Skip to main content

"Trollhunter" (2010) - The Swedish Chef meets The Blair Witch

I am sorry to Ragnar for my title tagline - I have friends and acquaintances from Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, but I can not place a single person I know who was born in Norway. I only know one Swedish Chef and that is mostly by reputation - but that was good enough for the bit. Jokes are way better when you have to spend 70 words explaining them.

‘In Poland, we don't ask, we do. Why problem make when you no problem have you don't want to make?’ - Piotr, the Polsk bjørnejeger. That should have informed the student film crew when they took off investigating the eponymous Trollhunter. The line where one of them compares themselves to Michael Moore made me laugh. I saw them as more Geraldo Rivera.They were similarly charming and unfortunately got into more trouble than he did interviewing those skinheads.


This movie is fun. The dialogue is dry and funny. The acting is great. Even the cinematography is good for such a low budget, shaky cam,‘found-footage’ piece of work. The action is exciting. The special effects are pretty good. The intent is for it to be dark and frightening, but there are enough bright, colorful scenes to appreciate that contrast. It is ‘scary’, but more in the vein of “Where the Wild Things Are” (2009) than perhaps 20 minutes alone with your thoughts after watching “Make Way for Tomorrow” (1937). It earns the high praise of my pausing the show to refill my water glass and get pretzels.


I think there is only one scientific inaccuracy that I caught. One of the characters gets infected by rabies. I think the progression of the virus typically comes with 30~90 days of an asymptomatic incubation period. This dude was showing signs of infection within a couple of hours. I called bologna on that.


If I could make one edit, I would have trimmed a few minutes off riding in cars looking out the windows. It was not so bad that it took me out of the mood. I was grateful that James Nguyen hadn’t made this. It would have been 30 minutes longer and we would have watched the entire ferry ride in real time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Thing in the Basement

What do you do if you have 6th, 7th, and 12th place finishers in the 'Michael Stivic look-a-like contest - and a product placement deal with Budweiser?  You get Rick Baker's neighbor (other side of the street, a few doors down) to make you a creature costume. Then you go get the writer who did a day's work punching up one poker scene for an episode of MASH but got fired for refusing footwear on the set. In 1973, you could get a Thompson machine gun and grenades practically everywhere - so that is no problem. Then you grab you 8mm camera and put it to work on your singular masterpiece.  Really - this is fun. I could not put a name to who Fernman reminded me of, but I did think the art director did a fantastic job capturing his je ne sais quoi with the skull. Soundtrack is great. Last thing (if you were wondering): YES, this is in the same cinematic universe as "Drop Dead Fred" - this is the Fred who was hanging out with Phoebe Cates.
Post a Comment
Read more

Con Air (1997) - another example of the Jacob's ladder effect

As we work our way through Merry Cage-mas, an argument could be made that "Con Air" is a fever dream Nick Cage's character has just before dying during that opening bar fight. 1) Monica Potter has abs of steel and is supposedly pregnant with their daughter. She is so not pregnant looking. So much so that, I do not know how they would have been far enough along to ultrasound the embryo. Additionally, he has just walked off a fishing boat into the bar she works at after getting home from deployment - when was the child conceived? 2) Nick Cage is immediately arrested and  sentenced to seven years in prison. During the film he writes & received fully formed letters from this child. In them, he talks about all the things they used to do with each other. When did these things happen?  3) Upon making his way into the titular 'Con Air' plane, Nick Cage has a shrink wrapped bunny rabbit doll he bought for this little girl as a present. Where did that come from? The pri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fences (2016)

Fences (2016) is nominally a story about being black in the United States of America in the 1950's. 'Troy' is a disaffected working man that never really had a chance. He is unable to make sense of an unfair world. Viola Davis doesn't get as much screen time (this is Denzel's movie), but when she is let on the scene, she destroys. 'Rose' is setting herself aside to make a life & family despite very little prospects for measurable happiness. Based on an August Wilson play - the magic of his writing is that at its root, this story is about people who set aside themselves for "existence". All people yearn for happiness on this world from their achievements (at least to achieve 'success' & 'happiness' relative to people around them). People want to proclaim they are in control of their situations. People want to be treated generously and with respect. People think that the world, society, economy, and people around them should a...
Post a Comment
Read more