cult films

a genius con artist put to work by the nazis. a survivor’s tale you’ve never seen before.

die fälscher (aka the counterfeiters) is the true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, set up by the nazis in 1936. salomon “sally” sorowitsch is the king of counterfeiters. he lives a mischievous life of cards, booze, and women in berlin during the nazi-era. suddenly his luck runs dry when arrested by superintendent friedrich herzog. immediately thrown into the mauthausen concentration camp, salomon exhibits exceptional skills there and is soon transferred to the upgraded camp of sachsenhausen. upon his arrival, he once again comes face to face with herzog, who is there on a secret mission. hand-picked for his unique skill, salomon and a group of professionals are forced to produce fake foreign currency under the program operation bernhard. the team, which also includes detainee adolf burger, is given luxury barracks for their assistance.

dir.: stefan ruzowitzky
crime / drama / war
2007

karl markovics as salomon ‘sally’ sorowitsch
august diehl as adolf burger
devid striesow as sturmbannführer friedrich herzog

first austrian film to win an academy award in the best foreign language film category.

france 1914. a moment of humanity that made history.

in 1914, world war i, the bloodiest war ever at that time in human history, was well under way. however on christmas eve, numerous sections of the western front called an informal, and unauthorized, truce where the various front-line soldiers of the conflict peacefully met each other in no man’s land to share a precious pause in the carnage with a fleeting brotherhood. this film dramatizes one such section as the french, scottish and german sides partake in the unique event, even though they are aware that their superiors will not tolerate its occurrence.

dir.: christian carion
christmas / war / french / scottish / german
2005

diane kruger as anna sörensen
benno fürmann as nikolaus sprink
guillaume canet as audebert
daniel brühl as horstmayer
dany boon as ponchel
gary lewis as palmer

some facts:

- this film is dedicated to the soldiers who fraternized on christmas 1914 in several places on the front.
- the film was originally supposed to be rated r. however, after film critic roger ebert criticized the rating, the mpaa officially changed the rating to pg-13.
- when lieutenant audebert (guillaume canet) compliments horstmayer (daniel brühl) on his french, horstmayer replies, “no honor in that; your wife is not german.” at the time, guillaume canet was married to german actress diane kruger, who also starred in the film. 

+: imdb (joyeux nouel, aka happy christmas)

i love the smell of napalm in the morning.

during the on-going vietnam war, captain willard is sent on a dangerous mission into cambodia to assassinate a renegade green beret who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe.

drama / war / vietnam / drugs 
dir.: francis ford coppola
1979

marlon brando / martin sheen / robert duvall

facts:
- while in pre-production, director francis ford coppola consulted his friend and mentor roger corman for advice about shooting in the phillipines. corman’s advice: “don’t go.”
- francis ford coppola spent days reading joseph conrad’s source novel “heart of darkness” out loud to marlon brando on the set. brando eventually turned up late, drunk, 40kg overweight, and admitted he hadn’t read the script or even “heart of darkness”, the book it was based on. he read coppola’s script, and refused to do it.
- the scene at the beginning with captain willard alone in his hotel room was completely unscripted. martin sheen told the shooting crew to just let the cameras roll. sheen was actually drunk in the scene and punched the mirror which was real glass. sheen also began sobbing and tried to attack francis ford coppola. the crew was so disturbed by his actions that they wanted to stop shooting, but coppola wanted to keep the cameras going.
- martin sheen had a heart attack during the filming and some shots of willard’s back are of doubles, including sheen’s brother joe esteves who was flown out specially. coppola was so worried that backing would be withdrawn by the studio and distributor if news of sheen’s heart attack leaked out, that he kept it quiet, even to the extent of explaining sheen’s hospitalization as being due to “heat exhaustion” in the official shoot schedule. 
- originally scheduled to be shot over 6 weeks, ended up taking 16 months.
- a typhoon destroyed sets, causing a delay of several months.
- the water buffalo (carabao in filipino) that was slaughtered, was real. 
- sam bottoms was on speed, lsd, and marijuana during the shooting of parts of the movie.
- the first film to use the 70mm dolby stereo surround sound system. 
- while in the movie the main character is sent to kill kurtz, in the source novel (‘heart of darkness’), the main character is sent to rescue him.
- the letter martin sheen is reading in the deleted scene “letter from mrs. kurtz” is actually a poem by jim morrison.

+: imdb

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learn to make: war / scary / blockbuster / prejudice films
advertising agency: dentsu latin america, sao paulo, brazil

+: escola sao paulo: learn to make auteur films

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Target Practice (by recovering lazyholic)

in nazi occupied france during world war ii, a group of jewish-american soldiers known as “the basterds” are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the third reich by scalping and brutally killing nazis.

dir.: quentin tarantino
thriller / war
2009

facts:
- quentin tarantino worked on the script for almost a decade.
- quentin tarantino intended for this to be as much a war film as a spaghetti western, and considered titling the movie “once upon a time in nazi-occupied france”. he gave that title instead to the first chapter of the film. 
- leonardo dicaprio was the first choice for col. hans landa, but quentin tarantino then decided that a german speaking actor should play the part.
- the name of til schweiger’s character, sgt. hugo stiglitz, is a homage to the mexican b-movie actor hugo stiglitz.
- on german advertisement materials, all swastikas were removed or covered up as it was unclear to the distributor if they violated german law (which prohibits the exhibition of nazi symbols except for purposes such as historical accuracy).
- when asked about the misspelled title, quentin tarantino gave the following answer: “here’s the thing. i’m never going to explain that. you do an artistic flourish like that, and to explain it would just take the piss out of it and invalidate the whole stroke in the first place.”
- eli roth and omar doom were nearly incinerated filming the fire sequence in the theater. during tests the flame temperatures reached 400 degrees centigrade, and during the take the set burned out of control and the temperature of the ceiling above them reached 1,200 degrees centigrade (2,000 degrees fahrenheit.) quentin tarantino was seated on a crane operating the camera in a fireproof suit, and none of them wanted to back down and ruin the shot. fire marshalls said that another fifteen seconds of filming and the steel structure would have collapsed, incinerating the actors. roth and doom were treated for minor burns.
- the pipe col. landa smokes at the lapadite farm is a calabash meerschaum, a.k.a. the sherlock holmes pipe.
- one of the jewish names carved on the bear jew’s bat is anne frank.
- roughly only 30% of the film is in spoken english, the language which dominates the film is either french or german, with a little italian. chapter three of the film ‘german night in paris’ is completely devoid of any english. this is highly unusual for a hollywood production.
- christoph waltz’s character speaks the most different languages in the movie out of anyone else in the cast, he speaks fluent english, french and german; and he learned a little bit of italian specially for this movie.   

a reporter in iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets lynn cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the u.s. army’s new earth army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.

dir.: grant heslov
comedy/war
2010

george clooney / ewan mcgregor / jeff bridges / kevin spacey

although this film is inspired by john ronson’s book the men who stare at goats, it is a fiction, and while the characters lynn cassady and bill django are based on actual persons, sergeant glenn wheaton and colonel jim channon, all other characters are invented or are composites and are not portrayals of actual persons. 
the filmmakers ask that no one attempt walking through walls, cloudbursting while driving, or staring for hours at goats with the intent of harming them… 
invisibility is fine.

few facts:

-this film about male bonding and trying to find the proper male role, the only dialog spoken by females is either from off-screen or in a man’s imagination.

No goats. No glory.