Skip to main content

Berlin Film Museum (& Strudel)

Source
A few weeks ago Charlotte surprised me with a birthday trip to Berlin for three days.  As he wasn't touring to Manchester, and seeing as flying to Berlin would cost the same as a train to London, the idea was to catch a Joshua Radin gig while we were there.  We have friends living in Berlin that were kind enough to put us up, and we had a brilliant break away from the norm.  Charlotte’s blog covers the break we had in all its foody glory, but there were a few bits where we went that had a certain filmy flavour too.

If you’re not aware of Joshua Radin, you have probably heard some of his acoustic folk over the top of that sad bit at the end of every Scrubs episode.   I’ve been a big fan for years now, but it was a weird experience seeing him in another country.  The venue looked like a converted theatre or cinema, and that added to the chilled atmosphere.  The day after we went to Berlin’s Film Museum in Potsdamer Platz.  If you have never been, Potsdamer Platz is a stunning looking modern build with Sony offices and a modern cinema.   They were actually preparing for a premier of German language Netflix original series, You Are Wanted, in the centre when we went too. 
 Although the Film Museum takes up quite a few floors of the buildings there, we almost came across it by accident.  While we’re no German film history buffs, it turned out to be one of the most brilliantly laid out museums I’ve ever been in.  It took us on a journey from Fritz Lang to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1929), from Marlene Dietrich to the exile of German filmmakers during WWII, and the innovative portrayals of sport documentary to modern films such as Run Lola Run (1998) and The Lives of Others (2006).  We made that journey via disorientating floors or mirrors, miniature film sets, costumes and movie clips.  That alone was enough, but it was then that we came across the exhibit on at the time: Science Fiction Film.

We weren’t aware this was the theme of the exhibit when we paid to go in, but it was easily the best thing about the whole trip.   When you immediately recognise Tom Cruise’s costume and jacket from War of the Worlds (2005) when you enter, you know this the exhibit for you.  Different rooms focused on a specific aspect of the Sci-Fi genre.  There was the alien portayls themselves, spacecraft and control pit design, dystopian futures, alien contact and how different films tackle each of those.  One minute you could be watching multiple clips of characters first touching down on a foreign planet.  The next, you could be lying back on a table looking up at a screen on the ceiling showing John Hurt being held down as his chest bursts apart.  One room showed multiple clips of varying perspectives on AI in cinema, while another played varying uses of the countdown before a spacecraft takeoff (including Fritz Lang’s 1929, Woman in the Moon – the first film to use this technique to build anticipation).  I had recently been reading about certain signifiers in genres, and how they are required to made it clear to the audience what type of film they are watching (or at least, think they’re watching), so it was fascinating to see Sci-Fi broken down in to its multiple parts. The contrast between how those moments, or things have been done across the years was really interesting.  It could not have been more nerdy, but the whole experience was do really well and made it completely immersive. Hopefully we’ll be looking to go to Berlin again at some point, and I’ll be pushing to go to this museum again just to see the latest exhibit.

Later that day we went well out of our way to find Café Einstein as it was there that Quentin Tarantino filmed the strudel scene in Inglourious Basterds (2009).  As we hadn’t seen the film in ages we quickly watched the clip of that particular scene back on my phone before we went in. We could recognise the decor straight away, and as good the strudel I got was, it didn't come with a dollop of Christoph Waltz's "crème."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Manchester by the Sea (2017)

Source If there is one way to get me giddy for a film, it’s having Friday Night Lights' very own Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) in it.  Although other fans of one of the greatest TV shows ever may also be hoping for a 2 hour Chandler motivational speech, that isn't how Manchester by the Sea pans out.  Instead Kenneth Lonergan (who writes and directs) has created a deeply moving and realistic look at grief, family and loss.  A comedy it ain't, but Manchester by the Sea was a film I could have watched for another 5 hours so attached was I to it's characters and story.  It's subject matter makes it a difficult sell, but I really hope this finds an audience as it was an enthralling piece of work. Source The story is a difficult one to tell while avoiding certain spoilers, but I think that is important so as not to lessen the impact of particular scenes.  Essentially, Manchester by the Sea is about Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) -  a man forced to care fo...

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

Source During a badly hungover train journey from London back home last weekend I turned to some classic Flight of the Conchords tunes on my iPod to get me through. The New Zealand duo have a back catalogue of parody songs and two HBO television series, and if you haven’t checked them out before then I strongly recommend. When I got home and collapsed on the sofa I began scrolling through Netflix for an easy to watch film to nurse me through the dying embers of my killer headache, and turned to a comedy co-created by one of the pair, Jermaine Clement. He and Taika Waitiki co-wrote, directed and starred in this hilarious horror mockumentary about cameramen granted full access to the house of a Wellington based vampires. What We Do in the Shadows was exactly what I needed. Source I missed the film during it’s original release in cinemas. To my mind it wasn’t out for long, and that was a shame as I was huge fan of Clement’s Flight of the Conchords work in particular. He an...

(00)7 Best James Bond Opening Sequences

Source You could tell Die Another Day was going to be dire as soon as Bond somehow gives himself a heart attack to escape custody.  And then there was the invisible Aston Martin.  Despite that though, it actually started very well.  I even like Madonna's title song (dons tin hat), but the start's hovercraft chase is really fun too.  I caught Skyfall's pre-title action sequence (and brilliant title song) on TV the other day, and it got me thinking about how important they are to the Bond formula.  It's a given now that every Bond film starts with a look down a gun barrel, a breathtaking action scene, followed by the song and title sequence.  Die Another Day, and to a lesser extent Spectre, were poor Bond films that couldn't live up to it's breathtaking starts, but those scenes are so good I'm almost tempted to put them on and sit through the whole thing.  So, putting the rest of the film and the brilliant title song sequences aside, what are the bes...