Das Leben der Anderen

DDR, 1984. Poet Dreyman becomes the subject of Stasi scrutiny out of personal, old-man's reasons of a high Stasi-officer. "HGW XX/7", the officer sent to listen in to every second of his private life, starts making his own assumptions and decisions.

A truly wonderful film. Characters as you seldom see them. The diversity of HGW XX/7, first bad, then good, then pushed to evil again, finally climbing up towards the Great Good, is amazing. There are few flat characters, and those who are there, minister Bruno Hempf, are there with a reason: they were those charicatures. They didn't have depth, just eye for their own gradual climbing.

Loved it.

Katzenjammer - "A bar in Amsterdam"

Just heard it on Kink ClassX, and damn, happy! powerful!

We still live in silence like sworn threats of violence
I long for an end and it's coming round the bend,
If we live through this night and we'd still be alright
We'd flee to Siam or a bar in Amsterdam


Must keep them in mind!

Alice (2009)

Suggested by a colleague, this very-mini series (2 episodes of about 90 minutes each) capture every hook and notch of the imagination.

Wonderland has progressed a lot since the "Alice of Legend" passed by (come to think of it, it is probably about a 150 years ago it was written?). But the Red Queen is still evil and people try to stop her.

Many characters make their appearance in the story: Alice (though repeatedly not -the- Alice, "Just Alica"), the Caterpillar, Mad Hatter, March Hare, &etc.

Alice, who lost her father when she was 10, finds herself in a world dominated by the Red Queen who uses the "Oysters", people from our world, to extract "real feelings", basically drugs.

The story is great, the acting is good. The settings are believable. No continuous Deus Ex Machina like in "Tin Man", even though the part where Alice, played by a convincing Caterina Scorsone, manages to turn everybody against the Red Queen in the end, happens rather sudden. The change characters go through, the wonderful Don Quichote-role of the White Knight (Matt Frewer, "Trashman" from "The Stand")...

The jokes are funny, but also "believable". They might be funny to the viewer, but they make sense to the story and/or characters.

Errol Morris - "A Brief History Of Time" (1991)

Biography of Stephen Hawking's life, family, colleagues and sickness, intermingled with his theories.

Hearing him explain his theories about the universe rekindles the interest in and love for the grand questions of the (mathematical) universe.

"When you've used the phrase 'gravitationally completely collapsed object' ten times, you realise you need another name. So I started to use 'black hole'"
[John Miller]

"When people ask me about black holes, and ask me how we can see them, I tell them: have you ever been to a ball with the boys in their black tuxedo and the girls in their white evening dress? When they turn the light so low you can only see the girls...? Well, those girls are ordinary stars, and the boys are the black holes. You can't see them, but when you watch the girls, that gives you enough convincing evidence that something keeps them in orbit."
[John Miller]

Music by Philip Glass. Good, though not impressive.

Wonderful to see the environmnt, the people, to get a feeling of his life, the history of that genius.

Strange though, that they never show the names of the people they interview. On purpose?

[about the Unifying Theory]
"In time, it should be broadly understandable by everyone. And then we can all, scientists, philosophers and ordinary people, take part in the greatest question: why we and the Universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it is the ultimate triomph. For we would know the mind of God."
[Stephen Hawking]