In Hotel Rock’n’Roll one never knows what to expect, and alongside amusing misunderstandings, clumsy policemen, “impossible loves” and speed cameras ready to treacherously take photographs, there is always time for an evening with old and new friends, singing and drinking merrily.
It is not a film with many pretensions, Help, I shrunk my Parents. Not even as far as the various script twists are concerned. The story unfolds in an often predictable way, albeit with good dynamics, and the young audience seems to be happy with it.
Help, I shrunk my Teacher is a film of international scope that is clearly inspired by contemporary US entertainment cinema and also aims very much at an extensive distribution abroad. Yet, despite this, we cannot fail to notice an almost television-like approach that, together with sometimes excessively contrived special effects, makes the whole thing easily forgettable.
The working-class struggle, the need to ‘grow up’, but also – and above all – love torments are the absolute protagonists in Taking it Back. Andreas Schmied, who has always had a great aptitude for entertaining comedies, has attempted a mix of social discourse and sentimental aspects, paying more attention to the latter.
The Hawk is a bizarre, irreverent feature film with an almost TV-like style, which, through a simple and at the same time complex story, questions certain family dynamics and precarious balances that risk breaking down forever when the past comes knocking at the door again. At the Diagonale’22.
Help, I Shrunk My Friends is clearly inspired by the now cult film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. But if those nostalgic for that film – as well as for the glorious 1980s – are hoping to re-experience the same feelings they felt when watching Joe Johnston’s film, their expectations will inevitably be disappointed.
In the film Sargnagel – directed by Sabine Hiebler and Gerhard Ertl – one never knows where fiction ends and reality begins. Is it simply a feature film? A documentary? Probably both. Or perhaps none of the two? At the Diagonale 2021.
Although, nowadays, there have been so many similar films to our Party hard die young, one has to give credit to the young director Dominik Hartl – who has always been a horror fan – for having attempted, in his own way, a totally personal interpretation and direction.