Katja Flint

A few skirmishes from the ongoing battle between men and women are documented in this romantic comedy from Germany. Jan (Benno Fuermann) and Katrin (Jessica Schwarz) are a couple who literally met by accident -- attorney Jan was on a date with a woman he'd just met, Melanie (Annika Kuhl), when publisher Katrin bumped her car into Jan's, scraping the paint and sending him into a rage. While Melanie soon found herself infatuated with Jan's friend Ruediger (Matthias Matschke), Jan and Katrin's argument was the first step in a relationship that finds them living together two years later. While Melanie and Ruediger are happily married, things aren't quite so rosy for Jan and Katrin -- his head has been turned by Angie (Nadja Becker), a sexy if intellectually challenged woman working at his office, while Katrin has struck up a cozy friendship with handsome writer Jonathan Armbruster (Uwe Ochsenknecht). As Katrin ponders an offer from Jonathan to join him on a business trip to the United States, Jan wonders if he should act on his desires for Angie and Ruediger begins getting cold feet as Melanie discovers she's pregnant with the couple's first child. Warum maenner nicht zuhoeren und frauen schlect Einparken (aka Why Men Don't Listen And Women Can't Park) was inspired by a successful series of self-help books by Allan & Barbara Pease; an American film also drawn from their books is expected to be released in 2008. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A pair of unlikely lovers make their way across Europe in this offbeat comedy drama from Germany. Olga (Clemence Poesy) is a 16-year-old girl who imagines she'll be spending an uneventful summer tending the counter at her parent's filling station when a driver has a wreck in a nearby garden. It seems Daniel (Bruno Todeschini) is an artist wrestling with a midlife crisis and thoughts of suicide. As Olga offers to help, they decide running off to the French Riviera might be just the thing for both of them. Olga and Daniel hit the road and a blossoming flirtation begins, though Daniel isn't sure what to do when he realizes his attraction to Olga is more than just physical. Olgas Sommer (aka Olga's Summer) was the second feature film from director and screenwriter Nina Grosse. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A former soldier is called on to help capture a former colleague turned vigilante in this action-thriller. Frank Hector (Dennis Hopper) is an American expatriate who now lives in Germany, running a chain of strip joints. Hector was once a member of the French Legion, and one of his comrades in arms was Volker Bretz (Heino Ferch), a sniper who was a sure shot with a rifle. After Bretz's daughter dies as a result of an accident at a nuclear power plant, the former gunman snaps and hatches a plan to kill the men who built and operate the plant one by one until it's shut down. Intelligence agents draft Hector as one of the only men who might be able to stop Bretz and his reign of terror, but it's soon discovered that his vendetta may be more complex than expected. Katja Flint and Hannelore Hoger co-star. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A remake of the highly-regarded 1958 film Das Maedchen Rosemarie (released as Rosemary in the U.S.), this fact-based drama follows the rise and fall of a German beauty who went from ex-convict to courtesan of some of Germany's most powerful men to the victim of an unsolved murder. The story begins in 1952 as Rosemarie sleeps her way into an early parole from a detention center. Newly freed, she is sent to a foster home where two years later, the buxom blonde runs away to Frankfurt where she starts living with Nadler, a charming small-time crook. Two years after that, Rosemarie is selling her body in a sleazy bar. One day she brings home a wealthy businessman who agrees to become her sugar daddy. As a result, Rosemarie leaves Nadler. The arrangement works out well, and she continues to entertain important clients. Her undoing comes in the form of a wealthy Frenchman who makes her an enticing, but ultimately dangerous offer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Carl Hamilton is in one sense a peculiar sort of secret agent in that he has a license to kill but applies his conscience to that license far more often than is comfortable for him. In another sense, since he is Swedish, it makes sense that this would be so. In this story, one of a series of successful films based on this character from the novels of Jan Guillou, he has been given the task of infiltrating a group of terrorists operating out of Hamburg, who reportedly intend to attack the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm. After falling in love with one beautiful terrorist, he attempts to get her to change her ways by the force of moral persuasion rather than arms. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Amadeus only speculated on the probable causes of the death (both actual and spiritual) of 18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Czech-German Forget Mozart goes several steps further. When Mozart (Max Tidorf) is found dead, it's fairly obvious he's been murdered. Rounding up the likely suspects, Austrian police chief Count Pergen (Armin Mueller-Stahl) demands that each of his prisoners recall, in detail, his or her relationship to Mozart. As things unfold, however, it is clear that "guilt" is a relative term: the "murderer" turns out not to be a who, but a "what"--and even this is an elusive commodity. Nothing more can be revealed here without giving away the plot and the film's point of view. Originally titled Zabudnite na Mozarta, this existential exercise seemed destined from the start for limited art-house and festival viewings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide