A master counterfeiter is thrown into a concentration camp by the Nazis and forced to make fake foreign currency, but will he help his evil captors or sabotage them? In Nazi-era Germany, Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) is a master counterfeiter who is arrested and thrown into a concentration camp. Once his captors notice his unique skills, he's soon transported to better living conditions and asked to become a part of Operation Berhard, an extensive scheme by the Nazis to produce fake foreign currency. At first taking on the job with zeal, Sally has a crisis of conscience when his friend Adolf Burger (August Diehl) suggests that they try to undermine the German war effort rather than support it.
Chaplin, August Zirner, Marie Bäumer
Director(s) Stefan Ruzowitzky
Writer(s) Stefan Ruzowitzky
Status In theaters (limited)
Genre(s) Drama
Release Date Feb. 22, 2008
Running Time 98 minutes
Web Site sonyclassics.com/thecounterfeiters
Who's in It: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, David Striesow
The Basics: A group of criminals, artists and financiers arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp are forced to forge British pounds and American dollars for the Third Reich in an effort to destabilize the economies of the allied forces. In return for good work, they're allowed to live and are kept in relatively luxurious accommodations (i.e., they have food and clothes and beds with sheets).
What's the Deal? One of the more interesting developments in Holocaust-themed movies in the past couple of years has been the emergence of stories where the prisoners themselves are no saints (like the documentary Steal a Pencil for Me, about the somewhat adulterous lovers who kept in touch via clandestine letter-writing) and/or are willing to do whatever it takes to survive (like in Paul Verhoeven's Black Book, in which a woman who wouldn't have been out of place in the cast of Showgirls used what she had to get out alive, not really caring who died along the way as long as it wasn't her). No more noble Life Is Beautiful suffering, everything's darker, bleaker and probably more close to tense, complicated real life than we've been led to believe.
Based Upon: The memoir of Adolf Burger, one of the men who helped forge the money but who also presumably spent a lot of his time trying to sabotage the operation.
Weird Pedigree: From director Stefan Ruzowitzky, the man behind the not-scary-at-all German horror franchise Anatomy, as well as the loony All the Queen's Men, the one starring Matt LeBlanc, about drag-queen secret agents infiltrating the Nazis (yes, this is a real movie). It's good to see him direct something not terrible this time out.
By the Time Most of You Read This Review and Have a Chance to See It … it will already have won or lost the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. And it's got a good shot, being about WWII and all. The Academy loves that sort of thing.
26.2.08
THE COUNTERFEITERS
20.2.08
THE BAND'S VISIT
An Egyptian brass band heads to Israel to perform at the opening ceremony of a brand new Arab arts center. But when the musicians arrive, they are stranded at the airport and have no idea where to go. Eventually, they wind up at a tiny village in the desert, where they play for the locals.
Cast Sasson Gabai, Ronit Elkabetz, Saleh Bakri, Khalifa Natour
Director(s) Eran Kolirin
Writer(s) Eran Kolirin
Status In theaters (limited)
Genre(s) Drama
Release Date Feb. 8, 2008
Running Time 85 minutes
MPAA Rating PG-13 - for brief strong language
Web Site Official Site for The Band's Visit
Keywords Drama, Theatrical Release, Small Town Life, Jewish
REVIEW
Who's in It: Sasson Gabai, Ronit Elkabetz, Saleh Bakri
The Basics: Eight Egyptian musicians, members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, find themselves stranded in the Israeli desert, struggling to get to their next concert at a cultural center. Along the journey they meet new friends and old enemies as the movie comments on the region's long-standing misery. It's kind of like a Middle Eastern version of every other episode of The Partridge Family where the bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere and their only hope is a cantankerous old prospector still living in a ghost town. These guys even have matching uniforms.
What's the Deal? Aside from veering into cute-overload territory from time to time, what this it's really good at is balancing the gently comic and the sad. All the characters carry around a burden of inherited cultural grief that seemingly no one in the Middle East can even bring themselves to talk about after decades of senseless war and suffering. It's that sense of "Well, maybe this could get better someday even though it probably won't — but wouldn't it be nice if it did?" It trumps any preciousness you might find annoying at first.
Where It Comes From: First feature from Israeli director Eran Kolirin. And you'd think that it would have been the kind of adorable puppy of a foreign-language film the Academy would have picked for a Best Foreign Film nod. But nope. So now it's on its own.
Favorite Scene: While trying to make a connection with the men, a female restaurant owner talks about how she used to love to watch Egyptian films on television and how the streets would be empty because everyone else was watching the same thing. If melancholy is your favorite flavor then this is where to get it.
Double-Feature It With: Half Moon, the 2007 Kurdish movie about a similar band of musicians on a futile journey. Of course Moon is even more mournful and fatalist than this one, but also incredibly moving and beautiful. And because about 13 people who weren't film critics saw it in this country, I wanted to recommend it again.
STEP UP 2 THE STREETS
Briana Evigan just wants to fit in at her snooty private school, but getting involved in an underground dancing competition may get her expelled. Coming from a lower-class background, Andie (Briana Evigan) tries desperately to fit in at the elite Maryland School of the Arts. While there, she hooks up with a flashy dancer named Chase (Robert Hoffman) who gets her involved in a down-and-dirty dancing competition that may get her kicked out of school.
Cast Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman, Will Kemp, Cassie Ventura, Adam G. Sevani, Telisha Shaw
Director(s) Jon M. Chu
Writer(s) Toni Ann Johnson, Karen Barna
Status In theaters (wide)
Genre(s) Drama
Release Date Feb. 14, 2008
Running Time 98 minutes
MPAA Rating PG-13 - for language, some suggestive material and brief violence.
REVIEW
Who's in It: Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman, Adam G. Sevani, Danielle Polanco, Will Kemp
The Basics: Dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing. This is done in front of parents who just don't understand, teachers who just don't understand, rival dancers who just don't understand — and in the rain. That there's not "Hot Lunch Jam" taking place during the cafeteria scenes is sort of a shocking omission.
What's the Deal? This genre has a problem that plagues it. And that problem is almost always this: too much yappy-yap yapping about the tired plot. Oh, you're a dancer, and you have to strive to prove that you're gifted? Big deal. Shut up and do it. That's what was wrong with the terrible original Step Up. Well, someone must have decided that it was time for the story to get out of the way of the dancing, because this astonishingly fun movie is a perfect example of how style sometimes is substance. Think words are boring and dumb? Like dancing instead? Then you're going to have a great time.
Seriously, Here's How Every Scene Plays Out:
Example 1:
Guy: Hey, what's up?
Girl: Not much. Let's do some crazy dancing.
Crazy dancing begins.
Example 2:
Teacher: You will now stop all this crazy dancing and learn ballet.
Girl: Whatever.
Crazy dancing begins.
Fun Facts About the Cast: The uptight dance-academy director is that guy (Kemp) who suddenly became a big sex symbol when he danced in that Gap commercial a few years ago. The lead girl (Evigan) is the daughter of '70s BJ and the Bear (you know, the one about the trucker and his monkey sidekick) star Greg Evigan. And Hoffman, who's like Channing Tatum 2.0, has danced in all kinds of crappy movies like Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, You Got Served, Gigli and From Justin to Kelly.
Don't Be Late and Here's Why: The opening scene of people dancing on the subway is flabbergasting. So much insane, borderline-violent choreography goes down in the first three minutes that it's frightening, like someone made a horror movie with beats.