Thom-Peters
Joined Sep 2005
Welcome to the new profile
We're still working on updating some profile features. To see the badges, ratings breakdowns, and polls for this profile, please go to the previous version.
Reviews42
Thom-Peters's rating
"Where's Wanda" begs the question: Could those who wrote and directed this stuff actually believe that they were creating something worthwhile? Or were they like "The worm must taste good to the fish and not to the angler", because that's the spirit this show smells of. Conceit and contempt. Movie people would never watch the TV goo they produce for the masses.
The humor: cringe. The acting: too often abysmal. The plot: ridiculous. The ending: as predictable as with any low effort time waster. Yes, there is some originality, and it's bad. When the authors of a show are exhausted and come up with a silly, laughable, extreme idea, it might be called "jumping the shark". That already happened in "Where's Wanda", and it's a tiger in a German forest that is doing the jumping.
It is easy to explain, why professional critics have praised this show: Because it checks all the required boxes, tows the uniparty line, doesn't wake anybody up. Everybody who knows the rigid rules - and by now, who doesn't? - will recognize immediately who is good, who is bad, who will hook up with whom. There is a German word for that: linientreu (Lee-Nee-An-Troy). People who are linientreu will like "Where's Wanda". It should be a safe and satisfying experience for them. For a more sophisticated audience this should be a hard pass.
The humor: cringe. The acting: too often abysmal. The plot: ridiculous. The ending: as predictable as with any low effort time waster. Yes, there is some originality, and it's bad. When the authors of a show are exhausted and come up with a silly, laughable, extreme idea, it might be called "jumping the shark". That already happened in "Where's Wanda", and it's a tiger in a German forest that is doing the jumping.
It is easy to explain, why professional critics have praised this show: Because it checks all the required boxes, tows the uniparty line, doesn't wake anybody up. Everybody who knows the rigid rules - and by now, who doesn't? - will recognize immediately who is good, who is bad, who will hook up with whom. There is a German word for that: linientreu (Lee-Nee-An-Troy). People who are linientreu will like "Where's Wanda". It should be a safe and satisfying experience for them. For a more sophisticated audience this should be a hard pass.
The most obvious problem with the "Die Hamburger Krankheit" (The Hamburg disease) is the anarchy -- in the minds of the three scriptwriters. They couldn't deliver a coherent story or atmosphere, interesting characters or ideas, couldn't actually do their job. They just created random scenes with occasional on-topic moments and with basic informations missing. Case in point: The nature of the disease and its transmission route remain unknown. There are no symptoms, the sick behave unusually for a bit, fall down and die. Sometimes they just fall down and die. Some people are dominated by hysteria, some move in crowds, as if everything were normal. There are no rules, no consistencies, nothing really matters. Even though some things do ring true, this is not a serious movie about a pandemic. It's also not a thriller, no genre film. And it's not a low-budget film, so lack of money is not the excuse here. This is just another tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, told by lazy smug authors.
"Die Hamburger Krankheit" is above all about people trying to get away from quarantine zones, from government measures, moving southwards. Characters disappear and magically reappear hundreds of kilometers later. Most characters are unremarkable or unlikeable. The actual lead role is Ottokar, played by the Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal, and he is plainly annoying. Wikipedia describes Arrabal's theatre as "wild, brutal, cacophonous, and joyously provocative". That's a neat characterization of Ottokar, the pesky anarchist.
In the beginning the gerontologist Sebastian (Helmut Griem) rambles a lot about life, disease and death. A theme seems to emerge: There are too many people, especially too many old people, and the disease is nature's way of taking care of that. Everything considered, this might be the actual worldview, the message of the authors. They show quite a number of very ancient folks. Singing old songs, walking around, the horror. Guys wearing traditional costumes, acting viciously. Some rich people talking about their malicious economic interests. Old politicians sending out their uniformed tools, who are the main villains from the beginning to the end, when the police is hunting down the unvaccinated.
Few hits, many misses. The only redeeming qualities of "Die Hamburger Krankheit" can be found in the scenes with an unique strangeness: The gerontology congress, an alpine farmer yodeling, the stunts of Fritz (Tilo Prückner), the schemes of Heribert (Ulrich Wildgruber), a nude scene with Romy Haag, who was around that time in a relationship with David Bowie. This might be a good film to make fun of, watching it in the company of like-minded friends. "Die Hamburger Krankheit" is boring, but strange, so very strange. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 27)
"Die Hamburger Krankheit" is above all about people trying to get away from quarantine zones, from government measures, moving southwards. Characters disappear and magically reappear hundreds of kilometers later. Most characters are unremarkable or unlikeable. The actual lead role is Ottokar, played by the Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal, and he is plainly annoying. Wikipedia describes Arrabal's theatre as "wild, brutal, cacophonous, and joyously provocative". That's a neat characterization of Ottokar, the pesky anarchist.
In the beginning the gerontologist Sebastian (Helmut Griem) rambles a lot about life, disease and death. A theme seems to emerge: There are too many people, especially too many old people, and the disease is nature's way of taking care of that. Everything considered, this might be the actual worldview, the message of the authors. They show quite a number of very ancient folks. Singing old songs, walking around, the horror. Guys wearing traditional costumes, acting viciously. Some rich people talking about their malicious economic interests. Old politicians sending out their uniformed tools, who are the main villains from the beginning to the end, when the police is hunting down the unvaccinated.
Few hits, many misses. The only redeeming qualities of "Die Hamburger Krankheit" can be found in the scenes with an unique strangeness: The gerontology congress, an alpine farmer yodeling, the stunts of Fritz (Tilo Prückner), the schemes of Heribert (Ulrich Wildgruber), a nude scene with Romy Haag, who was around that time in a relationship with David Bowie. This might be a good film to make fun of, watching it in the company of like-minded friends. "Die Hamburger Krankheit" is boring, but strange, so very strange. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 27)
This is not a B-movie and it's not a parody of a B-movie. There are themes from B-movies, but they fell in barrels of radioactiv waste and mutated. It starts with a Jekyll/Hyde variant. Detective Nils Lovelorn (Misel Maticevic) can turn into a completely different person, Bébé (Eva Haßmann), with different clothes. Why? Because his heart was broken. How is this an explanation? Because the author said so.
This guy, Jürgen Michel, was obviously given complete creative control. As long as it was somewhat different and original, he could write whatever. And he did. Arbitrariness rules supreme, unimpeded by logic, rules, probability. The result is - hardly surprising - amateurish and tiring. The storyline is just silly, the dialogues are embarrassing. Time passes slowly, when things that are supposed to be hilarious are just tedious, nonsensical and cringe.
"Lovelorn" is not a comedy, not a thriller, not a horror, mystery, action or adventure movie. It's not among the side-effects of cocaine. It's nothing, so it must be art. Funnily enough that's what it's supposed to be. Anti-art, to be exact. Dada. Professor Svedenborg (Horst Buchholz) pontificates: "Dada was an idiotic art movement at the beginning of the last century. Dada stands for the end of all reason. For the end of all laws. For total human idiocy. And that is just the beginning. At the end there's the stupidification of all matter." In the context of Dada, that's a good thing, a mission statement of sorts. What happens when matter - in the given case a chair - gets stupider? If the answer surprises you, you are not yet Dada enough.
The funniest thing about Dada is that the anti-art works - most notoriously Marcel Duchamp's urinals - actually ended up in museums, where they were treated just like all the other works. At least this will not be the fate of "Lovelorn". The sadest thing about "Lovelorn" is the fate of Horst Buchholz. In his youth he was a real shining star. He seems confused how he could end up in something so "Plan-B"-y like this. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 26)
This guy, Jürgen Michel, was obviously given complete creative control. As long as it was somewhat different and original, he could write whatever. And he did. Arbitrariness rules supreme, unimpeded by logic, rules, probability. The result is - hardly surprising - amateurish and tiring. The storyline is just silly, the dialogues are embarrassing. Time passes slowly, when things that are supposed to be hilarious are just tedious, nonsensical and cringe.
"Lovelorn" is not a comedy, not a thriller, not a horror, mystery, action or adventure movie. It's not among the side-effects of cocaine. It's nothing, so it must be art. Funnily enough that's what it's supposed to be. Anti-art, to be exact. Dada. Professor Svedenborg (Horst Buchholz) pontificates: "Dada was an idiotic art movement at the beginning of the last century. Dada stands for the end of all reason. For the end of all laws. For total human idiocy. And that is just the beginning. At the end there's the stupidification of all matter." In the context of Dada, that's a good thing, a mission statement of sorts. What happens when matter - in the given case a chair - gets stupider? If the answer surprises you, you are not yet Dada enough.
The funniest thing about Dada is that the anti-art works - most notoriously Marcel Duchamp's urinals - actually ended up in museums, where they were treated just like all the other works. At least this will not be the fate of "Lovelorn". The sadest thing about "Lovelorn" is the fate of Horst Buchholz. In his youth he was a real shining star. He seems confused how he could end up in something so "Plan-B"-y like this. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 26)