Thursday, February 07, 2008

The Greatest Czech: Jara Cimrman

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Commentary by Kaja In the heat of an early and humid summer, I had my first encounter with the famed Jara Cimrman, the Czech Genius. I’d hea...
Friday, February 01, 2008

Zerophilia *

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Zerophilia (DVD on Amazon) This is a peculiar movie about a young man with a rare genetic disease that causes him to begin to turn into a f...

Taking Sides *

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Taking Sides (link to DVD at Amazon) Eli : I was really looking forward to this film. It is by Istvan Szabo who is one is one of my favor...

Mysterious Skin * * * *

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Mysterious Skin (link to DVD on Amazon) Mysterious Skin tells the story of the ramifications of the sexual abuse of two eight-year old boys...
Monday, January 28, 2008

Családi tüzfészek (Family Nest, 1979) * *

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Family Nest (link to DVD on Amazon) Bela Tarr is one of the most renown -- albeit unknown -- Hungarian directors of avant-garde film (the o...
Friday, December 07, 2007

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (2005)* *

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Grbavica (link to DVD at Amazon) ****warning: this review is going to reveal the main plot twist**** I have yet to see a movie concernin...

Eroica (1958)* * *

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Eroica (link to DVD at Amazon) The very title of this film, Eroica (English title: Heroism), seems to be a sarcastic play on the meaning of...

Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan's Childhood, 1962)* * * *

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Ivan's Childhood (link to DVD at Amazon) In college, I watched Tarkovsky's films Solaris and Stalker, but since then I have avoided...
Thursday, November 15, 2007

Berlin Diary (1941)* * * *

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Berlin Diary (link to book at Amazon) At 21 in 1925, William Shirer left the States to work as a foreign journalist in India and Europe. 1...
Friday, October 26, 2007

Planet Earth: Fresh water * * *

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Planet Earth: Fresh Water (link to DVD at Amazon) Planet Earth is a famous series of 6 DVDs of nature and animal photography that is renown...
Thursday, October 25, 2007

Planet Earth: Mountains * * * *

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Planet Earth: Mountains (link to DVD at Amazon) Planet Earth is a famous series of 6 DVDs of nature and animal photography that is renown f...

Planet Earth: Pole to Pole * * *

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Planet Earth: Pole to Pole (link to DVD at Amazon) Planet Earth is a famous series of nature and animal photography that is renown for its ...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others, 2006)* * * *

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The Lives of Others (link to DVD on Amazon) Of all the communist states, East Germany had the most elaborate and insidious secret service. ...

Svjedoci (Witnesses, 2004)* * *

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Set in a Croatian village during the Balkans war. Three soldiers come in the dead of night, open the door to a house and mow down a civilia...
Saturday, October 06, 2007

The Italian (2005)* * *

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The Italian (link to DVD at Amazon) The name notwithstanding, this is a Russian film about the journey of a young boy in an decrepit orphan...

Vers le Sud (Heading South, 2005) * * *

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Heading South (link to DVD at Amazon) Heading South is a French and Canadian co-production movie about middle age women (1 ex-pat Brit livi...
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998) * * *

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Little Dieter Needs to Fly (link to DVD on Amazon) This is a documentary about Dieter Dengler, who was born in Germany shortly after WWII...

The Endless Steppe (1968)* * * *

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The Endless Steppe (link to book on Amazon) This is the autobiographical story of the childhood of Ester Hautzig who was born in Vilna , L...
Tuesday, June 19, 2007

In Deadly Combat (1964) * * * *

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In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann (link to the book on Amazon) This is a ...
Friday, May 04, 2007

Ivan's War (2006) * * * * *

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Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 (link to book at Amazon) He stands larger than life, a gun grasped firmly in one ...