Rainer Egger Movies
- 2001
A teenager discovers a startling revelation about his favorite band -- but does so nearly 20 years after the rest of the world in this bright comedy. In the mid-1980s, Tobias (Sebastian Schmidtke) is a teenager growing up in a small, sleepy German town. Tobias' greatest passion in life is rock & roll, and his favorite radio show is a weekly series that accompanies highlights from the Beatles' back catalog with bits of history and trivia about the band. One week, the host offers a prize to whomever can identify what John Lennon is mumbling at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever," and a salesman at a local record store tells Tobias that John is saying "I buried Paul." Tobias and his best friend Helmut (Martin Reinhold) start pondering the implications of this statement, and Tobias comes to the conclusion that Paul McCartney was killed, an imposter took over so the band could continue, and his bandmates left clues in their music and on their album covers to let loyal fans know about the tragedy. Tobias and Helmut are, however, entirely unaware of the "Paul is dead" rumor that ran rampant among Beatles fans in the late 1960s, in which many people came to the same false conclusion, and soon the two boys are obsessed with finding out the truth about Paul's death, as well as bringing his murderer to justice. Paul Is Dead features a host of Beatles tunes on its soundtrack, and was warmly received in its North American premiere at the 2001 Slamdance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 2001
An Austrian housewife discovers a new hobby that's fun, profitable, and lethal in this black comedy. Sixty-ish Trixi (Christiane Hoerbiger) is hardly an ordinary grandmother; she's grown bored with her longtime marriage to loutish Siggi (Klaus Ofczarek), and as a diversion, uses her grocery allowance to gamble. One of Siggi's friends, Karli (Peter Faerber), spies her at the racetrack, and threatens to tell her husband about her hobby; to his surprise, Trixi offers to have sex with him in exchange for his silence. Karli lets slip with a little secret about Siggi -- he has a secret fund of $70,000 that he's been saving without her knowledge. Trixi, already unhappy with her mate, decides this is the last straw, and poisons him in order to get her hands on the money. But Trixi later discovers that Siggi's hidden bankroll was much smaller than Karli had led her to believe, and when a widower asks Trixi for her hand in marriage, she accepts. After locating his nest egg, Trixi soon does away with husband number two, and is prepared to move on to husband number three, good-looking Ulrich (Jan Niklas), when fate throws a few spanners into the works -- Karli begins demanding money to keep quiet about Siggi's "mysterious" death, and Trixi finds she has attracted the attention of Julius (Udo Kier), an artist with a taste for rough sex. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christiane Horbiger, Udo Kier, (more)
- 1996
This anthology film is comprised of 12 stories submitted by the Austrian public to director Michael Glawogger in response to an advertisement. These stories are woven in and out of one another. The imagery arising from the stories can be quite striking, such as one in which a cannibal's recipe for Stroganoff is given while several men hang from meathooks. Another segment pays homage to low-grade horror films with a love story involving two girls and a vampire. An English-language segment concerns a bankrupt healer. One highly visual story concerns an epileptic who has had an operation separating the two halves of his brain. Each side of his body tells an increasingly demented tale. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1994
This Austrian film, set in 1945, chronicles the Muhlviertler Rabbit Hunt, an incident involving the escape of 500 Russian inmates from the Mauthausen concentration camp. Of the 500, only 150 survived. The film focuses upon the cruelty and goodness of the towns people, many of whom set to finding the Russian escapees and slaughtering them with gusto as per SS orders. Other townsfolk were more humane and assisted the Russians. One such heroine was Frau Karner who took Michail and Nikolai and hid them in her family barn. Her son, an army reject, also aids the Russians. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elfriede Irrall, Rainer Egger, (more)
- 1993
In a future world not long from now, the sun's rays have become injurious to the health of everyone living on the planet, and mankind has taken to living during the dark hours of the night. Not everyone is content with this, and virtual reality films help those who miss the sun over their psychological withdrawal pangs - and for those who can't afford that, there are postcards from the daytime. It is illegal to spend any time under the sun, in addition to being dangerous, but Herzog (Rainer Egger) doesn't care. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rainer Egger, Dani Levy, (more)
