Men.

Jag hade kunnat åka iväg om det inte vore för det där lilla kruxet att det tydligen är Blondinbella som anordnar det hela. Jag har inget emot henne som person men jag är inte direkt så pepp på att hennes hjärndöda fans lär vara på båten.
Suicidemissions ain't for me.

Fylla, maskerad och båt får vänta tills det är dags för Das Boot med Arvikagänget. Som jag förövrigt skall hångla upp vartenda en som tack för... ja ni vet nog vid det här laget vad det är jag skall tacka för.

Ich werde ebenso Drachen begegnen wie Engeln die sehr zickig sien können .. Doch mit Schokolade als Waffe bekämpfe ich sie alle.. und werde sie besänftigen *lächel..

Mehr von diesem Shooting und den Erlebnissen schreibe ich nächste Woche ..wo ich endlich 2 Tage Urlaub haben werde ..

So habe ich Zeit .. mir in aller Ruhe dieses herrliche Musik-Stück  aus den goldenen 20ern  zu rippen und es vielleicht mal anderswo zu verwenden

.. Die meisten von euch kennen es wohl nur aus diesem Film *zwinka ..

.. so wünsche ich allen ein wunderschönes Wochenende und viel erfreuliches zu erleben

DRAGONROPE

Den Trailer zum Film gibt es hier.

Primeros planos de Jürgen Prochnow y su tripulación, una aguja que va marcando cada vez más profundidad y el sonido de un crujir metálico. Estos son todos los elementos que necesita Wolfgang Petersen para ponernos los pelos de punta en Das Boot.

La película dura más de tres horas y, aproximadamente el ochenta por ciento de la misma, transcurre en el interior de un submarino alemán durante la segunda guerra mundial. Las diferentes misiones que son encomendadas a la tripulación las vemos solamente desde el punto de vista de ellos. Y salvo las contadas ocasiones en las que suben a la superficie o utilizan el periscopio, no vemos absolutamente nada de lo que está pasando fuera del submarino. Todo lo que sabemos de dónde está el enemigo o hacia dónde se mueve, nos viene dado por lo que interpreta uno de los miembros de la tripulación, que maneja el hidrófono y puede escuchar el ruido de los otros barcos o submarinos.

Así que gran parte de las escenas de acción, por no decir todas, consisten en planos de la tripulación absolutamente en silencio, esperando a que alguien sepa qué está pasando fuera y les diga qué es lo que tienen que hacer. Y esos momentos son de un suspense absoluto, porque ni el espectador ni los protagonistas saben qué está pasando o qué va a pasar, a la vez que saben que están en grave peligro.

Otras escenas de particular tensión con muy pocos elementos aparecen en la película francesa El salario del miedo de Henri-George Clouzot. La película trata sobre cuatro inmigrantes en Sudamérica que son contratados para transportar dos camiones llenos de nitroglicerina por una carretera muy peligrosa, a pesar de no tener ninguna experiencia al respecto. Ambos camiones van separados entre sí, por si uno explotase, que no le afectase al otro.

Durante el camino se encuentran con varios problemas, que los conductores deben solventar con mucha lentitud y con mucho cuidado, sabiendo que cualquier error podría hacer explotar el camión. Por ejemplo, una plataforma de madera podrida sobre un precipicio en la que tendrán que maniobrar para superar una curva o un gran charco de petróleo en el que las ruedas del camión patinan. Además, vemos casi todos esos problemas por duplicado, en uno y otro camión.

Clouzot los rueda de manera muy sobria, con primeros planos de los protagonistas y detalles del camión. Y con muy pocos elementos es capaz de crear una gran tensión.

Pero lo que caracteriza a los momentos de suspense de ambas películas son que están marcados por la absoluta ausencia de música. La tensión únicamente la provoca la situación en la que estamos y los rostros de los personajes en primeros planos, pero no está aumentada artificialmente por efectos de sonido. Hay pocas escenas en el mundo del cine capaces de transmitir tanto suspense con tan pocos elementos y sin utilizar la música.

Y luego también hay que mencionar otras dos películas que son todo suspense minimalista, debido en parte a que son prácticamente obras de teatro filmadas, con toda la acción transcurriendo en una sola casa y con muy pocos personajes, como son La Huella de Mankiewicz y La soga de Hitchcock.

Pero quizás en ningún momento de esas películas se alcanzan los niveles de tensión de las anteriores. En el caso de La huella porque está tratada en su mayor parte como un juego y tiene muchos momentos de humor. Y en el caso de La Soga, porque sabemos desde el minuto uno que el cadáver está en el baúl y, por tanto, suponemos que lo más probable es que, tarde o temprano, James Stewart acabe descubriéndolo.

J.R.

Das Boot is a German movie made in 1981, written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Jürgen Prochnow.  It is not the weird-ass drinking game featured in the climactic scene of Beerfest, though that also featured Prochnow, coincidentally.  I assure you, he is not a strangely non-threatening corporate villain here.  He's a totally badass, half-crazy submarine captain.

This movie clocks in at 3 and a half hours, meaning it's a real commitment of a movie, and like most commitments, you're not really sure that everyone will survive the whole way through, and by the end, you're sure everyone will not survive.

But let's get one thing straight: this movie kicks total ass.  I would not have expected a movie that's so dark and introspective to have so many awesome badass moments, but this movie was choc-full-o' them, and most of them came from Prochnow.  He had this look that he would give from time to time that I would just pump my fist at, where his eyes would just narrow and slide lazily from a thousand-mile stare towards the person he was addressing, and he would break into a smile that was either rueful or sly, depending on the situation.  I really was thinking, "Wow, this guy's either totally insane or the most sane guy ever, but I can't tell which yet."  However, as the movie progresses, I leant more towards the crazy side, though that really took nothing away from his character's pathos.

Like with most of the movies I have reviewed positively on this site that may not be the most watched among my readers, I'm going to stray from spoilers, so I'll focus on the technique side of things, since the plot is pretty consistenly great and in my mind, unassailable.

The writing: Awesome, because it has those long pregnant pauses that can build drama like words never can, and a great movie knows when to let a moment breathe; it also has those one liners that are like the word GRAVITAS!!!! scrolling across the bottom of the screen - like when the submarine is shipping out to sea and the reporter is taking pictures, Prochnow's character says, "Take pictures of the crew returning, not putting out to sea.  They'll have grown beards by then. It would shame the Tommies to see mere boys give them Hell. Baby faces. Ones that should still suck mama's breast."  He shows cynicism for the higher-ups in war, and for war in general, but he shows nothing but pride for his men, even though he knows they're still children.  The perfect leader.

The acting: Beyond Prochnow, it's mostly awesome, though there were a couple of the minor sailors I thought were just not developed actors - not really anyone's fault, they needed to cast young, so they got young actors.  However, a couple supporting characters really caught my eye.  Heinz Hoenig played Heinrich, the boat's sonar operator and medic, and it's sad that the movie was made nearly twenty years ago.  Otherwise, I would have a new mancrush.  He's completely magnetic, and that comes without overplaying a single line.  His performance was flawless.  Also, Hubertus Bengsch plays the 1st Lieutenant, who is the staunch patriot for Hitler, who says all the right things, whose beliefs get broken down as he gets more broken down over the course of the movie.  When he starts growing a beard with everyone else, you can tell and it rules to see that kind of character development.

The technical aspect of the movie, from directing to editing to sound and everything was the real star, however.  I don't want to get into real specifics, I just think that the very intimate and claustrophobic submarine setting was emphasized incredibly well, and I wish that people who see this movie after reading this try to keep that in the back of their mind when they watch the movie, because it really deserves appreciation.

This is one of my longest reviews, which is appropriate for a long movie like this, so I won't drag it along any farther.  Good movie.

De ska kriga mot England under en synnerligen stridslysten kapten. Med på uppdraget följer den sjöovane krigskorrespondenten Werner, vars uppgift är att skriva rapporter om det hjältemodiga ubåtsmanskapet hem till krigsledningen i Berlin.

Werners idealiserade bild av livet ombord på en ubåt mitt under brinnande krig faller dock snart i bitar och tiden ombord kommer att förändra allas världsbild för alltid...

Regi: Wolfgang Petersen. I rollerna: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch, Martin Semmelrogge, m.fl.

SVT2 Torsdag 17 jul 2008 kl 22.25: Ubåten, här hittar du alla dagens filmer på tv. Missa inte dagens filmtips.

Klaus Doldinger wurde am 12 Mai 1936 in Berlin geboren. Er wuchs in Wien auf und ging später in Düsseldorf zur Schule, wo er sich schon früh für Musik, speziell Jazz interessierte. 1947 nahm er Klavierunterricht und 1952 schloss er sich einer Band an, in der er Klarinette und Klavier spielte. Mit dieser Band, den „Feetwarmers“, gab er viele Konzerte und gewann er eine Anzahl von Preisen. 1960 bekam er einen ersten Kompositionsauftrag für einen Zeichentrickfilm, wozu ihn seine Frau, die er ebenfalls 1960 geheiratet hatte, „regelrecht überreden“ musste.

1962 gründete er das „Klaus Doldinger-Quartett“, und 1963 erschien seine erste Langspielplatte: „Doldinger – Jazz made in Germany.“ Die Platte wurde in 20 Ländern veröffentlicht, auch in den USA – für deutsche Verhältnisse damals eine Sensation. 1964 dann startete er eine große Auslandstournee: Skandinavien, Italien, Afrika, die damalige Tschechoslowakei und Mittlerer Osten.

Er übernahm die Leitung des Gershwin-Musicals „Girl Crazy“. Die Presse schrieb: „Dass die Musik an diesem Abend nie weich, nie gefühlig, nie aufgeschwemmt wirkt, ist dem famosen Akkompagnement  durch das Klaus-Doldinger-Quartett zu verdanken. Dadurch erhält die Aufführung ihren Swing.“ In der gleichen Zeit trat er auch im legendären Hamburger „Star Club“ auf.

1971 zeigte die ARD jenes Konzert, in dem das Klaus-Doldinger-Quartett gemeinsam mit dem Münchener Jugend-Sinfonie-Orchester das „Concerto für Jazz-Band und Sinfonieorchester“, komponiert von Doldinger daselbst, aufführte. Außerdem wurde in diesem Jahr die Gruppe „Passport“ gegründet.

Klaus Doldinger ist Jazzer, Filmmusiker, Musikproduzent, Arrangeur und nicht zuletzt förderte er zahlreiche junge Talente. Er hat Hunderte Musiken für Kino und Fernsehen geschrieben. Und das, obwohl ihm manch ein Jazzmusiker „Verrat an der guten Sache“ vorwarf und von „kommerziellen Abwegen“ lamentierte. Doldingers berühmteste Filmmusik ist zweifellos „Das Boot“, aber auch die Trailermusik zur Krimi-Dauerserie „Tatort“ ist nahezu jedem Fernsehzuschauer im deutschsprachigen Raum geläufig.

Ten best lists of films are dumb. They force dumb choices and add almost nothing to serious discussion and criticism.

Big deal.

I love them. I love reading them. I love making them. And here is how I go about it.

At any given time I always have a list of contenders. If a film has any claim whatsoever on ever making it into my top ten, it goes on the list. Then, one by one, I cross out films until there are only ten left. These are the films that I most enjoyed watching, not those that I would necessarily rank as the highest expressions of the craft. Having said that, it is almost certainly the case that my contenders are overwhelmingly well crafted. But to make my top 10, I have to viscerally and emotionally love the experience of watching the film.

Important: “Love” does not mean that I found the experience pleasant, just that I reveled in the pleasure of watching a story told with narrative skill and total command of the formal elements of film.

The best example of a film that embodies all these confusing criteria is my favorite of them all, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Dekalog.”  I suppose you could say I enjoyed watching it, but if you have seen it you will understand why "enjoy" is perhaps not quite the most apt word for the experience. What, after all, do you say about a film in which one of the very best of the  sections (#1  I Am the Lord Your God) was so emotionally shattering that I have only watched it once and almost certainly will never be able to watch it again?

So here is the list as of today. If a film has a number, it made the top ten. The reasons why a film didn't make the top ten are varied and, most often, beyond rational explanation. My choices are infinitely more visceral than cerebral.

By the way, I have a separate documentary list, which I will post soon. Salesman, although a documentary,  is a work of such poignancy and genius that it would make any list I create. 

I very much hope you might post your ten best lists and describe your agreements and your quarrels with mine. Perhaps you think that either an omission or inclusion of mine is unforgivable.

Let me know.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

1. Dekalog (1989) 

Au Revoir les Enfants

Shop on Main Street  (1965)

10. Midnight Cowboy

It’s a Wonderful Life

3. Jeux interdits

Smile

Atlantic City

Fargo

Das Boot

The General

The Swimmer  

7. Goodfellas

Paris, Texas

8. Rear Window

Shoah

Invaders from Mars

4. Salesman

Strangers on a Train

The Graduate

French Connection

2. Godfather 1/Godfather 2

9. Double Indemnity

Les Enfants du Paradis

Les Diaboliques

Psycho

Le Salaire de la peur

Hotel Terminus

5. Amarcord

6. Night and Fog

Happiness

The Third Man

M

The Marriage of Maria Braun

Simplemente quería dejar constancia escrita de que me ha parecido una gran película (no solo por su duración, sino por su calidad y su inesperado, sorprendente y aplastante mensaje final).

La vida de unos jóvenes tripulantes y sus oficiales en uno de los célebres u-boots alemanes en plena Segunda Guerra Mundial, de principio a fin. Una de las películas alemanas más aclamadas que recomiendo a todos.

Would you add other films to this list? Do you believe that any don't belong on the list? Have antiwar films helped form your present views? What is the greatest and/or most memorable antiwar film of all time, in your opinion?

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)
The Hollywood adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel is one of the earliest anti-war films, and still stands among the most haunting. As naive young German troops fight and die in World War I, their devotion to their homeland comes to seem cruelly meaningless.

LA GRANDE ILLUSION (1937)
French auteur Jean Renoir looks at WWI from the other side of the trenches and arrives at much the same conclusion. Three captured officers (Pierre Fresnay, Jean Gabin, Marcel Dalio) bond in a German POW camp and learn that nationalism and class divisions are less important than the things all humanity has in common. Such a damning statement that the Nazis seized its negatives when they invaded France three years later.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)
Call it the Stop-Loss of its day: Midwestern war heroes (Dana Andrews, Harold Russell, Frederic March) struggle to ease back into their small-town lives after World War II. A rare look at the long-term challenges faced by ''the Greatest Generation'' once they defeated the Axis.

PATHS OF GLORY (1957)
Director Stanley Kubrick's first big box-office success was also his first foray into the anti-war territory he would return to again and again. Kirk Douglas stars as a compassionate French colonel defending troops who have been accused of cowardice by their brutal superiors during WWI.

DR. STRANGELOVE: OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964)
Kubrick's approach is considerably lighter in this mordant Cold War satire. As the U.S. and U.S.S.R. hurtle toward nuclear apocalypse for no particular reason, Peter Sellers pulls off a hat trick, playing the psychotic rocket scientist of the title, the ineffectual American president, and the lone sane military man. A masterpiece of weapons-grade gallows humor.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966)
Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo delivers a still-searing portrait of Algeria's mid-20th-century war of independence against its French colonial government. As both sides trade escalating acts of terrorism and brutality, the Western occupation is revealed as an exercise in gory futility.

CATCH-22 (1970)
Yossarian lives! Mike Nichols directs an all-star ensemble (Alan Arkin, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, Orson Welles, Anthony Perkins, Bob Newhart...Art Garfunkel?!) in an adaptation of Joseph Heller's tragicomic WWII novel. The characters may have been Allied bombers stationed in the Mediterranean, but the theme of senseless violence amid a bureaucratic tangle could hardly have been more relevant to the ever-deepening Vietnam disaster.

M*A*S*H (1970)
Before Hawkeye and Trapper John were primetime-TV staples, they featured in Robert Altman's dark Korean War comedy. Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, and Tom Skerritt star as wisecracking Army doctors in a chaotic base camp south of the DMZ in the 1950s — another thinly veiled stand-in for the situation in Vietnam.

COMING HOME (1978)
Three years after the U.S. withdrew from Southeast Asia, American audiences finally got a great film that explicitly addressed Vietnam. Jane Fonda and Jon Voight both took home Oscars for their roles in a love triangle involving a paraplegic veteran and his nurse...

THE DEER HUNTER (1978)
...and that same year, the Academy voted this intense Vietnam movie Best Picture. Robert De Niro, and Christopher Walken star as Pennsylvania steelworkers turned soldiers; we watch the war's inhuman violence tear them apart as they proceed from a pre-war hunting trip through the battlefield and back home. You'll never forget those Russian roulette scenes.

APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
In a loose re-telling of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) journeys up a Cambodian river to find and kill the unhinged Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). It's since become one of the most iconic Vietnam War films — quotes don't get more quotable than Robert Duvall bellowing, ''I love the smell of napalm in the morning!''

DAS BOOT (1981)
Back to World War II: Director Wolfgang Petersen takes us inside a claustrophobic German submarine, revealing the grueling realities of undersea battle for a young crew whose members are beginning to question Nazi ideology.

PLATOON (1986)
The first and most affecting of Oliver Stone's Vietnam films. Charlie Sheen, standing in for Stone's own wartime experiences, drops out of college and ships off to the Army. Caught up in the violent rivalry between two superior officers — a brutal authoritarian played by Tom Berenger and a warmer sergeant played by Willem Dafoe — Sheen's ideals are shattered.

FULL METAL JACKET (1987)
Another insanity-of-war polemic from Kubrick, this one focusing on a troop of Vietnam-bound Marines. First we see Vincent D'Onofrio as a young recruit driven insane by the brutal dehumanization of basic training. The film's second segment follows the rest of the troops through a similarly hellish march into the city of Hue.

THREE KINGS (1999)
In director David O. Russell's quirky examination of the (first) Gulf War's aftermath, soldiers played by George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze happen upon a treasure trove of Saddam Hussein's gold bullion in 1991 — and then things really get started. As they traverse the desert, gradually coming to realize the war's effect on Iraq's civilians, wry humor gives way to touching drama.

MUNICH (2005)
Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated epic takes place more than 30 years ago, but it's still the only feature film that's truly done justice to the profound ethical complexity of today's ''War on Terror.'' Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds, and others are undercover Israeli spies, assigned to secretly track and assassinate the Palestinian terrorists who planned the vicious murder of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Their mission seems entirely righteous at first — but as they travel through Europe, picking off the men on their hit list, anything resembling moral clarity soon vanishes.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS/LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2006)
Clint Eastwood directed not one but two dramas about the punishing Allied campaign to take Iwo Jima at the end of WWII. In Flags, the U.S. government forces the soldiers who hoisted the stars and stripes above the island in the iconic photograph into uncomfortable propaganda roles when they return home. And in the Japanese-language Letters, we see the same bloody battle from the other perspective, as Ken Watanabe's Gen. Kuribayashi struggles to maintain dignity amid rising casualties.

I was surprised that they didn't include "The War At Home", a film which takes place after a soldier returns home from Vietnam, as he struggles to deal with the horrors he experienced; the film stars Emilio Estevez, Kathy Bates, and Martin Sheen.

Another antiwar film which I would highly recommend is "Jacob's Ladder". It stars Tim Robbins and Danny Aielo, and is kind of hard to explain. IMDB describes it as, "A traumatized Vietnam war veteran finds out that his post-war life isn't what he believes it to be when he's attacked by horned creatures in the subway and his dead son comes to visit him." It seems like a horror film in many ways, but has a very interesting plot twist at the end, which still gives me goosebumps when I think about it. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. Here is the trailer for "Jacob's Ladder":

Which antiwar films have you seen and would recommend to others?

Just like last week I had a viewing on Saturday, this time I was notified and ensured I wasn’t in when the agent came to call, and just like last week the only lasting memory my potential purchasers had after viewing the flat would’ve been last nights tea pebble dashed over white porcelain. It was only when I got in following a trip to B&Q to get a new showerhead and a picture frame that the ‘don’t forget to clean the fucking bog before you leave’ mantra I’d been chanting most of the afternoon was recalled. Blast.

Work on Thursday was as awful as expected and I left feeling mildly ravaged. Luckily a few pints in the pub with Frank straightened me out followed by a fantastic film with Sean Penn (bloody underrated if you ask me, finest actor in Hollywood? Maybe) Called ‘The Assassination of Richard Nixon’ which I recommend without hesitation, and I awoke on Good Friday a little under the weather. I had to get out the flat as soon as I awoke to meet up with my mortgage broker to sign some paperwork which means I’m now foolishly mortgaged up to the hilt. He wasn’t very impressed when, after really badgering me to sign up for critical illness cover (for which he’d have received commission) I finally informed him that ‘I didn’t fucking want it’ and went he all stroppy for a couple of minutes like a scolded child while I sat there mentally punching the air, and his face for good measure.

Shortly after Myfwt picked me up and we went to Putney to look for some suitable accessory and what have you for her birthday next week. I’ve learned that unless advised I’m bloody useless at buying gifts for the opposite sex, besides, I rather enjoy shopping with her believe it or not. After a travelling most of West London I was dropped off home in time for a pint with Frank, the weather was turning for the worst, Myfwt and I had already experienced hale and now temperatures plummeted like we lived up t’North or somewhere where men walk about in subzero temperatures with shaved heads and no shirts to speak of.

Frank and I drank a few in our local toasting the passing of Jebus, the place was half dead but from our pint of view, ideal, as we could get to the bar without any obstruction or hindrance from competing punters. By the time I got home I was little tipsy, I watched a very disappointing French film (called 36, it misses the mark and has an air of misogyny about it that only the French can pass off as ‘romance’) whose subtitles I wound up watching by squinting through one inebriated eye before going to bed late.

Subsequently Saturday was somewhat painful, this malaise caused me to spend most of the day sat in front of my PC trying in vain to download fucking Flash Player (which has mysteriously vanished from my PC) in order to view some Strutter on Youtube, over and above this I was also trying to make some Slayer happen on my fucking MP3/mobile thing via said PC.

Fucking technology, it’s all well and dandy when it works but when things don’t happen as they should it’s enough to result in innocent shoppers in Bluewater being randomly picked off by lone-gunmen after they’ve failed to post a Youtube soliloquy as to why they wouldn’t trot through Bluewater picking off innocent shoppers listening to South of Heaven by Slayer on their LG Viewty which, supposedly has an MP3 feature…

If this wasn’t bad enough, following the B&Q shopping trip (which was a waste of time incidentally, the showerhead is shit and the frame too small) I picked up Saturdays Guardian which features a fucking interview with that cunt Jordan. For fucks sake, what the FUCK is going on here? This harridan, this prostitute for post Orwellian society, this role-model of laziness and self-harm has maintained a presence thanks to gutter journalism and the not entirely commendable ability to remain in the public eye by exploiting herself, her disabled child and the arseholes that chose to suffer her tonesless ill-informed drone in order to drop their stinking extensions into her over active fundament. We’re supposed to think she’s some sort of business woman as she’s accrued zillions of squids by not letting a single day of our lives pass without some sort ‘news’ grabbing drivel about her tits being reduced/enlarged, her husband being great/a twat, her children being disables/not disabled, her joys/fears, her knickers/her lack-of, her, books, her perfume, her business, her bloody FUCKING FACE 24 FUCKING SEVEN AND NOW, MY BROADSHEET FEATURES HER LIPLESS FIZZOG IN ALL HER PROLETARIAT GLORY BY DAVID FUCKING BAILEY IF YOU PLEASE…GAH, IF I COULD DOWN LOAD FUCKING FLASH I WOULDN’T BE TYPING LIKE THIS, FOR THE LOVE OF THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD SOMEONE HELP ME.

So, Saturday. Rubbish frankly… (though saved somewhat by a stunning roast in the evening in which I succeeded how to make drop-dead fresh gravy AND ensure the potatoes were crisper than Robinson Crusoe’s sock, actually, after that I watched Das Boot, a wonderful, Lord it was good and went to bed feeling, well, okay)

Sunday conversely was wonderful. I’d taped the Grand Prix which I watched after 9am, very disappointing, dull and not the result I’d hoped for, whilst eating Hot Cross buns at speed. I left to pick up my bro and his missus, freshly back from Kerala and all tanned up, and we travelled to my folks whilst I was regaled with hilarious diarrhoea-based tales located on boats made of coconut or something. The afternoon was wasted beautifully on lunch and niece-watching and much laughter did emanate from family Piqued, then farting. My niece can now crawl and stand which is splendid for her… though I somewhat took the joyous edge of the equation as this new found movement has resulted in archaic forms of entertainment being made redundant, for example, the ‘swinging robot’ (a quite violent combination of airborn staccato movements requiring sound and not insubstantial arm control) which used to illicit squeals of delight now causes unbound fear.

I met Myfwt at the flat later on and she essentially said ‘hello, I’m tired’ and fell asleep as I watched read, this resulted in her being awake far sooner that I on Bank Holiday Monday and I was forced to suffer second hand TV noises whilst I groaned in my pit. After breakfast we took ourselves off to rectify the shopping situation caused by Good Friday’s wilful consumerism which resulted in more money being spent much to my chagrin. Can’t complain though, it was all rather jolly and we ate sushi wrap in the car and everything.

The weekend ended quietly with Risotto and Cava, on a final note I don’t remember seeing snow at Easter before, what the bloody hell is going on with the weather? Global warming my botty.

Shoegazing anyone?

Here…

Why are we celebrating Pi Day here in Eddieland? Well, we're not really, but it is a great lead into birthdays, and there is a special birthday today in the movie world. No, I'm not interested in Billy Crystal, or Michael Caine celebrating their 60th and 75th birthdays. We are here to wish Wolfgang Peterson a very happy 67th birthday today.

The movie-goers among us might know this man, but I'm sure there will also be a number of confused minds out there. Wolfgang Peterson brought to us, a little piece of celluloid magic, which always brings a huge smile to my face when I see it on TV - just from that it should be obvious that I'm not referring to his 1981 Oscar nominated Das Boot - as great a film as that was, it rarely brings a smile to my face. I'm also not referring to his more recent jaunts into the box office: Troy, Poseidon, Perfect Storm etc, most of which were quite horrible.

No, I am talking about the movie he made immediately after Das Boot, and of course that film is, "Die Unendliche Geschichte" - oh, the happy memories, the innocence, the characters, the . . . what's that? You've never heard of it? Yes you have! OK, it is of course the little known official title of the movie that we all remember as "The Neverending Story", the movie that introduced us to Bastian, Atreyu, The Childlike Empress, Artax, and of course, the awesome Falkor:

So, Happy Birthday Wolfgang, and thanks for everything you did in 1984 . . .

Desde Variety informan que Uprising el nuevo proyecto de Columbia Pictures, producido por Lucy Fisher y Douglas Wick y escrito por Charles Leavitt ya tiene director, el alemán Wolfgang Petersen. La historia se centrará en un grupo de sobervivientes a una invasión de una poderosa raza alienígena que ocupa la Tierra. De acuerdo a lo indicado por Doug Belgrad, presidente de Columbia, "Petersen es el director indicado para manejar la mezcla de acción, drama y suspenso con la que contará Uprising". Creo que será interesante verlo en la dirección de una cinta de ciencia ficción que, espero, esté a las alturas. Petersen dirigió las muy entretenidas Troy, In the Line of Fire y Outbreak, pero es más conocido por la fabulosa Das Boot (cuya crítica pueden leer AQUÍ), aunque también ha estado detrás de las cámaras en mediocridades como Air Force One, The Perfect Storm y Poseidon. Es de esperar que se recupere tras el fiasco del remake del buque que se va a pique. Según IMDB.com la cinta se debería estrenar durante este año, pero debido a que recién lo eligieron como director y que se encuentra en el proceso de preproducción de la cinta Ender's Game (también agendada para este año) es muy probable que Uprising no vea la luz hasta 2009. Por cierto Ender's Game también es una cinta de ciencia ficción cuyo eje es una brutal guerra interplanetaria... Claramente Petersen se reencontró con un género que no tocaba desde Enemy Mine.

La Rochelle, Francia. 1941. Los alemanes controlan gran parte del país y usan la ciudad como punto de partida para su letal flota de submarinos, la que intenta arrebatarle la hegemonía a la Real Marina Británica y acabar con las líneas de suministro de Churchill. El submarino U-96 ha sido enviado en una nueva misión y esta vez entre sus tripulantes se encuentra un periodista que busca plasmar, entre sus notas, historias de heroísmo y coraje para transmitir a sus compatriotas. Los tripulantes, todos jóvenes e inexpertos, no aguantan la hora de enfrentarse al enemigo en batalla, mientras que el capitán y el jefe de ingenieros, ambos con años de experiencia, revelan en su rostro la desazón, la desesperanza y, a ratos, la tranquila resignación de quien se sabe muerto en vida. No son pesimistas, son realistas. Después de todo, Hitler envió más de 40.000 hombres a bordo de submarinos y menos de 10.000 volvieron a casa.

Dirigida en 1981 por Wolfgang Petersen, Das Boot está basada en la novela homónima de Lothar G. Buchheim y cuenta la historia del submarino alemán U-96 comandado por Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, quien colaboró como consultor de la película. Aunque la historia se basa en hechos reales, el novelista y el director se tomaron algunas licencias creativas para contar un relato que entrega un mensaje claramente antibelicista y sumamente dramático.

Esta es una de las pocas cintas en las que uno está del lado de los Nazis y eso se debe a que, no los vemos como Nazis. Los marineros del U-96 son jóvenes cumpliendo una misión en tiempos de guerra, son tipos comunes y corrientes no caricaturas de hombres crueles, sin sentimientos ni temores. De hecho, si no fuera por el idioma que hablan, perfectamente podríamos estar viendo a un grupo de marineros ingleses, chilenos, sudafricanos o rusos... Rusos... En muchos pasajes de la película recordé la tragedia del Kursk, no podía ser de otra forma ya que Petersen nos traslada con un dominio de cámara increíble al interior del submarino alemán, traspasándole a los espectadores la sensación de enclaustramiento, sofocamiento y desperación que sufrían los marinos. Por otro lado, y con la intención de reforzar la sensación de estar dentro del submarino, Petersen muestra en contadas ocasiones el exterior del mismo, dándole al espectador la misma visión que tienen los marinos al interior de la nave, lo cual adquiere notable importancia a la hora de presentar las escenas de combate.

Alrededor de 40 millones de dólares costó este largometraje que se convirtió en el más caro de la historia del cine alemán, lo cual se entiende al ver la fidedigna ambientación, que logra traspasar al otro lado de la pantalla la brutal sensación de agobio y encierro, condiciones de vida normales para los tripulantes de submarinos. Por otro lado, la banda sonora de Klaus Doldinger que acompaña las aventuras del U-96 es sencillamente de lo mejor que se ha hecho, la cual hoy en día es fácilmente identificable ya que ha sido usada y manoseada desde su aparición, pero cuya verdadera grandeza sólo se puede apreciar al ver esta película. Claramente un imperdible del cine bélico.

FICHA TÉCNICA
Nombre: Das Boot
Año: 1981
Duración: 149 minutos (versión original), 209 minutos (versión del director), 293 minutos (versión sin cortes)
Dirigida por: Wolfgang Petersen
Escrita por: Lothar G. Buchheim
Protagonizada por: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch, Martin Semmelrogge y Bernd Tauber
Producida por: Bavaria Film

TRAILERS

Haus der Geschichte - Bonn

Foyerausstellung
Das Boot – Geschichte · Mythos · Film
bis 24. Februar 2008

In den Jahren 1980/81 produzierte die Münchener Bavaria Film GmbH den Film „Das Boot“ nach einem Roman von Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Die künstlerischen Leistungen, die strapaziösen Dreharbeiten und die im Rahmen eines Spielfilms „realistische“ Darstellung an Bord eines deutschen U-Boots im Zweiten Weltkrieg haben den Film zur Legende gemacht. Die bis dahin mit 25 Millionen Mark aufwändigste deutsche Filmproduktion erhielt sechs Oscar-Nominierungen und wurde zu einem Welterfolg.
Die Ausstellung „Das Boot. Geschichte · Mythos · Film“ dokumentiert mit einer Vielzahl von Medien und Exponaten die Entstehungsgeschichte des Films. Sie wurde vom Deutschen Filmmuseum Frankfurt am Main in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Kuratorenteam „Das Boot Revisited“ und mit Unterstützung der Bavaria Film GmbH realisiert. Für die Präsentation in Bonn hat das Haus der Geschichte mit der Darstellung der Geschichte der U-Bootwaffe seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg und der Diskussion um die Frage „Kriegsfilm vs. Antikriegsfilm“ weitere Schwerpunkte gesetzt.

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Links

• Haus der Geschichte - Bonn
• Ueber die Ausstellung

Espaces Arts & Objets Swiss Art Gallery

Vi har torpedoer om bord til 25.000 mark stykket - men de har glemt at give os ledninger for sølle 50 pfenning med.

Fra filmen Das Boot

And das boot glasses.

Our faves:

bad ass ho's 

eye locking and eye contact with a woman 

whats that rumbling sound? 

guys on metro north 

lyrics for Choo Choo Charlie was an Engi

new roc city easter riot Bronx 

robin williams retorts to insults 

john rocker betty 

poems about nose picking 

the russian debutante 

cleavage bounce catwalk 

wheels on the bus go round shirt 

das boot glasses 

''ridin with my top down'' 

armrests ripping pants 

How to make a bike rack 

choo choo charlie girlfriend 

thunder from down under 

he smiles and stares at me 

King of the Hill beer fence yup

attractive drag queens 

dad and sun picking nose

http://beyazperde.mynet.com/film/946
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096
User Rating: 8.5/10 (44,526 votes)
Top 250: #59

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>> FILEHO <<

The train was jammed tighter than Das Boot. I was the last one to get on. Dozens shuffled impatiently on the platform as they realized they weren't getting on this one. While the doors hadn't started to shut, my bag clearly wasn't going to fit.

Then you came along. Like the Hand of God, you gently nudged my bag forward just as the doors began to close, enabling several hundred people to get to work 20...30...40? seconds sooner. I mumbled an insufficient 'thank you' out of the corner of my mouth.

A day later, the event remains stuck in my mind. Was it an act of kindness (help the poor man and his pack arrive at the same destination), or was it self-interest (get this f*&%$#$ train on its way so the next one can pull up)?

Honestly, I don't know. Either way, thank you.