MDM–FilmView

the purpose of this website is to review and discuss the latest films and series. we will put together a selection which does not necessarily include the most popular or expensive productions but some we as digital media students find interesting and worth talking about.

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A LITTLE CHAOS / Die Gärtnerin von Versailles (GB)

EDEN – Lost in Music (France)

THE LONGEST RIDE (USA)

KUMBH MELA, Sur Les Rives Du Fleuve Sacré / An den Ufern der heiligen Flüsse (India, France)

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Four new pictures from the upcoming Bond movie “SPECTRE”.

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The most successful Movies each year since 1989. (plus their Rotten Tomatoes Ratings)

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Christopher Nolan’s Favorite Scene from his own movies is the Plane Hijacking in “Dark Knight Rises”

When Christopher Nolan, director of famous movies, such as “Memento”, “The Dark Knight”, “The Prestige” and most recently “Interstellar”, was asked what his favorite scene he created was, he pointed to this scene:

He furthermore said the following:

“It took us about two days in Scotland," he explained about the sequence, which you can watch below. "And it was an incredible sort of coming together of months and months of planning by a lot of different members of the team who worked for months rehearsing these parachute jumps and wind walking, all these different things… The visual effects work in the sequence is very minimal… I was really amazed by what the team we had put together had achieved using very sort of old-fashioned methods, in a way. I was very proud of the way that came together.”

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Documentary: 10 Billion - What’s on your plate?

Intentions

Inspired of discussions with the audience of his former documentary “Taste the Waste”, director  Valentin Thurn and the journalist travels half the world to show solutions that face the question how to create the human’s future  food situation. Therefore he portrays different parties like companies, farmers, sciences  as well as consumers that influence the food industry’s development. Thurn emphasises that he wants to give each party equal space to talk about their perspectives and reasons so that the camera depicts the “actors” neutrally or even empathetically without already judging it or them. Thurn’s choice of strong and honest pictures makes clear his statement: humans have to find alternatives to the way the food industry nowadays also to improve the individual’s life quality.

Background information

Surely Thurn did some research as preparation in advance but there were several surprises concerning the choice of his cast. As he shot all over the world not all depicted people could be casted in advance. You find out only about the camera presence when you directly meet the other person to find out about their camera presence and their ability to convey a message.

Furthermore there have been obstacles to interview big companies as Monsanto. Thurn reveals that Monsanto was asked for an interview but was asked in return for so many details that reminded Thurn of a dictatory regime and refused a conversation in the end.

On the other hand there were also other companies that were willing to give information about their work .Thurn points out that the audience has to be very critical with a company’s statement. Companies seem to know much about sustainability and know how they can promote their position positively.

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AVENGERS - Age of Ultron Review

Since last week the Avengers can be watched in their second movie together, but only in Europe. The Marvel fans in the USA have to wait a little longer until the upcoming friday because the movies release date for the US cinemas is the 1st of may. In this movies the Avengers have to defeat Ultron - a peacekeeping program with a robot body developed by Tony Stark alias Ironman and Bruce Banner alias Hulk in order to function as a kind of shield to protect the whole world, which unfortunately turned out to be evil. In Ultron’s opinion the only way to achieve a truly peaceful world would be the elimination of the human race and of cause the Avengers. Therefor they have to stop him before his evil plans succeed. The movie is a pretty well made hero-action movie which is not only a must see for Marvel fans. It combines a whole lot of great action scenes with an interesting plot in which the viewer gets to know a lot more about the background stories of the heroes and therefor can develop a better understanding of these characters. He also gets introduced to two new interesting characters and a really worthy and special antagonist. Critiques and different platforms on the internet rate the movie between 7 and 10 points out of 10. My personal rating would be 9 out of 10 points, for the movie has almost everything one can wish for in this genre. It is definitely a movie which is worth being watched on the big screen, even though I personally wouldn’t have need to see it in 3D. 

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EX MACHINA

Ex Machina is a really well done Sci-Fi drama by Alex Garland (writer of Never Let Me Go) about artificial intelligence. We not only find a very thrilling and modern story but a great cast as well. Oscar Isaac gives himself a chance as a drinking, bespectacled, rough genius, Domhnall Gleeson proves again that he is brilliant at looking astonished and Alicia Vicander is more beautiful and out of space than ever. In addition to these fabulous characters and besides the fact, that Gleeson and the audience know right from the start that he is only visiting his boss (Isaac) for one reason: to prove ore disprove AVAs (Vicanders) artificial intelligence, the film stays interesting and thrilling until the end. There might be some minutes of meditation in between but they are at least filled with a nice view out of Isaacs big, isolated home (which is nearly the only location in the film). In the end the audience might be left alone with an unsatisfied feeling about technological progress, life, trust and security but at least it is left with something to thing about at all.  

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8

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BIG EYES

Grand Budapest Hotel with a message

Tim Burton’s new film, starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz, is a critique on the art scene, people who buy art in general and the society of the 1950s. Based on a true story the film tells the story of Margaret Keaner who's husband got famous for painting her big eyed children.

On top of a unique way of storytelling, Adam and Waltz make a really strange couple and fit perfectly into this confusing world.

Despite the fact that one can not know Burtons main attentional message, the film is education and entertainment on the same time, not Burtons best but definitely worth looking.

http://www.kino.de/kinofilm/big-eyes/112792

Here in cinema (Hamburg):

OMU: Abaton

german version: Blankeneser Kino, Passage, UCI Othmarschen, Zeise

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As broadcasting of the 5th season of HBO’s series ‘Game of Thrones’ started recently, have a look at the insane effort they put in the making! 

In order to save time, the production goes simultaneously in two different countries, always flying the cast to the location they are needed in.

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AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

BIG EYES

EX MACHINA

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT

NEULAND

...

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DO NOT DISTURB/NUR EINE STUNDE RUHE!/Une heure de tranquillité (France)

YOU’RE NOT YOU/DAS GLÜCK AN MEINER SEITE (USA)

10 MILLIARDEN - WIE WERDEN WIR ALLE SATT? (Germany)

RUN ALL NIGHT (USA)

TOP FIVE (USA)

...

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Fast and Furious 7 Review

Fast and Furious 7 has now been in the cinemas for about two weeks and the movie directed by James Wan (the writer and director of Saw) is already more successful than any other movie of this franchise. In the USA as well as in Germany it has been dominating the cinema charts since it was released. Over 2.85 million people already watched Dominic Torreto (played by Vin Diesel) and his team going together on “one last ride”. The plot takes place after the events of Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift. In the beginning of the movie, the members of the crew are shown how they are trying to live a (more or less) normal life in the United States until Deckard Shaw (played by Jason Statham) starts to hunt them all. He is the older brother of Owen Shaw who got taken out by Dominic Torreto’s team in Fast and Furious 6, which is why he is now seeking for revenge. It is not really big surprise that the actual storyline of the movie is not what the author and the director primarily focused on. But that is fair enough for an extraordinarily good plot is not what people expect of an action franchise blockbuster for the big screen like Fast and Furious 7 anyway. Fans of the previous Fast and Furious movies (at least the ones who liked the movies 5 and 6) expect to see rather a lot of action scenes with many fast and expensive cars and quite a few explosions. And this is exactly what they get. To say it with Roman Pearce’s (played by Tyrese Gibson) words: The movie “takes crazy to a whole new level”. This especially refers to scenes like i.e. the one when the whole crew jumps out of a plane with parachutes on their cars. Jason Statham also contributes a huge plus to the movie with his well known “handmade” and old fashioned action fighting sencenes, as already known from such movies as Crank or Transporter. Nevertheless the movie has also some quite emotional sequences, especially at the end when the movie slows down and gets quieter to honor and say goodbye to Paul Walker who played the character Brian O’Conner in all 7 movies and sadly died in November 2013 during the making of Fast and Furious 7. Most experts rate the movie 6 out of 10 possible points, while fans of the franchise rate it a lot higher. On IMDb it gets 8 out of 10 points, and this is also what I personally, as someone who likes the franchise and action movies in general, would agree with. Nevertheless, I would only recommend it to people who also like the action genre and don’t expect to be blown away by a brilliant story.

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NO LAND’S SONG

The new documentary of Ayat Najafi (Football Under Cover) is a portrait of the current Iranian society, of women and bravery. The Iranian musician and composer Sara Najafi wants to make the impossible passible: female soloists in Iran. In order to achieve that she brings together Iranian, French and Tunisian musicians. Her plan: to make people remember how it was when female soloists were allowed in Iran before 1979. But problems are ahead.

The film outlines how Iran is governed and how peoples views are affected by a religious way of male thinking. But mainly the film shows hope, courage, strong women, life and freedom.

The protagonist Sara seems to combine Iran and Europe, a country of a weak female position with countries of a far more strong and independent female role. Her strong heart and her power of endurance brings different cultures together in a unique way and helps to create a special bond. Her seek for equality does not only move the audience but almost every person she meets.

The film is strong, beautiful and important but as well it is very powerful and critical and opens up an ambivalent feeling: on the one hand the film needs to be seen but on the other hand on is worried about the people who ware involved, especially Sara.

The film has not been shown to a wider public yet and as well not in Iran but reactions are going to be interesting when the film is officially released.

The film NO LAND’S SONG is a german/french co-production and has been shown for the first time in Germany in OmeU on April 12th, 2015 on the 12th Documentary Filmfestival Hamburg in Metropolis.

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ELSER (Germany)

CAKE (USA)

COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK (USA)

IN MEINEM KOPF EIN UNIVERSUM/LIFE FEELS GOOD (Poland)

GRIGRIS (France, Tschad)

DOMINO EFFEKT (Georgia, Poland, Germany)

THE TOWN THAT DEADED SUNDOWN (USA)

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DOCUMENTARY FILMFESTIVAL HAMBURG

Did you know that there is a documentary film festival going on in Hamburg right now?  From the 8th till the 12th of April the cinemas 3001, Metropolis, Lichtmess and B Movie (some of the most beautiful and unique cinemas in Hamburg) show different films from a variety of countries and filmmakers. Usually they are shown in OmU (original with german subtitles).  Not only the films but the cinemas and the flair of the festival are worth it. There is probably nothing more arty and independent than documentary. 

Check out the festival-website for more information: http://www.dokfilmwoche.com