The Baader Meinhof Complex

If you're a student of history, of the events of the 1960s in particular, you'll find grains of truth on The Baader Meinhof Complex (Der Baader Meinhof Komplex). Now as then domestic terrorism is an issue on the front page. TBMC reveals everything from how to bond in Middle Eastern training camps to the sad reality that each cell of a terrorist sect is one step away from the previous leader's ideology.
The film, directed by Uli Edel the director oddly enough of a kid's vampire film from 2000 The Little Vampire, wavers from Battle of Algiers military precision type seriousness to exploitative and gratuitous American International drive-in fashion and design. In other words this is a film you want to see twice. Newsreel and vintage footage mixes with the dramatic narrative. Bombings, gunfights, riots and general mayhem unfolds while a core group of radical thinkers comes of age. Issues of Germany's earlier political behavior (WWII) are spurned by the younger generation only their methods lead to criminal lifestyles. There's some serious ideas bandied about during TBMC and said ideas are tossed like a salad with salacious images of femme revolutionaries who walk the walk. Films like TMBC come around once a decade; films that deal with revolution from within like Patty Hearst (1988) or Claude Chabrol's 1974 The Nada Gang. The protags here are not heroes and not exactly anti-heroes. Characters from both sides of the conflict are shown making good and bad choices, thus the sympathetic official played by Bruno Ganz tries to understand them as well as apprehend.
The Baader Meinhof Complex takes place in a universe where the world view is actually a world view, not a xenophobic take on historical events. The 60s include riots in France, revolution in Czechoslovakia, hundreds of students dead in Mexico (echoes of Tiananmen Square). Bright colors and shots of hot chicks in mini skirts and boots kidnapping and executing justice as seen in an era before animal rights and environmental activists give way to somber blues and harshly lit prison cells as the movie progresses. The soundtrack mixes scored music with rock of the era.
There's a lot of objectivity on display in TBMG. This is a film that has the gonads of a Scorsese gangster film like Casino or Goodfellows, only it's showing at one theater (Angelika downtown) and has no awareness. Do people who wear Che tee shirts even register names like Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader. The actors portraying them are instantly smart. sexy and in a constant state of rebellion. That's the way TBMC plays. It's the kind of film that makes you want to learn more about the period or at least see a few more of the three or four lead actor's other films.

Jennifer's Body

Jennifer's Body inhabits a slightly more sophisticated arena of horror than, say, a film like My Bloody Valentine. Jennifer's Body never supercharges the genre like Drag Me To Hell either, but there's something going on that sparks interest.
The mixture of Diablo Cody dialogue and the predicaments of high schoolers Needy (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer (Megan Fox) are JB's best assets. The Cody style of talk is way toned down from the vernacular of Juno yet there's a couple of zingers. Director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Aeon Flux) displays no personal style. Rather she keeps the action moving along an escalating thread where the meek Needy watches unblinkingly as her bff Jennifer becomes possessed by a demon. It seems that when Jennifer was abducted by a touring band they botched the Satanic rites they were using to sacrifice her and instead created a monster.
The few adults seen in supporting roles never overshadow the teen trauma unfolding, although it was jolting to see J.K. Simmons sporting a fine head of curly hair. By the time the conclusion rolls around the complete story seems solid enough. You also have to admit the film becomes more about Seyfried than Fox as Needy makes the biggest transformation. One that creates a new monster and, one suspects, a sequel.
One impressive set piece involves a fire breaking out in a small club while a band plays inside and the subsequent near-riot as the patrons try to escape. The horror effects are effective while staying away from slasher territory.

Beauty in Trouble

Some of the best movie experiences in theaters now are actually foreign films that have taken a few years to travel to our shores. Case in point from earlier in the year, the Swedish film from 2004 As It Is In Heaven enjoyed a healthy run for a couple of months, an eternity for a foreign film. This Friday the Angelika will open Beauty in Trouble (Kráska v nesnázích) a Czech film by helmer Jan Hrebejk from 2006.
Another thing about Beauty in Trouble are some songs by Glen Hansard that also appeared in Once (one of them won an Oscar for Best Song). Since Beauty in Trouble and Once were released in the same year it takes on new meaning because the film's not just recycling a previous song but using it like it was just discovered for the first time. Beauty also contains music from popular Czech singer Raduza in addition to original scored music by Ales Brezina.
Beauty in Trouble takes its story from a poem of the same name by Robert Graves. Marcela (Anna Geislerová) a woman at crossroads in her life must chose between here husband (who's become boorish) and an older wealthy man who offers her the chance to raise her children in luxury. All of the characters, which include Marcela's children and her in-laws with whom she must move in after her husband get a short prison sentence for buying a stolen car, are vividly etched with references to their economic and social status. The most interesting character, an elder who begrudgingly takes in Marcela when her husband can't support her, is also the worst in terms of moral turpitude. His perverseness is balanced by the other older character who himself becomes infatuated with Marcela.
Beauty in Trouble chooses to dryly observe its dysfunctional family politics as opposed to judging them. In many ways Marcela's choices mirror the same kinds of double edged wants and desires all adults face.