Georges Kern Movies
Arthouse favorite Olivier Assayas followed up his critical darling L'Heure d'Été (2008) with this wildly different chronicle -- a biopic of the ultra-left-wing Venezuelan terrorist-cum-mercenary Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, popularly known as "Carlos the Jackal." As co-written by Assayas and scenarist Dan Franck, the account spans the years 1973-1994 -- or the period that witnessed Sanchez at his most violent and relentless. Narrative touchstones include the 1974 bomb attack at the Publicis Drugstore on Paris' Left Bank and the 1975 abduction of 11 OPEC officials from Vienna, as well as a torrent of assassinations that Carlos and his cronies planned but didn't carry out. As produced by Daniel Leconte, this telling of Sanchez's life stars Edgar Ramirez as the terrorist, as well as Alexander Scheer, Aljoscha Stadelmann, and Julia Hummer; it was predominantly shot in Germany, France, and Lebanon. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Edgar Ramirez, Alexander Scheer, (more)
- 1997
In this charming fairy tale, a magical whale wreaks havoc in a small Austrian village. It all begins with a traveling showman and his giant stuffed whale. Roberto and his cetaceous companion have been touring the country for years. Just before he arrives at the aforementioned mountain village, he suffers a fatal heart attack. The townsfolk wheel the great whale into the town square and leave it there until they can find one of Roberto's relatives to pick it up. Eventually, they locate the lovely Sophie Moore. As she arrives, Carl is jilted by the free-spirited Maria at the alter. He vows never to leave the spot where she left him. But then he sees Sophie and changes his mind. The two pry open the whale's mouth and step into its belly. A magical feeling overtakes them and they make love. The entire time, Carl dreams of his Maria. Miraculously, she is waiting for him at the whale's mouth and is ready for marriage. Sophie doesn't know what to make of this turn of events. Suspecting the whale is magic, she quickly takes another lover into its bowels. Unfortunately, he was once jilted by Maria and wishes her to become a dog. The deed is done. Horrified, Sophie begins sleeping with every man in town in the hope that one will wish Maria was a woman again. Unfortunately, the men have other, more selfish wishes on their minds. Things get worse when Sophie discovers that the magic will only work once for each man. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1995
Robert (Alfred Dorfer) teaches music in high school, and is a somewhat ineffectual character. While he is loved by his wife, Doris (Andrea Eckert), no one considers him capable of much. His son even calls him a "dork." He takes his wife with him on vacation to sunny Italy but misses the rains in hometown Vienna, so they take the train back to Austria. Robert has a high-school friend, Roland (Lukas Resetarits), who has become a successful popular musician despite being fairly untalented. While Robert and his wife are journeying back to Vienna, they decide to go to one of Roland's concerts. When Robert gets them invited by the celebrity to a post-concert bash, he begins to seem less like a loser, which causes him all kinds of trouble. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
Based on a true story, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, a German businessman in Poland who sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis' rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using flattery and bribes to win military contracts, and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory. By staffing his plant with Jews who've been herded into Krakow's ghetto by Nazi troops, Schindler has a dependable unpaid labor force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant could mean survival for himself and the other Jews working for Schindler. However, in 1942, all of Krakow's Jews are assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), an embittered alcoholic who occasionally shoots prisoners from his balcony. Schindler arranges to continue using Polish Jews in his plant, but, as he sees what is happening to his employees, he begins to develop a conscience. He realizes that his factory (now refitted to manufacture ammunition) is the only thing preventing his staff from being shipped to the death camps. Soon Schindler demands more workers and starts bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps. By the time Germany falls to the allies, Schindler has lost his entire fortune -- and saved 1,100 people from likely death. Schindler's List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture and a long-coveted Best Director for Spielberg, and it quickly gained praise as one of the finest American movies about the Holocaust. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, (more)
- 1990
Not only were there tunnels leading from East Berlin to West Berlin, so that residents of the relatively more repressive East Germany could escape to West Germany, but East Germans also built tunnels under the borders to more "liberal" communist countries like Czechoslovakia. Otherwise, they would quite simply have been shot by the East German border guards, if they even approached the border. In this story, a thirteen-year old girl, Julia (Silvia Lang), who is in deep mourning for the death of her father. She is also attempting to cope with her own feelings about her emerging womanhood, and what seems to her to be her mother's indecently quick aquisition of a new lover. Except for letters she writes to her deceased father, she keeps a vow of silence, which her friends respect. One day, while in an expedition with her friends in the woods near the Czech border, she comes across a tunnel leading to Czechoslovakia and crosses in it, and is found by a friendly surveyor on the other side. She is not yet ready to cross over for good, and extracts various pledges from the man, who quickly becomes a friend. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
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