Walk the Line

Film: Walk the Line
Director: James Mangold
Year: 2005
15 word synap:
The life and love and music of Johnny Cash and June Carter.
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Because I am not traditionally interested in music, I am not very interested in music films. However, because Walk the Line is up for an Oscar this year, my mom wanted to see it. I was happy to go with her and pleasantly surprised to enjoy this bio picture about Johnny Cash and his life. Like most biography films about musicians, they tend to follow the similar themes of music, drugs and woman, but this one, the “women” weren’t so much “women” as a woman – June Carter. Over all, the film was actually very enjoyable.

The filmmaking was not particularly remarkable in this particular film, the cutting or style was not unique, but very clean and clearly presented. The story was very strong and the music very well integrated.

Over all this was a traditional “Hollywood” film considering it was safe, showed strength and redemption and displayed cultural icons. As mentioned in the beginning nothing was particularly creative or remarkable about the film. While I don’t really think this film made any bold moves, or pushed any boundaries, the story was still very interesting and made a fine film.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Film: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Director: Fran Kuzui
Year: 1992
15 word synap:
Ditzy, vapid, valley girl must save southern valley town from vampire menace.

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This is the movie that spawned it all. Buffy the vampire series that is. And since the first season of the series is on my queue on netflix, I decided to pay homage to this not-so-classic first. This film is a perfect example of grade A quality Teen Camp. In fact, this film not only knows that it is camp-- it revels its camp; it embraces the camp; it is one with the camp. Another funny thing about this film, is it had famous people before they were famous in it!!! Ben Afleck as an extra!!! Hilary Swank as a valley girl with big hair! And a few others.

Some of the clichés did get a little over drawn and over used. The funniest part of the film had to be the never ending death scene, which cracked me up. It will be interesting to try and see how this became the hit series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” While the film did get a little slow at time, and sometimes the camp of camp became just a little too much, the film was a fun piece of fluff to spend the evening without expending too many calories or brain cells.

Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin

Film: Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin
(Blind Spot: Hilter's Secretary)
Director: André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer
Year: 2002
15 word synap:
Hilter’s secratery reaccounts her experiences with the dictator half a centery later.
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I had read articles about this documentary a last year because it made quite a stir at the Berlin film festival. I believe the complaints of the film were that the Frau Junge was in many cases too kind to the dictator and too kind to herself in the role she played in the history of National Socialism. Because of the possibly scandal nature of the film, I found myself drawn to it, but instead, like many things that have a very interesting topic, the presentation was quite dull.

The documentary is basically a narrative in which the Frau Junge, a young girl at the time of National Socialism, tells of her job as hitler's secretary. She not only worked for him, but because of the war, was required to spend her time in tight quarters with him and the other high officials and friends. She got to know his personal habits, like how he treated his dog -Blondie - or how he acted around Eve Braun. And she goes into detail about the final days in the bunker. Still, even at the end, she seems to find herself relatively free of guilt, even with such close association.

The style of filmmaking is not to my taste as it is all done in "talking head" style. The narrative is purely Frau Junge talking, which means that the viemerelyarly sees her talking for an hour and half. This makes the story, no matter how thrilling, pretty boring. There are no action shots. There is no cut away to photographs and no real creative film making. The filmmakers assume that the Frau Junge will be enough to "sell" the story, which is unfortunately pretty boring.