New in cinema & streaming: which films are worthwhile – and which are not – culture

Cow

Anne Sternenburg: Face to face with a cow named Luma, in the barn giving birth to a calf, at the milking machine and at the feeding trough, on the way to pasture and crushing grass. The British filmmaker remains in her first documentary Andrea Arnold true to the style of her feature films, which were also guided by a documentary-tinged interest in the socially disadvantaged on the fringes of society. Only this time it’s not about a single mother or an abused girl, but about a dairy cow in a dairy farm, which is certainly not one of the worst, but nevertheless alienates the animals from their natural existence. Without being a pamphlet on veganism, the film raises awareness of the lifestyle of an exploited dairy cow (Mubi, from February 11).

Love, Sex & Pandemic

Leo Kilz: The Polish director Patryk Vega takes on a brutalized and sex-addicted society that is only stopping in its excess thanks to the corona pandemic. Instinctive physicality as the content of life. In the church – staged by Vega as a moral authority – he gives everyone involved the chance to find themselves in a biblical parable and to strive for real love. But the dull hustle and bustle continues. The cruelty of loveless intercourse is visually stunning. “Sex, Love and Pandemic” is a near-porn that’s so callous it could be mistaken for celibacy propaganda.

Mahendra Highway

Fritz Goettler: A travel film that deliberately downplays the exotic, about the Mahendra Highway, trade route and lifeline of Nepal, the Andre Hörmann departs from east to west. Tea plantations and rice terraces, temples nestled on cliffs, one specializing in blessing cars for the perilous climb, yak caravans, climbers tackling Mount Everest, the capital Kathmandu as a melting pot of religions, Bengal tigers in the national park, and remote Tenzing -Hillary Airport, which supplies the mountain towns and has a runway barely long enough to get the braking done. A little story within the story tells of the Mahuts, the elephant guides, who as boys are assigned an elephant by their fathers and form a community with it.

Marry Me – Married at first sight

Martina Knoben: At the end of every fairy tale, the prince marries Cinderella. Here it is the other way around. A pop star (Jennifer Lopez) proposes to an average guy (Owen Wilson) before they even know each other. Who in the saccharine romcom of Kat Coiro thinks of films like “Notting Hill” or “Bodyguard” is absolutely correct. But the show is good this time too, the title track is catchy. And because the story of love that transcends all class barriers is also shown as a social media story (every move of the star goes online immediately), the film even discreetly includes a second level. A like for that.

moonfall

Andrian Kreye: The moon crashes to earth. A good reason for Roland Emmerich as the grandmaster of blockbuster cinema, to smash big cities, oceans and entire mountain ranges. There are also family dramas, AI visions, sci-fi myths, conspiracy stories, action heroes and what feels like five years of scientific reporting. Everything in it. Like a triple deluxe burger. With an extra helping of lard.

The Privilege – The Chosen Ones

Lisa Oppermann: everything bleeds Everything screams. The Netflix film from Felix Fuchssteiner and Katharina Schoede sends a couple of teenagers through the usual horror dramaturgy, lets them cheer at parties, have sex, dance and the next moment flee from dementor-like spirit figures. The German production with US aesthetics and storytelling is an unsurprising contribution to the genre that leaves you feeling like you’ve seen it before.

Death on the Nile

Susan Vahabzadeh: The greatest living Shakespearean mime Kenneth Branagh has given in to his weakness for Hercule Poirot for the second time, because of the great demand for “Murder on the Orient Express”: He has remade Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” with Gal Gadot as the honeymooning heiress, slightly modernized and as a fireworks display. The result is solid, opulent – and completely free of irony.

What happened to bus 670?

Nicola’s friend: Countless people disappear every year in northern Mexico. Among them the young Jesús. When the body of the friend with whom he wanted to travel across the border to the USA is found, his mother Magdalena goes in search of her son. As in the documentary, the filmmaker accompanies Fernanda Valadez her characters to the area around the US-Mexico border, where drug cartels and people smugglers have supplanted the state. Your feature film is based on facts; on reports of hijacked buses and other crimes. But the camera turns the borderland into a surreal dream landscape with filters, reflections and other effects. Demanding debut with images like from the end of the world.