Reviews
Vinyl (2000)
THE documentation about record collectors
Excellent, excellent film about record collectors from the perspective of a film maker AND record collector. What's so unique about Alan Zweig's documentation, is that he includes his own person in it, sometimes filming a location and himself in a mirror, or speaking directly to the audience about his private and personal thoughts. The other record collectors portrayed in this 110 minutes movie are beyond belief; can you imagine someone seriously claiming to collect EVERY song ever made? Or being able to tell the tracklists of ALL of his ten-thousands of albums by heart? "Vinyl"will blow your mind beyond the subject of sheer record collecting. It's a study on human obsessions in general.
Ramona (1961)
Average show movie with nice exotica design
The film plays in 1961 post-war West-Berlin in the world of show business. Except that the film is neither especially suspenseful, nor very funny as a comedy, 3 things make it remarkable: First of all and foremost the polynesian exotic styling, music, dancing and stage design of the frequent theater scenes. For connoisseurs of all things exotica and south-sea a must. Secondly the young Senta Berger, starring as the fake Ramona; truly one of the most beautiful women ever to appear on a German speaking film screen. And thirdly there is a very funny Ralf Wolter, famous for his appearances as Sam Hawkins and Hadschi Halef Omar in several Karl May films, who plays an agent in "Ramona" and looks like Lenin.