Thierry van Werveke Movies

This comedy from Germany follows the misadventures of three senior citizens with an unusual plan to finance one last spree. Carla (Christel Okras), Beta (Christel Peters), and Lilli (Elisabeth Scherer) are three elderly women who have known each other since childhood and remain the best of friends. While their golden years have not been especially kind to them -- Lilly feels cramped living with her family, Beta shares a house with her ungrateful son who demands she pay part of the rent, and Carla is stuck in an old-age home -- the three women have been saving their money and plan to take a cruise around the world together. They've nearly reached their goal when they decide that hiding the money at home isn't safe, so they go to a bank to deposit their eight thousand marks in their bank accounts. While the three women wait in line to see the teller, a team of robbers stage a heist at the bank, taking their savings along with the funds from the bank vault. The bank's manager informs the women that since the money had not been officially deposited before it was stolen, it's not covered under the bank's insurance; outraged, and aware that they might not live long enough to save another eight thousand, the ladies decide to stage a robbery of their own to recover their savings and get revenge against the bankers. Jetzt Oder Nie: Zeit Ist Geldz received its North American premiere at the 2001 Palm Springs Film Festival; the film was shown under its English title, Now or Never. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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

In this odd love story and drama, Death is a huge and inefficient bureaucracy, and like all bureaucracies, "mistakes are made," to use the passive phrase so beloved of buck-passers everywhere. Here, Alex meets a lovely girl named Alice, and the two of them fall in love. However, their entire courtship is a mistake: Alice was released from death by mistake, and now she must be reclaimed. The bureaucrats make the further mistake of revealing their presence to the distraught young man, and he journeys into the underworld to negotiate a deal for the release of his girl with "the boss," which is what everyone calls the bureaucrat-in-charge. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Aside from being in the title, none of the better-known pop music of the 1960s period is used in this film. In the story, German-speaking and French-speaking gangsterish Luxembourgers are in conflict with one another. It is New Year's Eve in Dudelange, and Rocco (Birol Uenel) is hard-pressed to continue avoiding these gangsters while attempting to woo the lovely Veronique (Desiree Nosbusch), who is the apple of many mens' eyes. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide