The Rule of Jenny Pen (1 Star)

This is the final film in the Stuttgart Nights Festival.

Sometimes a film is so bad that I don't want to review it. There are films I'd rather forget. I'll force myself to write a few words about "The Rule of Jenny Pen" to warn my readers against being tempted into the cinema. After all, a film with outstanding actors like Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow can't be all that bad, can it?

It's not all that bad. It's worse.

Stefan Mortensen is a cantankerous old judge in New Zealand. After suffering a stroke he's unable to walk and is put in a care home until he recovers. He wants a room for himself, but he has to share a room with Tony Garfield, a former New Zealand rugby player who's permanently unable to walk. Stefan witnesses another patient called Dave Crealy entering their room at night to bully Tony. When Stefan speaks out in his defence, he becomes the main victim of the bullying.

It's a strange care home. Most of the patients are demented. Only Stefan and Tony have a physical disability. Dave is healthy, but he pretends to be demented during the daytime, so that nobody suspects him of bullying others at night. Aren't physically and mentally ill patients usually separated?

So we have 100 minutes of sick old men fighting with one another, surrounded by demented old men and women. The film is sick. I felt like walking out, but I was sitting in the middle of a row, and I didn't want to disturb the other viewers.

Maybe I should delete this review. It's a film I want to forget.

$9.99 (2 Stars)

This is the second Australian stop-motion film that I've watched today. The graphics are far superior to "Mary and Max", but what about the story?

The film derives its title from a book bought by Dave, a young man who's recently been fired from his job as a repo man. The book promises to tell the reader the meaning of life for the low price of $9.99. Before you say Wow, remember that the film takes place in Australia, and 9.99 Australian dollars is the equivalent of 6.70 American dollars. So it's a double Wow.

Now the problems start. We never find out what the meaning of life is. The story jumps from person to person in the building where Dave lives. His brother Lenny, a successful repo man, falls in love with a fashion model who likes men without bones. An old man is visited by an angel who can't fly. The wings are just for show. A boy saves money to buy a model footballer, but when it's time to break open the piggy bank he refuses, because he likes the pig more. Another man makes friends with three tiny men, three inches high, and shares his Belgian beer with them.

For me the film is too random. The film doesn't go anywhere. Does the price $9.99 signify the price of the film on DVD? Anyone who buys it must be disappointed. There is no meaning of life. Everything is absurd. The film is absurd. I'm more likely to find the meaning of life in a bottle of sherry.

The film hasn't been released on disc in England or America, but it's available in most European countries, including Germany.

Finding Nemo (5 Stars)

I might never have watched this film. I've known about it for years, and I knew that it was highly praised, but I had no interest in it. I don't like animation films. There's no particular reason, I just don't. However, my daughter Gillian bought this film for my grandson Oliver on DVD, and he came to me and asked me to play it for him. I pretended to play it. I put the disc in my Blu-ray player, but I actually played the film from Disney Plus to get better quality. I avoid DVDs whenever I can, but Oliver didn't need to know that.

Not counting a few failed attempts, this is only the second film he's watched. The first was "Madagascar 2". I'm happy to make these new experiences with him. Will he become a big film fan like me? I don't know, but I'll certainly encourage him. He repeatedly said the words "This is my film". It means something to him that he owns the disc. That motivated him to watch the whole film from beginning to end.

I'll briefly describe the plot, even though I suspect that I was one of the last people to watch it. Nemo is a clownfish who lives with his father in the Great Barrier Reef on the North-East coast of Australia. On his first day at school Nemo swims off and is caprured by a scuba driver. He's brought to an aquarium in the office of a dentist in Sydney. His father sets out to find him, even though Sydney is more than a thousand miles away. That's a long journey for a little fish.

The film is beautiful. The bright colours of the seascape and the even brighter colours of the fish are breath-taking. It's an ocean full of danger, with sharks and other predators.

I watched the film in German. Please don't criticise me. When it comes to animated films, even the original version is dubbed. It's possible that the German version is even better than the original version, because Germany has a whole industry with high quality voice actors. I'd like to watch the film again in English to compare the versions.

I read today that "Finding Nemo" is the highest selling DVD of all time, having sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. That's well deserved. It's a great film that can be enjoyed by children and adults.

Oliver's happy. Maybe I should buy him another film.

Success Rate:  + 8.0

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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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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead men tell no tales (3½ Stars)

In my opinion this film can be written off as an unnecessary sequel. The original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, made from 2003 to 2007, was perfect in itself. It had a story to tell, there was a beginning, a middle and an end, and when you walked out of the cinema at the end of the third film you were satisfied that you knew it all. Only if you stayed to the very end, of course. It was the after-credits scene in "At World's End" that rounded off the story. Nowadays there are many films that have after-credits scenes, but the Pirates of the Caribbean films were the first to have after-credits scenes that were essential to the plot. For instance, the second film makes no sense if you haven't seen the after-credits scene of the first film.

"On stranger tides", the fourth film in the series, was touted as the first film in a new trilogy. Despite its big success at the box office it was beset with problems. The critics hated it. Its special effects made it the most expensive film ever made, a record which it still holds. The viewing public criticised the absence of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.

"Dead men tell no tales" shares the same jumble of real world naval battles and supernatural elements that we know from the previous instalments. If anything, this film keeps the real world to a minimum and concentrates on the supernatural. The new character Carina Smyth is in the centre. She alone knows the secret of map that no man can read, a map that leads to the Trident of Poseidon. This is a legendary artefact that can allegedly break every curse on the sea, including the one that befell Will Turner in the third instalment.

The fifth film rounds off the story once more. We don't need a sixth film, but we'll get one anyway.

I need to watch the first three films again. Last week I finally unpacked all my DVDs, which had been in boxes since I moved to Germany ten months ago. Now I have no excuse not to watch and re-watch my favourite films.

Gods of Egypt (4 Stars)

How can the critics get things so wrong? This film was given advance reviews calling it a poor film, and yet I came out of the cinema today highly satisfied. Were the critics watching a different film to me? Or have they just lost track of what the general public likes? The job of a good film critic is to advise people whether to see a film or not. That's my opinion. Any praise or criticism of a film should relate to that. It shouldn't just be about telling the public whether a film is politically or socially relevant. The public goes to the cinema to be entertained.

Does "Gods of Egypt" entertain? The answer is a resounding Yes. The film has sword and fist fights. It has flying Gods. It has battles with giant monsters. I was thrilled from beginning to end. I expected nothing less. The film was directed by Alex Proyas, responsible for masterpieces like "Dark City" and "The Crow". He was justifiably annoyed at the critical reception of his film, calling the critics deranged idiots. He claims that they don't make up their own minds about films, they just look over the shoulders of the other critics, copying the opinions of one another.

A lot of criticism of the film when it was being made was that the majority of the actors chosen for the roles are white. In fact, all the film's major characters are white; only the supporting characters and the extras are black. I can understand the logic. "Egypt is in Africa. The people who live in Africa are black. So a film about Egypt should use black actors".

Unfortunately, this line of thought is based on ignorance of anthropology. The film's date isn't stated, but we can estimate that it takes place between 2500 B.C. and 2000 B.C. At that time the population of Egypt was Caucasian. It's unclear when dark skinned people (presumably invaders from central Africa) moved into Egypt, but some scholars put the date as late as 300 B.C., after the death of Alexander the Great.

There are three types of evidence we can use to determine the hair and skin colour of the ancient Egyptians: ancient paintings, mummified corpses and literary descriptions.

The drawings of people in the pyramids and tombs shows the skin varying from pale, to gold, to pink. No drawings show people with black skin. None at all. The hair colour varies from yellow, to brown, to black, but the majority of the drawings show people with red hair.

Recent DNA tests have shown that the majority of the mummified corpses had red hair. It's more difficult to determine the skin colour because of the decay of the flesh over time.

Combining the evidence of these two sources, we can deduce that the majority of the Egyptians from 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. had pale skin and red hair. Light blond and dark blond hair existed, but it was less common.

The problem with the literary descriptions is that they're more recent, from 350 B.C. onwards. The descriptions of Egyptian statesmen are inconsistent. Some describe them as dark skinned, and others as having a ruddy complexion. This suggests that the population of Egypt was already a mix of various races by this time.

What happened to the red-haired people of Egypt? There are two possibilities. One is that the red-hair genes were weak, and they were wiped out by intermarriage with other races. The other possibility is that the people migrated northwards to Scandinavia and the British Isles. This could have been a speedy journey (like the current migration from Syria to Germany), or it could have been the slow drift of a migrant people over the course of hundreds of years. A third possibility is that the red-haired people were slaughtered as rebels or inferior during or after the rule of Alexander the Great, but there are no historical reports to support this.

In case all this talk about the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians is too complex for you to follow, what about the other features of the film? It shows Gods and men living side by side. Is that something you want to argue about? Not me. As far as I'm concerned it just shows that it's a fantasy film. We don't have to quarrel about details. Moreover, in a scene which takes place in space we see that the Earth is flat. Any critic who sits down and writes, "The film gets it wrong; the world isn't really flat" just doesn't get it. He really is a deranged idiot.

The Book Thief (4 Stars)

After my disappointment with "A New York Winter's Tale" today I felt the need to watch a better film. I needed to go home on a good note, so I stayed at the cinema to watch "The Book Thief". After all, I have a Cineworld Unlimited Card, so I can watch as many films as I want all month long. "The Book Thief" is based on an international best selling novel and has a cast that includes many leading American, English and German actors, so I had high hopes.

Liesel is a 12-year-old girl whose parents give her up for adoption in 1938. On the journey to her new parents her younger brother dies and is buried in a cemetery at the side of the railway. Liesel sees a book that someone has dropped and takes it with her, even though she can't read. No explanation is given why she can't read at this age. When she arrives at her new home in Malching in Bavaria her new father teaches her how to read, and the first book she reads is the one she has stolen, "The Gravedigger's Manual".

The following year books are burnt in the marketplace that the Nazi regime considers to be immoral or harmful to German society. She secretly steals a book from the flames, "The Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells. This is the second book that she reads.

After this Liesel meets the mayor's wife when delivering laundry that her mother has washed. The mayor's wife allows Liesel to sit and read in her library for a few weeks, until the mayor objects and forbids her to come back. After this Liesel gets into the habit of climbing through the window and stealing books.

The film continues until 1945, with Liesel's thefts taking place against the background of the Second World War. Liesel becomes a good Nazi and joins the Hitler Youth, whereas her father refuses to join the Nazi party and even hides a Jew in his cellar. Strangely, the story is narrated by Death, who revels in the destruction of war.

It's a curious film. I'm not sure what the message is that the writer wants to put across. Maybe it's more obvious in the novel than in the film. It's an interesting picture of a young girl's life in wartime Germany.

Green Lantern (4 Stars)

My guest writer Kay already reviewed this film here. Unlike Kay I'm familiar with the comics the film is based on. The Green Lantern was one of the more unusual heroes in DC Comics. First published in 1940, the comics are still being printed today, though with occasional gaps over the years. DC, famous for its lack of continuity, has frequently "rebooted" the character and rewritten his origins. The film is based on the silver age version of the Green Lantern who starred in the comics from 1959 to 1985.

Practically the whole film is based around telling the origin of the Green Lantern, i.e. how Hal Jordan was given the ring and the powers. The outer space segments at the beginning alienated me. Even though he received his powers from another world, the comics were very earthbound. For me the film really took off when the Green Lantern made his first public appearance, preventing the helicopter crashing at the dinner party. Let's wait for the next film and hope it will be better.

Green Lantern [Guest Writer] (3¾ Stars)

A cocky test pilot, Hal Jordan ('Ryan Reynolds' ), acquires superhuman powers when he is chosen by "the Ring", the willpower-fed source of power, of the Green Lantern Intergalactic Corps. He, reluctantly at first, takes on the challenges these superheroes face. Putting his self-doubts aside, and spurred on by his sense of duty and love for his beautiful, intellectually equal, colleague, Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), he is soon called to defend mankind from Parallax, a super-powerful being who feeds on fear. He is the universe's last chance, as many Lanterns have been killed and the Corps is weakened. And he might just be the right Lantern for the job of keeping the world safe from harm. Based on the characters of DC Comics series "Green Lantern".

What can I say about this movie? It wasn't the best movie I have seen in years but it wasn't the worst either. It wasn't even really all that bad and gave me a laugh or two. So far I've seen this movie three times just to make sure that I didn't get swept along with all the hype when I saw it in theaters and I found my enthusiasm waning for this movie by the second see-through. The actor is a favourite among my comedy list and so I had to see it for that alone but I don't think I would've paid money for it if I had known any better. The whole Green Lantern super-hero was new to me so that was something that interested me as well and while it had a lot of action it just felt short for me in some places. The ending is probably my favourite part of the movie but other than that.... Hm. I wouldn't mind seeing it again if I had some free time to kill and overall a decent movie but was it top-dollar box-office hit-it-out-of-the-park for me? Probably not.