I am a huge fan of Bill Maher. His and Jon Stewards wits helped us bloody foreigners to believe that the progressive and intellectual heart of America hasn’t died.

Being progressive means making progress - moving forward. But already during the last season the jokes were stale and predictable, the outrage had turned into professional satire.

Most of all: many funny guests were rather “unhelpful” by being totally disconnected or adding stupidity instead of sharp and witty remarks.

The new seasons started last weekend - and it seems more of the same. So I expect many old faces from last season as well as the same lame comments and jokes.

Like Keith Olbermann Bill Maher seems to have founds his audience and is raking in the praise he deserves. But please don’t fall asleep …

I don’t get it: why would I want to watch some people playing Poker on TV? The suspense? Nah. Watching them loose or get rich? Nah. The tactics? Hardly.

It’s all a mystery to me.

One of the greatest movies of all time - but also social criticism and vision for our future. It’s is blatantly pro-science and pro-technology. Hardly something you could sell in our green-crazy world today.

More? Things to Come @ Wikipedia

The Hunger is for me one of the quintessential 80’s movie: stylish, erotic and an unusual love story. But any movie featuring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and a very yummy Susan Sarandon can only be that way.

The movie’s soundtrack was also revelation to me: a weird, but intriguing mixture of classical music and electronic effects. Alluring, shocking and stylish.

The movie is mostly eye candy - hardly a complicated or long story. Although it has some twists and turns. If you haven’t seen it - go out and rent or buy it …

Isn’t it amazing that so many movie and TV series deal with magical relationships: mortal boy meets witch girl.

Woman are complicated enough already - why would anyone want to added bonus of being magical as well?

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 4.5

I am a huge fan of British Humor - and some of their TV as well like "Have I got news for you" and "QI".

Compared to US television the Brits can be very raunchy and would say stuff that would give the American FCC multiple heart attacks (like Stephen Fry’s famous "arse gravy" quote).

This episode of HIGNFY with Brian Blessed as the host was so hilarious that the BBC didn’t broadcast it. But some generous soul made available via YouTube.

Enjoy!

If you can cope with nasty British Humor - watch & enjoy!

Louise Brooks was a very special soul - she was a liberated woman, a great actress and wild at heart. But as so often with such people her life was a tragedy.

Our media mad world consumes young female flesh in huge quantities - so it’s easy to dismiss another pretty face long gone.

But Louise influence with her skills many directors and fellow artists - something one hardly can say about today’s media & marketing sluts. Too bad we have lost many of her movies - and that she only performed in silent movies …

More? Louise Brooks Society

BBC Comedy / 48 minutes

"Goodness Gracious Me" was a great BBC comedy series placed in the large British Indian and Pakistani community. It broke many stereotypes and introduced many funny new ones.

I wish there was more "ethnic" humor like that - to get a better insight into another culture or lifestyle in a good and funny way.

There is not much TV (via the Internet) which is worth watching, but "30 Days" is a great show. It is TV at it’s best: showing people other people and their way of life - so we can learn from each other and gain insights that are usually hard to achieve.

All "30 Days" episodes are built around the same mechanism: one person has to live with another group of people - with a contrary lifestyle or opinion. For example a bible thumbing guy has to live with a San Francisco gay dude or a meat munching hunter lives 30 days with a vegan family.

Most reality TV is built on "stupidity sensationalism" - which means they show the stupid sides of people and their actions and make fun of them. Jerry Springer talkshow is a typical example of this breed of television.

Morgan Spurlock and his team try to keep it real and show both sides of the argument / lifestyle. They never preach, they never portrait any side as better or superior - and they don’t use any cheap television effects to dumb it down.

I really hope there will be some day an international version of these - because it is obviously very US-centric - but nevertheless good.

More? 30 Days - Official Site and Wikipedia

Hmmm, isn’t the X-Files hype already a bit old?

Don’t get me wrong: I was a huge X-Files fan - it was one of the best things that happened in the 1990’s and it even made me buy a TV to watch the video tapes I bought for a lot of money (note to kids: that was before bittorrent gave you all these shows for "free").

But ten years after the first X-Files flick "Fight the Future" it all feels a bit stale and disconnected. Please Mr Carter don’t turn this into another media zombie like Star Trek that refuses to die.

And putting a comedian - the great Billy Connolly - into the movie as a serious character is not a great indicator of great wisdom. Maybe a less well known face might have been better?

More? Trailer @ Apple.com  and the Official Site

The naivety of musicals from the early days of Hollywood reflect the overall "simple" attitude to life in the western world. Entertainment was simple, glamorous and mostly eye candy (very much like today’s Bollywood movies I recently complained about).

Cyd Charisse was one of the Goddesses of Eye Candy and dance. She had a grace and beauty you won’t find in any modern movie or music video on MTV.

An era comes to an end.

Dreamlike sequence from "Singing in the Rain" with Gene Kelly.

Hot bar scene from "The Band Wagon" with Fred Astaire.

And another hot scene from "Singing in the Rain".

Hollywood has long lost it’s hunger for musical, simple romance and naive Kitsch. The great dance movies of the 1940’s are long forgotten.

But don’t despair: another booming nation is willing to fill your head & heart with naive Kitsch.

India’s romantic  Kitsch crap is making people all over the globe. It’s simple mixture of sing & dance, naive cliches and archetypes right out of fairy tales are easy to understand for those craving some happy and brainless entertainment.

These variations lack all the cynicism and twisted modern identity crises of modern romance and most western romantic Kitsch. In India woman are still old fashioned woman and behave like a proper princess.

So audiences not only crave Kitsch romance, but simplicity itself. Why not move to Saudi Arabia instead, where traditional roles are strictly enforced?

France is mostly know for it’s arty and serious movies - but "OSS 117" is just pure comedy. Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath was actually created long before Ian Fleming came up with James Bond - and he is actually an American.

The OSS117movie.com was actually produced in 2006 and a great success in France. The movie was released internationally this May. The official site has many more clips and some cool images.

I love the trailer - Jean Dujardin has that old school charm so many new Bonds lack and he doesn’t take himself too serious either - which is always good.

Another great scene from the Dude … with the Jesus, Vietnam and Danny!

Got 90 minutes to kill?

Watch some British Humor "Trigger Happy". They play nasty tricks to unsuspecting people with their weird humor and hidden cameras.

*Thanks to Edosan for some more fun in my life*

As as 41 year old fart I have to come to accept that any action movie is made for my opposite age of 14. But even at that age one must be bored by all the endless repetitions and lack of any story line?!

It seems to me that today’s eternal heroes are a bunch of idiots and "boys" instead of real heroes. The essence of the (male) hero is that a boy transcends his childhood, faces pain and humiliation - to finally accept responsibility and face "evil" on his journey to manhood.

Modern day heroes always seem stuck in the boyzone forever. Iron Man sucks as much as so many comic movies before this disaster. Go and watch something else.

Plus: as much as I like Robert Downey Jr. he always seems to play the same character just in different settings. I like his trickster qualities, but I am bored by the endless typecasting of his producers. But from what I have gathered from interviews he seems to like that kind of crap - and even loves the idea of another Iron Man. The eternal kid playing the hero … indeed …

The Day after was one of the most influential TV dramas ever made. It shook the world - and even Presidents.

It is the dramatization of WWIII and a nuclear attack on Kansas City - and the aftermath. Although produced with a limited budget and always with the fierce American TV censors in mind - it is gory, brutal and moving.

But most of all it kicked the American public into gear to seriously discussing the current state of affairs and nuclear arms reduction (from Wikipedia):

Reagan wrote in his diary that the film “left me greatly depressed.” and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a “nuclear war”. In 1987 during the era of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika reforms, the film was shown on Soviet television. Upon signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty at Reykjavik with Gorbachev, Meyer received a telegram from the Reagan Administration that said, ‘Don’t think your movie didn’t have any part of this, because it did.’

The nuclear arms race is still going, but with less ferocity than before. But the US and Russia still waste billions of dollars on nukes. The danger of a “Day after” is much smaller, but we still have way too many atomic bombs around - and the doctrine of a first strike or using “tactical” nukes is still in the heads of Generals and Politicians.

The danger is still with us.

More? Search Mininova for The Day after or watch the whole movie on YouTube (part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7 - part 8 - part 9 - part 10 - part 11 - part 12 - part 13 - part 14 - part 15)

Laura Linney is a very fine actress - her performance in John Adams is just magnificent (the same compliment goes to Paul Giamatti).

I think I have a crush on her. And on Abigail Adams.

*sigh*

Here is a lovely story from Bavaria, which most people think is a real thing. But it is actually a brilliant marketing campaign by BMW.

Enjoy!

One of the greatest Stars of our time recently celebrated his 75th Birthday - Cheeta from Tarzan. He played that charming ape friend of Johnny Weismüller’s in all the Tarzan movies in the 1930s and 40s. And he even got his own Star on Sunset Boulevard. Wow!

And as chimp he is extraordinarily, because their usual  life expectancy is only about 40 years. So Cheeta, you are the real King of the Jungle!

More? Cheeta @ Wikipedia

I saw the first Matrix and I was blown away. I saw the second Matrix movie and I was bored. I saw the third Matrix movie and finally understood that I was in the Matrix myself and watching a repeat.

Sometimes bad movies don’t get any better - even when you give them time to grow on you.

Repeating the same idea with loads of violence and special effect doesn’t improve it. And I still want my personal Latex Superchick to fight for me.

Finally we get the gun.

Once again Frontline delivers an excellent documentary about current US affairs. Once again solid work offering many insight. Once again Frontline helps us to put many pieces of the puzzle into one big picture. Once again - thank you Frontline for the great work and allowing us bloody foreigners to watch the whole thing online.

More? Watch it all online with many bonus interviews you won’t see on TV.

Who says it’s hard to understand other cultures humor. Some stuff is pretty universal and easy to “get”. This one cracks me up every time …