Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Ehrgeiz The 80ies were a very calm era in Germany. Student revolution and the terror by RAF was overcome, while the economical crisis of the 90ies was still ahead. But for some reason the people had great fear, especially of an atomic 3rd world war, which was in a way irrational. "Am Tag als Bobby Ewing starb" treats these subjects. A mother and her son move to some kind of hippie community (new forms of living together also were quite popular) near a nuclear power plant in rural northern Germany. The mother falls in love to the leader of the community. Her son, who liked more to live in the city, has problems to adopt the new lifestyle, but he soon finds some friends. He hates the hippies and is more into drinking, shooting with rifles and stuff. So the movie - which got some good renown by German critics move on. I personally felt some disappointment after watching this. For a satirical comedy, the movie had to much depression in it, as the community slowly decays. Also I did not like that there was sometimes so much distance between the mother and her son, as if they were no relatives. I think the goal of the movie was to portray the atmosphere in the 80ies. In this, it succeeds, but the plot is a bit pointless and awkward. I think sometimes, the more artistic German movie makers have a certain fear to give direct messages, everything is subtextual, a bit "dogma"-like, which is why they have this boring touch (for examples movies like "Halbe Treppe" or "Erleuchtung garantiert). If you'd like to see a comedy about leftist communities, I much more recommend Moodysons' "Together", which is way more funny and elaborated. The beginning of "Together" with the naked people seems to have inspired the beginning of this movie, too.

davidboisselot This film is the winner of the Max-Ophuls-Prize 2005. I watched this movie because of the very funny film-poster that hung at my local independent-cinema. The story: in the mid-80ies, a woman and her seventeen-years-old son move to an ecologist-hippie community in a small village in Schleswig-Holstein. The community is part of a protest movement against the nuclear power station near the village. The mother immediately likes the life in the green community. The son doesn't, but he makes friends with the village-rocker and the beautiful daughter of the mayor. So much for the plot. There isn't much plot. This film is more about characters and atmosphere. Great actors: Peter Lohmeyer with long and dirty hair as Peter the chief of the community, Nina Petri as Gesine (can still make nude scenes with 42 without being ridiculous!), Jens Munchow as the sympathetic, funny but idiotic Rakete, Gabriela Maria Schmeide as the over-motivated mother who does all the housework of the community... and of course Franz Dinda, who gives a fantastic characterization of the shy and disorientated Niels. Super atmosphere: the absolutely boring village, the chaotic living of the greens. Although the movie shows the ridiculous and bizarre sides of the hardcore-ecologists, it always has a certain tenderness for them. And now, not to forget: "Am Tag als Bobby Ewing starb" is a very funny movie: the scream-therapy-sequence, the dinner with "warm bread", the "Gandhi-has-said"-line, the gun-shooting with Rakete etc., etc.. If you have the possibility, go watch this movie. Possibly THE German movie of 2005.

basemnt-dwellr This film is about a group of people living together in the eighties on a farm during the time of demonstrations against nuclear power.I thought this film looked like it was made more for TV than cinema. Not worth shelling out your 10 bucks for the cinema.In the beginning I was reminded of a documentary or a private film by the look of the film, you know, shaky hand camera, the pictures not really in focus etc.The plot is almost nonexistent, the story line gets not advanced. Possible SPOILER: A woman who got abandoned by her husband and her adolescent son move together with a group of people who share a farm. Coming from the city the son doesn't like it in the village, but after a while he meets some new friends (among them a girl) and starts to like it. The mother starts a relationship with the leader of the group. But when the accident happens in Chernobyl, the group falls apart. That is all. There really is nothing else.I thought the change in the group came because of the Chernobyl accident. The fact that Bobby Ewing died was not really important for the plot (so why the title of the film?). I don't know, but I thought the film was irrelevant and forgettable.

DocM The day when Bobby Ewing died is a film about the origins of the green movement in Germany in the mid-eighties. A countryside hippie community founded in protest against a nuclear power plant is depicted as prototypical for the era - and this is the major problem of the film: All the stereotypes, memories etc. of the years gone by are packed into this film. Whether you actually liked or loathed the greens doesn't matter, there's something for everyone. What is not in this film, is actually a visible storyline or even script. In the beginning a mother and son arrive at the hippie community, apparently due to some problems earlier. The mother likes the new life, the son does not - why does not really become clear. In the end, its all different and the community's "chieftain" changed his mind also - again it is pretty unclear why... Was it all Chernobyl? Or because Bobby was dead? No one will ever know...