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

Don't Breathe (2016)

Source Directed by Fede Alvarez, Home Alone 6 Don’t Breathe stars Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto as three young burglars that pick the wrong house. Stephen Lang plays their apparent easy target: a blind man with a ridiculous Tom Hardy-esc voice, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in his house. Their new host manages to turn the tables though, and if you have seen the trailer you will know what I mean when I say that this is one of the most original concepts for a horror film I’ve seen in a long time. Source This was the third time my friend Eve and I had tried to go to see something together at the cinema. Hail, Caesar! (2016) didn’t happen when phone batteries and ridiculous traffic conspired against us, and The Usual Suspects (1995) didn’t happen when Odeon forgot to get the rights to show it! So when we found ourselves running nearly 30 minutes late in awful traffic again, we were close to giving up and banning each other from going a

Wonder Woman (2017)

Source You may have heard this already, but Wonder Woman is a bit good.  I've grown pretty tired of the superhero formula and constant revolving door of money machine films in similar packaging, but was really impressed with the freshness of Deadpool (2016) and in particular, Logan   (2017) .   One of my favourite YouTube subscriptions , Nerdwriter , analysed this evolution of the superhero genre in his most recent video and put it much better than I ever could - suddenly, it's an interesting time to be making a superhero movie again. Source Saying that, until the positive reviews began to stream in I was approaching the release of Wonder Woman with a fair bit of trepidation.   DC film have obviously been really disappointing, drab affairs of late.  Although I caught Man of Steel (2013) and Suicide Squad (2016), I'll admit that it's negative reception put me off sitting through over 3 hours of Batman vs Superman.  It's a shame as although Man of Steel w

Cineworld Unlimited Card Review

Source I love the cinematic experience – Despite my embarrassingly large DVD collection, there is nothing like the escapism of the immersive cinematic experience. Films are created with that experience in mind, not for those sat watching films on their laptops at home. I’ve been a Cineworld Unlimited card holder for over 5 years now, and I would recommend it to anyone. Today I have worked through the many benefits to owning the card that I’ve come across during that time. The experience isn’t perfect, and if you have ever been to any multiplex cinema you’ll know what I mean, but to have access to as many films as I like as often as I like is a total no brainer. If you like your movies the way they are meant to be watched, it’s the way to go. The Money – Is it Worth It? Source For £17.40 a month you have “unlimited” access to movies – as many as you like, as many times as you like. With ticket prices as expensive as they are, to make that worthwhile per month you would on