and lonely people who avoid conflict at all costs. Plenty of them have lives, wives and/or girlfriends, and are independent thinkers. That being said, there's a remarkable flood of them that hide behind walls of anonymity or the abstract barrier of the internet, where they don't have to be accountable for the sometimes psychotic things that they say or write.
Many of them are also among the set who believe they're entitled to steal content, whether the ideas or writings of others, or actual movies and other things via torrent networks. When they're called out for theft, they accuse those who are in the right of being "whiners" or "mad at the world". When forced outside at festivals, they travel in packs to bolster their sense of physical and ethical security. None of them would stand up for themselves by "taking it outside", but will (emptily) threaten legal action or physical violence as a bully tactic along the lines of "I'm gonna call my mom!"
They leverage a group opinion of "so and so is an asshole" or "no one likes you" to insulate themselves against anyone critical of them. Everything becomes all about being best of pals with everyone so that you can take advantage of this Cool Guys Co-op, and not making any waves. Most of the writing that comes from these people resembles indirectly subsidized studio publicity with little to no critical voice or individuality.
That hive consciousness is very much what permeates the world that exists in Surrogates. We are a society of think-alike, superficial idiots with no emotional capacity for analytical thought. That world is a great deal harder to digest than the escapism of space-traveling to a distant world and having 10-foot-tall blue people sex with Zoe Saldana.
I should disclose that I've written this piece in my pajamas while sitting on my couch with the curtains drawn, occasionally posting to Twitter. I believe the "think-alike" sentence in the preceding paragraph could be read both ways.
Read MoreNow & Then 5: Ong Bak, Walk the Line, King/Scotland
I don't have photos or screencaps on these, unfortunately, but I wanted to address them. Ong Bak is the most marginal audiovisual upgrade, but it looks a hell of a lot better than the extremely lackluster DVD transfer. That's not really saying too much, however. I'd wager that the same HD master that was used on the DVD got re-used for Blu-ray. Even though it's higher resolution, this looks like a master intended for the much lower-rez DVD world.
Walk the Line and The Last King of Scotland are solid blugrades, but one should be aware that Line does not include the Extended Cut via seamless branching. All the same DVD SE extras remain on all three, albeit in SD.
Now & Then is a sub-feature of the HD Guide that gives a look at what's gained and lost as various titles make the leap to Blu-ray from DVD.
Now & Then 4: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
This is yet another case of "keep your Criterion DVD" blugrade. Unlike the Do the Right Thing release from last year, Universal opted not to license the copious Criterion extras for their Fear & Loathing Blu-ray. The picture and audio quality are indeed a step up, but dirt, grain, aliasing and edge enhancement crop up in the video enough to keep this from being a full-on home run.
Say goodbye to all of the Criterion supplements save the deleted scenes and trailer, and then add a ten-minute on-location featurette and you've got the Blu-ray extras. There's no telling if or when the Criterion DVD may go out of print, so Gilliam followers or fans should make sure they put it on the "priority buy" list before too much longer.
As for the Blu-ray, I can't say "rush out and get it now!", but that won't stop die-hards from grabbing it. This isn't an embarrassment by any stretch, but the color of this piece would be a lot more vibrant if they'd just bit the bullet, shared the profits, and let Criterion do their job.
The Latest Remake of Emma
I'm waiting for The Last Remake of Emma to come along in the style of Gene Wilder's The Last Remake of Beau Geste. Maybe that could bring him out of retirement to play Emma's father. There's no chance in hell that would happen, but it's fun to imagine.
As far as I can tell, Jane Austen's Emma has been adapted to the screen six times including the most recent 2009 do-over that ran recently on PBS in the States. The progression goes something like this: 1948 BBC miniseries, BBC remake in 1960, another BBC remake in 1972, and then a 24-year gap until two more in 1996 (a fourth BBC mini w/ Kate Beckinsale and a movie w/ American carpetbagger Gwyneth Paltrow).
One of my indulgences is BBC period miniseries, and I've seen more than anyone's fair share. There it is, I've outed myself. I enjoy watching people bristle at impropriety while wearing waistcoats and wigs. The 2009 BBC mini (available on DVD today, 9 Feb) works and delivers what one has come to expect from something in the "BBC wigs and frock coats" section of Barnes & Noble, but one thing did bother me.
I'm sorry to say that my only real annoyance with this newest do-over is that Romola Garai plays Emma far too modern for my taste. She's supposed to be ahead of her time socially to some extent, but at some points while watching, I expected a score featuring Girls Aloud to kick in. No offense to Garai, but I'm glad Keira Knightley ended up getting Pride & Prejudice 2K5 (my title) instead of her. The image of Garai on the back cover illustrates my point.
I'm not alone in this critique, as plenty of friends on Twitter exclaimed a couple of weeks ago when eMMa2K9 (again, my title) premiered here. Like them, however, Garai didn't entirely put me off watching it. Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightly and Michael Gambon as Emma's father are interesting, excellent choices. The story is the story as it always has been.
The 2-DVD set is in thick, sturdy "hardcover book"-style packaging also found on BBC/Warner's recent release of Cranford and Return to Cranford. Disc one houses the first two episodes of the four part series and the locations and costumes featurettes. Of the extras, my favorite is Emma's Mr. Woodhouse [13:19], a short retrospective of Gambon's career, in particular his projects with the BBC. Sitting in a chair from the set in full costume, he tells anecdotes from the last couple decades of his professional life. It's joined on disc two by a music featurette. Amazon is listing it for $21.99.
Read More1: Disappearing Grand Illusion
The first time I saw Grand Illusion was my freshman year of college in an Introduction to Film class. It was one of the first Criterion Collection DVDs that I bought, and is probably the vintage CC disc that I replay the most. The movie speaks so well to the nature of conflict and the contradictions in its practice sociopolitically. For those more familiar with In the Loop, I would consider this its great grandfather to some extent. The satire is more subtle and the pacing more patient in Jean Renoir's Illusion than Armando Ianucci's Loop, but they share
Read MoreDas History und "History"
First Run Features released a couple of very interesting titles last month. One of which, My Fuhrer, is comedic historical fiction at its best. The other, Red Cartoons, is a historically significant collection of pre-unification East German animated films.
My Fuhrer's original German title directly translates to "Mein Fuhrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler". That gives an accurate impression of the tone. The Lives of Others' Ulrich Muhe plays Adolf Grunbaum, a Jewish acting teacher plucked out of a camp by Goebbels to coach Hitler in the final months of the Third Reich.
Hitler is a depressed ghost of who he once was. He holes himself up for days at a time and lacks any of his familiar vigor. Goebbels wants Hitler to re-energize a demoralized, all-but-defeated Nazi Germany with a rousing New Year's speech. Helge Schneider plays a caricatured, prosthetic-nosed Hitler with latex jowls, and it works. He plays Hitler like some empty-headed, child-like puppet of Goebbels.
When I popped in Fuhrer, I did a double take when Goebbels came on-screen, wondering why he looked familiar. The second time he entered, I paused it and realized it was Sylvester Groth, who played the same role in Inglourious Basterds. I later found out that this film is one of the things that helped him win the part for Tarantino.
Read More421: Pierrot Le Fou
Un-phony Fame
