Trespassing against us (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Adam Smith
	Actors: Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson, Lyndsay Marshal
	Country: GB
	Genre: Drama, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 03.07.2017, Schauburg, Sneak Preview, English with German subtitle
Synopsis: Living as pariahs on the outskirts of Gloucestershire, three generations of Cutlers, the infamous family of professional criminals, spend their time planning the next heist and mocking the Police. Under Colby's wing, the family's patriarch (Gleeson), the one who pulls all the strings and the source of all evil, Chad (Fassbender) the eldest son, finds himself wavering from his desire to live a quiet life with his wife Kelly (Marshal) and son away from crime and his fearful respect to his father. When Colby devises a plan targeting Lord Lieutenant's inestimable private collection of art, the Police will come after them hard and a life of bad decisions, violence and crime will begin to collapse, underlining the fact that Chad, his father's worthy son and heir needs to make his decisions fast. Will he attempt to oppose and break up the family, or will he spread wings and begin to live his new life? After all, you've only got one family
Review: The family story dealing with the difficulty for sons (and actually also daughters) to cut with their fathers (and also mothers) is told in a very silent way. Chad never talks about it. But his reactions, his actions reflect all the time the allmighty power of the father. The father forces his son to act as he wants, by ingenuous pressure on the grandson or on Kelly. This is something that I have seen around me, by luck not directly experienced. This psychological pressure is really disgusting. Chad even feels remorse of leaving his disgusting and threatening family for his own wife and son. Time to time there is some action or some comedy to disrupt the heavy family atmosphere and bring some rythm in the story. The acting of Fassbender is intense as the role is. The main roles, Chad and Colby, the main characters are intense and therefore very interesting. The character of Chad's brother is so stupidly funny that it also quite marked my mind.  The ideas of robbery are quite good and the car races with the police are well shot.
Rating: 6 /10

Viceroy's house (2017)

	Also Known As: Der Stern von Indien
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Gurinder Chadha
	Actors: Gillian Anderson, Hugh Bonneville, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Simon Callow, Lily Travers
	Country: GB, S
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 31.07.2017, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English version with German subtitles
Synopsis: New Dehli in March 1947. The huge and stately Viceroy's Palace is like a beehive. Its five hundred employees are busy preparing the coming of Lord Louis Mountbatten (Bonneville), who has just been appointed new (and last) viceroy of India by prime minister Clement Attlee (Callow). Mountbatten, whose difficult task consists in overseeing the transition of British India to independence, arrives at the Palace, accompanied by his Edwina (Anderson), his liberal-minded wife and by his eighteen-year-old daughter Pamela (Travers). Meanwhile, in the staff quarters, a love story is born between Jeet (Daval), a Hindu, and Aalia (Qureshi), a Muslim beauty. Things will prove difficult - not to say very difficult - both on the geopolitical and personal level.
Review: The story starts in an interesting way as if we would experience two stories. But in fact we only see the story of the heroic viceroy who is able to handle with all parties and is betrayed by his own colleagues. The love story of Aalia and Jeet is fully secondary. The story of the good wife pushing diplomatic and progressive agreements between the British crown and India is as secondary as the daughter Pamela helping poor Indians after getting the finest lunch.At the end it looks like the Viceroy has been fooled by a bunch of Indian and British traitors. How naive is the viewer supposed to be? At least some key points of the Indian history are correctly rendered that may not be so commonly known. The split of India and Pakistan, its rationale, its colonial and economical context. The acting of the British characters is very stuck while the Indian characters are all passionate and dramatic. What kind of stereotypes are we supposed to swallow?  The light in any circumstance, bright Sun outside and dark appartment, is well mastered.  I suppose that the intention of the movie was not to pull down Indians, but for sure to excuse the Viceroy and the British crown. Who would believ this tale? Not me.
Rating: 3 /10

Sie nannten ihn Spencer (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Karl-Martin Pold
	Actors: -
	Country: A, D
	Genre: Documentary, Western, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 05.08.2017, Schauburg, original German version
Synopsis: Marcus Zölch recovered from a serious injury by watching Bud Spencer movies. Jorgo Papasoglou finds the force to overcome his handicap with the positive motto claimed by the characters of Bud Spencer. When they meet at a Bud Spencer fan festival, they decide to go on the quest to meet Bud Spencer.
Review: The originality of this documentary is the fact that it has been produced to give a parallel to the Spaghetti Western movies of Bud Spencer. The research work is romanised to build the scenes and the scenes apply the same type of humour between the blondie Marcus and the beary Jorgo. The way they meet in a fan cosplay-like meeting. Many scenes or dialogues in the German version of the Bud Spencer movies are inserted in the quest story and make these parallels hilarious. The buddies Marcus and Jorgo behaved like Bud Spencer and Terence Hill making the same kind of jokes, teasing each other, making the same gestures and having the same looks. And always with kind of flash back or parallels to Bud Spencer movies. Really really funny. The life of Bud Spencer is told with all his professions and many people he met. This is already amazing for those who did not know before (like me from wiki). There are interviews of stuntmen, of actors, of producers, of composer, of Terence Hill, of many people who have been working with Bud Spencer, often done by Marcus and Jorgo along their journey. The meeting of Marcus, Jorgo with these people is done with an ever-increasing emotion on both sides and this is also good to see. People living their passion and saying thanks to the right people.
Rating: 7 /10

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Luc Besson (Leon, The Fifth Element)
	Actors: Dane DeHaan (Metallica: Through the Never, Chronicle), Cara Delevingne, Alain Chabat (Didier), Rihanna (Battleship), Ethan Hawke (Total Recall, Gattaca), Clive Owen (Children of Men)
	Country: F
	Genre: SF, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 06.08.2017, Schauburg, English/French version with German subtitles
Synopsis: In the 28th century, Valerian (DeHaan) and Laureline (Delevingne) are a team of special spacetime operatives charged with maintaining order throughout the human territories. Under assignment from the Minister of Defense, the two embark on a mission to the astonishing city of Alpha -an ever-expanding metropolis where species from all over the universe have converged over centuries to share knowledge, intelligence and cultures with each other. There is a mystery at the center of Alpha, a dark force which threatens the peaceful existence of the City of a Thousand Planets.
Review: As many of the Luc Besson stories, it deals with love. Today the message is "Make love not war". I fully agree with him. And thenhe spent some 177200 thousand dollars to make the movie and it does not touch me much. I remember the series of anime that starts with episode 1 here. But I do not know the comic books. I liked the humour of Valerian and Laureline, always teasing each other without having any love story. And here the love story takes everything and is a the core of the message by Luc Besson. To be at the level of the Fifth element, the story teling would have needed some humour. There are plenty of special effects that are quite nice or the idea to bring them are good. There is a virtual market from which you can materialise anything. There is a city, the famous city Alpha floating in the space but where you find lakes with monsters and many cities or constructions. There are also the different types of beings, some of them with designs coming from the Fifth elements, other similar to the anime and to the comic (according to several portals comparing the characters in the movie and in the comic books).  I liked Dane DeHaan in his previous movies The place beyond the pines and Kill your darlings. And here he is very stiff in his role of military. In return Cara Delevingne in her both military and human character and Alain Chabat as the crazy doc are great.
Rating: 5 /10

Die Puppe (1919)

	Also Known As: La poupée, The doll
	Year of first release: 1919
	Director: Ernst Lubitsch
	Actors: Victor Janson, Ossi Oswald, Hermann Thimig, Jakob Tiedtke, Gerhard Ritterband, Max Kronert
	Country: D
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 20.08.2017, Arte+7, Streaming, German texts
Synopsis: The Baron von Chanterelle (Kronert) wants to get his nephew Lancelot (Thimig) married not to dissolve his fortune into his wide family. Lancelot flees the fourty young ladies of the county who wanted to be selected and hides in a monastery. As the greedy and glutton monks discover that the Baron offers a large sum for the marriage, they convince Lancelot to marry a mechanical doll instead. The local doll maker Hilarious (Janson) has just finished making a replica of his daughter Ossi (Oswalda), but his assistant (Ritterbrandt) accidentally breaks it and convinces the real girl to mimic the doll. Lancelot buys her, thinking she is a doll, and takes her back to the monastery.
Review: I always wanted to watch something from Lubitsch from his German years after having laughed on Ninotschka and The merry widow. The story is told in a very creative way, mixing gestual comedy (Ossi facial and body expression), character (continuous mutual teasing and slapping of Hilarious and his assistant), situation comedy, repetition (the scene with the fourty maidens running behind Lancelot). It mixes also the sceneries doll house-like and studio-like. This was really cool and it is a kind of special effects making Germany definitely one of the main film production countries of the world at that time.  The acting is focused on the characters tricks for comedy. Ossi is always making her doll movements or the complete opposite. Lancelot is always uptight. Hilarious and his assistant are always fighting like cat and dog. But they do it very well. The movie was really funny. Even if it is not the Hollywood humour of the early movies by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. This is closest to their late movies, having a real story and not a series of unexpected events.  The director shows great master and this is why Hollywood bought him as soon as Lubitsch wanted to flee the Germany of Adolf Hilter.
Rating: 6 /10

The party (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Sally Potter
	Actors: Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cilian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall
	Country: GB
	Genre: Drama, Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 19.06.2017, Schauburg, Sneak Preview, English with German subtitle
Synopsis: April (Clarkson) is the best friend of Janet (Thomas). Gottfried (Ganz) is the German life-coach and husband of April. Martha (Jones) is the best political supporter of Janet. Jinny (Mortimer) is the newly pregnant girlfriend of Martha. Tom (Murphy) is the banker boyfriend of Janet's most precious colleague Marianne. Bill (Spall) is the husband of Janet. Janet just got promoted to be minister for health.
Review: The story is a long introduction of the characters, as if we were at this party. Some sequences are full of morbid and black humour, what I liked, but many are quite flat. Even if a kind of suspense is built by the banker Tom having a gun in his pocket. But this looks poorly credible because of the acting and because of the situation. Maybe this was supposed to be humorous. Then the revelation of the lethal illness of Tom is really funny because of the reaction of the guests and also mine. Is he joking, trying to catch some attention now that his wife is in focus, or is he serious? Then comes more revelations and the reactions are again very funny. But I would have liked that the dialogues would be in the same range of humour and subtlety and this was unfortunately not the case.  The acting is actually good, apart from Cilian Murphy's scenes with his gun! By luck Bruno Ganz, Kristin Scott Thomas and Timothy Spall kept high the quality of acting, even if their roles did not have good dialogues (except Bruno Ganz). Their expressions (body and face) matched perfectly the role. Spall was already great in Denial. The movie is shot in black and white, giving an old film noir touch. The photography was very clean, creative, a bit like the old Russian school taking great care for the lights and shadows.
Rating: 5 /10

Gifted (2017)

	Also Known As: Begabt
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Marc Webb
	Actors: Chris Evans, Mckenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Jenny Slate, Octavia Spencer
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 10.07.2017, Schauburg, Sneak Preview, English with German subtitle
Synopsis: Frank Adler (Evans) is a single man raising a child prodigy - his spirited young niece Mary (Grace) in a coastal town in Florida. Frank's plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when the seven-year-old's mathematical abilities come to the attention of Frank's mother Evelyn (Duncan) whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary. The quiet and balanced environment of Mary, including landlady and neighbour Roberta (Spencer) may be changed. Mary's teacher, Bonnie (Slate), is a young woman whose concern for her student develops into a connection with her uncle as well.
Review: The will to protect Mary from the careerist grandmother is shared by all Mary's environment, whereas the teacher tries to bring her into a higher-level school. This is nice to see. Also the poised, intellectual and playful Mary is nice to see. Good to have also an example going opposite to Good Will Hunting or others where the genious is developped. This point of view that is not the obvious one was interesting and remains touching while thinking about kids who did not play much. Short but deep flaw is the explanation of the genious by the simple genes of the mother.  The acting of Chris Evans and McKenna Grace is quite good, even if the Jenny Slate plays the teacher as if she was just an fan of Captain America! Octavia Spencer is great in her secondary role.
Rating: 7 /10

Atomic blonde (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: David Leitch
	Actors: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones, Sofia Boutella
	Country: D, USA, S
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 07.08.2017, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English with German subtitles
Synopsis: The crown jewel of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is equal parts spycraft, sensuality and savagery, willing to deploy any of her skills to stay alive on her impossible mission. Sent alone into Berlin in 1989 to deliver a priceless dossier out of the destabilized city, she partners with embedded station chief David Percival (McAvoy) to navigate her way through the deadliest game of spies.
Review: The story is a classical double agent movie. The originality comes from the time when the story takes place. Berlin just before the fall of the wall. The suspiscions are therefore complex between the double agents, the Stasi agents, the Russian, the Freedom movements, the CIA, the HMS intelligence service. The music and the archive footage are very good and brought me really in a time when I was a child looking at these events on TV.  The story is built so that after a while (some dead bodies, some German policemen or Russian agents kicked off) it is not really interesting. And this is a pity, because there are some good actors that could have been used better, such as McAvoy and Marsan.  I liked the crude fight scenes, where anything is used and unlike James Bond movies, all fighters got hurt. There is also one very hot scene with the French agent Delphine Lasalle (Boutella) that will be printed in many minds.
Rating: 4 /10

Wonderwoman (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Patty Jenkins
	Actors: Gal Gadot (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), Chris Pine (Star Trek 1-3), Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright (House of Cards TV-series), Lily Aspell
	Country: USA, CN, HK, GB, I, CDN
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 12.06.2017, Schauburg, Sneak Preview, English/German/Dutch with German subtitle
Synopsis: Diana (Gadot), princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unbeatable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when a pilot (Pine) crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers and her true destiny.
Review: From the right beginning, the director got bad points. He recalls a supposed Greek mythology that is completely wrong, the role of the Amazons as well as the roles of the mentioned gods. And then the movie does not offer much to compensate. Possibly the nice legs of Gal Gadot. And that's it!  The fights are not nicely choreographed. The CGI effects are sometimes bad and sometimes bring some ridicule to the characters and the story. The dialogues are terrible. The acting is never credible. The only good acting is coming from the young Diana (Aspell).  What hurts is that the movie did so much profit in such a short time! At least Hollywood may have money to invest in other movies with all that...
Rating: 0 /10

Baby driver (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End)
	Actors: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, House of Cards), Lily James, Jamie Foxx (Collateral, Django Unchained), John Hamm (Sucker Punch, The Town), Eiza Gonzalez (Bloodshot)
	Country: GB, USA
	Genre: Action, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 24.07.2017, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English with German subtitle
Synopsis: Baby (Elgort) is a young and partially hearing impaired getaway driver who can make any wild car move while in motion with the right track playing. It's a critical talent he needs to survive his indentured servitude to the crime boss, Doc (Spacey), who values his role in his meticulously planned robberies. However, just when Baby thinks he is finally free and clear to have his own life with his new girlfriend, Deborah (James), Doc coerces him back for another job. Now saddled with a crew of thugs too violently unstable to keep to Doc's plans, Baby finds himself and everything he cares for in danger.
Review: Long awaited! The new movie by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the dead, Hotfuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs the world, The world's end). As for Shaun of the dead refreshing the zombie genre, Baby driver refreshes the robbery movie with a lot of humour like in his other movies and an amazing music selection reminding the precise selections by Quentin Tarantino.  Along the missions, many details of the normal life appear normal while they are actually fully off the wall. Baby is driving not only fast but like hell but he actually doesn't even have his driving license! Also many discussions on music tracks are great, like the one on the name Debora. The story line is excellent for an action movie. It does not just deal with robbery, or with escaping from the gangster society, it deals with being taken seriously by parent-like persons, it deals with building love based on mutual acceptance and support, it deals with deciding one's own route regardless from the financial benefits. In that sense, a very good plan for a coming-of-age movie! The story keeps many surprises or sometimes almost-announced events in suspense until these happen. It is indeed obvious that with the characters of Jamie Foxx and John Hamm something bloody and not planned will happen during one mission. The way this suspense is kept is very good, because it is almost-announced several times by humour, by teasing, by lack of humour of some characters. Excellent mix of humours!  Ansel Elgort acts greatly the role of autist-at-work and extrovert-at-home. And the couple John Hamm and Eiza Gonzalez fits perfectly to their role of dangerous hot couple as well.  If you like music, the selection here will amaze you for its eclecticism! From the craziest  (my favourite) by Blur, Intermission, to the groovy Barry White via Easy by The Commodores and Tequila by The champs. Wow!  The action scenes are well mastered the shot! The stunts, the light, the camera. Really good directing.
Rating: 9 /10 Selection of nice posters with quotes from the movie.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
	Actors: Tom Hiddleston (Thor 1-2, The Avengers), Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, Deep Blue Sea, The Avengers), Brie Larson (21 Jump Street), John C. Reilly (Wreck-It Ralph), John Goodman (The Big Lebowski)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Fantasy, War
	Conditions of visioning: 25.07.2017, in-flight entertainment 10" screen.
Synopsis: Right after the Vietnam War, a group of veterans led by Preston (Jackson) escort a team of geologists to map a mysterious island in the south Pacific that is constantly at the center of a storm.
Review: Because of the presence of King Kong alive on its native island in that movie I thought it was a prequel of Peter Jackson's definitive 2005 King Kong, while it is in fact a prequel to Gareth Edwards 2014 Godzilla !! Or at least it takes place in the same Universe thanks to the presence of a company called Monarch which specializes in the theory of the Hollow Earth and predicts the emergence of giant animals. Then from the first scene taking place during WWII, I could tell it was not going to be an A-grade movie but rather a B one, which is not necessary a bad thing in itself when well done. But after being used to Peter Jackson's realistic giant gorilla and real-life characters, it is hard not to be disappointed by this almost man-in-a-suit standing straight that sets us back to 1978's version of King Kong with Jeff Bridges. I don't know if this was intentional but the story is even as weak as the one in that model. And the characters' motivations are not very convincing, especially the one of Sam Jackson who just wants to kill anything that moves after his traumatic end of the Vietnam war. A special mention to Tom Hiddleston whom I had never seen acting somebody else than Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (starting with Thor) and who nicely embodies an adventurer here. The special effects are decent (even if disappointing in the case of Kong) and the sleak design of the bad beasts that are the MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) remind of their counterparts in Godzilla. The movie may have been fun to watch on a large screen, but the weaknesses in the story spoiled the experience for me: Kong's history, when do his enemies show up with perfect timing, the survival of the local population, Hank's non-adaptation to life here, the annoying tendency of the chopper pilots to fly too close to Kong...
Rating: 3 /10