Is "Peal Harbor" by #MichaelBay primarily a #war movie or a #love movie? And if it is a love movie, we should also ask: Who actually loves whom here? With this blockbuster, Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer wanted to create a similarly opulent and successful film in 2001 as James Cameron had previously succeeded with "Titanic". There is no doubt that "Peal Harbor" is not high-class kitsch compared to Cameron's award-winning film, but terrible trash - even though it was very successful with box-office takings of 449 million US dollars. But as in "Titanic," a historical event is intertwined with a love story. However, the three-person constellation - Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale - makes it much more complicated. However, we have to detach ourselves from the concrete history to learn why the Japanese actually attack.

More on this from Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the film analysis. 

David Lynch is the great maverick of U.S. cinema: His films are in some ways part of Hollywood's tradition, but at the same time they make a disturbing break with it. This is particularly visible in the 1986 classic "Blue Velvet" - with Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini and Denis Hopper. This work, situated between film noir and coming-of-age film, invokes common narrative and aesthetic Hollywood conventions, but takes them in a completely different direction. David Lynch shows the offbeat in the idyllic, the barbaric in the peaceful, the obsessive in the schmaltzy. The focus is on a young man who goes in search of his desire and in the process is confronted with his own dark side. It is often said that David Lynch makes obscure films, that they are chaotic psycho trips, labyrinthine and ultimately indecipherable. But what if exactly the opposite is the case? "Blue Velvet" does pose some riddles, but they can be solved if you pick up the right key. This key is Sigmund Freud. Let's subject the work to a psychoanalysis, let's put "Blue Velvet" on the couch:

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„Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark" was released in 1981. The material was developed by "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, but director Steven Spielberg implemented the idea, which said goodbye to New Hollywood and marked a return to Hollywood's studio system. The blockbuster does not thrive on the new, but on a remix of the old familiar: Thus in "Indiana Jones," which is laid out as an American answer to the British James Bond, set pieces from the genres of adventure and detective films, film noir, the comedy and the western are cobbled together to create a film for the entire family. Indy (Harrison Ford) must find the Ark of the Covenant, where the Ten Commandments were kept, because it can make a state invincible. Remarkably, God himself intervenes in the action. It is not the hero, but a higher power that ultimately directs the destiny. This deus ex machina brings about a remythologization that amounts to a peculiar, anti-modern understanding of the state.

More on this by Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the new Film Analysis!“ 

With "Oppenheimer", Christopher Nolan presents a biopic that sets standards. This film vibrates for 181 minutes to show the multi-faceted figure of J. Robert Oppenheimer from several perspectives. Nolan jumps wildly back and forth in time, an impressive star ensemble fits into the aesthetic, which consists mainly of close-ups. Nolan focuses on two themes in particular:

1. what responsibility do scientists have?

2. what is the relationship of the state to its citizens - and vice versa?

The father of the atomic bomb appears in this film in all his turmoil, but is not a cinematic monument, a psychological drama, nor do we experience a celebration of the cult of genius; rather, this film throws us into the present again and again. At the same time, "Oppenheimer" is a highly intelligent reflection on the medium of film and the gaze of the camera.

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"American Beauty" by Sam Mendes from 1999 is already a modern classic. The film drama, which won five Oscars, has even found its way into school lessons and is considered one of the best films. Wolfgang M. Schmitt takes a critical look at the debut film, which was the beginning of a furious career for Sam Mendes.

We have to think of Christopher Nolan as a lucky man, because he has achieved something tremendously rare in Hollywood: He has made himself independent of the whims and fashions of the culture industry, which primarily wants to systematically underchallenge the audience. Demand is considered an imposition today. "Tenet" stands in the way of this alarming development and relies on the thinking viewer. It can already be said: we will not only talk about this film for a long time, and we will refer to it in future discourses when we try to understand the conflicts that are coming ever closer to us - and to us.  Christopher Nolan tells a story with the means of the agent film - the references to James Bond are unmistakable - and with fabulous actors - first and foremost: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki - that is by no means meant to merely illustrate a physics mind game, this film is rather very concretely about us and about climate change. Nolan seduces us to leave linear thinking and seeing in order to gain clarity and to find a way out. In doing so, "Tenet" ties in less with "Inception" than with "Interstellar".

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Discussions about trigger warnings recur weekly. Is it paternalism? Well-intentioned? Or silly? There is a lot of confusion here: the trigger warning is actually a communicative tool to announce potentially stressful or traumatic content before it is presented. The aim of this advance notice is to give people who are vulnerable to emotional or psychological stress due to their individual experiences the opportunity to prepare for the upcoming content or, if necessary, to decide whether they want to expose themselves to it. In the meantime, however, trigger warnings are increasingly being extended to warn against all kinds of microaggressions and outdated stereotypes - streaming providers and film festivals in particular are relying on this strategy.

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Conspiracy theories are currently more popular than ever, often based on a world view, as we can see in Peter Weir's cult film "The Truman Show": It is assumed that everything is controlled by one person - currently, various conspiracy theorists have settled on Bill Gates. They give him a role similar to that of the "Truman Show" director and creator Christof, who has the show, in which Truman (Jim Carrey) is unwittingly the protagonist, completely under his control. But what else does the dystopia have to say to us today? Is it merely a media critique of reality TV? As much as we sympathise with Truman, we should realise that we, who are constantly filming ourselves voluntarily, have little to do with him.

More on this from Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the video!

Paul Thomas Anderson has asserted in various interviews that his great film "There Will Be Blood" is not a story about capitalism, but is instead about archaic forces, about man against man. The film is also not to be understood politically. Of course, if you watch the film, this is all nonsense. Either the director has not understood his film or he is using this misdirection to weaken the film's criticism of capitalism after the fact. "There Will Be Blood" not only harks back to the era of Classical Hollywood, but also films the 24th chapter of Marx's "Capital", in which the emergence of capitalism is explained. The "original accumulation" was by no means as idyllic as bourgeois economists thought; instead, blood, fire and violence ensured that the economic system could develop. At the same time, however, this also ensured the relative freedom of individuals. The film by Paul Thomas Anderson is also about such individualisation processes - because it is first and foremost a work about two entrepreneurs: an oil baron and a preacher. With his leading actors Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Dano, Anderson also creates great acting cinema. Find out more from Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the video.

Alfred Hitchcock's film "Vertigo" is not just a masterpiece, it is the best film of all time. With a magnificent cast including Kim Novak and James Stewart, this thriller set in San Francisco is far more than just a suspenseful, mysterious crime film. It is also a complex work about the structure of our desires, about film as such and about seeing and watching as well as our own blindness. Find out more from Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the video!

Two acting giants meet for the first time: Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino bring Michael Mann together on the screen in this neo-noir thriller - the first duel is talking, the second is shooting. "Heat" is one of the most important films of the 20th century, but it wasn't even nominated for an Oscar in 1995. The story is actually quite simple: a cop is chasing a gangster, but when the two look at each other, they are looking in a mirror image. In his almost three-hour film, Michael Mann shows a Los Angeles as we have never seen it before: this merciless city shimmers gray-blue and is characterized by total individualization. "Heat" is first and foremost a film about loneliness in the modern age, halting and obsessed with something they cannot name, the protagonists move through the streets. Both De Niro and Pacino have long since lost sight of their goal, but it is too late to turn back. What else could they do? Watch sports on TV and prepare barbecue in the evening? The cop and the gangster are afraid of boredom and ordinariness, but they pay a high price for it. Michael Mann not only draws multi-layered figures within a complex web of economy and crime, but he also shows a masculinity that many current discourses do not even want to perceive.

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Gordon Gecko was not the first to establish neoliberal ideology in cinema. It was Joel Goodsen, the main character played by Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" by Paul Brickman. In this 1983 film, a teenager becomes an entrepreneur (of himself) and unceremoniously opens a brothel in his parents' house - with success. Today, the film is largely forgotten; the only thing that can be remembered is the rock'n'roll scene in which Tom Cruise dances through the living room. But it's time to rediscover "Risky Business".

More about it from Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the film analysis! 

Lars von Trier is one of the great exceptional directors of our time. His works cause controversy time and again. His person stands for scandal made flesh. It almost seems as if this media (re)presentation has settled over the work like a dark shadow, blocking the actual access to him. The director's misogynistic statements can only be followed by a misogynistic film, this was a basic thesis in the reception of the masterpiece "Antichrist". But is this really the case? Are we dealing with a chauvinistic work here? Is this primarily about a failed therapy? "Antichrist" itself speaks a different language, one that is enormously emancipatory and ties into a tradition of feminism that goes back over a hundred years.

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Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" is not only one of the most important war films, it is also one of the most important films ever made. Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and Harrison Ford shine in their roles - although the filming itself may have resembled a war, there is little sign of it in this clearly structured and formally rigorous masterpiece. Coppola has succeeded in making a philosophical film about war, Western civilization and evil.

More on this by Wolfgang M. Schmitt Jr. in the film analysis! 

The Barbenheimer phenomenon is amazing: in fact, the cinemas are better attended than they have been for a long time. This is good news! "Barbie" has also been eagerly awaited by many moviegoers who didn't used to play with Barbie. The prospect of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling was just too good. Greta Gerwig does everything right in the first 30 minutes of the film, showing us a brightly colored Barbie land of lovingly designed backdrops and painted-on horizons. After that, however, the film takes a turn when Barbie sets off into the real world and Ken accompanies her. Suddenly, "Barbie" becomes a strange culture war film that produces loud contradictions.

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Without a doubt, "Dirty Dancing" is one of the most popular films ever among a primarily female audience. But this success is based on a misconception. Even if female viewers hang languidly in front of the TV on girls' night out, only very few of them have really understood the radical nature of the film. For all its popularity, "Dirty Dancing" is at the same time a completely underestimated left-wing film whose class-struggle message has lost none of its topicality.

More about this from Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the new film analysis!

Stanley Kubrick is a solitaire in film history. His works are enigmatic, they stand on their own and elude any current references. With "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb" (#DrStrangelove), however, things are a bit different. The film is a direct response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, albeit a very artificial and bitterly nasty one. Peter Sellers slips into three roles at once, including that of the title character, who wants to see the world burn and just can't keep his right hand still. But what does the film, which was released in 1964, still have to say to us today? After all, the Cold War is long over. But the nuclear threat is by no means - many countries continue to arm, and leading politicians still believe in the idea of #deterrence policy, which this classic blackly humorous exposes as an illusion.

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This time Denzel Washington as Robert McCall roams the alleys of an Italian coastal town to hunt down villains. The members of the Camorra seem like caricatures and at the same time like embodiments of absolute evil. Opposite them in Antoine Fuqua's "The Equalizer 3 - The Last Chapter" are the supposedly good people who have to be protected from the Mafia. Manicheism is not the only problem with this film; what is particularly bad is how much the camera loves to bathe in the blood of the perpetrators. Ostentatiously, the film shows McCall torturing his adversaries. Wolfgang M. Schmitt explains why we are dealing with an evil film.

The accusation is made again and again: Film reviews are completely subjective. What is meant by this is: "Why listen to film critics? - After all, I have my own opinions. Many people believe that taste is a purely personal matter. But there are indeed criteria. Wolfgang M. Schmitt Jr. explains the difference between subjective and subjectivist film criticism.

Help! Unfortunately, this series has no end! Vin Diesel as Dom Toretto must once again defend the family, he is supported by many colleagues who also can not act. "Fast & Furious 10" ("Fast X") is a makeshift continuation of the fifth part: Dante (Jason Momoa) is the son of drug lord Hernan Reyes, who was once treated badly by the Torettos. Dante now wants to avenge his father, who was humiliated in the fifth part of the franchise. He also fights for the family - but for his own. As gruesomely crude and poorly told as the film is, if you look at it as a symptom, you can easily derive a social diagnosis from it: In this film, we encounter people without a world, and in the cinema audiences sit without a film. For dismemberment and fragmentation determine the form and content of this series.

More on this by Wolfgang M. Schmitt in the film analysis.