Hoezo in KINO

“Mrs. Robinson, if you don’t mind my saying so, this conversation is getting a little strange.” The then up and coming young British director Mike Nichols immediately set a new gold standard for comedy in Tinseltown with his stateside sophomore, The Graduate. A straight-faced approach to a genre previously plagued by cross-eyed overacting and car horn SFX. The role of pip-squeak college graduate Benjamin Braddock, attempting to avoid the oppressive mundanity of his parents by getting caught up in a mother-daughter love triangle, made an instant star of the equally disarmingly awkward Dustin Hoffman. The Graduate also caught the late 60’s Zeitgeist with its preference for pop songs substituting a traditional score and became the highest grossing film of 1967 (imagine that today!) and is certainly a blueprint for Wes Anderson’s fascination with youngsters in arrested development and mood-setting needle drops. English language without subtitles.