411 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Norwegian (Page 20)

Disney continues to shuffle off Fox's remaining output with this limp, awkward adaptation of the Jack London novel. Jack London started writing The Call of the Wild at the dawn of the 20th century after traveling through Yukon country during the height of the Gold Rush. It was in this period of blind human ambition and greed that he conceived of a story told through a dog’s eyes. The very good dog, Buck, starts as a civilized house pet before being stolen and sold as a sled dog in Alaska. There he gets passed from owner to owner, some much nicer than others, and along the way discovers that his destiny is not with humans but with the beasts of the wilderness, like his ancestors before him. It’s a beautifully written and visceral adventure about the brutality of man, the overwhelming power of nature, and the freedom we’re capable of when we turn our back on society’s rules. On the other hand, the new film adaptation of The Call of the Wild has all the thematic weight of an Air Bud sequel.  Director Chris Sanders, who is very accomplished in the world of animated film with credits like How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch to his name, finds himself in no man’s land in the world of live-action. In order to really dig into the book’s themes and capture the harrowing journey Buck goes through, it’s necessary to make it a brutal animated movie like Watership Down. But that would be too much for any Disney-owned studio. Instead, we get a very saturated version of the novel that relies on a CGI dog that looks like a reject from Marmaduke.  Continue Reading →

Al Pacino leads a team of Nazi hunters in a brassy Amazon series stuffed with Holocaust pathos and comic-book sleaze. (Editor's note: this review is based on the first five episodes of the show, which is what was provided to critics prior to the show's premiere.) Amazon’s Hunters is a lot. That’s not bad, by any means, but it is a heads up. It’s funny and heartbreaking and stressful, a love letter to exploitation films, comic books, and revenge fantasies, and it is a lot. It’s also very much something that people need to see right now. Created and written by David Weil and produced by Jordan Peele, Hunters was inspired by his grandmother’s stories about World War II and the Holocaust, stories that Weil saw as a battle between good and evil (much like the comics that the show references and draws visual inspiration from). Nothing is as simple as good versus evil, of course, but Hunters does an excellent job of addressing the battles head-on. Set in 1977, the show revels in its primary NYC setting, full of grit and cigarettes and flickering subway car lights, and the visits to other locales are given equal ‘70s glory by production designer Curt Beech and set decorator Cathy T. Marshall, with loud wallpaper and lights shaped like grapes and so much carpeting. The most real and lived-in location is the modest house where 19-year old Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman) lives with his grandmother Ruth (Jeannie Berlin). After Ruth is murdered and the police handwave her death as a burglary, Jonah is approached by Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino), who knew Ruth from their time in a concentration camp and who, Jonah comes to learn, is the financier and now leader (in Ruth’s absence) of a group of Nazi hunters. While the Hunters are working from a list of Nazis who were active during the war and are now living in the United States, it becomes clear that there is a wider network at play and larger stakes than even the Hunters had suspected.  Continue Reading →

Every month, we at The Spool select a filmmaker to explore in greater depth — their themes, their deeper concerns, how their works chart the history of cinema and the filmmaker’s own biography. For February, we’re celebrating acclaimed genre-bender Jonathan Demme. Read the rest of our coverage here. It’s been nearly 30 years since filmmaker Jonathan Demme made The Silence of the Lambs. Based on Thomas Harris’ terrifying followup to Red Dragon, Silence was originally slated for an entirely different director: Gene Hackman, who was also to play the role of Jack Crawford. Serendipitously, Hackman’s daughter read the book and discouraged her father from trying to get the movie made, and Orion tapped Demme—hot off his quirky hits Something Wild and Married to the Mob—to direct.  It wasn’t the first adaptation of a Harris work. Red Dragon had already been adapted by Michael Mann as the slick thriller Manhunter, with Brian Cox filling the role of Hannibal Lecter in what amounts to a glorified cameo. While Cox is a very fine actor, his portrayal of Lecter didn’t quite stick the landing. Enter Sir Anthony Hopkins. In what might be the greatest character introduction—certainly the greatest villain introduction—of all time, Hopkins’ Lecter stands perfectly still in the center of a glassed-in cell. There are no bars for this criminal. Lecter is instead taunted with the illusion of freedom, no doubt at the behest of his petty, ambitious warden, the deliciously revolting Dr. Chilton (Anthony Heald). The role would earn Hopkins his first of four Oscar nominations, and remains his only win for Best Actor. The performance looms so large, you forget he shares only four scenes with Jodie Foster’s agent-in-training, Clarice Starling.  Continue Reading →

Ring the alarm next time a movie tacks “Blumhouse’s” to the front of its title. Is it a marketing tactic? Is it a sign of desperation? How about a warning to heed instead? Hell, is it all three? It might be a little early to tell, but it’s starting to feel like the latter. Continue Reading →

The DCEU embraces its inner Bugs Bunny, and is all the better for it. If you'd have told me two years ago that not only would I be looking forward to a sequel (such as it is) to 2015's murky, execrable Suicide Squad, but I'd end up really enjoying it, I'd have banished you to the darkest cell in Arkham Asylum. To be fair, David Ayer's overstuffed, underlit supervillain team-up came right at the wrong time: the product of post-Avengers superhero mania, but amidst the polarizing reactions to DCEU's so-called 'dark, gritty' approach to superheroes, it was the victim of a compromised vision of what was undoubtedly a bad idea in the first place -- reshoots, changes in tone, a final cut engineered by the house that did the trailers, etc. The one bright spot though? Margot Robbie's semi-Gothic-Lolita reinterpretation of the Joker's moll Harleen Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn), a brash, madcap figure imbued with scene-stealing energy by one of the greatest actors of her generation. Now, with Birds of Prey, Robbie's Quinn is given a vehicle worthy of her talents, a manically gleeful girl-power anthem that's just as energetic and irreverent as she is. As Birds of Prey (sorry, Birds of Prey: or the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) begins, the Joker's broken up with Harley. Good, great, we hated Leto's version of the Clown Prince of Crime anyway, get rid of him. Luckily, Harley gets over him just about as quickly as we do, blowing up the Ace Chemicals plant, dusting herself off, and trying to start a new life as a bounty hunter/mercenary/thug for hire. But before she can get that business off the ground, she finds herself wrapped up in a scheme involving a secret diamond laser-encoded with the numbers needed to access a secret bank account with all the crime money in the world. (Not quite an uncut gem, but you get my gist.) Continue Reading →

Levan Akin's grounded, richly textured Georgian love story brims with dance and forbidden romance. “A man is a man, and a woman is a woman,” says a priest during a wedding homily, “but in these times of “globalization”, as they call it…” the rest is cut off, but the implication is clear: we were once strong and knew who we are, but ideas from the rest of the world have confused and weakened us. A common accusation made by homophobic countries is that homosexuality is an unwelcome import from Europe and America; as if queerness was an invasive species stowed away in Western media that's overtaking the native heterosexual population.  This tension between a traditional worldview pushing against globalization is the focal point of And Then We Danced, with its juxtaposition of traditional dance against a backdrop of a Georgia that's hungry for foreign products. The characters praise English cigarettes, dance to Swedish pop music, and fawn over anime posters all while wanting to honor their heritage. It's a tension that Levan Akin is probably familiar with, since the Swedish-born director is of Georgian descent.  Taking place in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, the film follows Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani), a young dancer vying for a place in the National Georgian Ensemble. However, his standing in the group is shaken upon the arrival of newcomer Irakli (Bachi Valishvili). Merab is frustrated by Irakli’s talent but finds himself drawn to the young man’s rebellious nature. As the pair grow closer, their growing attraction could put them in jeopardy.  Continue Reading →

This softer, gentler workplace sitcom from some of the "It's Always Sunny" folks is funny but not without some glitches. Workplace sitcoms have been an essential part of the television landscape for decades. Cast a bunch of talented comedic actors, give their characters various kinds of quirks, put them together in a work setting of any kind, write hilarious jokes, and boom-you have a fun, breezy way to spend 25 minutes.  Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day brought the workplace sitcom to depraved new heights with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Now, with the help of writer and Sunny executive producer Megan Ganz, comes their latest attempt at reinventing the sitcom wheel with Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet for Apple TV Plus. This time, instead of a dingy bar, the setting is a tech company that produces a wildly popular World of Warcraft-esque online role-playing game called Mythic Quest. It follows the daily tribulations of its employees, starting from the top with the egotistical CEO and game creator, Ian Grimm (McElhenney, bringing that Mac energy) all the way to the bottom with the lowly game testers and coders.   Continue Reading →

Oz Perkins' latest, unceremoniously dumped into January, is a revisionist Grimm story as atmospheric as it is thin. The original fairy tales documented by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen were often bloody, dark stories. As time passed, and we decided that children were too fragile for the originals, we reshaped them into toothless Disney stories of romance and happy endings. And as society began to critique the passive nature of these saccharine protagonists, the 2010s gave us badass butt-kicking makeovers for our heroes, like Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.  At the dawn of the century’s third decade, however, we see fairy tales leaning harder into their older, more folkloric elements, crafting stories that mine terror out of feeling decidedly old and out-of-step with our understanding of the world. It happened with The Witch, and now we’ve got Gretel & Hansel, directed by Oz Perkins (son of Anthony), which opts for an eerie atmosphere and a decidedly dark interpretation of its source material. The movie opens with one fairy tale framing another: Gretel’s favorite childhood story of a young child, beset by illness in their infancy. In a desperate bid to save the child’s life, her father takes her to a local witch. While the witch saves her life, she also gives the child the power of prophecy and witchcraft. As the child grows, so does her power and evil, until the townsfolk have little choice but to exile her to the woods. Continue Reading →

Patrick Stewart is still carrying much of the weight as "Star Trek: Picard" continues to pile on the lore & find its footing. “Maps and Legends” improves on Star Trek: Picard’s series premiere. It’s filled to the brim with new lore and exposition and features another extended bout of table-setting. But it also features plenty of Patrick Stewart acting in one-on-one scenes, his forte, and puts him opposite performers who can hold their own. Making those conversations and confrontations a bigger focus here helps balance out the wobbly plot mechanics and less-exciting new faces the series strains to introduce. That catch is that the series still dumps a ton of lore on the audience here. "Maps and Legends" is full of implausible and contradictory nonsense that constantly tries to top or overcomplicate (or both) whatever’s come before. It’s not enough for the Tal Shiar, the Romulan secret police, to be involved in this conspiracy. There has to be an extra-double-secret force that’s even more hidden and even more deadly! Apparently the Romulans just hate androids and A.I. and any complex computing whatsoever, for reasons we’ve never been privy to before but which will assuredly be retconned down the line! Despite that, they still have fancy molecular reconstruction tools and can perfectly scrub a crime scene at the molecular level, but somehow not so well that Picard’s former Tal Shiar buddy can’t figure out what happened! And this new secret agency has also apparently infiltrated the highest ranks of Starfleet, where the latest corrupt commodore turns out to be a sleeper agent whose two goons are going after Dahj’s twin sister! Phew! Continue Reading →

(This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.) Continue Reading →

A few years ago, Czech painter Barbora Kysilkova had two paintings on display in Oslo. It was something of a break for the artist, whose lifelong curiosity of death and nature didn’t quite fit the descriptor of “gothic.” It was a little too clean for that, but it was hers and it made her a few dollars. Then it was stolen. The question of who didn’t last long as Karl-Bertil Nordland was caught on the security footage, and while the drug-addled robber couldn’t remember much of the robbery, it didn’t really matter to the painter. Continue Reading →