Bagdad Cafe
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Movie Reviews of Bagdad Cafe
Movie Review: Solid movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is not a movie I would have ever watched if someone had described it to me, so I had to think a while about why I would recommend it. Here are the reasons I came up with. First, this is a great story. The movie flows well, keeps you wondering what's going to happen next, and the ending satisfies. Second, it only takes about fifteen minutes before you feel as if you live in the family-like atmosphere at the Bagdad Cafe/Motel. The characters are quirky, but down-to-earth and real: CCH Pounder is awesome in the role of the paranoid self-martyr; Marianne Sägebrecht is simply lovable; Jack Palance is a little creepy, but likeable and funny as an aged hippie (seeing him in such an odd role is almost worth buying the movie just for this). Third, it made me laugh - not belly laughs, but chuckles (mostly at the expense of the characters flaws)that might take a second viewing of the movie once you've learned more about the characters. Fourth, this movie has a great, but unforced message about accepting others for what they are, and just loosening up and living your life. Buy this movie. It might not be one you'll pull out for the guys on poker night, but it will be one you can watch ten years from now and know it's a classic.
Movie Review: "Nothing's so tragic cause it's all about magic"
Summary: 5 Stars
Henry Jaglom's 1987 film (also known as OUT OF ROSENHEIM) is just about perfect, and is one of the most affecting films ever made about the forging of a deep friendship. When the fat and overdressed German tourist Jasmin Münchgstettner (the great Marianne Sägebracht) is marooned in the California desert by her traveling companion she seems to be almost entirely without resources to the eyes of Brenda (the equally great CCH Pounder), the suspicious and short-tempered truck stop owner who temporarily takes her in. But Jasmin has resources no one at the truck stop suspects, and soon she's setting to rights the truck stop itself as well as the entire community of misfits gathered around it--including Brenda and her dysfunctional clan.
The film is as much as anything a tribute to trust and to hard work; the ending (which features a perfect little musical number) is one of the best of any independent films I can think of, and one of the most beautifully earned. The haunting Jevetta Steele song "Calling You," featured prominently on the soundtrack, exactly captures the film's sense of windswept longing in the most trying of environments.
Movie Review: A sweet and suprising tale
Summary: 5 Stars
Possibly one of my favorite films ever made, this story of a german housewife, that leaves her husband in the Mojave Desert, end up suprising me constantly. Why? The lead actress Marianne Sagebrecht performance as Jasmine is so full of poetry and subtle nuances in the body language that most actors often forget to use. Many times she is in a scene where she is not saying much but she doesn't have to because her lines are in the way she moves and the expressions on her face. The story is about a sleepy two building town where despair is turned on its heel by the arrival of this stranger. It's about two very different people who become friends despite the tragedys they both are facing and its about the magic we all carry inside of us to transform other around us by being our most beautiful selves. This film was followed by a television series that failed to capture what this story easily told in 90 minutes. It also has a very haunting song called "calling you" that once heard will more than likely stay in the back of your mind. Its a gem and definitely belongs in the collection of anyone who really loves what great film making is all about.
Movie Review: funny, wonderful and delightfully offbeat
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like films filled with humor, eccentric characters and cross-cultural connections in unexpected places, this is a film for you. Jasmin (Marianne Sagebrecht) is a Bavarian tourist, who, upon growing tired of her husband, promptly abandons him, unfortunately taking his suitcase of clothes, with her, instead of her own. She arrives in the Mojave Desert, only to encounter the Bagdad Cafe, run by Brenda (C.C.H Pounder), who has also recently separated from her husband---or, rather, she has kicked him to the curb. This chance encounter, between two women who have lost their husbands and the identities they possessed up until that point, is life changing for both. Though, the beginning of their relationship is rather rocky, their feathers smooth as trust is mutually earned and kept.
Bagdad Cafe presents us with a cross-section of quirky, eccentric characters, whose world is put in a slight tilt, upon the arrival of the Bavarian lady. This is something they all need, and is made more evident as the film progresses. If you are looking to be moved in an unexpected way, I really reccomend this film. It is a little treasure......
Movie Review: Deeply affecting
Summary: 5 Stars
Bagdad Cafe ranks near the top of my all-time favorite movies list. With wonderful performances by the entire cast (but especially the dynamics between Sagebrecht and Pounder), the focus is on the freeing power of friendship and understanding. Rigidly girdled in tweeds, Sagebrecht is uptight and uncertain, yet curious. Equally girdled in anger, Pounder is frosty and remote. Yet these two women find common ground--without ever pressing the obvious: the fact of their both having been abandoned--to create (literally) magic, even joy. Palance (in one of his non-grotesque roles) is lovely as the heartstruck artist who finds beauty in the winsome Sagebrecht and gently assists in her emancipation. The soundtrack is haunting and unforgettable--"I Am Calling You"-- the perfect accompaniment to a place and time and a group of people whose lives are reinvented and greatly improved as a result of their moving past former imposed constraints (both societal and circumstantial) to find a very real happiness simply in being alive.