John Rabe (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #77

I always say that you should be careful judging people by their religious or political affiliations. That's something I have to say to myself. For instance, if I meet someone who says that he voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election I immediately have a stereotyped picture of the person in my head. Based on this one piece of information I think that I know what the person is about. That's wrong. I should take time to talk to the person and get to know him better. That might modify my opinion about him.

John Rabe, who was the head of Siemens in Nanking in the 1930's, was a Nazi. Nazis are bad, aren't they? "Well", you might say, "some people were just party members without subscribing to Nazi policies". That didn't apply to John Rabe. He was head of the local Nazi Party in Nanjing, which was made up mostly of Siemens employees.

So he must have been a bad man? Wait! There's one more thing you need to know about him. He loved China and he loved the Chinese. That put him in a conflict of interests with the German government, which was Japan's ally at the time. When Japan attacked the city of Nanjing, committing countless terrible atrocities,  John Rabe wrote to Adolf Hitler personally, asking him to intervene. He received no reply to his letter, but when he returned to Germany in early 1938, he was arrested as a traitor.

What did he do in China that made him a traitor? He set up an International Safety Zone in Nanking, which saved the lives of more than 200,000 Chinese. Nevertheless, the Japanese still killed 300,000 civilians in Nanking, most of them within a single week in December 1937. After the war the generals responsible were executed as war criminals, but Japan is still in a state of denial. In the 1980's the generals were posthumously pardoned. Japanese historians now claim that no more than 200 civilians were killed. They ignore the proof shown in photos smuggled out of Nanjing.

The Japanese occupying forces acted with impunity. Captured Chinese soldiers were executed. Women were raped. There were competitions among the officers about who could behead the most prisoners with a sword. There were reports of these competitions in Japanese newspapers at the time, which must be an embarrassment for modern Japanese historians.

John Rabe was a hero. In Germany he's a forgotten hero. It's not usual to sing the praises of Nazis. In China he's still remembered, and children learn about him in school. He was the Good Nazi of Nanjing.

The film has been made with documentary precision. There's an international cast of German, Chinese, Japanese and American actors. I greatly praise the German director Florian Gallenberger for casting actors of the correct nationalities, so there's no mix up of the accents. Unfortunately, the film's original version with everyone speaking their own languages is only available on the German Blu-ray. All international versions are dubbed. Even the German DVD release has the Chinese and Japanese dialogue dubbed into German. I'm listing the different versions in the box below, but I can only recommend the German Blu-ray, even if you're an English speaker. It has English subtitles as well, so it's worth buying it as an import.

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Café Ferniculi Fernicula (3 Stars)

This is a Japanese film made in 2018, based on a novel called "Before the coffee gets cold". That's also the literal translation of the original Japanese title. It was a mistake to change it.

It's a romantic drama with supernatural elements. The film's premise is so ridiculous that it sounds like a comedy, but please take my word for it, it's all totally serious.

The art student Ryosuke visits a café every day. It's not because the meals taste so good, it's because he has a crush on the waitress Kazu. The café has a secret. There's a ghost sitting at a table reading a book and drinking coffee. She's been sitting at the table for 20 years, only leaving briefly to go to the toilet. Kazu regularly refills her cup, which influences the frequency of her visits to the toilet. While the ghost is away, anyone can sit on her chair and drink a coffee. After the coffee has been poured the person can select a date in history to which he wants to return.

There are strict rules about the time travel. The person isn't allowed to leave the café. He remains in the past until he's finished his cup of coffee, but if the coffee goes cold before he's finished drinking he'll be cursed to take the ghost's place on the chair and remain forever; or until he's replaced. Another rule is that the coffee has to be poured by Kazu or another woman from her family. The ownership of the café has changed several times, but Kazu is the fifth generation of her family serving coffee.

So what's the point of travelling into the past if it's only for 10 to 15 minutes and you can't leave the room? People do it so they can meet relatives or lovers who've died. If they can remember a day when the person was in the café, they can go back in time to meet him.

The film takes place in four episodes: summer, autumn, winter and spring. The first two episodes introduce the concept of coffee-powered time travel. The third episode shows that visits to the past can't change anything. The people who are visited treat the meeting as a dream, so they don't heed any warnings that might save their lives. The fourth episode finally becomes interesting on account of its complexity. We find out that it's also possible to travel into the future. Kazu wants to travel into the past, but someone else has to pour coffee for her. Her not yet born daughter travels back from the future to pour for her. In the past Kazu meets her mother on a date when her mother should have been dead, but she's visiting from the past.

That's a lot of spoilers, but this isn't a film I can recommend. It's not a bad film in itself, but the premise is so infeasible that I find it difficult to enjoy.

Stan Lee Love Stories 19 (February 1970)

Title: But how can I love a square?

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Gene Colan

Dance With Me (5 Stars)

Tonight I sat down to watch another film in the online Japanese Film Festival, not knowing what to expect. With the exception of Hideo Nakata, none of the directors are known to me. Wham! Where did this film come from? The director Shinobu Yaguchi is supposedly very popular in Japan, but hardly any of his films have been released with English subtitles. I hope "Dance with me" will be an exception, because I really need to see it again.

Shizuka is a young woman who works designing web pages for a large Japanese company. One weekend she has to look after her sister's daughter, so she takes her to a fairground. The girl is scared because she has to take part in a school musical. She visits a hypnotist's tent, and she asks him to make her lose her fear of dancing. The hypnosis has no effect on the girl, but it has a big effect on Shizuka. Every time she hears music she can't control herself, she has to start singing and dancing. This happens in the most inappropriate situations. What makes it even worse is that when she's dancing she's in a trance and thinks everyone else is dancing with her. Usually that isn't true.

The second half of the film turns into a road movie, as she drives across Japan trying to find the hypnotist, who's now on tour. She gathers friends on her journey who like to dance with her. There are also gangsters chasing the hypnotist, because he owes them money. The women travelling with her aren't mentally stable. There's a lot of laugh-out-loud comedy.

I love this film. I strongly doubt there will be another film of this quality in the festival.

This is a film that's begging for a Hollywood remake. I say this, because it needs English language songs to reach a wider audience. I just hope that the remake remains as close as possible to the original. Just change the songs and leave everything else the same.

Stolen Identity (3 Stars)

This is a psychological thriller directed by Hideo Nakata, who's best known for making "The Ring". It contains some good ideas and soul-searching questions, but it's bogged down by too many subplots.

In today's society our lives revolve around mobile phones. They're used for much more than phone calls. They also take photographs, and they're our portal to social media. Because of this, if our phones are lost or stolen, we're immediately cut off from our friends and our work.

Tomita has a girlfriend called Asami. He accidently leaves his phone in a taxi after talking to her. The person who finds the phone rings Asami and tells her he's left it in a cafe for her to collect it. After that, many things happen in parallel, some of them more relevant to the plot than others. Asami begins to use Facebook regularly. She accepts friend requests from people she barely knows. One of Tomita's colleagues is constantly sending her messages asking her out on a date. Someone is sending both her and Tomita photos, trying to break them up. There's a serial killer in the city who's murdering women with long black hair. The chief detective is being assisted by a young detective who has extensive computer knowledge.

But it's all about mobile phones. Tomita's phone was hacked before it was returned, and the hacker has also found his way into Asami's Facebook account.

For me the film went through three stages. At the beginning there were comedic scenes so ridiculous that I felt tempted not to watch any more. Then the film became serious, and I enjoyed it, despite the plot becoming ever more complex. Towards the end there were plot twists that were so extreme that I threw my hands up in the air in desperation. "Now that as well? What next?"

This is the film in the online film festival that I was most interested in seeing. It didn't live up to my expectations.

Project Dreams: How to build Mazinger Z's Hangar (4 Stars)

From 1972 to 1974 there was an animated television series in Japan about a giant robot called Mazinger Z. I'd never heard of it before today, so I can't say much about it. The opening scenes of the episodes show the robot leaving its underground lair and heading into battle against alien invaders.

The film follows a team of five employees from the Maeda Corporation, a Japanese construction company. They want to design a real life version of Mazinger Z's lair. They don't intend to build it, but their plans have to be accurate enough to enable the construction, if it ever happened.

There are so many reasons why the film should be a failure, but the end result is fascinating. Most of the film contains technical discussions about the mechanical problems of creating the hangar. We see close-ups of blueprints, and there are lengthy explanations why some solutions are better than others. So much talking about technicalities ought to be boring, but somehow it retained by attention throughout.

Today is the first day of an online Japanese film festival. There will be three films a day for the next 10 days. I don't intend to watch all the films, but I've picked a few that interest me.

Wine: Besigheimer Felsengarten Müller-Thurgau

This is an interesting wine. The Müller-Thurgau grape is hardly grown in Württemberg, so I was surprised to see it offered by the Besigheimer Felsengarten. It's a grape that I associate with the central German regions of Rhein-Hessen and Pfalz.

It's a grape created in 1882 in Switzerland by Hermann Müller from Thurgau by crossing Riesling and Silvaner grapes. The resulting grape tastes similar to Riesling, but it ripens earlier in the season, making it less vulnerable to early frost. Ironically, the vines themselves are less hardy than Riesling. The harsh frost of 1978-1979 wiped out the Müller-Thurgau vines in Baden and Württemberg. Since then vintners have been reluctant to plant them again, which is why it's a rare grape in Württemberg.

Müller-Thurgau is well known outside of Germany as the grape used in the Blue Nun wine, which can be found in most British and American supermarkets. It's a sweet white wine which I personally find disgusting, despite its general popularity. When people in England talk about German wine, they're talking about Blue Nun. Serious wine connoisseurs reject Blue Nun, so they assume that all German wines are bad.

There's another common German wine in Britain called Liebfraumilch. This isn't a protected brand name, it's a type of wine, so it can vary greatly depending on where it was produced. Most brands of Liebfraumilch are a cuvée of Riesling and Müller-Thurgau in varying percentages. The only thing common to all brands of Liebfraumilch is that it tastes sweet, though not quite as sweet as Blue Nun.

Theoretically, it's possible to make a dry wine from Müller-Thurgau grapes. In practise, this is rarely done. In Germany it's considered a sweet wine, so it would confuse customers to offer them a dry variation.

It's been many years since I last tasted Blue Nun, but today I could recognise the similarity. Müller-Thurgau has a distinctive taste. Maybe some wine drinkers would appreciate the wine that I drank today. Besigheimer Felsengarten only sells good wines, after all, but it's not for me. I'm not arrogant enough to call it a bad wine, but it tastes bad to me.

Stan Lee Love Stories 18 (February 1970)

Title: The hurt and the heartbreak!

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Don Heck

The Paperboy (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #78

As I point out every time I watch this film, Joe Bob Briggs calls it the most underrated horror film ever. At least, that's what he said when he presented it on Monstervision 20 years ago. Is that still his opinion today? I'd have to ask him.

Maybe I'm underrating the film as well. Isn't 78th place far too low down the list? There's a problem when I compare films that I'm sure you can relate to. If I put a big budget action film and a low budget horror film side by side, how can I compare them? They're worlds apart. I don't know the exact budget, but "The Paperboy" must be the film with the lowest budget in my top 100.

What I like about this film is that I can relate to it. It sends shivers down my spine, because I see myself in the 12-year-old paperboy Johnny McFarley. No, I wasn't a serial killer when I was 12, but in retrospect I consider myself to have been mentally unbalanced at that age, and only the fortunate circumstances of my environment saved me. Johnny's biggest disadvantage was having parents who didn't love him. I had a loving mother, but my father was very unemotional. Looking back, I'm sure he loved me, but he was unable to show it. I only remember him saying the words "I love you" to me once. It was on the day my mother left in 1976. I greatly appreciated his words.

I had a weird childhood. It was a blessing in many ways, but I can see how it served to unbalance me. I grew up in the grounds of Little Aston Hall. There were no other children, so I had no friends. I was blessed with extremely high intelligence. Or was it a curse? When I went to school at the age of five I was moved into the second class within a week, because I was too advanced for the class. Two weeks later I was moved into the third class, because I was still too advanced. That meant I was a five-year-old in a class full of seven and eight year olds. I didn't make any friends. I remained an outsider until my family moved to Walsall when I was eight.

My new school, Butts School, didn't care about how I'd been treated in Little Aston. They put me in the class that matched my age, essentially demoting me two classes. It was good to be surrounded by children my own age, and I made a few friends. On the other hand, I already knew everything I was being taught, so it was boring for me. I played up and made a nuisance of myself in class. My teachers had problems dealing with me. Only the headmaster, Mr. Wilson, was experienced enough to understand me. Years later (shortly after I left university) he visited me and told me that it broke his heart to see the way I was suffering in primary school.

Even in grammar school I was an outsider because of my intelligence. I was top of my class in almost every subject. My Latin teacher, Mr. Dixon, used to give me extra homework, because he knew that the regular homework was too easy for me. Most of the other children despised me, because I thought I was the teacher's pet.

That brings me to the age of 12, Johnny McFarley's age. I felt lonely and isolated from the world. I had very few friends, and I was bullied in school. I was desperate to be loved. I wanted friends. I wanted female companionship. Even when I was 12 I had sexual desires and lusted after girls who were too old for me. That's just like Johnny. In the film he lusts after 16-year-old Brenda, played by Karyn Dwyer. She thinks he's a stupid little boy. Yes, he is. So was I as a 12-year-old. My sexual urges were too strong for me to ignore, so they became sexual obsessions.

As I said above, my mother loved me. She was the only one who helped me remain sane. Or at least, she helped me act sanely. I don't think anyone could have stopped my insane thoughts. At that time my parents were going through a crisis. My mother poured out her soul to me. She spoke to me as if I were an adult. I don't know whether that was a good or a bad thing. I appreciated that she could confide in me, but maybe a 12-year-old shouldn't have had to carry his mother's emotional burden. I don't know. It's possible that my mother unknowingly contributed to my insanity.

This is Karin Dwyer, who was 18 at the time she appeared in the film, playing 16-year-old Brenda. She was a beautiful woman who contributed to the film as a talented actress. I'm sorry to say that she suffered from depression and committed suicide on 25th September 2018. She will always be remembered.

Karyn Dwyer
22 March 1975 – 25 September 2018

The film has never been released on disc in America or England. I managed to buy a Greek import DVD, which is now out of print. Fortunately, the film is being streamed on Amazon Prime in the USA.

Night Vamps (3 Stars)

Today I saw this DVD lying in my shelf and realised I hadn't watched it since I first bought it in 2006. This amazed me, because Glori-Anne Gilbert is one of the most beautiful actresses I know. It's difficult to find her films, because most of them were made by Jim Wynorski, who doesn't release many of his films on DVD. I checked the case and saw that "Night Vamps" was directed by Everette Hartsoe. That's a shame. Everette is a good writer and artist, having written excellent comics like "Razor", but he lacks skill as a director. Nevertheless, I decided to watch the film again.

I saw the problem as soon as the film started. The picture is poor and fuzzy. It was made in 1998, and it's obvious that the film was transferred from video tape to DVD at a later date. There are even the small flashing pixels at the bottom of the screen that are typical for poor quality video tapes.

The film is a series of solo scenes with sexy women, introduced by Glori-Anne Gilbert. 

"My name is Glori-Anne. Welcome to the lair of sinful thoughts. I will show all of you the meaning of unbridled lust. When you set eyes on these exquisite Night Vamps you will know the meaning of satisfaction. So sit back, relax and loosen your belt buckle, because all Hell is going to break loose".

That certainly sounds promising. Imagine my disappointment when the first woman appeared. Her name is Kelly Jaye, and she's suffering the aftermath of a poor quality boob job. The first thing you see is the scars. There's a 10 minute shower scene, after which she sits on the bed rubbing lotion over her upper body. It's not pleasant. Even worse is that she doesn't smile throughout the two scenes. If she doesn't enjoy performing nude, she should look for a new job.

The second girl is introduced as Lovette. She performs four scenes: (1) a striptease, (2) putting on red lingerie, (3) dancing in a short dress and (4) putting on white lingerie. Once more, I didn't find her particularly attractive, but at least she smiled. The third scene was the sexiest, even though she was fully clothed.

Then things finally picked up. The third girl is Brittany Andrews. Wow! She's just perfect! I watched a lot of videos of her in the late 1990's when I had my first Internet connection. She was known as the Queen of Trampling. She made videos fully naked, jumping up and down on men's stomachs. The videos were unbelievably erotic. How did the men do it? I would have been screaming for help after the first jump.

There are four scenes with Brittany: (1) a naked dance, (2) eating a banana, (3) putting on white lingerie and (4) rubbing lotion into her body. No trampling, unfortunately, but the sight of Brittany licking and sucking a banana makes up for it.

The scenes would have been more erotic if the picture had been better.

Finally, Glori-Anne Gilbert performs a striptease on the bed. It's just a single scene and far too short. I bought the DVD because of Glori-Anne on the cover, and I was short-changed. I understand now why I didn't watch this film for 15 years, and I doubt I'll watch it again.

The Walk (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #79

It's difficult to find words to describe this film. It's the true story about a breath-taking feat, a tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. If I try to explain the film to someone who's never seen it, it must sound boring. What makes it entertaining is the outstanding performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit. He's cheeky and amusing, even though he's a man with an iron will to carry out his dream.

There's a team gathered around Philippe: his girlfriend Annie, his photographer and best friend Jean-Louis, the schoolteacher Jeff, the electronics salesman JP, plus a few other minor characters. We learn very little about any of them. The spotlight is always on Philippe. Normally I like all the major characters to be well developed, but in this film it doesn't matter.

Philippe Petit appeared to the world as a Messiah on the morning of 7th August 1974. Jesus could only walk on water, but Philippe walked 400 meters above the ground, so high that he could barely be seen. All we have to remember his accomplishment are the photos taken by Jean-Louis.

I shouldn't just concentrate on the true events. The film itself is a masterpiece. We feel like we're up on top of the World Trade Center with Philippe, or we feel like we're on the Statue of Liberty, which he uses as a platform for his narration. This is a film that should definitely be much higher in my list, but the carrots are cooked.

Success Rate:  - 0.3

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New Mutants (4 Stars)

This is a film featuring characters from the Marvel comic with the same name. I wouldn't say that it's based on the comic, because their origin story bares no resemblance  to anything in the comics. The powers of four of the youngsters are the same as in the comic, whereas Illyana Rasputin's powers only roughly approximate what she can do in the comics.

The film follows 16-year-old Danielle Moonstar, a Cheyenne Indian. Her tribe is wiped out by a catastrophe, assumed by the media to be a tornado, but as we find out it was actually Danielle who killed them by inadvertently using her powers. She's taken to a hospital where there are only four other patients, all of her own age. They're mutants who are being trained to control their powers. In Danielle's case, her powers are unknown, so there's a mystery as her powers are slowly revealed in the course of the film. Of course, it's only a mystery to anyone who's never read the comics. Her power is to make the fears of other people become reality (not illusions, as the Wikipedia page falsely states).

When I watch films like this I regret that I've stopped writing my Marvel Years posts. I stopped at the end of 1974, due to the bugs in the new Blogger interface which Google has so far been unable to fix. The New Mutants didn't appear in Marvel's comics until 1982.

Success Rate:  - 1.4

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Stan Lee Love Stories 17 (February 1970)

Title: Only one can win!

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: John Buscema

This is the editorial page from Our Love Story #3.

Perfume (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #80

For me every actor has a signature role. That's one role that defines him, and it's the role that people think of whenever his name is mentioned. If there's an actor who doesn't have a signature role, it's either because I don't know enough of his films or because he hasn't yet made the film with his signature role. To give a few examples:

Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature role is the Terminator.

Bela Lugosi's signature role is Dracula.

Tom Hanks' signature role is Forrest Gump.

Nicolas Cage's signature role is Seth in "City of Angels".

Bruno Ganz's signature role is Adolf Hitler.

Keanu Reeves' signature role is John Wick. This is an interesting one, because I used to think his signature role was Neo in the Matrix films, but I've changed my mind. John Wick expresses more accurately who he is.

Beverly Lynne's signature role is Tanya X.

And Ben Whishaw's signature role is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in "Perfume". I don't care how many times he plays Q in the James Bond films, he'll always be the brooding serial killer Jean-Baptiste.

I can't write about this film without mentioning Karoline Herfurth, the stunningly beautiful actress who plays the plum seller. It was intended to cast an English or American actress for the role, but after a long fruitless search Karoline was picked, a German actress who had already worked with the director Tom Tykwer.

The film has epic proportions, despite its seemingly banal plot: it's about one man's quest to create the perfect perfume. 5,200 extras were used in the film, and the final orgy scene holds the record for the largest orgy on film, with 750 extras taking part. According to the director's commentary, they had to rehearse a whole week eight hours a day in order to feel comfortable with being naked.

These are just a few of the participants. It wasn't an easy scene to film, because the extras were all packed together in a cramped space. Amusingly, Tom Tykwer says that after making the film a large number of the naked extras still meet on a regular basis to reminisce about the film. Rolling naked in a courtyard with 750 other people must be a unique bonding experience.

Karoline Herfurth also appears naked briefly, though not in the orgy scene. She was already dead, Jean-Baptiste's first victim.

So many naked bodies, and yet Alan Rickman has to keep his clothes on. I bet he wishes he could have been one of the extras.

This is a magnificent film. It doesn't neatly fit any genre. It's a masterpiece.

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