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katemcgregorau
Reviews
Ben & Maria - Liebe auf den zweiten Blick (2000)
Innocent fun with Golden Boy
*slight spoiler*
Also titled Golden Boy.
This film is light-hearted, innocent fun, with the familiar moral of the importance of thinking with your heart and not your head. Arrogant young entrepreneur and economics student Ben Raabe wants to sell off the ailing family business to a large corporation. When his father gets wind of his plans, he throws his son out of the firm. With no money, his fiancée ditches him, his friends ignore him and he ends up on a charge of drink driving. Things could not get much worse until a run-in with the idealistic Maria. Maria runs a furniture workshop, employs the disabled and ex-cons, but her business is rapidly running out of money... The lead actor, Matthias Koeberlin is fantastic and is also great eye candy and Stefanie Stappenbeck as Maria does well in a sober role. It's an enthusiastic, and slick, if predictable film and you pretty much know how things will end up. But of course, with this kind of film it is always about the journey rather than the destination - both characters grow and learn through each other's perspectives and it's enjoyable to watch their interaction.
Penny Points to Paradise (1951)
Inspired madness from the goons.
This film represents Peter Sellars first screen role and is some inspired, if amateurish, madness from 'the Goons'. (for those who don't know, the Goon show was an hilarious radio show broadcast in England in the 50's, it featured Peter Sellars, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, who all feature in this film) The plot is a vague story about counterfeiting but it is mainly a framework on which to hang the off kilter jokes and wordplays that are the goons trademarks. Harry (Harry Secombe) wins some money in the pools and decides to go on holiday to bristol with his friend Spike (Spike Milligan). However some dastardly counterfeiters try to relieve him of his winnings. Meanwhile Peter Sellars plays 3 different comic roles foreshadowing his multiple roles in films of the future. This film is simple and low-budget, however it has genuine laughs. I recommend it for any fan of any of the three Goons. (Although prints seems to be extremely rare as I am the only person I have encountered who has seen it!)
Twinky (1970)
silly sixties wish-fulfillment
This one's a bit of a spoiler.
The sixties and the sexual revolution was a wonderful era as many people finally saw their sexually liberated selves and/or their fantasies on the silver screen for the first time. Unfortunately it also led to a lot of half-baked wish-fulfillment movies, such as this one - where a much older man, little Charlie Bronson in too tight jeans, falls in love with the Britney Spears-esque English rose, Twinky.
What could have been an enlightening comedy of how two people's minds meet despite a large age gap, and the reactions of the staid British society to them, is instead a featherweight story with ridiculous plotting and superficial characterisation.
Scant attention is paid to how the two meet or how they fall in love, instead the film shows twinky riding to meet Charles resplendent in kinky school uniform and Bronson looking off into the middle distance as a passable attempt at pretending to be in love. After the initial interaction between the two in Bronno's flat (Twinky burns his breakfast - hilarious!!) they rush off to Scotland to get married, Twinky rushes off to show her school friends her new bloke, then the pair rush off to New York to meet his family.
All this rushing means the movie gets sillier and sillier as Twinky joins a protest, Charlie B goes to prison and the viewer doesn't know what absurd event will happen next. With the final denouement, a fight where Charles gets a bit shirty cos Twinky is distracting him and so she hides for three days, my patience finally wore out - these two people have nothing in common and never have, for the entire length of the film. Even when Twinky returns for England the viewer was left with a sense of the ridiculous as why would they divorce after their very first fight?
Insomnia has a lot to answer for - I was up at 2am watching this messy film, I saw it through to the end but I have to say it was bit too silly. My only recommendation would be to watch is as a good example of the aforementioned sexual wish-fulfillment and of sixties fashion, or if you just can't sleep!