The Eternals (1 Star)

Great actors. Awful film.

The sign of an obsessive collector is that he buys things he doesn't like in order to complete a set. That's what I do with the Marvel films. I hated this film the first time I saw it in the cinema. I liked it even less when I saw it streamed on Disney Plus. But I had to have it on my shelf next to all my other Marvel films.

I bought it in July 2022, but the Blu-ray has been lying unwatched on my shelf ever since. Today I finally plucked up the courage. I had great difficulty watching it all the way through. If it had been a non-Marvel film, I would have turned it off within an hour.

There have been on-off rumours about a sequel. Please, no! Let's forget that this abysmal team ever appeared in a film.

Watching the film today was self-inflicted torture. I shan't watch it again. I promise.

Success Rate:  - 0.3

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Wine: WZG Original Schwarzriesling

First of all, a personal message. October 13th is the anniversary of my father's death in 1983. It was 41 years ago, but it still seems like yesterday. He was a difficult person to live with, incapable of showing emotions, but beneath his hard shell I recognised that he was a good man. While I lived in Birmingham I used to visit his grave every year on the anniversary. Since moving to Germany I've only managed to be in England once on this date, but I've managed to visit the grave occasionally on different dates. Wherever I am, October 13th is always an emotional date for me.

Now to the wine. This is a bottle that was given me as a birthday present by my son-in-law, but I only opened it a few days ago. It's a wine made by the Stuttgart wine cooperative, the Württembergische Weingärtner-Zentralgenossenschaft. The abbreviation is WZG. Shouldn't it be WWZG? I shan't argue with them.

Most WZG wines are bottled with labels that don't identify them on the front, making them look like generic wines. However, they also have an "Original" line of wine, slightly more expensive, which makes me suspect they have better quality. I've searched online in vain to find a description of the differences. The word original doesn't say anything at all.

Schwarzriesling is one of the most common grapes grown in Württemberg, after Trollinger and Lemberger. I can't say which is the best of the three. It all depends on your taste. All I can say is that I was surprised when I opened the bottle three days ago. The first impression was that the wine was sour. Yuck! But my palate adjusted to it quickly, and the second sip was pleasantly mild. I've never known a wine change its taste so rapidly. The second day I had the same experience. The first sip tasted sour, after which it became pleasant.

It's a good wine. I'm determined to try the other wines in the Original line. My local supermarket stocks them all.

The Wild Robot (5 Stars)

Based on the trailers, this is a film I've been waiting to see for months. It's classed as a children's film, but that description doesn't do it justice. I'd prefer to say that it's a film for the whole family, including children.

The film is based on a book with the same name by the author Peter Brown. A robot designed for household chores is washed ashore after a shipwreck. The robot identifies as female, which is logical. She should have become a maid. The robot, called Roz, finds herself on a small island inhabited only by animals. She wanders around looking for a mission to fulfil. She's been programmed to serve, but there's nobody to tell her what to do. She learns the languages of the animals around her, but she still receives no instructions.

While fleeing from a grizzly bear, Roz accidentally destroys a goose's nest. Only one egg remains intact. On birth the gosling recognises Roz as her mother. This is the task that Roz was looking for. She adopts the goose and brings him up with the help of a fox called Fink.

Childish? Yes, but the film contains many elements that will appeal to adults. There are hints about the importance of wildlife conservation. The film is heart-warming, and I walked out of the cinema feeling happy. Any film that can do that to me is worth watching.

Joker Folie à Deux (5 Stars)

I didn't think it was necessary to make a second film about the Joker. The first film said it all. Joaquin Phoenix was only prepared to make a sequel if it went in a different direction. That's what I saw today. Maybe the film was too different for critics and the audience, but it's exactly the film that Joaquin wanted to make.

Arthur Fleck, the Joker, is in prison for almost all of the film. Long sequences take part as a courtroom drama. On the whole, courtroom dramas are boring, but this problem was solved by interspersed musical numbers. Some were dreams, while others simply happened without explanation. I've read reviews that say the music was out of place. I disagree entirely. The music gives the film its strength. They also say there's not enough action. They don't get it. It was never intended to be an action film.

DC has further distanced itself from the film. There's no DC logo at the beginning of the film. I find this appropriate. The Joker in the film isn't the same character that we know from the comics or the Batman films. The comics are just a rough inspiration for the film. In the comics the Joker is a master criminal; in the film he's just a confused psychotic man.

The film is still in the cinemas, but initial predictions suggest it will be a box office flop. That would be a tragedy. Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for his performance in the first film, and he's just as outstanding in "Folie à Deux". Lady Gaga is an incredible actress, as always. Brendan Gleeson, one of my favourite actors, is brilliant as the abusive hospital orderly Jackie Sullivan. In my opinion, this is a film that everyone needs to see. Hurry, while it's still in the cinemas.

The Marvels (3½ Stars)

I've finally bought "The Marvels" on Blu-ray. After all, I buy every Marvel film on disc. I was disappointed when I saw it in the cinema, but I made an effort to like it today. I made a conscious decision to see the good in it.

A large part of the problems isn't the film itself, it's the way it's been framed. Marvel fans are already used to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films being interconnected, so they have to watch some of the previous films to know what's happening. To me that's acceptable. But "The Marvels" takes it a step further. Important characters were introduced in the mini-series "Ms. Marvel", and background information was given in the mini-series "Secret Invasion". Both of these series were broadcast on Disney Plus. Is it acceptable to expect people to subscribe to a streaming service before going to the cinema? No way! That's probably the main reason for the poor box office figures.

Okay, I'm one of the lucky people who subscribes to Disney Plus. I've got over that hurdle. I can understand the film. So do I like it?

Another problem is that something else is missing. There's an untold story that's often mentioned in "The Marvels", but we've never seen it on screen, not even in flashbacks. At some point in the past, Captain Marvel destroyed the Kree's Supreme Intelligence, leading to a civil war and ecological disasters. She's now called the Annihilator. This would have been an exciting film, if it had ever been made. And it wouldn't have needed any Disney mini-series to prop it up.

The new leader of the Kree is Dar-Benn. Wasn't she a man in the comics? It's also weird that she carries the staff of Ronan the Accuser. In the comics the Accusers were senior officials, acting as judges and executioners, but they weren't the rulers. Or maybe this apparent blunder can be explained as a result of the Kree civil war.

Captain Marvel is now accompanied by two other women, variations of herself. They're Monica Rambeau (who refuses to carry a Marvel-ish name) and Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel from the Disney series). They're linked to one another by some pseudo-scientific cosmic occurrence that I doubt even the scriptwriters understood. I can see where it's coming from: the male Captain Marvel used to swap places with Rick Jones. In a vaguely similar way Captain Marvel and the Mini-Marvels swap places whenever they use their powers. Incidentally, the exchange with Rick Jones was powered by the nega bands that Captain Marvel wore in the comics. In the film they're incorrectly called quantum bands. The quantum bands in the comics are also Kree artefacts, but something different.

Ms. Marvel wears one quantum band, Dar-Benn wears the other. Dar-Benn wants to unite the two bands in order to return the Kree homeworld Hala to its former glory. With only one band, she's forced to create new jump points to suck air or water from other planets and transfer it to Hala. A jump point is a portal from one point in space to another. In the comics jump points were created by the Kree thousands of years ago, but in the films their origins are vague.

The film isn't an absolute disaster. There's a lot of action, interspersed with occasional comedy. For instance, Captain Marvel is married to the leader of a planet in which all communication is carried out by singing. As soon as the Mini-Marvels talk normally, no one understands them.

"The Marvels" isn't a complete disaster like "The Eternals", but it's still the MCU film that made the biggest loss. What's embarrassing was the way the box office flop was explained. Brie Larson claimed that fans stayed away because they were misogynistic and wouldn't accept a female team. What a stupid thing to say! I doubt this was an issue for many fans. Comic book fans, especially young men, like films with sexy women. Doesn't Brie know that?

For me, the most appealing character in the film is Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan. She's such a charismatic teenager, always a pleasure to see on the screen. Brie Larson seems to have been written out of future MCU films, due to her arguments with Marvel Studios. I hope Iman will be used in future films. She has too much talent to be wasted.

I tried to like the film today. I've managed to give it an extra half star. It doesn't deserve more.

Success Rate:  - 1.1

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Wine: Rolf Willy Schwarzriesling with Samtrot

This is a wine that I've been drinking for a few months, one or two bottles a month. It's one of my favourite wines. I didn't realise until today that I've never mentioned it. It has a rich taste, with the tang of Schwarzriesling balanced by the mildness of Samtrot. Whoever thought of combining these two grapes is a genius. Schwarzriesling alone is an acquired taste, something I can't drink on a regular basis, but the combination with Samtrot is overwhelming. As I've said before, I can't claim to be an expert in wine, but I know what I like.

Surprisingly, it's not an expensive wine. It only costs six Euros at my local supermarket. I've never understood the pricing of wines. Is the price based on the work needed to produce a wine, the popularity with customers, or the quality as judged by experts? I really need to ask someone.

Harpoon Whale Watching Massacre (3 Stars)

This is an Icelandic horror film. After the ban on whale hunting in 1986, fishermen found a new way of making money. They took tourists on boat trips to watch whales. As they proudly proclaimed, Iceland is the country with the third largest number of whales, after Japan and Norway.

The film shows a mixed group of mostly obnoxious foreigners: a horny drunk Frenchman, a chauvinistic Japanese man constantly bullying his wife, an American, an Indian family and a few others I couldn't identify.

The ship's captain has an accident and is unable to steer the boat, so it sails in a random direction. The passengers are taken on board by a whale boat. Saved? Not quite. It's a family of unemployed whale hunters who want to kill everyone. Is there a reason for it? No. When did mass murderers ever need a reason for their crimes?

The DVD I watched today isn't in the original Icelandic, it's dubbed into English or German. I started by watching it with English dialogue, but it was awful. The dubbing artists sounded bored. So I switched to the German dialogue, and wow! It was like night and day. Germans take their dubbing seriously. Most German dubbing artists are experienced stage actors, so they can perform well. Why can't the English and Americans do such a good job?

"Harpoon" (shortening the title) is "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" set at sea. There's a lot of gore and senseless violence. Normally I'd like a film like this, but the problem, compared to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", is what I mentioned above. The victims are so unpleasant that I didn't care when they were killed. Good riddance!

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Ballon (4 Stars)

In the 1990's and 2000's Germany made a lot of films about escape attempts from East Germany (the DDR) and East-West love relationships. It was a popular theme after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The stream of films has stopped now. German audiences are tired of these themes. They've heard it all before. I understand them, but I'm different. They're topics that fascinate me, and I'll watch any film about them.

The director Michael Herbig, who specialises in comedies, spent years trying to get the rights to remake the 1982 film "Night Crossing". It was a true story about a German family that fled from East Germany in a hot air balloon in 1979. Herbig enjoyed the film, but he didn't think it accurately portrayed life in the East.

In 2018 he finally made the film as an exciting drama. German critics agree that it's far superior to the original version. So this is a rare case where the remake is better than the original? Critics especially praised Herbig as a director, expressing surprise at his ability to make a film so different to his usual comedies. The only criticism of the film is that critics think he over-used music, making the film sound overly dramatic. I disagree. I find the use of music exciting and appropriate to the film's theme.

The film begins halfway through the story. A hot air balloon has already been made by the family Strelzyk in Pößneck. Their first attempt at an escape fails. Their balloon crashes 100 meters short of the border. They abandon the balloon in the woods and walk home, a distance of 40 kilometers. When the balloon is found the East German secret police, the Stasi, is alerted and begins to search for the people who used it.

This is where the film's real excitement begins, underlaid by dramatic music. The Stelzyk family can't afford to give up trying to escape, because they know the Stasi is closing in on them. They have to make another attempt. They make another balloon, learning from their first failure.

Geographically speaking, it wasn't a "flight to the West". Their balloons flew due south from Thuringia to Franconia. This map should make it clear.

What characterises most of the film is the prevailing atmosphere of paranoia. I doubt the American film showed this. Wherever the Strelzyk family went, they were afraid of informers. Their neighbour who lived opposite was a senior member of the Stasi. That doesn't mean he strictly followed the party line. He asked Peter Strelzyk to adjust his television so that he could watch West German television channels, because he was a fan of "Charlie's Angels". Oh, the temptations of the wicked, wicked West!

When I have time I need to do a mini-marathon of German East-West films. Until then, I hope more will be made.

1 Day (4 Stars)

I have a weakness for musicals. There's something special about a film when the characters break into song. Most of all I like full musicals, in which all the dialog is sung, films like "Tommy" and "Evita", but I also like half musicals, in which there's only occasional singing. "1 Day" fits into the latter category.

My friends know that I don't like hip hop music, but somehow the music style fits "1 Day". You wouldn't expect the black residents of Handsworth to be singing heavy metal songs. Although I admit, I did once see a group of black youngsters sitting on the bus listening to "Du Hast" on a phone and singing along. It was surreal.

Birmingham is a segregated city. There are areas which are almost completely white, others which are almost completely black, and others which are almost completely Asian. Handsworth, which is where the film takes place, is almost completely inhabited by black people of Caribbean descent. When I lived in Birmingham I was in Small Heath, an area that was divided between Pakistanis and Somalians. They don't like one another. So much for Moslem unity, they even have separate mosques.

I know Handsworth well. I recognise most of the locations. I also recognise the locations used for filming in the city centre. "1 Day" makes me feel nostalgic. I enjoyed living in Birmingham, but I'm also glad that I'm in Germany now. I wish I had a portal so that I could walk from one country to the other any time I like.

London Road (4 Stars)

How can a film about a serial killer be a psychological thriller? It all depends on how the story is framed. We never see the killer on screen. We hear his name, and we even see the house where he lives, 79 London Road, Ipswich, but we don't see Steve Wright  himself. The film is about the residents of London Road and how they deal with murders taking place in their neighbourhood.

When the killings are first reported, there's an atmosphere of paranoia. The killer could be anyone. Teenage girls ride the bus, asking one another, "Is it him? Is it him? Is it him?" The taxi driver Mark, played by Tom Hardy, talks to his customers in a way that arouses suspicions. He tells them that he's been interested in serial killers ever since he was young, and he describes what the killer must be like: he must be 28 to 35, single or divorced and a loner. These descriptions fit Mark himself, so he's fast to add that it isn't him.

The film is a musical, and the most unique thing about it is that the lyrics weren't written. They're the transcripts of the interviews made with the residents of London Road. This gives the film a stark realism, despite everyone singing and sometimes dancing.

The next door neighbour of Steve Wright is interviewed. How would you react if you found out your next door neighbour was a killer? Admittedly, you would never have been in danger, because he only targeted prostitutes, but it would still have been unsettling. It's possible that the women were killed in his home, but Steve Wright cleverly covered his tracks. The only DNA traces were slight amounts of blood found on the back seat of his car and inside his gloves.

To this day Steve Wright has never admitted his guilt. He committed the five murders shortly after moving to Ipswich, within a space of six weeks, but he's suspected of the murders of up to 15 other women when he lived in Norwich. In May 2024 he was charged with the murder of a 17-year-old girl that took place in 1999. The other cases are still open. As I said, he was a clever man. But everyone makes a mistake eventually. If he hadn't killed the women in Ipswich, he would never have been suspected of the other murders.

Success Rate:  - 13.9

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