Lola-fying The German Film Industry

Once upon a time winning a prestigious film prize meant instant box office increase. Film buyers would anticipate the awards and make sure the films were in the theaters when news of the happy winners was announced. For some reason, the impact of the awards has changed. Or, perhaps, the films have changed. Or even better: film buyers have changed as many are empty executives who could just as easily be discussing pork bellies (but that is another story).

Last week, the Lolas were handed out: the German Film Awards. In an attempt to mirror the grand American award shows of past, the producers offered a mix of song-and-dance, erotic MCs, cute starlets introducing even cuter newcomers, homages to grand seigneurs of the industry and quirky film clips. In pure German bureaucratic olympic style, not one but three films are awarded best film: in gold, silver and bronze. Everyone on the red carpet - even Hannelore Elsner in some heinous pink carpet thing - was having a great time.

Except for...indeed, one person that evening was not a happy camper: Til Schweiger. Given, I am not a giant fan of Til's (even if he does look hot in Schiesser underwear ads). But you must give credit where credit is due and his Keinohrhasen basically saved the German domestic film industry - in fact, it saved the entire theatrical industry - this year. Currently clocking in over 6,000,000 admissions (read: "major blockbuster"), what else does Til need to do to be noticed? Imagine his chagrin when he found out that someone somewhere in distribution hell forgot to send in the official entry paperwork for the film? Therefore rendering his chances of a prize nil. Ouch!

That said, he probably would not have won. I ask you, since when do blockbusters win prizes... (OK, except for Titanic in 1998). Die Welle, currently on the way to blockbuster status with close to 2,000,000 admissions, won the Bronze Award. But the driving force of the film, Jürgen Vogel, was shunned sans nomination. In an effort to save face, the board did nominate Frederick Lau (who played easily influenced psycho-student Tim) - and he won! Silver Award (and best actor) went to Kirschblüten (aka Hanami). The best Doris Dörrie film ever (and I am a big fan), the film has hardly dented box office heaven (ca 550,000 admissions).

The Golden Film Award (as well as best director, screenplay, editing) went to Fatih Akin for his Auf der anderen Seite. Fatih shocked audiences in 2004 with his Gegen die Wand, portraying young Turks as actually having erotically sensual feelings and desires. This film again deals with political and cultural differences in a multi-cultural world of love and family relationships. But, come on... the film earned shy of 480,000 admissions and has been out on DVD since the end of February. I ask you: who can profit from such a win?

I know what you are thinking...where does Ralf Möller fit into all of this? He doesn't. Box office heaven or none, Ralf's films are just not Lola-lific enough.

Cheers, ciao and good on ya.

Weekend Cinema Listomania

Blindness, an artsy sci-fi thriller directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardner) and starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, opens the Cannes Film Festival on May 14th. It's based on the novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago and it sounds interesting, but from what I can tell from the trailer, I think I liked it better in 1962, when it was the low budget version of John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids.

I kid, of course. Obviously, there are no killer vegetables in Meirelles' film.

In any case, the weekend is upon us and as usual things will be quiet around here until Monday. So while we wait, here's a little project to tide us all over --

Best Film Adaptation of a Pre-Existing Sci-Fi Short Story or Novel!!!

My totally top of my head Top Five:

5. Solaris (1972)
The Andrei Tarkovsky directed original, not the George Clooney remake, from the Stanislaw Lem novel of the same name. Lem claimed he didn't like the Tarkovsky version, but I think he was just being difficult.

4. The Invisible Man (1933)
From the H.G. Wells novel, of course, and on balance perhaps director James Whale's most assured mix of terror and dark comedy.With a star-making performance by Claude Rains, whose face, ironically enough, isn't glimpsed until the very last scene.

3. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
From the short story by Harry Bates, originally appearing in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. A remake with Keanu Reeves (whoa!) is supposed to be in the theaters in time for Christmas, but unless it features the original score by Bernard Herrmann I really don't get the point.

2. Blade Runner (1982)
Ridley Scott's sci-fi noir, from Philip K. Dick's classic novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and still one of the most fully realized visions of a not too distant future ever committed to celluloid. It Could Only Happen in Hollywood: The producers actually asked Dick to write a novelization of the movie; the perennially strapped for cash scribbler pointed out (how politely we do not know) that he already written the book the film was based on, and suggested it be reprinted.

And the number one, no question about, who are we kidding it's not even a contest is --

1. The Thing (From Another World) (1951)
The Howard Hawks' produced (and probably directed as well) original, not the splattery John Carpenter remake. Inspirational dialogue: "An intellectual carrot. The mind boggles." I don't know why, but the fact it's called La Chose (D'un Autre Monde) in France just cracks me up.

Alrighty -- what would your choices be?

Harry Potter Boxset Books 1-7 (Hardcover)

The Harry Potter Boxed Set 1-7 includes all seven Harry Potter hardcover books by bestselling author J.K. Rowling, and is housed in a printed and customizable (decorative stickers included) cardboard box featuring a plastic lock and handles.

You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management (Hardcover)

Starred Review. Back for another highly entertaining round of Biology 101, the team behind YOU: The Owner's Manual applies its signature wit and wisdom to food metabolism and nutrition. According to Roizen and Oz, waist measurement, not weight, is the most important factor in mortality related to obesity, and understanding the relationship between chemicals and hormones influencing hunger and those signaling satiety is the key to ending yo-yo dieting. Most diets fail, Roizen and Oz conclude, because body chemistry overrules the best plans and intentions. To restore the body's natural ability to balance hunger and satiety and offset the effects of stress on food choices, they list foods and supplements that fight fat, decrease appetite and combat inflammation that causes disease. Roizen and Oz pack in a lot of material—quizzes, "factoids" and "myth busters" along with diet and exercise plans, recipes and a two-week "rebooting" program—in bite-sized portions, giving readers a chance to absorb and apply what they learn. For those considering medical intervention, they discuss current options for drugs and surgery. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Hardcover)

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe --This text refers to the Roughcut edition.

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (Hardcover)

Reviewed by James BradyAt the heart of David Halberstam's massive and powerful new history of the Korean War is a bloody, losing battle fought in November 1950 in the snow-covered mountains of North Korea by outnumbered American GIs and Marines against the Chinese Communist Army.Halberstam's villain is not North Korea's Kim Il Sung or China's Chairman Mao or even the Soviet Union's Josef Stalin, who pulled the strings. It's the legendary general Douglas MacArthur, the aging, arrogant, politically ambitious architect of what the author calls the single greatest American military miscalculation of the war, MacArthur's decision to go all the way to the Yalu [River] because he was sure the Chinese would not come in.Much of the story is familiar. What distinguishes this version by Halberstam (who died this year in a California auto crash) is his reportorial skill, honed in Vietnam in Pulitzer-winning dispatches to the New York Times. His pounding narrative, in which GIs and generals describe their coldest winter, whisks the reader along, even though we know the ending.Most Korean War scholars agree that MacArthur's sprint to the border of great China with a Siberian winter coming on resulted in a lethal nightmare. Though focused on that mountain battle, Halberstam's book covers the entire war, from the sudden dawn attack by Kim Il Sung's Soviet-backed North Koreans against the U.S.-trained South, on June 25, 1950, to its uneasy truce in 1953. It was a smallish war but a big Cold War story: Harry Truman, Stalin and Mao, Joe McCarthy and Eisenhower, George C. Marshall and Omar Bradley, among others, stride through it. A few quibbles: there were no B-17 bombers destroyed on Wake Island the day after Pearl Harbor, as Halberstam asserts, and Halberstam gives his minor characters too much attention.At first MacArthur did well, toughing out those early months when the first GIs sent in from cushy billets in occupied Japan were overwhelmed by Kim's rugged little peasant army. MacArthur's greatest gamble led to a marvelous turning point: the invasion at Inchon in September, when he outflanked the stunned Reds. After Inchon, the general headed north and his luck ran out. His sycophants, intelligence chief Willoughby and field commander Ned Almond, refused to believe battlefield evidence indicating the Chinese Communists had quietly infiltrated North Korea and were lying in wait. The Marines fought their way out as other units disintegrated. In the end, far too late, Truman sacked MacArthur.Alive with the voices of the men who fought, Halberstam's telling is a virtuoso work of history. (Sept.)James Brady, columnist at Parade and Forbes.com, is author of several books about Korea. His latest book is Why Marines Fight (St. Martin's, Nov.).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Good Dog. Stay. (Hardcover)

“The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen about her beloved black Labrador retriever, Beau. With her trademark wisdom and humor, Quindlen reflects on how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau’s, and on the lessons she’s learned by watching him: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure herself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise her nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, “I smell bacon!”

Of the dog that once possessed a catcher’s mitt of a mouth, Quindlen reminisces, “there came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.”

Heartening and bittersweet, Good Dog. Stay. honors the life of a cherished and loyal friend and offers us a valuable lesson on our four-legged family members: Sometimes an old dog can teach us new tricks.