Towje Kleiner Movies

This drama comes from one of Germany's greatest contemporary directors, Peter Lilienthal; and is one of the few to be released outside of the country. It is the story of an Israeli poet's struggle to create in an inhospitable environment. The poet is suffering from severe writer's block and much of the film centers upon the reasons why. Among those reasons is a brother blinded during the Yom Kippur War, the drawn out illness and subsequent death of his wife, and the simpleton son she bore before she became ill. Most of the time the poet blames his son for his inability to write; the father resents having to care for him night and day but he refuses to institutionalize the lad. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this German action-thriller, Dorn (Marius Muller-Westernhagen) has a stroke of bad luck that gets him involved in the world of drug dealers, with no easy way out. While in his hotel room on Malta, Dorn is trying to figure out how to sell 50,000 copies of a porn magazine he has stashed there, when the police burst in and he just barely makes it out of the window and into the room below. That turns out to be a jump from the frying pan into the fire, because there is a dead man in the room below, and the next thing he knows, Dorn is being chased by the police for murder. Eventually, Dorn gets away from the clutches of the Maltese police force and ends up in Amsterdam with a mountain of cocaine to unload. But then he runs into Cora (Polly Eltes) who advises him to sell the cocaine to a Chinese drug lord. Dorn manages to pull off the sale for a hefty profit, but then events take a turn for the worse one more time, leaving him in another tight spot.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The year is 1931. Someone is trying to permanently derail the Orient Express. This drama, based on a true story, explains who and why. The mad bomber is Sylvester Matushka, a Hungarian businessman. He has destroyed the train and many have died. Now Dr. Epstein is called in to investigate and find Matushka before he strikes again. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This adaptation of a Mark Twain story features a daydreaming apprentice who finds himself in medieval Europe. ~ Rovi

The Odessa File is set in Hamburg in the winter of 1963. Jon Voight plays Peter Miller, a German reporter who is investigating the whereabouts of missing Nazi war criminals. After reading the diary of a Holocaust survivor who has recently committed suicide, Miller goes on the trail of in-hiding SS officer Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell). The reporter finds his investigation blocked by members of a secretive group called Odessa. With the help of Israeli activists, Miller persists in his search. Schell's sister Maria also appears in The Odessa File as Miller's mother, the widow of a German soldier. Based on a nailbiting novel by Frederick Forsyth, The Odessa File is highlighted by the exquisitely Teutonic score of Andrew Lloyd Webber. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi