I will not be watching Valkyrie

I saw The Lives of Others last year and it's so incredibly great that I can't even begin to explain. It's a caper! And a spy movie! And the music is great! And the acting is phenomenal! And my German teacher knew the lead actor!*



If you haven't seen it, RENT IT--it's fabulous. Even the music gives me a frission. Don't ask me why Berlin holds such a fascination for me (well, the answer is pretty simply that I lived there for 3 months working as a walking tour guide), but I've read a pretty significant number of books on Berlin/German history (I consider myself somewhat better acquainted with Berlin & German history than the average person yet somewhat far from a scholar; the books I have listed at the end fo the post after the jump).

...So when I say that I already knew the plot for Valkyrie, that Stauffenberg (that's Lt. Col. Klaus Philip Schenk, Count von Stauffenberg to the history books) is somewhat of a national hero in modern Germany, and that the idea of Tom Cruise with his Chicket-gum teeth swanning about with his ridiculous American accent and Disneyfied script makes me want to VOMIT, then perhaps you can understand why.
Whenever Tom Cruise speaks I find myself torn between laughing and crying (the words in italics are to be read with a slit-eyed INTENSE WHISPER):
At 0:16: "By nightfall I want to know that Hitler's Germany has seen its last sunrise."
At 1:31: "Anything... is a very... dangerous word."
At 2:45: "Action... is inevitable... as are the consequences."
....................ARGGGH. Shoot me.


...I mean, given my Berlin obsession, I'm going to have to see it eventually, but URGH.

* You know, some of the other movies I feel as strongly about as The Lives of Others include Hot Fuzz, Ocean's Eleven, and Sneakers. Go figure.


Berlinobibliophilia after the jump--
I have read the following books on Berlin/Germany
Stasiland by Anna Funder









The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor**









Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor**









Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich by William L. Shirer** (P.S. Try wandering around Germany while reading this book. It's a little awkward.)








The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape by Brian Ladd








Architecture in Berlin: The 100 Most Important Buildings and Urban Settings by Arnt Cobbers







Speer: The Final Verdict by Joachim Fest, Ewald Osers, and Alexandra Dring








Berlin: A Novel by Pierre Frei and Anthea Bell** (this was not actually a very good book)

The point is: I'VE READ A LOT ABOUT BERLIN. TOM CRUISE AND BRYAN SINGER AND THEIR WEIRDO HOLLYWOOD AMERICAN CHEESEBURGERS CAN SUCK IT.

** These books were all vacation books. As in, I read them on the beach instead of novels. Possibly the best non-beach beach book -- The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley, which still counts among the most important books I think I've ever read -- I read while on the blissful sands of Zanzibar. There was nothing to put my days flopping around drinking beer and agonizing over a death-spiral relationship in perspective like recollections of Ethiopia, Somalia, and Rwanda in the 80s and 90s.