Unknown (5 Stars)

This is one of the most exciting films I've ever seen. It's a perfect mix of action, suspense and mystery. I can't believe that I've waited 13 years before watching it again. How could I forget a film like this?

Dr. Martin Harris, an American biotechnology professor played by Liam Neeson, travels to Berlin with his wife for a scientific conference. On arriving at the hotel he realises that he forgot to pick up one of his suitcases from the airport, so he leaves his wife behind to take a taxi back to the airport. On the way he's involved in a traffic accident and is in a coma for four days. He returns to the hotel as quickly as possible. His wife doesn't recognise him. She's in the company of another man who claims to be her husband. He can't prove who he is because he lost all his papers in the accident. The stranger doesn't just have papers to prove who he is, he also knows all about his scientific work.

Eventually Martin begins to think he's crazy and returns to the hospital for treatment, but while he's there someone tries to kill him, and even kills the nurse who tries to protect him. This makes him sure that something is happening, so he hires a private detective to prove that he really is who he thinks he is.

Although the film is in English, most of the cast are top German actors such as Bruno Ganz, Sebastian Koch and Diane Kruger. This is a brilliant film, and the final explanation will come as a a total surprise. The viewers will also feel the terror of being lost in a foreign country with no identification and being denied by your wife and friends.

Success Rate:  + 2.5

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Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

Netflix Thursday #14

I warned you that I'd be watching Netflix more often while I'm on holiday. That includes films like "Inglourious Basterds", which I have on Blu-ray at home.

In a recent interview Quentin Tarantino named six films which he considers to be perfect. The films, in the order he named them, are:

• "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974)
• "Jaws" (1975)
• "The Exorcist" (1973)
• "Annie Hall" (1977)
• "Young Frankenstein" (1974)
• "Back to the Future" (1985)

That's an interesting list. I've seen all the films except for "Annie Hall", but I've only reviewed "Jaws" and "Young Frankenstein" in my blog. I ought to watch all of the films in a row to see what he means. He claims the films are technically perfect, regardless of a person's personal tastes. That's difficult for me. My reviews are subjective, and I don't think I'm able to make an objective decision whether a film is perfect. I'll do my best.

Quentin should have added one more film to the list: "Inglourious Basterds". Maybe he was too modest to name one of his own films. The film's chapters are a series of vignettes, each of which can be judged on its own merits. Each vignette is perfect. If anything is imperfect, I'd like to hear Quentin himself tell me what's wrong with it.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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Tracks (5 Stars)

True Stories #37

Name: Robyn Davidson

Lived: 5 September 1950 – still alive

Film dates: 1975 to 1978

Film made in 2013

This is a film that touches me on different levels. The scenery is bleak but beautiful, and it's about a woman I admire immensely. Robyn Davidson did something that no man before or after her has been able to do: she walked from Alice Springs (the centre of Australia) to the west coast, a distance of 1700 miles (2700 kilometers). The quickest route, according to Google Maps, is 150 miles shorter, but she had to take some diversions, for instance to avoid sacred aborigine land.

 

Why did she do it? The simple answer is "Why not?" She just wanted to prove it could be done. If no man had ever attempted this feat, why shouldn't a woman do it?

She made the journey with four camels and her pet dog Diggity. The camels were used for carrying her tent and other equipment. No, she didn't ride on the camels. That would have been cheating. Diggity died a month before the end of the trip, which almost made her give up.

Her hindrances on the journey were sometimes by well-wishers. The journey was sponsored by National Geographic, on condition that she would let herself be photographed along the way. A photographer called Rick Smolan was assigned to meet her several times on the way. This annoyed her, but she had to put up with it to get the money she needed. Rick wanted to see her once a month, but she insisted that it couldn't be more than once every three months. He was attracted to her and wanted to travel with her for a few days, which would have turned into weeks, but she refused.

As she travelled on, her fame increased. She was called the Camel Lady. People came from far and wide looking for the Camel Lady, to talk to her and take photos. This was most unwelcome.

After 195 days in the desert Robyn and her four camels reached the ocean. Was Robyn Davidson crazy? Maybe, but this is the sort of crazy we need more of in our world. Not the sort of crazy that starts wars.

Mia Wasikowska puts on an excellent performance as Robyn Davidson. She looks similar enough to carry the role, not to mention her detached acting, as if she's living in a different world to those about her. I've read that Julia Roberts was originally chosen for the role. I'm sorry, Julia might be a good actress, but she would have been wrong for the role. Totally wrong.

Why did this film fail at the box office? I don't know. Wasn't it exciting enough? Was it was too Australian? I have no idea. It hasn't even been released on DVD in America. I hosted it for the Birmingham Film Group, and only one person went with me to see it. That's sad.

Success Rate:  - 2.4

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Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #24

This film should be called "How the War should have been won". It's the first film in which Quentin Tarantino rewrote history. It's a fictional film, but it features authentic historical characters, such as Adolf Hitler. The film shows Hitler dying in France in 1944, a year before his real world death. Tarantino's most recent film, "Once upon a time in Hollywood", also rewrites history by showing Sharon Tate survive the attack by the Manson Family.

So who kills Hitler? It's a joint effort. There are two plots running in parallel. One is the fighting group called the Bastards, eight Jewish soldiers led by Aldo the Apache (Brad Pitt). It's Aldo's right hand man Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) who fires the bullets that kill Hitler. When you look at his face it seems like he isn't just acting, he's really enjoying killing Hitler. But Hitler wouldn't have survived anyway. He's locked in a cinema that's being burnt down by Emmanuelle Mimieux, the cinema's owner who's secretly Jewish. Aldo's Bastards and Emmanuelle don't meet, and they aren't even aware of one another's existence.

As I've mentioned many times before, I consider the opening scene in a French farmhouse to be the best scene ever filmed. It's perfect. It's slow and intense with seemingly harmless conversation between the French dairy farmer and the SS officer Hans Landa. In fact, the whole film moves slowly, and there are only occasional short bursts of action.

This is a film I can watch again and again and never get bored. The same is true of all of Quentin Tarantino's films. If you haven't watched it yet, what are you waiting for? Please don't shy away from it with excuses like "I don't like war films". This isn't a normal war film, which should be obvious as soon as the background music begins. The music sounds like it comes directly from a spaghetti western.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters (3 Stars)

As you can see if you compare this post with my last two reviews of "Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters", my ratings aren't always consistent. I change my mind. It often depends on my mood when I watch a film. If I think a film is absolutely brilliant the first time I see it, it will always get a five star rating, however many times I watch it. On the other hand, if a film is merely good to average, my rating can oscillate between three and four stars. Three stars is the lowest rating I've given to the film so far.

I'll always remember this film as the beginning of a new period in my life. It was the first film that I went to see with the Birmingham Film Group on 27th February 2013. Until then I'd watched films almost exclusively at home. My daughter Fiona, who still lived with me at the time, suggested that I look online for a film group in Birmingham. She was worried that I was becoming a hermit. It was one of the best suggestions that she ever made to me. I finally developed a social life.

At the film group I met Mike McAuley, the group's leader. Over the next months we became close friends. I'd go as far as to say he was one of my best friends. A year later I became a co-host in the film group. We made it a routine that I hosted one film a week (usually on Wednesday) and Mike hosted one film a week (usually on Sunday). In addition, he frequently hosted social meetings on Saturdays, which I always attended. It was usual for Mike and I to be the last ones to leave.

Mike was disappointed when I said I was moving to Germany in 2016. He tried to talk me out of it, for several reasons. Firstly, he thought that the film group would suffer without my help. Secondly, he would miss me as a friend. I wasn't his best friend, but those that he considered his best friends all lived in different parts of the country. A possible third reason, which he didn't state directly, was that he felt that I was betraying my country by leaving. Maybe I'm wrong about this, because I'm basing this opinion on remarks he made while he was drunk.

Time went by. Four years. I stayed in touch with Mike, speaking with him regularly on Facebook, and I visited him whenever I was in England. In Germany I formed a new film group in Stuttgart. Then the Coronavirus lockdowns started. Mike organised online meetups for social purposes or to watch films, so I was an active participant in his group once more. Then something strange happened. Mike started to send me rude messages on Facebook, usually late at night. I shrugged them off, because I assumed he'd been drinking. Then the following conversation took place on my timeline:

As you can see, I was being polite and understanding with him, but he was totally crazy. In the following conversation my friends jumped to my defence. They confirmed that I'd never said I wanted Boris Johnson to die. My friends all know that I'm a strong supporter of Boris Johnson. I consider him to be the best prime minister the UK has had in the last 30 years.

At first I thought Mike McAuley had made a mistake. However, the matter escalated further. He began to spread lies about me on his Facebook timeline. He unfriended me to stop me reading what he was writing, but my friends sent me screenshots of the conversations. For instance:

This is interesting for a few reasons. First, he's backed away from saying that I wanted Boris Johnson to die. This is probably because too many people told him it wasn't true. He's gone on to accuse me of hate speech in general. My friends know that I never indulge in hate speech of any form, but anyone who doesn't know me might believe him.

Secondly, who is Phil Murtagh? I don't know him, and he's certainly never been on my Facebook friends list. How can someone who doesn't know me call me racist or bigoted? It's possible he's confused me with another Mike.

Thirdly, Andy Pettitt (who is Mike's best friend) says I've been warned repeatedly. What's he talking about? When was I ever warned about wanting Boris Johnson or any other politician to die? Andy was one of my Facebook friends, so I sent him a message asking him about it. Instead of replying, he unfriended me immediately. I can understand him taking Mike's side as his best friend, but I'm disappointed that he didn't have the moral integrity to look into the matter and find out what Mike was talking about.

So what's it all about? It's not about Boris Johnson or racism. The problem must lie elsewhere. I think it had to do with my recent appearances in the online meetups. I talked with the people, mostly new members who hadn't been in the group in 2016, and they liked me. This bothered Mike. To explain this I need to go back to 2013. 

On one of our first meetings Mike McAuley boasted to me that he'd had sex with 300 women. I was impressed, but when he left the room one of the other group members said, "It's not true. That's what he tells everyone to make himself sound special". In the following years I realised it was something he often repeated, so I just smiled and nodded, winking at anyone else who was listening.

When I became a co-host of the film group, many people who only visited during the week met me first and considered me the group's leader. Eventually they met Mike, and I told them he was Big Mike, I was only Little Mike. But they still confided in me. One of the members, Elisha, complained to me that Mike had been sexually harassing her by text. I told her that he often misbehaves when he's drunk, but she wasn't happy with my excuse and left the group. A few months later it happened again. Emma, a very good friend of mine, complained that Mike had been sexually harassing her. Once more I told her that he was drunk, but she said that the text messages came early in the day, so he couldn't have been drunk. Emma broke off her friendship with me because I was defending Mike. After I left England in 2016 my daughter Fiona joined the group, and the same happened with her. Mike was sending her sexual messages less than a week before his wedding. This time I spoke to Mike, and he denied it. Fiona sent me screenshots to prove it was true. She also left the film group.

Mike knew by now that women were telling me about him. He'd wanted me to remain in England for the sake of his group, but now that I was gone he wanted me to stay away. I wouldn't have made a connection, but after the initial arguments with Mike in Facebook another two women came forward and told me Mike had sexually harassed them. One of them, Anne, had left the group immediately. The other has remained in the group, and she's asked me not to name her. Anne thinks that Mike only harasses women to make up for his inadequacy at hardly ever having had sex.

I think it's sad that things have turned out like this. For seven years Mike McAuley was one of my best friends. Now he's decided to spread lies about me. This post tells the truth, for anyone who's willing to listen. Despite everything, I don't bear a grudge. If Mike apologises to me in public, everything will be forgiven.

Success Rate:  + 2.5

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Bornholmer Straße (4 Stars)

This German film is subtitled "The incredible but true story of Colonel Harald Schäfer". The person's name was actually Harald Jäger, but apart from that the story accurately portrays the events at the Berlin border checkpoint Bornholmer Straße on 9th November 1989. Most people who know anything about German history remember 13th June 1990 as the day that the Berlin Wall fell. Literally, that's true. The 13th of June was the day when the Wall was demolished, but that was just symbolism. The 9th of November was the day when the Wall really fell, the day when it ceased to keep people trapped in the East. It was the most important day in post-war German history apart from 3rd October 1990, the day of German Reunification.

The story is told as a comedy, and I had to laugh out loud several times, especially in the opening scenes, but that doesn't change the fact that the story is historically accurate.

The evening began with a dog running across the border into East Berlin. This confused the border guards, because they had no regulations about how to deal with animals. The evening ended with 20,000 people crossing the border into West Berlin without even having to show their passports.

How can a cute little dog like this create an international incident?

This scene is Reverse Prattkeeping?

Harald Schäfer (right) discusses the problem with East Berlin's chief of police. They look extremely pally. I suppose it's okay as long as only their bellies are touching. Those were the good old days before social distancing.

Non-Germans might miss the humour in this scene in Colonel Schäfer's office. Erich Honecker had been the East German leader for 13 years, long enough to leave a mark on the wall. He resigned three weeks previously on 18th October 1989, claiming it was because of ill health, but really because of mounting corruption claims. There hadn't been enough time to find a photo of the new leader, Egon Krenz, and it wasn't even sure he would remain in power. In fact, Krenz resigned on 7th November, but he was re-instated on 8th November, so nobody knew who was in charge.

But what are they supposed to do about the dog?

This is an excellent film, and I regret that it's never been released with English subtitles. I strongly recommend it to any of my friends who are able to understand German. It's proof that the Germans have a sense of humour. They're able to turn one of the most important days in their history into a comedy.

Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

The world according to Quentin Tarantino is better than the real world. In Tarantino's world the last thing Hitler saw was the face of a laughing Jewish woman. In the real world he died in or just outside a cold bunker. Tarantino gave him a sexier death. I'd like the last thing I see to be a laughing woman, Jewish or not.

It's a fairy tale, not meant to represent the truth. It opens with the words "Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France". Fairy tales have happy endings. The big bad monster dies, and they don't come bigger or badder than Adolf Hitler.

The film shows two unconnected plots to kill Hitler. The one is a big operation ordered by Winston Churchill, carried out by the Jewish American squadron called the Basterds. The other is a solo effort by a Jewess who wants revenge for the death of her family. I know that Hitler killed six million Jews, but that's just a number. A number on a piece of paper is abstract, it means nothing. What makes it personal is if Hitler and his followers kill just one person that you know, a family member or a friend. That's what spurs revenge. That's what makes Shosanna Dreyfus aka Emanuelle Mimieux laugh.

Hitler's death takes place in a cinema. This is no coincidence. For Quentin Tarantino films are important, and cinemas are important as the place where films are shown. He loves films, and he openly displays his nostalgia for old films.

This was the film that helped Daniel Brühl make his breakthrough into Hollywood. He'd already been a successful German actor for ten years, but this is the film that made him well known internationally.

Martin Wuttke was primarily a stage actor in Germany, but since appearing as Adolf Hitler in "Inglourious Basterds" he's been cast in a string of American films.

Brad Pitt is the film's anti-hero. He's one of the good guys, but he's so mean in carrying out justice that he makes the audience shudder. His aim isn't primarily to win the war, it's to kill Nazis. For him, anybody wearing a German uniform isn't a human being, he's a Nazi, and he has to die. Obviously, this attitude is completely wrong. The vast majority of the German soldiers didn't put on uniforms because they were Nazis, they put on uniforms because they were conscripted. But it's just a film. The characters aren't meant to be perfect.

Christoph Waltz won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor, but anyone who's seen the film knows that he was really the Leading Actor. Despite having less screen time, Brad Pitt was named as the Leading Actor for two reasons:

1. He's more famous than Christoph Waltz.

2. Bad guys aren't usually the Leading Actor.

But look... isn't that a foot rising up Christoph Waltz's jacket towards his medals?

Yes, it's Diane Kruger's foot. I promised you that I would point out the bare feet in Quentin Tarantino's films.

Christoph Waltz gets to put a shoe on Diane Kruger's foot. Most actors work for 50 years and never get a chance like that.

Here are both of her feet, one of them in a plaster cast.

Before anyone accuses me of having a foot fetish, no, it isn't true. All I'm doing is acknowledging Quentin Tarantino's foot fetish. I have many fetishes, too many to list, but a foot fetish isn't one of them. I would rather look at Diane Kruger's face than her feet. She's beautiful, isn't she?

I definitely have a Sitting-In-The-Cinema-Watching-A-Laughing-Woman-Telling-Me-I'm-Going-To-Die fetish. That's a good idea for my blog. I should have a Fetish Of The Day feature. All year long!

This is probably Quentin Tarantino's best film. It's difficult to say. Every time I watch it I'm stunned, like I'm watching it for the first time. My definition of a good film is that I want to watch it at least three times. Today I watched "Inglourious Basterds" for the seventh time, and I still want to watch it again. That makes it better than good.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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Wonder Woman (5 Stars)

It's difficult for me to write about this film. I'm in awe. It's a film about a powerful woman, a role model for all other women to follow. Wonder Woman, the character, has been called a feminist icon. I prefer to call her a feminist ideal. Other women can't jump through the air swinging swords. Even if they could, they wouldn't want to. That's just fantasy. But women can have an attitude like that. A woman can feel power coursing through her veins. A woman can go into any situation feeling confident that she can solve any problems in front of her.

The film, even more than the Wonder Woman comics that I used to read in the 1970's, shows the dichotomy of the character. Princess Diana of the Amazons believes in solving problems through love, and yet she spends most of the time with a sword in her hand. Is that a contradiction? I prefer to call it a compromise. She sincerely wants to "make love, not war", but she's willing to use a sword to reach her goal faster.

Diana's nemesis, the nemesis of all the Amazons, is Ares, the God of War. When Diana finds out that a great war is raging, bigger than any other war in history, she knows straight away that Ares is responsible. She knows that if she kills him the war will end. This might sound like childish naivety to the fighting men at her side, but she's convinced that she's right. When she finally meets him he's smooth talking and seductive, like the Devil in the Christian Bible. He doesn't want to fight Diana, he wants to persuade her to join his side.

The film is far superior to the television series of the late 1970's. I watched less than a dozen episodes. It was a series that I felt I ought to watch, because I like strong women, but it didn't excite me. I couldn't take Lynda Carter seriously as a super-heroine. In the film Gal Gadot shows much greater emotional depth. We can understand her motivation for running through a battlefield with a sword in her hand. When Lynda Carter went into action she looked like she was just looking for an excuse to show off her stars and stripes bathing costume.

I've read that not one but two sequels have been planned. I really hope they can live up to the first film. DC has made too many mediocre films in the last few years. "Wonder Woman" was much better than I expected it to be. It has a lot to live up to.

Success Rate:  + 4.8

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Luna (4 Stars)

This political thriller isn't a true story, but it's based on similar cases that have become public in the last few years.

Luna is a 15-year-old girl from Munich. Her parents are strict, but she loves them very much, especially her father. She's a Daddy's Girl, but like all other teenage girls her main interests are boys and parties.

The family goes on holiday to a lakeside cabin. It's absolutely perfect. No people anywhere near and no Internet. Shortly after they arrive they're disturbed by three men with guns who speak Russian. They shoot Luna's parents and her younger sister, but Luna herself manages to escape. She hitches a lift to the next town and goes to the police. That's what anyone would do, but it turns out wrong. A police woman who's assigned to drive her home tries to kill her, and she's only saved by the intervention of a mysterious stranger called Hamid.

The things Hamid tells her reveal that she never really knew her father. He worked for the Russian secret service since before she was born. Recently he was uncovered by the German secret service, the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst). He was threatened with arrest and deportation, but he promised to deliver secret information about the names and addresses of Russian agents in Germany. His fellow agents found out, and they came to kill him. They also want to kill Luna as the only living witness of the operation.

This is an exciting, fast-moving thriller, as good as anything that's made in America. Hamid and Luna have to run for their lives, and they can't trust anyone. As Luna has already found out, the Russian ssecret service has agents inside the police force. She can't trust the BND either. They're just as unscrupulous as the Russians. They'll only help Luna if she does something for them in return, i.e. she has to find the information her father had gathered. They're willing to let her die if she doesn't cooperate. Collateral damage, that's all she is.

As stated above, things like this really happen. Russia plants sleeper agents in Germany for its long term goals. They take on new identities and wait for orders. They get married and have children so that they look like normal Germans, and not even their families know their background. It's all part of an elaborate international game. Luna is shocked to find out that if her father's murderer is caught he won't get a long jail sentence. He'll be given a pro forma trial, but at the first opportunity he'll be exchanged for German agents who have been imprisoned in Russia.

This film has only been released in Germany, without subtitles, but if you can understand the language it's worth watching.

Werk ohne Autor (5 Stars)

This is the German nomination for the Best Foreign Language film at the 2019 Academy Awards. The literal translation of this film's title is "Work without an author", but in English the film is called "Never look away". The film is based on the life of the German artist Gerhard Richter, although the main character in the film is called Kurt Barnert.

The film begins in 1937 with five-year-old Kurt being taken to an exhibition of "Entartete Kunst" in Dresden. That's a very difficult expression to translate. The usual translation is "Degenerate Art", but that doesn't adequately express the same feelings as the German words. "Violated Art" is closer, but it's not completely wrong to say "Distilled Art". The meaning of the expression is that everything that makes art art has been stripped away, and what's left is presented as non-art. In the Third Reich the expression was used to describe modern art. The exhibition in Dresden was used to describe how bad modern art is. Good German artists would paint trees and mountains and beautiful women; degenerate artists like Piet Mondrian would paint boxes.

After the war Kurt becomes an art student. East Germany's Communist system shares its views on art with the Nazis. The recommended art style is "Socialist Realism". Modern art is spurned. As I've mentioned elsewhere, despite its claims to be a different political system, East Germany copied the style of Nazi Germany and can be considered its spiritual successor.

In 1961 Kurt fled to West Germany and studied art again in Düsseldorf. Here he was encouraged to paint modern art, or even not to paint at all. It took him a few years to develop his own original style, and eventually he became famous.

In parallel, the film follows the story of Professor Carl Seeband. Under the Nazis he was a doctor who decided which mentally ill patients should be sterilised and which should be executed. There was no third option. He was responsible for sending Kurt's Aunt Elisabeth to the gas chambers. After the war he escaped punishment and was put in charge of Dresden's largest hospital. Kurt dated his daughter and eventually married her. Despite his claims to be a good socialist, Carl still believed that those with inferior genetic qualities shouldn't be allowed to breed. He too emigrates to West Germany, albeit legally, and the contact remains.

This is a powerful film. It shows how a talented painter managed to find his way despite the prejudices all around. He created a new art form which was initially rejected even by the advocates of modern art. It's a long film, running for 182 minutes from the beginning to the credits, but it was never for one moment boring. It's difficult to imagine that there will be a better film in its category at the Academy Awards.

The Book Thief (4½ Stars)

After watching this film today I had a rough idea what I wanted to write. Before starting my review I reread the first review that I wrote after seeing it in the cinema in 2014. Guess what? I'd written it all the first time. I don't like repeating myself, so I had to think of something new.

I'll concentrate on the book-burning. In 1939 the Nazi government decided that all books should be destroyed that were damaging to German society. These might be books written by Communists or Jews, but they also included any book that anyone didn't like for any reason at all. The book that Liesel Meminger  saves from the flames is "The Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells. He wasn't a Communist, he wasn't a Jew, and as far as I can remember there's nothing in the story that would contradict the political system of Germany. The book was only thrown on the fire because some stupid fanatic wanted everyone else to see that he took the book-burning seriously.

This is censorship at its worst. When a book is burnt it's gone. It can't be read again.

Today censorship is practised at different levels. The Internet isn't as free as it ought to be. People in power want to stop Internet content from one country being available in another. For instance, I bought Blu-ray discs in England with Ultraviolet codes. I want to watch the films that I bought online, but I can't because the Ultraviolet codes are invalid in Germany. They call it copyright, I call it burning books. Germany has learnt nothing since 1939. I want to watch the BBC News online, but England prevents BBC programmes from being viewed in Germany. The BBC is burning books.

On another level, the recent court cases over people's right to be forgotten is sickening. Google can be asked to remove search results if a person doesn't like web pages being suggested that say negative things about him. For instance, if a businessman was imprisoned for fraud but years later creates an honest and successful company, he might not like his shady past being visible online. It's wrong to hide your past. We all make mistakes, some of us bigger mistakes than others. There are things in my own past that I wish had never happened, but if they were published online I wouldn't deny them, I'd publicly apologise for them.

I've written a life story of my first 44 years. It isn't public yet, but it can be found by search engines. I've named a lot of people from my past, mostly good people, a few bad. The third part of my life story, from age 45 onwards, will be the most controversial, because I shall write about murderers and drug dealers. If any of the people I name have gone straight since then, I'm glad, but I'll still name them because of their past deeds. I've already received a request from one person who doesn't like being named in the first part of my life story. He claimed something I'd written about him was inaccurate and asked me to remove it. After checking the passage I could see that what I'd written could be misinterpreted, so I rewrote a few paragraphs. He's asked me another twice to remove all mention of his name. The answer is a clear No. I shan't burn books for anyone.

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Barbara (3 Stars)

Barbara Wolff was a highly accomplished doctor who lived in East Berlin in the 1980. She worked in Charité, the most prestigious university hospital in East Germany. She had no particular love for Communism, but she put up with it until she met and fell in love with a visiting doctor from West Germany. She naively thought she would be allowed to leave the country if she submitted an application. That's not the way it worked. East Germany never allowed its most skilled professionals to leave. She's sent to work in a small hospital on the coast close to the Polish border. This means lower wages, and she's given an unattractive apartment to live in.

Barbara doesn't give up. If her legal application to leave the country failed she has to resort to illegal means. She doesn't have much freedom. The East German secret service, the Stasi, is watching her every move and harassing her with random searches.

I heard about this film a few years ago, but I've only just decided to watch it. The film has been highly praised by critics. It was Germany's entry for the Academy Awards as Best Foreign Language Film in 2013. After watching it today I have to ask why. It's not a strong film. It drags on with painfully slow pacing. If you want to see a film about the life in East Germany watch "The Lives of Others" or "Wie Feuer und Flamme". "Barbara" isn't in the same league.

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Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

Yesterday I went to see "Loving Vincent" in the cinema with the Stuttgart Cinema Meetup. I asked one of the other members what his favourite film was, and he answered "Inglourious Basterds" without hesitation. I'm always glad when someone has an answer ready for that question. It shows that they've sat down and seriously thought about films. I know it's not an easy question to answer. I've changed my mind a few times in the last 20 years, but however often I might change my mind I can always tell you with certainty what my favourite film is today.

This was the reason why I decided to watch "Inglourious Basterds" again this evening. I sat watching it while asking myself "Is this the world's best film?" After the film came to an end I didn't think it was quite good enough to knock my current favourite off the number one spot, but I do have to say that it's technically one of the best films ever made. I already consider the film's first scene, the farmhouse scene, to be the best scene ever filmed. These 20 minutes are perfection. I can't think of any other scene that comes close. However, several other scenes in the film are also of incredibly high merit. They're all scenes in which Christoph Waltz appears. That's probably not a coincidence.

Today I watched the film with my son Benjamin. It was his first time seeing the film. He was shocked to see that Adolf Hitler was killed. That was also my reaction the first time I saw the film in the cinema in 2009. It's something I didn't expect to happen. What I mean is, there have been dozens, maybe even hundreds of films about Hitler, and he never dies, unless it's in his bunker in 1945. After the initial shock I laughed about it and said "Why not?" If a film is a piece of fiction there's no need for it to agree with historical facts. Quentin Tarantino, who both wrote and directed the film, decided to rewrite history. For that I thank him. Tarantino's version of history is better than what really happened.

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Tracks (5 Stars)

I've mentioned a few times that I bought my first DVD player in 2003, and this was what turned me into a film fan. I don't remember the exact month, but I know it was a warm day, so I'm guessing it was June. What I haven't told my readers is that the last time I went on holiday was in April 2003. Since then I've been on occasional day trips and I've visited relatives, but that doesn't count. Is it a coincidence that these two dates lie so close together? April 2003 and June 2003? I think not.

Over the years, from my early childhood to April 2003, I often went on holidays. As a child my parents went on holiday every summer, either to Wales or to an English coastal town. As far as I remember they never skipped a year. My parents worked hard, and an annual holiday was something they looked forward to all year. When I was 20 we went to Scotland. This was the only time we ever went to Scotland, and it was also the last holiday we took together as a family. Later in the year my parents split up.

I lived with my father for the next two years. He didn't want to go on holiday any more. For the rest of his life he spent his annual vacation at home. He called it "holiday in the garden". I never asked him why he didn't want to go away any more. Maybe it would have reminded him of his married life. I don't know.

When I was 22 I left home to work in Germany. From then on I got into the habit of going on holiday every year, just like my parents had done. For the next four years I went to Scotland. I alternated between the west coast (the Highlands) and the east coast (the whisky triangle). After getting married at 26 I still went on holiday almost every year, usually to Scotland, but sometimes we visited France or Switzerland. After leaving my wife at 41 I stopped going on holiday. In 2002, when I was living in England again, I went to Brighton for a week. It was glorious weather, I loved it. In 2003 I went back to Brighton, and it rained every day. Awful!

That was April. Two months later I bought a DVD player. That changed my life. Until then I'd occasionally borrowed films from a video rental store, maybe once a week, and I watched random films on television. But I was amazed at the leap in quality from videotapes to DVD. The new technology fascinated me so much that I was buying about two films a week. In addition I bought the box sets of my favourite television series, "Highlander", "The Avengers" and "La Femme Nikita" (in that order), so I was using my DVD player every day.

No more holidays.

Why not?

My readers might guess that I was spending so much money on DVDs (and later Blu-rays) that I didn't have enough money left for holidays. No, that's not it. The reason is that I immersed myself into my films so deeply that I didn't need a holiday any more. When I watch my films I see foreign countries and I feel like I'm in the country with the actors.

That's why I'm writing this today. I just watched "Tracks". Look at the dazzlingly beautiful Australian scenery. Look at the strange people in the strange towns. I feel like I'm walking in the dusty streets and the sandy deserts. Why should I spend thousands of dollars on a plane journey to Australia when I can see everything for ten dollars -- the price of a Blu-ray -- without leaving my sofa?

Maybe I'm lazy. Robyn Davidson spent 195 days walking across the desert with the sun beating down on her head, while I'm sitting in front of the TV screen with a glass of Coke in my hand. She was crazy, I'm not. She could have died, I'm safe. I travel the world faster. This month I've been to Canada, Spain, China, America, Iran, France, Russia, Peru and Australia. Where shall I go next month? I lead an exciting life.

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