Peter Schneider Movies

Walt Disney Pictures has been the leading name in animated filmmaking since the 1930s, but the studio's crown was looking more than a little tarnished in the 1980s after a series of expensive commercial and critical disappointments such as The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective. At that time, a handful of Disney executives were questioning the wisdom of continuing to make animated films, as the company was making more money in live-action movies, theme parks and television. That changed when Roy Disney -- Walt's nephew and the last figure from the studio's Golden Age management team still on board -- teamed up with newly hired studio executives Michael D. Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg to restore their reputation for both quality and commercial appeal. With the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988, the team sparked a new interest in animation on the big screen, and a string of smash hits that began with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast launched a new era of both acclaim and box office success for the company. But those successes didn't come without behind the scenes conflict, and Don Hahn, a longtime producer at Disney, offers an inside look at the creative squabbles and battles amongst the management that came during Disney's climb back to the top of Hollywood's mountain in the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty. Along with behind-the-scenes footage and rare personal artwork created by the studio's animation staff (including some unflattering cartoons of their bosses), the film includes interviews with many key figures of this era in Disney history, and several people who enjoyed greater success after leaving the company, such as Tim Burton and John Lassiter. Waking Sleeping Beauty was an official selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Edgar Reitz concludes his epic-length, tripartite chronicle of the Simon clan with the 11-hour (six episode) Heimat 3: A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings. The omega and alpha of the title refer to the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, circa 1989 (an event that christens the opening of the film) and the outset of the new millennium (which marks the conclusion). In between, Reitz plunges into the world of the Simons - residents of the village of Schabbach in the Hunsrück region of Germany - and investigates the myriad of ways in which events from their lives intersect with broader German sociopolitical shifts over the course of the 1990s. This installment begins with the youngest Simon son, Hermann, and his lover, Clarissa, renovating a centuries-old house on a cliff above the Rhine, not far from Lorelei. As time unfurls, Reitz cross-cuts between the experiences of the couple, their parents, their children, and the workmen assisting with the home renovation, and gradually reveals how a sense of national pride and unity at the beginning of the 1990s (coincident with German reunification) ultimately yielded to disillusionment, disappointment, and crushing awareness of mortality from individual to individual as the decade ended. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Two star-crossed lovers, separated by the Berlin wall for thirty years are reunited. The major events in their separate lives become the focus in this German political drama. The story begins in August 1961 as the Wall is being built. In Eastern Berlin a group of young adults plans their escape. Included in the group are Konrad and Sophie who has an aunt on the other side. It is the aunt who will sponsor the escapees. Escape will be the only way Konrad and Sophie will be able to stay together. Konrad is involved in a mishap en route and must remain in East Berlin. In 1968, the lovers at last get a chance to briefly meet in Prague. There they express their frustration and pain. At least there, in Prague they can find occasional happiness. Suddenly Russian tanks appear and destroy their new dream. 1980 comes. Sophie and Konrad have since married other people. Their next meeting is bittersweet as they look back upon their promise which was broken by circumstance, and by the decisions each lover had to make. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This crime-romance story from Mark M. Rissi concerns a serious mid-life crisis. The "general" (Walo Luond) is actually an officer-clerk who leaves his deadly boring life behind one New Year's eve and takes off in his car for nowhere in particular. During his travels he meets Lisi, a smashing redhead (Silvia Silva) who needs a ride, and the two team up together. Once Lisi sees the clerk's military jacket in the car she dubs him the "general," and eventually, she tells him about the fortune in stolen Swiss francs she has in her bag. Now that his life has gotten a lot more interesting, the "general" is not about to leave her stranded, and soon the two are sharing a cabin in a remote wilderness, ready to face whatever adventure comes up next. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Mauro Melzer (Ruediger Vogler) is an artist whose canvasses are much admired, but who feels his mental stability is wobbly, and so he asks a psychiatric clinic to check him in until he can return to normal. His behavior is, in part, patterned after the famous Swiss writer Robert Walser who was committed for schizophrenia yet who kept on writing and seeing visitors in his confinement. The psychiatrists are not as convinced as Melzer is about his insanity, and they agree that a local gallery should do a retrospective of his work -- they even buy one of his canvasses for the clinic. Melzer is not happy about any of this, and on the evening when a cocktail gathering in the gallery is celebrating the opening of his retrospective, Melzer is out with a prostitute in a dark alley of the city. From his viewpoint, different forms of art sold for money are not so different after all. When Melzer returns to his old apartment, he meets the new tenant, a fairly straightforward young lady -- and the beginnings of a saner Melzer start to dawn. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Felix Stamm (Emil Steinberger) works at a match-making company that uses videotapes to bring together prospective couples. His gets more personally involved in his job than he would like, as he and his girlfriend Regula Koller (Franziska Oehme) find their own relationship affected by the people he meets through his work. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Despite the film's English title Knife in the Head, Hoffman (Bruno Ganz), a scientist, is shot in the head by the police while he is trying to pick up his wife from a political rally. Upon awakening, Hoffman finds that he has lost all memory of who he is and why the police were after him. At first, he is also paralyzed, unable to move or care for himself. As he recovers the use of his faculties, his search to discover what was really at stake during the rally leads him to take some harsh measures of his own. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Aligok and Blubbo are two aspiring revolutionaries who live a lonely existence in a woodland cottage. Their plans for revolt are quickly changed when a beautiful blonde woman appears and sleeps with both of them. There is also a gander named Lenin pictured in the four seasons in this offbeat film, the first for director Peter Schneider. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide