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^ Interesting; never heard of that one.
The Good German (2006)
A Steven Soderbergh homage to Hitchcock, Casablanca, and classic film noir in general, set in and around the July 1945 Potsdam Conference where Truman, Stalin, and Churchill negotiated the European peace as Japan fought on. George Clooney arrives in Berlin as a journalist with an Army commission, searching for his pre-war flame (Cate Blanchett), who happens to be entangled with his slimy driver (Tobey Maguire). This leads to an entanglement with Operation Overcast (later called Operation Paperclip), in which German rocket scientists with dirt - or worse - on their hands were rehabilitated as American citizens in order to win the incipient arms race against the Soviets. (Marvel fans may recognize Paperclip as the program which allowed Arnim Zola to infiltrate SHIELD in the backstory to The Winter Soldier.)
The movie was a box office flop and critical disappointment, and hasn't been released on blu. Worse, the DVD has no bonus features, which could have provided a fascinating look at how the crew used period cameras to shoot on color film (for greenscreen purposes) that was then finished in grayscale. Anyhow, I quite like the film, though it's no classic. Blanchett underplays her knockout/sexual goddess role; Kate Winslet, who was apparently considered for the part, might have made more sense in this regard, but this actually kind of works for the plot, if we're to regard Clooney's character as a man out of his depth rather than a figure to strongly identify with. An interesting experiment all around.
B+
The Good German (2006)
A Steven Soderbergh homage to Hitchcock, Casablanca, and classic film noir in general, set in and around the July 1945 Potsdam Conference where Truman, Stalin, and Churchill negotiated the European peace as Japan fought on. George Clooney arrives in Berlin as a journalist with an Army commission, searching for his pre-war flame (Cate Blanchett), who happens to be entangled with his slimy driver (Tobey Maguire). This leads to an entanglement with Operation Overcast (later called Operation Paperclip), in which German rocket scientists with dirt - or worse - on their hands were rehabilitated as American citizens in order to win the incipient arms race against the Soviets. (Marvel fans may recognize Paperclip as the program which allowed Arnim Zola to infiltrate SHIELD in the backstory to The Winter Soldier.)
The movie was a box office flop and critical disappointment, and hasn't been released on blu. Worse, the DVD has no bonus features, which could have provided a fascinating look at how the crew used period cameras to shoot on color film (for greenscreen purposes) that was then finished in grayscale. Anyhow, I quite like the film, though it's no classic. Blanchett underplays her knockout/sexual goddess role; Kate Winslet, who was apparently considered for the part, might have made more sense in this regard, but this actually kind of works for the plot, if we're to regard Clooney's character as a man out of his depth rather than a figure to strongly identify with. An interesting experiment all around.
B+