Dieter Meier Movies

The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin's family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site's empty halls and ballrooms in order to relive his fond memories of the place. As he remembers, flashbacks reveal episodes in the lives of those who populated these lodgings. One of the boy's favorite experiences was hearing his grandmother tell how an anarchist assassinated an enemy at the hotel; another favorite story was about the time the famous French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt seduced the boy's grandfather. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane team up for this bad boy comic burlesque, directed by Jonathan Lynn. Idle and Coltrane play Brian Hope and Charlie McManus, a pair of two-bit hoods who want to go straight, repulsed by the increasing reliance on guns and violence in their line of work. In thrall to vicious gangster Case Casey (Robert Patterson), the duo determine that their next job will be their last. When a large amount of money is extracted from a gang of Hong Kong drug dealers and it falls into the laps of Brian and Charlie, the two take off with the loot, with the Chinese Triad and Casey in relentless pursuit. When their car runs out of gas in front of a convent, Brian and Charlie run inside and disguise themselves as two of the ugliest nuns imaginable. Inside the convent, Brian and Charlie pass themselves off as nuns from a different order, assigned to the convent before leaving the country on missionary work. As the two men enjoy their undercover work with a collection of nubile nuns and coeds, the bad guys close in on their trail. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this potpourri of abstract, realistic and apparently unrelated imagery, numerous figures in Germany's "underground" and avant-garde cinema make brief appearances, and visually powerful shots from around the world are interlarded with close-ups apparently intended to remind the viewer of the omnipresence of death and impermanence. This earnest visual meditation begins and ends with a performance by Blixa Bargeld of Death is a Dandy on a Horse and includes a dance performance by Japanese artist Kazuo Ohno partnered by his son, to the tune of City of Heaven as sung by Jessye Norman. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This crime thriller has an unlikely pair of men, Due and Ozzy (Norbert Lamla and Hubertus Gertzen) so miffed at being fired from a construction job on a skyscraper that they hide out in their workplace and spend four days stealing whatever loot they can grab. The duo keep hidden in an abandoned duct in the basement of the skyscraper while making forays into the building to steal. Towards the end of their exploits, they grab a computer, haul it down to their hideaway, and proceed to excise some valuable data from a software company. While pursuing that goal, they are spotted by a window cleaner and fear for their continued anonymity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide