Meet the free, proud, independent people of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w Nothing but reviews. In excess.
From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label documentary filmmaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label documentary filmmaking. Show all posts
A Kaiju-size monster suggestive, rough-and-tumble poster for André Øvredal's Trollhunter
Three enthusiastic youth graduates from a university want to document bear hunting in Norway, when they discover something far more exciting: A taciturn macho veteran, who hunts trolls in the forests of the country for a covert security branch of the government!
You venture out with Trollhunter with some doubts, because the three youths are deeply uninteresting, and because their almost unbelievably amateurish recordings are cut together in a very high pace. This, however, is done with the justification that we then arrive faster to the forest, the night, the hunter - and the trolls. - Which certainly hooked me nonetheless!
Otto Jespersen (Børning (2014)) as the hunter and Torunn Lødemel Stokkeland (Løvekvinnen (2016)) in a smaller part as a veterinarian give impressively straight-faced, believable performances, and together with the hilarious Norwegian troll names, (some of which are invented for the film, I suspect), they raise the laugh-factor which is sizable, (especially so for Scandinavians.) Fun is had from the veterinarian's grotesque care gene, (which even extends to include trolls!), and the ultimate shame for a youngster in today's Norway, apparently: Being a Christian. But the humorous aspects could have gone even further, and it is a shame that so much focus is instead put on the moronic students, heightened but not unlike versions of the trio of youth filmmakers in the modern spearhead for the found footage genre, The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The trolls and the effects in general are well-made; the ending a little flat (perhaps not for Norwegians!) The film is a curio gem. It is written and directed by André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)). Fun fact: As of 2016, the film is mislabeled on IMDb as a documentary!
[Trollhunter was released October 29 and runs 103 minutes. Filming took place in Western Norway. The film opened #71 to a 5k $ weekend in one theater in North America, where it peaked in 21 theaters at place #42 and grossed 253k $ (4.8 % of the total gross). Its biggest market by far was its native Norway with 3.9 mil. $ (73.6 %). Before North America, the 2nd biggest market was the UK with 0.7 mil. $ (13.2 %). Deadline.com has reported that Chris Columbus' company 1492 has acquired the rights to an American remake, although nothing has materialized yet. Trollhunter is certified fresh at 82 % with a 6.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
The poster for Noah Baumbach's While We're Young seems to promise something light and uplifting ...
While We're Young is the new film by great Brooklynite writer-director-producer Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale (2005)). Josh and Cornelia are beginning to get old, they feel, without having joined the 'baby cult' yet, as they meet a couple in their mid-20s, who spark their imagination and cause them to re-evaluate their lives. I really liked the first approximately 25 minutes of the film, which are funny and sort of upbeat, in line with the expectations set by the trailer and poster for the film. At the point in the film SPOILER when everyone reveals themselves to be uninhibitedly ridiculous, while throwing up excessively, (yes, that happens), however, my feelings had begun to turn. Ben Stiller (Tropic Thunder (2008)) and Naomi Watts (The Impossible/Lo Imposible (2012)) are wonderful actors, and they suit each other very well here. The problem is that their at first likable lead characters venture so clueless and naively into the humiliations that await them that at least I lost my affinity for them. Amanda Seyfried (Lovelace (2013)) and Adam Driver (Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)) are good as the young, hip couple. - Driver I wanted to punch in the face for most of the film, and I never once believed their feigned authenticity, although the comparisons to the older couple along the way hold some amusement.
The details: The biggest problem about While We're Young may be that it's so dead-on. Baumbach is a great observer of modern people, and he puts his stings in auspiciously and cleverly. He wants to puncture some of our grand ideas and delusions about ourselves and our behavior today, and he does that time and again here. That's just not very uplifting or light-hearted, as I had been led to believe that the film would be. In fact While We're Young is probably Baumbach's most depressing film to date. It resembles Greenberg (2010) a bit, also with Stiller, which is also quite depressing, but which I like better though, maybe because it isn't about a married couple. That seems to make this film's depressing qualities more definite somehow. Also contributing is its theme of the horrors of putting life into the world, which, as you can imagine, isn't exactly invigorating as well. The in my opinion successful, funny version of While We're Young would be Judd Apatow's This Is 40 (2012). Baumbach has made some not too specific, Woody Allen-like characters. They go through a sometimes contrived plot. (The occurrence of an ice-cream bucket, which leads to a key discovery for Josh, never made much sense to me.) And the ubiquitous Brady Corbet (Force Majeure/Turist (2014)) has a small role, which doesn't seem terribly well-acted, a first for him I think. While We're Young also has a well-written, but also depressing (especially for the documentary fan), through-line about the making of documentaries today; getting them financed, produced, edited and set out into the world. Charles Grodin (Catch-22 (1970)) is perfectly cast in the role as Watts' championed father in the documentary world. While We're Young opens with an Ibsen quote, and intelligent Baumbach is smart to point viewers into thinking of his own work in the shade of Ibsen, one of the great social satirists and critics of the written word. The film's problem isn't that it lacks wits, but it was still disappointing to me, maybe because it tonally stretches too far for my taste. I hope Baumbach's new film Mistress America (2015) with his girlfriend Greta Gerwig starring again, (as in their great Frances Ha (2012)) will be another story.
Cost: 10 mil. $ Box office: 10.8 mil. $ and counting = Too early to say [The film has been generally well-reviewed, as just about all of Baumbach's films are, - his parents are film critics, (so give that to a shrink.) - But it has earned just 7.1 mil. $ in North America (70 % of the total gross). It opens in key markets Germany, France and Spain soon, and it'll have to do well there to earn back its costs.] What do you think of While We're Young?
