It’s easy to roll your eyes when another film adaptation of a beloved nineteenth-century-book comes along. It can be even more tempting when that book is Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, which gets a reliable update at least every generation. I liked Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 version, but I must admit that this new version, from writer-director Greta Gerwig, feels vital, alive and necessary in ways that I didn’t expect.

For those unfamiliar, LITTLE WOMEN tells the story of the March family, particularly the four sisters, Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth. The title is a phrase their ... more

In his director‘s statement, Rosa von Praunheim says: “I think you can show evil gays today, after the gay movement changed so much in a positive way.“ Lars embodies Dirk P., a gay serial killer who killed three men in Berlin in 2012 by giving them roofies and tried to kill two others, seems very harmless at first glance. The 30ish year old with a receding hairline just moved from Saarbrücken to Berlin with his boyfriend Roland and seems rather domestic. While Roland has sex with other men, Lars prefers to redecorate their shared apartment into a nightmare of flower motifs. They ... more

1944: 10-year-old Johannes Betzler is getting ready for the “Jungvolk“ entrance exam. While taking it something goes wrong and he gets the name “Jojo Rabbit“ and is forced to stay home because of an injury. It‘s nice with his mother (Scarlett Johansson), but since she‘s been alone he needs to take care of her just as much as she needs to take care of him. And she‘s out of the house a lot. Jojo has an imaginary friend who advises him on all of his questions and problems: the very childish Hitler ... more

Sometimes films correspond with each other so well, even if it‘s unintended, that it‘s very appealing to put them in relation to each other. DAS VORSPIEL, directed by Ina Weisse, is a film about disappointment, hardening, and a woman without a center. A film about music obsession, a film about a woman (Nina Hoss) among five men (son, father, husband, lover, violin student). Lara, the protagonist in Jan-Ole Gerster‘s eponymous film that came out last November, lost her center too. Both pianist Lara and violinist Anna had to give up a career as musicians. A devastating criticism by a ... more

The Oscar for best cinematography should go to Roger Deakins again this year. There have been many “one take“ films since Alfred Hitchcock‘s ROPE, films that look like they have no cuts, like the Holocaust film SON OF SAUL (2015) by László Nemes, the Berlin thriller VICTORIA (2015) by Sebastian Schipper, or the acting drama BIRDMAN (2014) by Alejandro Iñárritu. But what director Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins do in 1917 hasn‘t been seen before. 1917 is simply breath-taking.

1917 tells the story of two British soldiers in World War 1 who have to survive no man‘s land in order to ... more

While genre filmmakers, especially in horror, like to expand the boundaries of what can be shown and tighten the emotional screws, Jessica Hausner has been headed towards the opposite direction for years. Her “horror“ film HOTEL (2004) showed dark corridors in an ominous hotel by the forest and scaled back shock effects and suspense so that just a vague, but also interesting unease is what remains in the end. In her “melodrama“ AMOUR FOU,she depicts the double suicide of Heinrich von Kleist and Henriette Vogel as the result of thoughtful decisions and long negotiations. In LITTLE ... more