Memento (2000)

- A film you won't forget!

Where to start my review of "Memento" literally is a tough question. This is one of my very, very favorite movies. Christopher Nolan's second feature is hands down one of the cleverest film I have ever seen. Smaller in scale but every bit as brillant and - to me - even more interesting than his latest masterpiece "Inception" this is one of Nolan's fabulous originals that works both as an intruiging neo-noir thriller and as a challenging mindgame. I think it is still his best work to date.

The Crow (1994)

"The Crow" is a piece of trash. It's a gothic style comic book adaptation that - on paper - is certainly more interesting than the high gloss mainstream super heroes filling the theater screens in the past few years. Anyways the film did not really leave me very impressed. A bad script, superficial characters and most of all the fact that the makers were shying away from a clear dedication to pulp determine the failure of this movie.

Take Shelter (2011)

 
At the traditional White House Correspondents Dinner the President of the United States was recently joking: "In my first term we passed health care reform ... in my second term, I guess, I'll pass it again". Indeed the status of health care policy was not and still isn't all that great in the land of the free and home of the brave. Particularly brave have to be those US-Citizens who can not afford health insurance coverage financially or who just are not eligible for it for other reasons. Many also may not have seen any advantages in this optional service. Barack Obama set out to change and improve these issues to better the life of so many uninsured people. But there is still fear and uncertainty all around the country.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver marks the end of an era known as the "New Hollywood". At the time around the late 1960s when the big production studios were in crisis and a wind of protest and change was blowing in the United States there was a new generation of young, ambitious filmmakers rising from the underground. One of them was the great Martin Scorsese who started his career in 1967 with "Who's that knockin' at my door?" and just made his first 3D movie in 2011. After gaining critical acclaim with films like  "Mean streets" and "Alice doesnt live anymore" Scorsese made his first true masterpiece and one of my favorite movies with "Taxi Driver" that is still widely regarded as (one of) the best films of the 70s.