MTV Movies Blog › The Baader Meinhof Complex

FROM MTV.COM: "The Baader Meinhof Complex" is a smart and explosively powerful movie about a German student terrorist gang of the 1970s, and the wave of arson, robbery, kidnappings and murder with which they shook their country's government — in the process triggering exactly the sort of right-wing repression against which they claimed to be crusading. The picture was a deserving Oscar nominee earlier this year for Best Foreign Language Film, and in its weaving-together of the intricacies of social ferment and the bullet-riddled reality of what the gang wrought, it's a fascinating achievement.

The Baader Meinhof Group, as the gang was called in the press (they styled themselves the Red Army Faction, or RAF), was actually led by Gudren Ensslin (played here by Johanna Wokalek), a blonde parson's daughter turned steely-willed Marxist revolutionary, along with her highly charismatic boyfriend, Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), a petty thief and intellectual primitive with a taste for fast cars (usually stolen) and guns, and a grand vision of himself as a Brandoesque action-movie hero. Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck, of the Oscar-winning "The Lives of Others") was popularly portrayed as the group's other leader, but was essentially a subsidiary propaganda minister — a famous left-wing journalist who found herself drawn into the group's violent orbit after being confronted with the hypocrisy of her revolutionary rhetoric in print when measured against her failure to join in armed action herself.

Continue reading 'The Baader Meinhof Complex': Student Unrest, By Kurt Loder

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I've unfortunately not gotten to see it yet, but "The Baader Meinhof Complex" looks pretty great. Kurt Loder's endorsement is really all the prodding I need, and yet I've been assaulted on all sides by friends who have nothing but praise to shower on the movie. The based-on-truth story gives viewers a glimpse of the Red Army Faction (or RAF), a gang of student protestors/terrorists who operated during the 1970s.

From the look of things in the exclusive clip below, we're getting a look at the movement in its earliest stages. The RAF crew is looking for training and... well... they're not the friendliest bunch. See for yourself below, then check out the movie, in theaters now:

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This week brings yet another easy weekend screening for me. Especially since, unlike last week, I haven't actually seen the highly anticipated upcoming release in question.

It's been a long time since director Quentin Tarantino served up a proper feature. There was "Death Proof" of course, which formed one half of "Grindhouse," and a brief bit in "Sin City." But the last feature-length solo effort from Tarantino was "Kill Bill: Vol. 2," and that was in 2004. While the Bride's tale of bloody revenge was a blast, I'm looking forward "Inglourious Basterds"' World War II adventure. Maybe it's the Jew in me, but the premise of American soldiers brutalizing Nazis while spouting Tarantino dialogue sounds exactly like my idea of a good time at the movies.

Those who are not quite as fond of the "Pulp Fiction" director's work have some good options to choose from, among them last week's excellent "District 9," which is sure to repeat its solid weekend performance as word-of-mouth builds. Then there are the new releases... Read more...

Tags alexis bledel, Five Minutes of Heaven, inglourious basterds, My One and Only, Passing Strange: The Movie, post grad, quentin tarantino, robert rodriguez, Shorts, Sikandar, The Baader Meinhof Complex, The Mark Pease Experience, World's Greatest Dad, X-Games 3D: The Movie