Awards screeners are starting to come in hard & fast now, so here’s a hectic (and almost certainly incomplete) roundup of movies I’ve watched these last few weeks. In order of preference! My Mother, My Bride, and I/Die Zweite Frau Another cross-cultural love story from Europe, this time bridging Bavaria and Romania. Erwin Kobarek (Matthias [...]
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"A fast, complex, exhilarating roadster ride through history and time.... Kino is an intoxicating Euro-brew, written with enormous skill and dedication." — Frederick Barthelme
"Jürgen Fauth's deft mashup of genre and historical period is both a full-throttle literary thriller of ideas and a contemplative examination of film and fascism. Kino is a debut of great intellectual force."– Teddy Wayne
"A surprising alternative history. Kino brings the golden age of German cinema to light with loving, sometimes gritty, detail and great precision." – Neal Pollack, author of Jewball.
"A delirious melange of conspiracy, magic, sex, history, bad behavior, and cinema, Kino is a stellar entertainment, and Jürgen Fauth is a writer of rare, sinister imagination." – Owen King, author of Reenactment
"A light-hearted romp that leads straight into darkness and back through the shadows on the wall."– Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
"Movie nuts arise! A happy and felicitous debut."– Terese Svoboda
All posts tagged helen-mirren
Quantum of Black Speed Flash Gonzo Truth Strain Boogie Racer
Posted by Jürgen on November 22, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/11/22/quantum-of-black-speed-flash-gonzo-truth-strain-boogie-racer/
Konsum: Stalling Woodpecker Edition
None of the movies I saw this week thrilled as much as the conclusion to the first part of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King. After 200 pages of young Wart’s education, we finally get to the part about the sword in the stone. It’s Merlyn’s final lesson, presented in a hallucinatory passage [...]
Posted by Jürgen on March 16, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/03/16/konsum-stalling-woodpecker-edition/
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
In anticipation of the sequel, Marcy and I rewatched the original 1998 movie, a solid historical drama with a healthy Godfather finish and an astounding performance by Cate Blanchett. The new film, also directed by Shekhar Kapur, picks up the story where it left off and sees the Virgin Queen through to the defeat of [...]
Posted by Jürgen on October 6, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/10/06/elizabeth-the-golden-age/
Comedy of Power
Another acerbic tale from Claude Chabrol. Isabelle Huppert, without much makeup but equipped with an iron will, plays a judge investigating large-scale corporate fraud and government corruption. The powerful woman opposing very powerful men in dinky offices echoes Helen Mirren‘s struggle to “grab the machos by the balls” in Prime Suspect, although the crimes here [...]
Posted by Jürgen on May 6, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/06/comedy-of-power/
Prime Suspect
Like a distant cousin of Le Petit Lieutenant’s Nathalie Baye, Helen Mirren plays a determined female detective in this BBC cop show. The series starts in 1991 when DCI Jane Tennison gets her first murder case; there are six more installments before the 2006 “Final Act.” The murders are grisly, London’s wet and gray, and [...]
Posted by Jürgen on January 24, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/01/24/prime-suspect/
NYFCO Awards
Together with two dozen of our esteemed colleagues, we spent the afternoon voting for the annual New York Film Critics Online awards. Stephen Frears’ The Queen was a clear favorite, winning no less than five categories: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, as well as acting awards for Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen. Guillermo del [...]
Posted by Jürgen on December 10, 2006
http://jurgenfauth.com/2006/12/10/nyfco-awards/
The Queen
You can watch good movies again and again, but only great movies get better every time. Helen Mirren is getting all the press for her outstanding performance as QEII, but the writing is what made that performance possible. Peter Morgan’s screenplay manages to be at once historically specific and archetypal, using a unique week in [...]
Posted by Jürgen on December 3, 2006
http://jurgenfauth.com/2006/12/03/the-queen-3/
Tulpendiebe
The Queen – Director’s Commentary
Frears, Mirren, Morgan. Photo: Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE I’ve watched and written about this movie more than once, but a DVD commentary with Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan was reason enough to give it another whirl. On the audio track, the film’s director and screenwriter are every bit as entertaining as they were at the NYFF press [...]
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/29/the-queen-directors-commentary/