Heimkino zwei

I get all the movies this year, just have to try not to run out of beer.  Since they're included I might as well watch the kids' films, maybe I'll even understand the language a little better.  Eh, wishful thinking.  The next film was Alfons Zitterbacke, a colorful and uplifting movie about kids following their dreams, or something like that.

SPOILERS

Alfons is a tween with dreams of being an astronaut and a room full of space paraphernalia.  His father and his teachers do not appreciate his interest in the smaller details of space research, such as how toilets on space stations work.  He isn't the most popular kid in class and the douchey rich kid in particular likes to make fun of him.  Alfons decides to try his luck in a competition of flying inventions, and just to spite him the rich kid decides to participate too.  Maybe the kid himself isn't rich, maybe it's just his grandfather, who picks him up during a free hour from school and they go shopping for radio controlled helicopter parts.  Alfons follows them and hides several parts so it seems like the store has run out, and the impatient grandfather just buys a helicopter, even though it's against the rules of the competition.  "Oh, just put some paint and stickers on it, nobody will know," he says.  Alfons has more and more trouble with his father, who just wants his son to be a normal kid.  Alfons desperately needs to find something impressive for the competition, so he decides to sneak into the chemistry lab and experiment with fuels, but when the teacher comes in by surprise and startles him he pours out too much of the chemicals into the mix and blows up the lab.  He is then suspended from school and potentially out of the competition.  It comes out in the meeting with the principal and a couple of disgusted teachers, however, that his father was not the best behaved kid himself.  Still, his father is disappointed in him, and Alfons takes all of his space related stuff to trash.  His father sees what is happening and regrets his past anger and attempts to make Alfons "normal", so he brings all the stuff back to his son's room and assures him that he will support his space exploration, however he does it.  Alfons is allowed to take part in the competition because his friend, a future lawyer, insists that since they are part of a team and the team was not expelled, Alfons must be allowed to participate with the team.  The principal seems to have reconsidered her idea of Alfons and encourages him to do his best, shouting down the teacher who was so disgusted by the space toilet presentation.  Their invention is a water-rocket, which sends their space capsule up into the sky, where it deploys a parachute to return to the ground.  The douche is also there with his store-bought helicopter, and he sends it to cut the parachute off his rivals' capsule.  Unfortunately for him, the parachute gets tangled up in the parts of his helicopter, which sends it crashing into a pool of green gelatin.  Meanwhile, the capsule has crashed to earth, but the astronaut figure inside has been safely taken at a more acceptable speed by the tiny remote controlled drone Alfons had assembled much earlier.  Naturally he wins the competition, and the approval of everyone present.  It is a cute movie, encouraging kids to reach for the stars, literally.  A German astronaut even appeared in it, transmitting a message from orbit to Alfons' computer, thanking him for all his letters and telling him to keep working on his dream.

Another German beer from the collection: Scheider Weisse Aventinus.  It's a European Strong Beer, rather high alcohol, and very Christmasy for the time of year.  There are lots of little hints of ginger, clove, even cinnamon hiding in there.  There is a touch of licorice in the aroma, thankfully for me not in the taste.