On Nivea, Coffee House Culture, French Snootiness, and Early German Cinema
I was sent male grooming products with my last video rental by Lovefilm. Nivea, incidentally a German product, moisturiser and face wash. I much appreciated the anti-static DVD cleaning wipe they sent me earlier this year, but this seems a bit of a strange, possibly clever product promotion. It's just so removed from films. I wonder if they sent this to all male customers or if I fall into a certain target group based on the films I rented and rated so far. Maybe I should remove Victor/Victoria from my list?
Recently, I find myself reading more on more article in The Times. Rather than putting this down to a change in my political views, it is merely the consequence of my increasingly becoming what beardedwonder once termed a "headline whore", i.e. solely reading articles on the medit of their headlines.
The two article that caught my attention over the weekend deal with very topics yet they are of the same type: Enticements to buy books. The first one concerned coffee house culture in Britain throughout the ages. I actually started reading the article Smell the coffee because I thought it was solely about the plights of coffee farmers and their shameless exploitation. The beginning of the article certainly gives this impression before making a right turn and swerving towards its originally intended direction. I think the original documents which underpin the actual book make quite an interesting read judging by the excerpts provided but I am unlikely to spend 350 quid on them. Too much hot steam in that frappucino.
beardedwonder recently remarked that there is nothing like hearing a kiwi whine about rugby but (Achtung Bad Pun Ahead!) French whine is much suprior to what the New World has on offer: Now, as a neutral therefore, I greatly enjoyed Why can’t the English be more like the French? written by a French expat in London. It's seeping of French snootiness but very readable. It should be said that the author enjoys a certain lifestyle ("This is a shame as cleaners become spoilt, making it harder for us Frenchwomen to demand the level of service we are used to."). The obvious repostes to her whine is that life in the banlieus around Paris must be unbelievably enjoyable and that her large lunch breaks might owe much to the striking cult as opposed to the "work-and-money cult". But read and judge for yourselves.
It's well-known that quite a few of the American sitcoms are based on British originals. This part of my entry was supposed to be about early German cinema's comedies and how it is little known that Americans liked to stea. ehm adapt the ideas to make them into successful international features. But as so often when you start looking up topics like these on the interweb, the results you find take everything into a new direction.
German humour enjoys a somewhat dubious reputation abroad especially in the UK. What surprised me most when I started to look up German comedies was how many of them make it to the States but not Britain and whilst they have always been received with much scepticism, German comedy must have enjoyed a much better reputation in the past, though. Take this quaint little article called Adapting German Farces which popped up in the NY Times. It's a 1910 gem of Titanic proportions.
"Some Like It Hot", "People will talk", or "Victor/Victoria" are perhaps the most well-known examples which go to show that there must be something about German humour that is translatable. Germans being the largest immigrant group in the States might have something to do with it but then again Britain is full of Germans as well (at least according to the last census).
What surprised me most was that it seems that Hollywood is returning to that old tradtion. "No Reservations" which is a remake of "Mostly Martha" was only the beginning. Apparently, a remake of the 1994 film "Der Bewegte Mann" aka "Maybe... Maybe Not" is planned for 2010 as well as a remake of "Night of the Living Dorks", a project described as "Revenge of the Nerds" meets "Shaun of the Dead", scheduled for the same year. Yes, it is THAT frightening as the original wasn't that good.
I can recommend "Mostly Martha" (to those who like romantic comedies) and "Der Bewegte Mann" but whilst the former is available in Britain, the latter is part of a whole set of German comedies which have managed to travel across the big pond but not the channel. To my utter surprise, "Kebab Connection", a film about a German of Turkish descent who dreams of producing Germany's first Kung Fu movie whilst trying to convince his father that his German girlfriend is up to scratch, has been released on DVD in America. It has been described as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding". I'm still waiting for "Süperseks", a comedy about Germany's first Turkish speaking Sex Hotline to be realeased internationally.
One film that has never made it outside Germany is calling for, oh what am I saying, screeming for a remake. It's called "The House in Montevideo" by Curd Goetz, who has been labelled as the German Oscar Wilde or George Bernhard Shaw on account of the comedic verbal wit in his plays.
Whilst that is an overstatement and a comparison from which his work will suffer, Goetz has produced some outstanding comedies and "The House in Montevideo" should be remade as a Southern American tale largely because the type of religious fervour needed cannot be found in Germany/Europe anymore.
The story goes as follows: Professor Traugott Hermann Nägler is very morally uptight. His twelve kids are all named after figures in Wagner or Greek Mythology and he takes great care to instill über-correct grammar into them. (Parcival tattling on his little brother by saying Lohengrin popelt! unfortunately loses all its charme in its English translation "Lohengrin is picking his nose").
His eldest daughter inherits a house in Montevideo where Hermann's sister fled to after he banished her for conceiving an illegitimate child. She subsequently became a famous singer and left all her possesions, including 250k dollars, to her niece provided that one of Hermann's children conceives an illegitimate child like she did. Forced to choose between poverty and richness, Hermann suddenly finds himself in a position where he has to encourage his daughter NOT to marry her fiance whilst encouraging her boyfriend, whom he never liked, to get her pregnant. I can really envisage this to take place in America's Bibel Belt.
Recently, I find myself reading more on more article in The Times. Rather than putting this down to a change in my political views, it is merely the consequence of my increasingly becoming what beardedwonder once termed a "headline whore", i.e. solely reading articles on the medit of their headlines.
The two article that caught my attention over the weekend deal with very topics yet they are of the same type: Enticements to buy books. The first one concerned coffee house culture in Britain throughout the ages. I actually started reading the article Smell the coffee because I thought it was solely about the plights of coffee farmers and their shameless exploitation. The beginning of the article certainly gives this impression before making a right turn and swerving towards its originally intended direction. I think the original documents which underpin the actual book make quite an interesting read judging by the excerpts provided but I am unlikely to spend 350 quid on them. Too much hot steam in that frappucino.
beardedwonder recently remarked that there is nothing like hearing a kiwi whine about rugby but (Achtung Bad Pun Ahead!) French whine is much suprior to what the New World has on offer: Now, as a neutral therefore, I greatly enjoyed Why can’t the English be more like the French? written by a French expat in London. It's seeping of French snootiness but very readable. It should be said that the author enjoys a certain lifestyle ("This is a shame as cleaners become spoilt, making it harder for us Frenchwomen to demand the level of service we are used to."). The obvious repostes to her whine is that life in the banlieus around Paris must be unbelievably enjoyable and that her large lunch breaks might owe much to the striking cult as opposed to the "work-and-money cult". But read and judge for yourselves.
It's well-known that quite a few of the American sitcoms are based on British originals. This part of my entry was supposed to be about early German cinema's comedies and how it is little known that Americans liked to stea. ehm adapt the ideas to make them into successful international features. But as so often when you start looking up topics like these on the interweb, the results you find take everything into a new direction.
German humour enjoys a somewhat dubious reputation abroad especially in the UK. What surprised me most when I started to look up German comedies was how many of them make it to the States but not Britain and whilst they have always been received with much scepticism, German comedy must have enjoyed a much better reputation in the past, though. Take this quaint little article called Adapting German Farces which popped up in the NY Times. It's a 1910 gem of Titanic proportions.
"Some Like It Hot", "People will talk", or "Victor/Victoria" are perhaps the most well-known examples which go to show that there must be something about German humour that is translatable. Germans being the largest immigrant group in the States might have something to do with it but then again Britain is full of Germans as well (at least according to the last census).
What surprised me most was that it seems that Hollywood is returning to that old tradtion. "No Reservations" which is a remake of "Mostly Martha" was only the beginning. Apparently, a remake of the 1994 film "Der Bewegte Mann" aka "Maybe... Maybe Not" is planned for 2010 as well as a remake of "Night of the Living Dorks", a project described as "Revenge of the Nerds" meets "Shaun of the Dead", scheduled for the same year. Yes, it is THAT frightening as the original wasn't that good.
I can recommend "Mostly Martha" (to those who like romantic comedies) and "Der Bewegte Mann" but whilst the former is available in Britain, the latter is part of a whole set of German comedies which have managed to travel across the big pond but not the channel. To my utter surprise, "Kebab Connection", a film about a German of Turkish descent who dreams of producing Germany's first Kung Fu movie whilst trying to convince his father that his German girlfriend is up to scratch, has been released on DVD in America. It has been described as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding". I'm still waiting for "Süperseks", a comedy about Germany's first Turkish speaking Sex Hotline to be realeased internationally.
One film that has never made it outside Germany is calling for, oh what am I saying, screeming for a remake. It's called "The House in Montevideo" by Curd Goetz, who has been labelled as the German Oscar Wilde or George Bernhard Shaw on account of the comedic verbal wit in his plays.
Whilst that is an overstatement and a comparison from which his work will suffer, Goetz has produced some outstanding comedies and "The House in Montevideo" should be remade as a Southern American tale largely because the type of religious fervour needed cannot be found in Germany/Europe anymore.
The story goes as follows: Professor Traugott Hermann Nägler is very morally uptight. His twelve kids are all named after figures in Wagner or Greek Mythology and he takes great care to instill über-correct grammar into them. (Parcival tattling on his little brother by saying Lohengrin popelt! unfortunately loses all its charme in its English translation "Lohengrin is picking his nose").
His eldest daughter inherits a house in Montevideo where Hermann's sister fled to after he banished her for conceiving an illegitimate child. She subsequently became a famous singer and left all her possesions, including 250k dollars, to her niece provided that one of Hermann's children conceives an illegitimate child like she did. Forced to choose between poverty and richness, Hermann suddenly finds himself in a position where he has to encourage his daughter NOT to marry her fiance whilst encouraging her boyfriend, whom he never liked, to get her pregnant. I can really envisage this to take place in America's Bibel Belt.