What if movies we were all familiar with were made in a different slice of time? Who would be in it? Who would direct it? So here we are…

You can watch Adam Yauch’s very funny Fight For Your Right Revisited for free (probably only temporarily) on Mubi.

Here are 10 Creepy Cinematic Surgeries of World! The best may be Ida’s in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

The wish to forget about things is very common in all of us. How memory and the loss of it works is not that well researched yet. In Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) two former lovers undergo a procedure that erases the memory of their relationship. French artist Sophie Calle regularly deals with the subject of pain and the memory of it, such as in her project Douleur Exquise (1984-2003). An article published in Wired (UK edition / April 2012) gives very interesting insights on how science has been trying to find solutions to deal with trauma and it reveals some astonishing facts about what’s going on in your brain when you remember something. For example, every time you access a memory it is rewritten in your brain. The result is a dynamic one: every time you relive or retell the memory it changes – but you don’t realise it. A pill that lets you forget bad memories is being developed right now – until it’s available you’ll have to stick to smoking weed to get the effect.

R.Kelly’s legendary music-video-drama-series Trapped in the Closet is coming back! The next installments of the R&B musical will be broadcast “this year”, as IFC recently announced.

The first 12 instalments of Trapped in the Closet came in 2005, with additional 10 chapters in 2007, of course following several parodies on US-TV. If you haven’t seen the epic film series before, you shouldn’t miss it by now!

R. Kelly Trapped in the closet Chp 1-5 von yotsu

A Separation is an exquisite film that begins slowly but soon grabs you by the throat as it explores the fine line between truth, honesty, loyalty and justice. This critically acclaimed Iranian drama film is recommended viewing! – I finally got the chance to see it last weekend. It has won the 84th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, received the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bears for Best Actress and Best Actor at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival and won the 69th Golden Globe Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film.

“Llik your Idols is an intimate survey of a VERY particular time in downtown NYC – the mid 1980s – when the fallout of a decrepit city manifested itself through the psyches of young and wild artists, musicians and filmmakers banging into each other in the scum drenched streets. Sex, drugs, violence and rock’n’roll took its final leap out the window before the clean up crew came to town. They were good times, lovely times and this documentary brings it back in all its cheap rent psychosis.”
(Thurston Moore)

Tonight, March 10, 2012 at 7.30 pm:
Film Screening of Llik your Idols (free entrance)
KW Institute for Contemporary Art , Auguststrasse 69, 10117 Berlin
In the frame of the exhibition YOU KILLED ME FIRST – The Cinema of Transgression

Llik your idols
France 2007, 70 Min., engl. OV
Documentary about the Cinema of Transgression by Angélique Bosio
Film screening in the presence of the director

I saw Steve McQueen’s new film, Shame over the weekend. The performances by the lead actors, Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan are quite sensational. What I really liked about this movie too is its pace – it’s slow-moving in a mesmerizing way and it is set in the moment so you’re not given the back stories to the main characters and all the answers. Resolution would be boring and despite the point anyway. I like seeing movies not knowing a lot about them so I’ll leave it there… and just recommend it! It’s officially released in Germany March 1.

Whoever travelled the balkan region with backpack and sleeping bag might very well have met the locals and encountered the people’s love for traditional songs. Making music and singing is still very common in this region and even the cool teenagers don’t find it embarrassing to sit outside with their families and singing along to bag pipes and violins. There’s a great Bulgarian documentary from 2003 that captures the emotions that come into play with folk songs and the different nationalities in the balkan region, it’s called Whose Is This Song? by Bulgarian film maker Adela Peeva.