Very well executed

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"DOG - The Bounty-Hunter", "Flavor Of Love" and ... "Germany's Next Topmodel presented by Heidi Klum" - the axis of evil is complete.It's now the 4th season or so that Heidi Klum -German fashion-model and wife of British pop-star Seal-, accompanied by varying cliché-role-models, blindfolds and teases young women and girls with false promises to enter the grind-house of fashion, then tearing them to pieces.The arrogance and the lack of respect and sensitivity (not to mention constructive ways to criticize) Heidi & Co display to that poor girls is hard to cope with; nevertheless it's a successful format in Germany. We really eat sh!t here. But to regard the initial line-of-comment again: others do too.Entertainment? With our brains running on auxiliary-power maybe. Dignity? Dictionary please! Content? Women, exploited.Heidi Klum, time for a lash-back: in German teletext a couple of months ago, German fashion-designer Wolfgang Joop stated that you simply aren't an international Champion's-League supermodel, no big name at all and I'm sure the man knows what he's saying. As far as I'm concerned: compared to a real catwalk-icon such as Tatjana Patiz, you are merely an unerotic minor-league-model. Tatjana had (and still has) truly style, character, sex-appeal, an adorable face and brains. You? Zippo. Not that you look bad, but it's just mediocre. But the lack of character and dignity you admit here in your show makes you ... not an option!Therefore I can hardly understand why all those young women give anything on your comments or that of your profile-neurotic fellows. Where are the parents? Is there a contact-ban between them and the candidates during production?Aside the whole ethical problem this show piles up, there are numerous simple things to rate-low: for instance it's obvious that all of your comments have been written before but you failed to learn your text properly, you don't (and surely can't) perform them credible at all. You pause that often, that it's easy to see it's not meant a dramatic break but you need time to recall your "dialog". Anytime you try to stare one of the girls down I recall that mysterious (but meaningless) dog at the end of that "Simpsons"-episode - Hrm-hrm-hmmmm. If you demand credible performances from the candidates, start with yourself first!I get back to Tatjana briefly just to send one more torpedo: in "Rising Sun" she performed a corpse, I must assume you couldn't even do that! You demand a sexy walks from the girls, but then your own attempts to show them remind me more of a heavily damaged AT-AT.I also have to state and criticize, that you still serve that "Hungerhaken"*-body-ideal that the fashion-scene pretended to ban a couple years ago to tame the brief public outrage about the issue. As far as I watch this alienated universe I can't see that accomplished at all so far.I wanna hope that most girls left in this season will get a chance to work as models, not because I support this business, but because they wish it so much, they all look nice, they earned it and suffered already enough under your provincial reign. And to proof you wrong. To all young women in Germany: before you start getting anorectic in order to join this idiotic hypocritical format or for other reasons, please take a look at Barbara Schöneberger or Jennifer Hudson - those look great!In the meantime I recommend to watch "Zoolander", a brilliant movie made exactly to unveil this narrow-minded misanthropic business.* German gossip roughly translated with "starvin' hook"; a male or female, that thin that you can count all the bones.

Eventually grown too old for the model business, heidi klum found a effective way to stay present in the mass media: the search for "Germany's next Topmodel", her version of Tyra Bank's "Castingshow". It's repeated success in Germany proves that the format has a incontestable strength: The conjunction of a "castingshow" and "reality television". During the two months the candidates spend within the production, they always are surrounded by cameras. The adept triage of footage gives one the feeling to be very close to the candidates. Of course some set-tos may be contrived, of course the only thing the winner can possibly get is a short period of artificial "stardom" and of course the real winner of her own show is Heidi Klum. One could argue now that the show is fooling both viewers and candidates, but I think that both know the facts given above. What is it then that induces them to support the format ? "Germany's next Topmodel" makes people dream and this is the primal aim of the medium of moving pictures and it still is it's most important one.

Germany's next top model is the epitome of nowadays television: brutal, cynical and embarrassing. People (like me) watch it not because it is witty and entertaining, but because it takes the mickey out of its participants by luring them into the most self-denigrating situations. The question that automatically comes up is this one: Why do 17 to 21 year-old women agree on being displayed on TV in such ridiculous way? Let me give you a possible answer: Most likely because they aren't mature enough to understand that real success and quality takes a lot of time, blood and sweat and cannot be (as the show presupposes) achieved within a few weeks. I wasn't particularly interested in the first season of this program, as much as I am not really interested in DSDS (the German version of American Idol). I zapped on to the program once in a while and laughed as much as everyone else at the lack of talent that the participants (or dreamers) displayed. But I always felt ashamed of watching it because I know that the producers don't really care whether the people watch their show because they hate it or because they love it as long as they help to get a better TV rating. Now I am more or less into Germany's next top model and I can't help but lashing out against it on a public platform. The reasons why my criticism of this program is so harsh shall be given in the following paragraphs: The first season created a public upset because a young woman was chucked out of the show. Although this young girl was everything but obese, Heidi Klum and her colleagues defined her as "too chubby". When people criticized Heidi Klum for this behavior she excused herself by saying that she didn't make the rules of the fashion show. But if she lives by them and if she does everything to be in full compliance with these rules, it is (at least to me) the exact same thing. Accepting the rules is equivalent to making them. The young women don't show any criticism whatsoever regarding the principles and rules of the show. Their private phone conversations with their boyfriends and family are monitored and shown on TV. The sole possibility of becoming a top model coaxes them into waiving their basic human rights. The parents of these young girls don't intervene and the public viewer gets to see the most intimate details of these young women. Like in a cockfight the girls are being played out against one another in order to make the show more interesting. Jealousy, hatred and "Zickenterror" (I'm sorry, I don't know how to translate this German word into English) are being artificially created. The more the participating girls hate one another the better the TV ratings. The show has quite a disturbing influence on young German women. The show makes them believe that there is a slight chance for them to gain money and fame without any particular talent. Once they are on TV they have the chance to become part of a business where you don't have to be anything but extroverted and deprived of free will. The one good thing that this show does (at least for me) is this: I used to consider the cover models of magazines as the most beautiful women in the world. They made me believe that the girlfriends I had had where only mediocre and not exceptionally beautiful. Thanks to Germany's next top model I can have a closer look at these cover girls that I used to adore so much. And now I think that many of them, being beautiful on the outside, are often ugly and immature inside. If this were a public letter to Heidi Klum, I'd say: Dear Mrs Klum, I'd appreciate it if you developed some sense of responsibility and stopped making shows where people are judged by their looks and nothing else.