By Christopher Stipp
The Archives, Right Here
Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp
The Basketball Diaries - Blu-ray Review
I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it but this is without question the best film Leonardo DiCaprio has ever done.
A story about the young life of Jim Carroll, the film is an abrasive, dark, evocative portrait that showcases DiCaprio as an actor that seamlessly blends into the background of a story that is nothing short of compelling. Now in Blu-ray this is a wonderful chance to revisit a movie that helped Leo be known as an actor to contend with but, I think, the real joy in re-watching this movie is its dealing with drug culture that wasn’t proselytizing in nature but exposed it for what it was.
There was...
The Archives, Right Here
Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp
The Basketball Diaries - Blu-ray Review
I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it but this is without question the best film Leonardo DiCaprio has ever done.
A story about the young life of Jim Carroll, the film is an abrasive, dark, evocative portrait that showcases DiCaprio as an actor that seamlessly blends into the background of a story that is nothing short of compelling. Now in Blu-ray this is a wonderful chance to revisit a movie that helped Leo be known as an actor to contend with but, I think, the real joy in re-watching this movie is its dealing with drug culture that wasn’t proselytizing in nature but exposed it for what it was.
There was...
- 4/16/2010
- by Christopher Stipp
In honor of the film's North American premiere, and its poster of course, the talented folks at Studio No.1 take a moment to discuss process, politics and posters. - It's unlikely I'd find someone who'd argue with me when I say that a memorable movie poster is a rare thing. With that in mind Ioncinema.com brings you the first in our new Poster Spotlight series; The Art of the Movie Poster. Each column will showcase a poster that made us pause, and an interview with its creator(s).Our first eye-catcher is the gritty and stylish North American poster for the seemingly gritty and stylish film, The Baader Meinhof Complex; courtesy of Studio No.1. An adaptation of Stefan Aust's book of the same name, the film focuses on the rising of the Raf (Red Army Faction), a violent terrorist group formed in the late 60's/early 70's in West Germany,...
- 11/30/2009
- by Ioncinema.com Staff
- IONCINEMA.com
West Germany’s Baader Meinhof group (also known as the Red Army Faction or Raf) was formed in the late 1960s and named after two of its ringleaders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff. With its logo of a gun set against a red star, the Raf was a terrorist organization made up of young left-wing revolutionaries who railed against a current political establishment with bombings, bank robberies, and murder and is the subject of the ambitious new movie The Baader Meinhoff Complex. Director Uli Eddels’s film is a long but engrossing look at a fascinating chapter of recent German history.
Based on a nonfiction book by Stefan Aust, The Baader Meinhoff Complex takes a look at the origins and heyday of the Raf and the violent acts they carry out, each more bold than the last: the bombing of a newspaper office, murders of prominent judges and prosecutors, the...
Based on a nonfiction book by Stefan Aust, The Baader Meinhoff Complex takes a look at the origins and heyday of the Raf and the violent acts they carry out, each more bold than the last: the bombing of a newspaper office, murders of prominent judges and prosecutors, the...
- 9/18/2009
- by Tom
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Filmmaker Uli Edel.
Talkin’ Terrorism with Uli Edel
by Jon Zelazny
Director Uli Edel and writer-producer Bernd Eichinger met at the Munich Film School in the late sixties, and went on to collaborate on two gritty cult classics, the German Christiane F. (1981) and Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989).
In 2008, they reunited for The Baader Meinhof Complex, a chronicle of the domestic terrorism that plagued West Germany in the 1970’s. It was nominated for a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The Constantin/Vitagraph Films release opens this Friday, August 21st, in New York and on August 28th in Los Angeles.
Uli Edel and I met at his home in West Los Angeles.
The terrorist movement in Western Europe essentially began in 1968. What was that year like for you?
Uli Edel: I was just starting my studies in Munich. And when I came there,...
Talkin’ Terrorism with Uli Edel
by Jon Zelazny
Director Uli Edel and writer-producer Bernd Eichinger met at the Munich Film School in the late sixties, and went on to collaborate on two gritty cult classics, the German Christiane F. (1981) and Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989).
In 2008, they reunited for The Baader Meinhof Complex, a chronicle of the domestic terrorism that plagued West Germany in the 1970’s. It was nominated for a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The Constantin/Vitagraph Films release opens this Friday, August 21st, in New York and on August 28th in Los Angeles.
Uli Edel and I met at his home in West Los Angeles.
The terrorist movement in Western Europe essentially began in 1968. What was that year like for you?
Uli Edel: I was just starting my studies in Munich. And when I came there,...
- 9/9/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Cologne, Germany -- German TV giant Studio Hamburg has taken a 45% stake in Agenda Media, the non-fiction production company run by journalist and screenwriter Stefan Aust ("The Baader Meinhof Complex").
Aust will stay on as managing director and, alongside producer Thorsten Pollfuss and fellow journalist Thomas Ammann, as a minority shareholder in Agenda. Aust, for years editor-in-chief at leading German newsweekly Der Spiegel, acquired a 50% stake in Agenda earlier this year.
The deal could be the first in a shopping spree for Studio Hamburg. Several small and mid-sized production firms have been hit hard by the advertising slump in German TV. Studio Hamburg boss Martin Willich has indicated he is looking for firesale opportunities.
"We're looking at German companies, yes," Willich told local business paper WirtschaftWoche.
Studio Hamburg itself has been sailing through the current crisis. Thanks to its heavy reliance on recession-proof public broadcasting commissions, Studio Hamburg expects to...
Aust will stay on as managing director and, alongside producer Thorsten Pollfuss and fellow journalist Thomas Ammann, as a minority shareholder in Agenda. Aust, for years editor-in-chief at leading German newsweekly Der Spiegel, acquired a 50% stake in Agenda earlier this year.
The deal could be the first in a shopping spree for Studio Hamburg. Several small and mid-sized production firms have been hit hard by the advertising slump in German TV. Studio Hamburg boss Martin Willich has indicated he is looking for firesale opportunities.
"We're looking at German companies, yes," Willich told local business paper WirtschaftWoche.
Studio Hamburg itself has been sailing through the current crisis. Thanks to its heavy reliance on recession-proof public broadcasting commissions, Studio Hamburg expects to...
- 9/7/2009
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
They were a 1970s phenomenon: a group of domestic terrorists in West Germany whose anti-war, anti-establishment, left-wing political activities included arson, murder and bombings aimed at government officials. But the Baader-Meinhof Gang were like rock stars, in the admiration they excited among the college-age and younger in Germany and elsewhere in the world. "There was an amazing cult about those people," says writer and journalist Stefan Aust, author of The Baader-Meinhof Complex, the book from which Uli Edel took his Oscar-nominated film of the same name, which opened in New York last Friday (8.21). "You had to show their story in a film or people wouldn't understand why it lasted so long," Aust says of the Red Army Faction, the radical group that became synonymous with founder Andreas Baader and journalist Ulrike Meinhof. "At the time, young people were fascinated. The...
- 8/25/2009
- by Marshall Fine
- Huffington Post
From Germany, a fiery action film with lots more on its mind.
Vinzenz Kiefer, Bernd Stegemann and Hannes Wegener in "Baader Meinhof Complex"
Photo: Vitagraph Films
"The Baader Meinhof Complex" is a smart and explosively powerful movie about a German student terrorist gang of the 1970s, and the wave of arson, robbery, kidnappings and murder with which they shook their country's government — in the process triggering exactly the sort of right-wing repression against which they claimed to be crusading. The picture was a deserving Oscar nominee earlier this year for Best Foreign Language Film, and in its weaving-together of the intricacies of social ferment and the bullet-riddled reality of what the gang wrought, it's a fascinating achievement.
The Baader Meinhof Group, as the gang was called in the press (they styled themselves the Red Army Faction, or Raf), was actually led by Gudren Ensslin (played here by Johanna Wokalek), a...
Vinzenz Kiefer, Bernd Stegemann and Hannes Wegener in "Baader Meinhof Complex"
Photo: Vitagraph Films
"The Baader Meinhof Complex" is a smart and explosively powerful movie about a German student terrorist gang of the 1970s, and the wave of arson, robbery, kidnappings and murder with which they shook their country's government — in the process triggering exactly the sort of right-wing repression against which they claimed to be crusading. The picture was a deserving Oscar nominee earlier this year for Best Foreign Language Film, and in its weaving-together of the intricacies of social ferment and the bullet-riddled reality of what the gang wrought, it's a fascinating achievement.
The Baader Meinhof Group, as the gang was called in the press (they styled themselves the Red Army Faction, or Raf), was actually led by Gudren Ensslin (played here by Johanna Wokalek), a...
- 8/21/2009
- MTV Movie News
Ulrike Meinhof, a prominent left-wing journalist in '70s Germany found the revolutionary spirit of the Red Army Faction so appealing, she abandoned her children to join up with a counterculture much like the U. S. Weather Underground in its terrorist tactics. Andreas Baader was one of its leaders along with Gudrun Ensslin and other young people who protested the policies of their elders during this volatile period of the Vietnam War when Germany became America's accomplice. The writer Stefan Aust's riveting Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. (Oxford) came out in the mid-'80's and now a film, directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn)--epic length, Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film--opens on Friday. All 150 minutes of it are mesmerizing thanks to the fine work of the German actors: Martina Gedeck as Ulrike, Moritz Bleibtreu...
- 8/20/2009
- by Regina Weinreich
- Huffington Post
Another monster release slate this week finds, amongst other things, interpretations of the Irish troubles, both real and imagined. Also, we meet the real life Mad Men, Qt's Basterds and the godfather of African-American indie film as a bearded ten-year-old boy.
Download this in audio form (MP3: 15:35 minutes, 14.3 Mb) Subscribe to the In Theaters podcast: [Xml] [iTunes]
"Art & Copy"
Filmmaker Doug Pray ("Surfwise") goes inside the advertising industry to uncover the creative minds behind such iconic slogans as "Got Milk?" and "Just Do It," encountering a multitude of contrasting viewpoints, from those who feel they have whored themselves out in the name of commerce to those hopelessly addicted to the rush of satisfying the constantly changing needs of the modern world. Don Draper, eat your heart out.
Opens in New York.
"The Baader Meinhof Complex"
This year's German nominee for the best foreign-language film Oscar, Uli Edel's adaptation of...
Download this in audio form (MP3: 15:35 minutes, 14.3 Mb) Subscribe to the In Theaters podcast: [Xml] [iTunes]
"Art & Copy"
Filmmaker Doug Pray ("Surfwise") goes inside the advertising industry to uncover the creative minds behind such iconic slogans as "Got Milk?" and "Just Do It," encountering a multitude of contrasting viewpoints, from those who feel they have whored themselves out in the name of commerce to those hopelessly addicted to the rush of satisfying the constantly changing needs of the modern world. Don Draper, eat your heart out.
Opens in New York.
"The Baader Meinhof Complex"
This year's German nominee for the best foreign-language film Oscar, Uli Edel's adaptation of...
- 8/17/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
- I've yet to see "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex", a.k.a the German film that received one of the five slots for the Best Foreign Picture nomination at last year's Oscars. The Baader Meinhof Complex also happens to be: the last of the nominations to receive its theatrical release (via Vitagraph Films on August 21st). Off hand, I could talk about Paris and the United States during the same period, but I'm not going to claim to know anything about the protests that took place in Germany. You can find the complete synopsis below and our exclusive clip. With a late 60's decor, featuring veteran actor Bruno Ganz in the character of Horst Herold - a counter-attack unit tactician who is trying to make sure that they employ a cautionary approach and effort to understand the psychology of the enemy and using recent examples of Vietnam and Palestine in the discourse.
- 8/13/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
Bernd Eichinger, acclaimed producer of The Downfall, returns to tackle Germany’s turbulent past in Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, documenting a decade of the activities of the Red Army Faction. Based on Stefan Aust’s authoritative book, the film, one of the costliest yet made in Germany, brings together a cast of some of Germany’s leading actors and technicians. There have already been numerous films and theatrical productions dealing with the Raf, including Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta’s film, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), and Schlondorff’s own The Legend of Rita (2000). But Eichinger, who co-wrote the script with director and close friend Uli Edel (Christiane F.), says his aim in making a new film was to remove the aura of mystique that has enveloped the group.
- 5/18/2009
- by Jon Pais
- Screen Anarchy
Vitagraph Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Uli Edel's "The Baader Meinhof Complex," which was nominated for a foreign-language film Oscar. Vitagraph plans to platform its release theatrically in 18 of the top 20 markets in August.
Based on Stefan Aust's nonfiction book "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex," the film, written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, dramatizes the history of the West German terrorist group the Red Army Faction.
Produced by Constantin Film, it stars Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek and Bruno Ganz.
"We are pleased that an American audience will now be able to see this exceptional film in theaters. David Shultz and Margot Gerber have shown a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, and Constantin Film is proud to be in business with Vitagraph Films," Constantin's Martin Moszkowicz said.
Based on Stefan Aust's nonfiction book "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex," the film, written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, dramatizes the history of the West German terrorist group the Red Army Faction.
Produced by Constantin Film, it stars Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek and Bruno Ganz.
"We are pleased that an American audience will now be able to see this exceptional film in theaters. David Shultz and Margot Gerber have shown a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, and Constantin Film is proud to be in business with Vitagraph Films," Constantin's Martin Moszkowicz said.
- 4/21/2009
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The German film "The Baader Meinhof Complex" is currently awaiting a court decision that could force filmmakers to re-shoot some of its scenes after the story's accuracy has been challenged.
The film, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust, tells the early years of the country's terrorist group, Red Army Faction (Raf) during the post-war West Germany.
However, a widow of one of the group's victims is suing the movie, saying there are factual errors in the film, Daily Express reports.
The court is expected to decide on the matter in the coming days. If it rules in the widow's favor, the film would have to re-shoot some scenes to alter the events.
The film, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust, tells the early years of the country's terrorist group, Red Army Faction (Raf) during the post-war West Germany.
However, a widow of one of the group's victims is suing the movie, saying there are factual errors in the film, Daily Express reports.
The court is expected to decide on the matter in the coming days. If it rules in the widow's favor, the film would have to re-shoot some scenes to alter the events.
- 1/12/2009
- icelebz.com
Nonfiction novel-based film "The Baader Meinhof Complex" has been chosen to be Germany's official entry to the 81st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film category in 2009.
The film, which premiered in Munich on Tuesday, will be competing with other foreign films in the running for an Oscar. The announcement of the shortlisted films will be announced on January 22.
Based on the nonfiction book by Stefan Aust, "The Baader Meinhof Complex" tells the story of the early years of the West German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), the most active and prominent terrorist group in postwar West Germany. It centers on the RAF from its start in 1967/1968 at the time of the German student movement to the German Autumn in 1977.
German stars Mortiz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck headline the credits as the leaders of the 70s terrorist group.
The film, which premiered in Munich on Tuesday, will be competing with other foreign films in the running for an Oscar. The announcement of the shortlisted films will be announced on January 22.
Based on the nonfiction book by Stefan Aust, "The Baader Meinhof Complex" tells the story of the early years of the West German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), the most active and prominent terrorist group in postwar West Germany. It centers on the RAF from its start in 1967/1968 at the time of the German student movement to the German Autumn in 1977.
German stars Mortiz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck headline the credits as the leaders of the 70s terrorist group.
- 9/17/2008
- icelebz.com
COLOGNE, Germany -- Leading German politicians are calling for a new investigation into a 30-year-old terrorist case after a TV documentary revealed that the German government may have been complicit in the suicide deaths of three members of '70s left-wing terror group the Red Army Faction.
The two-part documentary "RAF", which aired on German public broadcaster ARD this week, investigates the final days of terrorists Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe, who killed themselves in prison on Oct. 17, 1977.
According to "RAF" directors Stefan Aust and Helmar Buchel, prison authorities and the German authorities had planted illegal wiretaps in the cells of the terrorists and may have been listening in when they planned their joint suicide.
"I find the very idea unbelievable and intolerable, that state authorities may have known about the suicide plans and done nothing to prevent them," Dieter Weifelsputz, a parliamentary spokesman for Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, said Friday as he called for an investigation into the allegations.
The two-part documentary "RAF", which aired on German public broadcaster ARD this week, investigates the final days of terrorists Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe, who killed themselves in prison on Oct. 17, 1977.
According to "RAF" directors Stefan Aust and Helmar Buchel, prison authorities and the German authorities had planted illegal wiretaps in the cells of the terrorists and may have been listening in when they planned their joint suicide.
"I find the very idea unbelievable and intolerable, that state authorities may have known about the suicide plans and done nothing to prevent them," Dieter Weifelsputz, a parliamentary spokesman for Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, said Friday as he called for an investigation into the allegations.
- 9/15/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
BERLIN -- German uber-producer Bernd Eichinger, who broke taboos with his Oscar-nominated, Hitler-themed drama Downfall and has divided audiences and critics alike at the Berlin International Film Festival with his competition entry The Elementary Particles, is taking on the explosive topic of homegrown terrorism. Eichinger said Saturday at the Berlin fest that he is working on a film about Germany's Red Army Faction, the left-wing terrorist group that carried out bombings, bank robberies, kidnappings and assassinations in Germany in the late 1960s and '70s. He is adapting Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, a nonfiction best-seller from famed German journalist Stefan Aust that chronicles the rise and fall of the so-called RAF. Eichinger and Aust, now editor of leading German news weekly Der Spiegel, are developing the script.
- 2/13/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
BERLIN -- German uber-producer Bernd Eichinger, who broke taboos with his Oscar-nominated, Hitler-themed drama Downfall and has divided audiences and critics alike at the Berlin International Film Festival with his competition entry The Elementary Particles, is taking on the explosive topic of homegrown terrorism. Eichinger said Saturday at the Berlin fest that he is working on a film about Germany's Red Army Faction, the left-wing terrorist group that carried out bombings, bank robberies, kidnappings and assassinations in Germany in the late 1960s and '70s. He is adapting Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, a nonfiction best-seller from famed German journalist Stefan Aust that chronicles the rise and fall of the so-called RAF. Eichinger and Aust, now editor of leading German news weekly Der Spiegel, are developing the script.
- 2/13/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
BERLIN -- German uber-producer Bernd Eichinger, who broke taboos with his Oscar-nominated, Hitler-themed drama Downfall and has divided audiences and critics alike at the Berlin International Film Festival with his competition entry The Elementary Particles, is taking on the explosive topic of homegrown terrorism. Eichinger said Saturday at the Berlin fest that he is working on a film about Germany's Red Army Faction, the left-wing terrorist group that carried out bombings, bank robberies, kidnappings and assassinations in Germany in the late 1960s and '70s. He is adapting Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, a nonfiction best-seller from famed German journalist Stefan Aust that chronicles the rise and fall of the so-called RAF. Eichinger and Aust, now editor of leading German news weekly Der Spiegel, are developing the script.
- 2/12/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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