I finally got to see this film last night and I will say upfront that, despite having “toe-thumb” and plastically enhanced Megan Fox in it, I kind of liked it. Of course there was a slim chance that I would as it has three of my favourite actors in it; Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, and Michael Fassbender.

I was actually surprised to find that I did like it. The film has been almost universally panned from its release. I am not sure if that is because of die hard fans of the original comic not liking it, or something else. Admittedly the film is a bit choppy in the continuity of story department, but, the prosthetic on Brolin’s face that helped to transform him into Hex was brilliant.

The story, which is based on the DC Comics of the same name, deals with civil war soldier Jonah Hex who refuses a direct order from his commanding officer Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) that results in his (Turnbull’s) son’s death. As punishment, Turnbull, makes Jonah watch his family die in front of him and gets branded on the right side of his face with Turnbull’s branding iron (QT).

Jonah is nursed back to health by a Crow Native American Indian tribe and his time spent in the world of the dead leaves him with the power to make the dead talk. He searches for Turnbull and finds out that he has died. He then becomes a bounty hunter, punishing the guilty. While doing this job a bounty is put on his head. Meanwhile, we find out that Turnbull is not dead, he’s just gone homicidally mad and is planning to start and finish his own brand of civil war.

Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex.

I thought all the actors, even Megan Fox as Lilah, did a great job. Their performances sold me on this western/fantasy/action film and I never once felt like I was not enjoying it. This may have something to do with the fact that, apart from the title, I’ve never read the comic. Because of this I did not go into the film expecting anything. I just watched it and rather enjoyed this farfetched fantasy take on the civil war story.

I decided to take a chance on the film when I saw it on sale in my local Tesco Extra Store for £3 (about 5 bucks American) and felt that at such a low price I wouldn’t be out very much if I didn’t like it. But since I did enjoy it, it’s now a bargain. The film looked great, the CG and the scenes leapt out at you and the film looked like a western; a big selling point for me if it’s meant to be a western, cross genre or not.

The really big surprise was that I liked Megan Fox’s character. As a rule there has only been one other film where I really liked her performance and that  was Jennifer’s Body the 2009 horror film. She really doesn’t do much for me, especially after finding out about her plastic overhaul. *Not to mention those “toe-thumbs,” shudder.*

I’d have to say that this fantasy “oater” is a good popcorn munching film of the”mindlessly entertaining” sort. So I’d have to give the film a 4 out of 5 stars for managing to make Megan Fox look good in a film. Of course having Brolin, Malkovich, and Fassbender gives it an extra star as well.

Megan Fox as Lilah.

Related articles

• Review: Jonah Hex (2010) (thesightofmadness.wordpress.com)
• Doll Collector: 7″ Jonah Hex (2010) (ironjean.com)

What would you do if you had a chance to relive just one day over and over? Try to change your destiny? Change the world? Change your life? In a 24 hour rewind you wouldn’t think that there would be a huge opportunity to change very much. Three “twenty-somethings” find out just how life changing a repeated second chance is in this brilliant little film from Canada.

Written by Arne Olsen (Relic Hunter, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie)  and directed by Carl Bessai (Severed, Normal) Repeaters is the story of three inmates of a drug rehabilitation centre in Mission City. Kyle Halstead (Dustin Milligan), Sonia Logan (Amanda Crew) and Michael Weeks (Richard De Clerk) all hang out together and one event filled day they become caught in a time warp that results in them re-living that day repeatedly.

The combination of great story-line and great performances by the lead actors made this spontaneous purchase of an 8 pound DVD turn into a real gem of a film.

Richard De Clert, Amanda Crew and Dustin Milligan.

The publicity/marketing for the film states that the film is like Taken meets Groundhog Day. Now that sounds good, but in my humble opinion the film is more like Groundhog Day meets Flatliners.

My only real problem with the film was the lead actors resemblance’s to other actors and (in one case) to one of my first cousins. The most obvious one was Amanda Crew who looked so much like Jennifer Love Hewitt that I kept wondering how she’d managed to look so young. Obviously the film makers saw this resemblance as they never lost an opportunity to put a knit hat on her head that enhanced the likeness.

Still, resemblances aside, the actors did a magnificent job in the film. The three of them interacted with each other and other characters in the film, brilliantly.

The best thing about the film, was their evolving feelings about the repetitious day. Denial, acceptance, enjoyment, disillusionment. and realisation. Unfortunately, the two male characters had more of a story arch than the female lead, but despite the slight annoyance of this fact the film still delivered a pretty impressive punch.

There is not a whole lot of information available on this 2010 Canadian independent film, but they do still have a website: Repeaters.

If you get a chance, check this film out. This is the third Canadian film to completely blow me away and it’s left me with a growing admiration for my “first cousins” and their creative ability.

A real 5 star film about a supernatural event that will blow you away.

Watch this film.

Director Carl Bessai.

Related articles

• Stuck In Groundhog Day (seniledenial.wordpress.com)
• A Groundhog Day Caper with Some of Our Cutest Critters (shutterstock.com)

Before I go into the who’s who list about the film, I would like to go on record as saying  the movie looked beautiful. The locations, the costumes, the cinematography were top-notch. The effects were outstanding. The digitizing of Ian McShane and Ray Winstone and Nick Frost and company was disturbing and Charlize Theron was, at turns, beautiful, terrifying, mad and captivating.

Chris Hemsworth was brilliant as the huntsman, although I did keep waiting to see if Thor’s hammer was going to appear and make the whole fighting nonsense very one-sided. About the battles…The large ones looks brilliant and the smaller ‘up close’ ones were very well choreographed.

Directed by Rupert Sanders (who is perhaps better known as the chap who was ‘playing away’ with his leading lady, and I don’t mean the real leading lady Charlize Theron) and starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlize Theron Snow White and the Huntsman is a ‘re-imaging’ of the classic fairy tale Snow White.

In this verse Snow White is not beautiful on the outside (her mother helpfully tells little Snow and us that her true beauty lies within) and that her innocence and love and fairness are what makes her truly beautiful. Then mum dies and dad remarries the worst possible choice ever, Ravenna(Theron). Whilst in the middle of his performing his marital duties, Ravenna dispatches him before he really gets a chance to get started.

Beautiful but so deadly.

Ravenna’s private army (led by her despicable, but faithful, brother) slaughters everyone who cannot escape. Snow White attempts to escape but this is thwarted at the last possible moment. She is then thrown into a prison tower.

As if the punishment of having to grow up isolated in a prison tower were not enough, she is then turned into Kristen Stewart. If ever an actor’s name could be substituted for the word bland, Stewart should head the list of candidates.

Damn you Ravenna!

The film tries very hard to convince us, the audience, that Stewart is a real threat to the beautiful Ravenna. It does keep harping back to the old ‘innocence’ line and how that will be the evil Queen‘s downfall. But despite all the helpful nods to Stewart’s beauty it just doesn’t work.

*in one hilarious moment, Snow White and company enter a fairy glade. All the fronds are dangling dejectedly toward the ground, the moment Snow White enters they all stretch skyward in their happiness. I’ve never seen such a phallic emphasis used to such great inadvertent comic effect.*

But despite the fact that I kept expecting Bella (Sorry, I mean Snow White) to call out for Edward, I never once found Stewart capable of showing that she was this loving, kind and ‘beautiful on the inside’ heroine that the script called for. To be fair though, the script did not call for an awful lot from Ms Stewart. Her lines as Snow White were sparse and, in true Stewart fashion, mumbled.

Everyone else in the film managed to knock their performances out of the park. But actors aside for a moment, the scenes in the Black Forest were to die for. I loved the hallucinogenic spores that were released by the mushrooms. The trees (that were pretty damn scary looking anyway) suddenly seemed terrifying and alive. The whole forest came alive and it looked brilliant.

I did not like the little back story that the script came up with for Ravenna. The old, “Well, she’s not really bad. Her mother only made her this way so she could survive the horrible massacre of her village and family (except for her brother). Rubbish! That’s right, I said it! Rubbish! I want my bigger than life villains to be bad dammit! Not justified!

Charlize Theron (who one critic accused of ‘over acting’ and listen Pally, if she looked like she was overacting, it was probably because of Stewart’s inability to convey anything resembling emotion) who could have been a Bond villain  was so glorious in her badness it was a shame to see her lose at the end.

My daughter looked me in the eye at the end of the film and said, “Is is wrong that I wanted Ravenna to win?” I suppose that because the story was about Snow White the logical answer would be yes. But… But…

If we were not the only ones disappointed at Ravenna’s demise at the end of the film, surely that means either the script should have been more ‘Snow White’ oriented or perhaps Ms Stewart should not have been cast as the heroine of the film.

Of course now the entire world knows of the director’s and his ingenue’s extra-curricular activities and it becomes painfully clear why Kristen Stewart was so cast against type.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s after Thor we go…

I have seen her in other films besides the execrable Twilight series and she always looks the same and acts the same. There is not one ‘Snow White’ bone in her body (and yes I am aware just how wrong that sounds).  The film really does belong to Theron, not Stewart and it really mystifies why on earth she was cast, dalliances with the director not included.

That the movie did well in the area of box office receipts can be verified via IMDb or Wikipedia. I am not surprised, like I said earlier, the film looks fantastic, the vast majority of the cast acted their socks off and apart from the disturbing digitized images of Ian McShane and Co (which outraged the  Little People of America so much that they protested) the effects of the film were top-notch.

Where is Edward?

My final verdict is that it is worth seeing for everyone’s performances except for Ms Stewart’s whose only crime was being mis-cast.

Related articles

• REVIEW: Snow White and the Huntsman (Blu-ray) (kdvr.com)
• The Longest Short Movie Review You’ll Ever Read: SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (mralphafreak.wordpress.com)
• Snow White and the Huntsman (canadiancinephile.com)
• Kristen Stewart Dropped From ‘Snow White And The Huntsman’ Sequel, But Not Rupert Sanders (thesuperficial.com)
• The Princess has a Sword: ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ (Review) (popmatters.com)
• News Roundup: Kristen Stewart May Return For ‘Snow White 2,’ ‘Paranormal Activity 4′ Sneak Peek, And More (screencrave.com)

I am also a huge fan of Seth Rogan. I also adore Sigourney Weaver. So what’s not to like about Paul?

Let me tell you.

I could really sum it up in one sentence. They tried too hard.

There you have it. The magical team of Pegg and Frost struck out. And since they co-wrote the film, it stands to reason that they have to take most of the blame. It could be that without Edgar Wright directing, they lose that spontaneity and effortless ease of their comic timing and delivery. Maybe Greg Mottola just didn’t get it.

Or it could be that the studios didn’t trust our lads to be able to deliver a hit vehicle on American shores. My daughter and I have our own theory, Pegg and Frost are a great comic duo. We think though, that they work best in English comedies.

Shaun of the Dead for example was brilliantly funny from frame one. Hot Fuzz wasn’t quite so fast out of the gate as Shaun, but still very funny. At first glance Paul film should have benefited from the lads presence in the film.

But it doesn’t

The beginning of the film showed a lot of promise. Two geeky guys from the UK come to the US to attend a Comic-Con. It’s a lifetime dream of the two friends, Graeme and Clive (Pegg and Frost respectively) are on the holiday of all holidays. Clive has written a science fiction book (graphic novel?) that Clive illustrated.

The two men attend the Comic-Con, meet their idol Adam Shadowchild (Jeffrey Tambor) and afterwards they decide to take a ‘UFO” road trip by way of a RV and a map. While they are on route to another tourist UFO hot-spot, a car passes them and spectacularly crashes right in front of their RV.

Shaken, Clive and Graeme get out and go to the burning car to look for survivors. Just as Clive starts to call 911, a voice from the darkness tells him not to use the phone. Graeme and Clive freeze as an alien wearing a pair of brown shorts and scandals walks out of the shadows. Clive passes out and falls backwards onto the desert floor.

The alien introduces himself as Paul and asks the guys to help him out. It seems that his other alien buddies are going to be picking him up and he needs to get there fast. Graeme agrees since Clive is still out for the count and they both carry Clive back to the RV.

Jason Bateman plays a National Security Agent who is trying to track Paul down. Kristen Wiig plays visually challenged Ruth Buggs. Sigourney Weaver plays a ‘baddie’ and Blythe Danner plays the little girl all grown up whose dog was mashed flat by Paul’s spacecraft years ago.

So the cast was great, the story should have been a barrel of laughs. The first twenty minutes was well paced and very funny then it slowed down and turned into a slight chuckle and smile film. The sparse hilarious moments were very sparse . The CG for the alien Paul was breathtaking and just brilliant. But that was not enough to save the film from its wishy-washy comedy.

The film does have glimpses of greatness. But glimpses are all they and there not consistent enough to make this film a real rib tickler. Part of the problem was the overly obvious scenes in the film that were clearly signposting how important that particular scene would be later in the film.

**SPOILER ALERT**                                                                                       **SPOILER ALERT**

The scene with the dead bird is a perfect example. The RV that the boys are driving hits a bird and kills it. They stop the RV and Paul goes over to the bird and, clapping his hands together like a very small Mr Miyagi, brings the bird back to life. Paul holds the bird gently in his hands while Clive and Graeme look on in amazement. Paul then shoves the live bird into his mouth and eats it. Clive and Graeme look shocked. “Well, ya didn’t think I was gonna eat a dead bird did ya?” Paul says after wiping his mouth and spitting out a feather. (This was one of those glimpses that the film could have used more of)

All the comic turns in the film were also signposted. It was like watching a ‘Comedy Films for Idiots Guide.’ Every gag was so laid out that by the time it got to the punch line, I was bored.

I’m not kidding when I say that I really wanted to love this film. I even watched it twice. The second time was roughly a year after I’d originally watched it. I saw it on the flight to the United States last year. As I was a bit distracted about my first visit in over eleven years to see my family, I decided that was why I didn’t find Paul hysterically funny.

Unfortunately a year didn’t help. Even watching it with undivided attention didn’t make the film any better.

My final verdict on Paul is…It’s a one bagger. Period. The film is amusing, but not downright funny (except occasionally)and as you won’t be belly laughing while you watch it you might as well have a huge Coke with that popcorn. Worth watching but, friends and neighbours, Shaun of the Dead, it isn’t.

Shaun of the Dead (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

• Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright film ‘The World’s End’ gets greenlight, poster (insidemovies.ew.com)
• Comic-Con: Universal Green Lights Edgar Wright’s Pub Crawl Epic ‘The World’s End’ (deadline.com)
• Comic-Con: Universal Green Lights Edgar Wright’s Pub Crawl Epic ‘The World’s End’ (m.deadline.com)
• ‘The World’s End’ Teaser Poster: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg Go Bar Hopping (slashfilm.com)
• Rosamund Pike Joins Simon Pegg and Nick Frost at ‘The World’s End’ (slashfilm.com)
• Hot Fuzz [retro review] (mutantreviewers.wordpress.com)
• George A. Romero and Simon Pegg Taking Part in the Doc of the Dead (dreadcentral.com)
• Simon Pegg & Nick Frost Face The World’s End!! (perezhilton.com)
• Simon Pegg – Simon Pegg Doesn’t Like 3d (contactmusic.com)
• “So, give me coffee and TV, history I’ve seen so much I’m goin’ blind and I’m brain-dead virtually.” – Blur (zenandtheartofbreakingthings.wordpress.com)

Zathura (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I waited seven years to watch Zathura.  In the 2005 trailer they showed a little kid asking, “What do they eat?” Dax Shepard says, “Meat.” Little kid, “That’s good.” Shepard, “Dude, you’re meat.” For some reason that particular exchange struck me as hysterically funny. Surely, I thought, a film with dialogue that funny is going to be great.

I was wrong.

To be fair the film isn’t terrible, but as the ‘spiritual’ sequel to the vastly superior Jumanji, it leaves a lot to be desired. Based loosely on the picture book of the same name, the film’s creators decided to cut out any references made in the book about Jumanji. Considering that both books were written by the same author it’s not surprising that Zathura had these references in it. But not in the film.

Presumably they were afraid that audiences would compare the new film and it’s ‘magical’ game-board setting with it’s older sibling. They shouldn’t have bothered and just left the references in. The audiences made the comparison anyway and the only people who loved Zathura were the critics. While they waxed lyrical about the film and it’s attributes, the audiences voted with their feet and the film took a 62% drop in ‘bums on seats’ by it’s second weekend.

The plot, which is very similar to Jumanji, deals with a ‘magic’ clockwork space game that draws any young players into it’s world. Zathura,the game, has the same type of rules as Jumanji. Each player must take their respective turns. After each turn, the player gets a card that tells them what their ‘fate’ is. And the same consequences can be had, as in Jumanji, in other words you can be ‘trapped’ in the game as well.

The film opens with Dad (Tim Robbins) playing baseball with his two boys.  Ten year old Walter (Josh Hutcherson) and six year old Danny (Jonah Bobo) don’t get along. Dad is getting frustrated with the both of them and tells them he has a meeting to attend. Dad needs to work on a weekend to help pay to renovate the house he got when the boys mother and he separated. 

After a sequence of events that show us just how much the boys don’t get along things get worse when Danny throws something at Walter and knocks over Dad’s drink. The drink saturates the project that Dad needed for the meeting so now he has to leave even earlier. He goes upstairs and wakes daughter Lisa (Kristen Stewart , pre Twilight). He tells her to look after them and he leaves.

While Dad’s gone and Lisa sleeps upstairs Danny throws a baseball at Walter hitting him in the face. Walter chases Danny down and catches him in the dumb-waiter. Walter then traps him in it and lowers him to the basement that (like Kevin from Home Alone) scares Danny. As he escapes from the basement he finds the game.

Taking it upstairs he starts playing and the movie picks up speed and finally takes off.

Directed by a personal favourite of mine Jon Favreau (who also directed Cowboys and Aliens) the film’s pace is choppy and in some places it just down-right drags. There is one bit of the film where Lisa gets frozen for five turns. I would swear that the boys played a lot more than five turns before she finally thawed out and joined the rest of the cast. To be fair though to Lisa she does show up before then, but as she is frozen solid, she sort of resembles Stewart’s character in the Twilight saga.

The film was good, but I think Favreau was a bit too enamoured of his practical special effects in the last half of the film. The other problem was that I just flat-out did not like the older brother. He came across as a little snot for much of the film. When his character arc finally reaches the point where he likes and supports his little brother, I didn’t care.

Kristen Stewart has never been a favourite of mine, although her appearance in The Messengers in 2007 did make her, very briefly, an actress to watch. She pretty much blew that when she started the Twilight series.

*And before you ask, no I don’t like the Twilight verse. Period.*

I know that I haven’t said anything about Dax Shepard’s performance in the film. The biggest problem is that  he isn’t Robin Williams and he just felt a bit like a poor replacement. Of course, I am a huge Robin Williams ‘fan-boy’ so that might just be my problem. I have seen Shepard in other films and enjoyed his work in those. He just didn’t do anything for me in this one.

Of course the inevitable comparison between Zathura and Jumanji is going to be made, even without the so carefully removed references by the creators. Unfortunately the two films, although similar, are like riding two different rides at the fairground.

Where Jumanji was a real roller coaster of a film, Zathura was like riding on a dodgem bumper-car. Jerking and stalling and only occasionally speeding up.

Related articles

• READ: You Can Take ‘Jumanji’, Just Leave ‘Scream’ Alone (thereeltimes.com)
• Jumanji Remake Imminent?? Check Our Ideas For The New Cast! (perezhilton.com)
• 7 Movies Based on Board Games (onlinecertificateprograms.org)
• ‘Jumanji’ Remake Will Update the Story ‘For the Present’ (screenrant.com)
• Sony planning Jumanji reboot (bigpondnews.com)
• Keep Your Fingers Crossed For This Jumanji Reboot! (videogum.com)

The Orphanage (2007 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What do you do when you want to watch the latest Guillermo del Toro film and there’s nothing new to watch?  Do the next best thing and watch  a film produced by del Toro and directed by his protégée.

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona as his first feature film, he must have done something right, because he’s just finished making The Impossible with Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Geraldine Chaplin.  Of course he had del Toro to guide him and it shows. The Orphanage  looks, feels and sounds like a del Toro film.

But that is not a bad thing, at all.

The Orphanage, or El Orfanato, is a Genre film. This term Genre was coined when critics tried to put Joss Wedon’s works into a specific genre. Whedon specialises in blending several different genres into one film or program, hence the use of a new film type of genre that is called just ‘genre.’ The term fits this film like a glove.

The film combines elements from the worlds of horror, the supernatural, fantasy, mystery, thriller, drama and tragedy. It borrows more than a little from the children’s tale of Peter Pan and the lost boys. It also offers up deep heart breaking truths that almost make you want to pull your hair and rend your cloths with grief for the main character. It is in essence the very picture of a ‘Genre’ film and it is a masterpiece by any definition.

The film opens in 1976, a young girl named Laura is playing with her friends and fellow orphanage ‘inmates’ when she finds out that she has been adopted. Playing the game, one-two-three-knock on the wall is the last activity she will enjoy with her friends.

The film moves up to present day and the now 37 year old Laura (Belén Rueda) and husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) along with their adopted son Simón (Roger Príncep) move back to her old orphanage home. She and Carlos have purchased the old building with plans to renovate it into a home for disabled and terminally ill children. Laura and Carlos want to do this for two reasons, Simón their adopted son has HIV and is dying and Laura has wonderful memories of the place and wants to recreate them with Carlos’s help. Especially poignant is the fact that Simón doesn’t know that he is dying.

While Carlos and Laura are renovating the old orphanage, Simón has found a new friend Tomás and Laura gets a visit from a ‘social worker’ Benigna Escobeda (Montserrat Carulla) who says she checking on Simón because of his HIV status. Later Laura finds Escobeda skulking around the coal cellar. She and Carlos call the police who reveal that Escobeda is not a social worker.

Simón draws a picture of his new friend and he shows him having a cloth bag over his head. Laura is intrigued but is too busy organising an open day party to raise interest in the planned children’s home. On the day of the party,  Simón and Laura have a huge falling out. It seems that Tomás and the other ‘invisible’ children that Simón has been playing with have shown him his adoption file and that he will soon die from the HIV.  A fact that neither Laura nor Carlos have passed on to Simón.

Laura tries to make up with Simón who wants her to see Tomás’s “little house” but because of the party she doesn’t have time. With Simón angry at her again, he storms off to play with his friend. During the party, Laura keeps seeing a child with a burlap bag over his head. When she tries to track him down, he vanishes. So does Simón. During the party both Laura and Carlos look for him but he cannot  be found. The police are contacted and they think that perhaps Escobeda has taken him.

The rest of the film deals with Laura and Carlos trying to find Simón and work out what happened to him.

As I said at the beginning of this article, this film has so many elements in it. Geraldine Chaplain has a cameo as a psychic that Laura and Carlos call in to help them find out what happened to Simón. Whether you think of The Orphanage as a ghost film, a fantasy or, especially after the ending, a bittersweet fairy tale, the film will affect you.

I found myself jumping with fright, tensing with suspense, flinching with horror and getting a  lump in my throat with tears streaming down my face, several times during the film. The allusions to Peter Pan and Laura being a Spanish Wendy to Simón and  the ‘lost children’ of the orphanage are obvious and heartbreaking.

If you watch The Orphanage, be prepared to be put through an emotional wringer. But believe me, it is worth the exhausting  journey that you take with these characters.

Guillermo del Toro has taught Juan Antonio Bayona well.

Related articles

• THE IMPOSSIBLE Starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts Set for Release on December 21 (collider.com)
• Gemma Atkinson’s boobs ‘too big for Peter Pan costume’ (mya.co.uk)
• Gary Ross in Talks to Direct Disney’s Peter Pan Prequel ‘Peter and the Starcatchers’ (slashfilm.com)
• To Be Young Again: Maturity and Adolescence in Wes Anderson’s ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ (Feature) (popmatters.com)

Monsters (2010 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I just finished reading an interesting blog post from Africa is a Country  http://africasacountry.com/2012/07/16/five-alternative-filmmaking-collectives/. Although the post dealt with a specific set of films, it made me think of how film-making has changed over-all.

Everything is digital - with the advancements made on the digital front a lot of ‘new’ films are being shot entirely on a digital format. The superior 2010 film Monsters was made with a two person crew  they used “off the shelf” $8,400 cameras, editors, digital effects programs and other “common” software programs. Monsters, besides being an entirely ‘digital’ film also  could be labelled the zenith of “guerilla” film-making.

The film-makers travelled to each location and filmed quite a lot of the time without any local authority’s permission. The ‘extras’ were not ‘actors’ but real people who happened to be in the area where they were filming. The two film crew members, would then edit the day’s footage in their hotel room at night.

Written and directed by Gareth Edwards, who up to this point was better known as a documentary film-maker, Monsters is his first venture into the  feature-length arena. The script he wrote had little to no dialogue in it. The scenes in the film with the two protagonists are mostly improvised rather than scripted. Amazingly this seems to work in making the film seem more believable.

The film is about two Americans who are trapped in Mexico by a quarantine. The Americans, Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) and Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) spend the entire film trying to get back to US soil and dodging  alien monsters, opportunistic people and the elements.

Kaulder is actually in Mexico on an assignment. Wynden’s father has hired him to find her and bring her home. Wynden is a sort of ‘Greenpeace’ “Save the world” type and she is initially reluctant to leave the alien infested Mexican/American border.

The film-makers help sell their film and their aliens by deciding to make them huge. Shots in the film ‘featuring’ the aliens show us enormous legs or trunks and refrain from showing us the actual bodies of the aliens till the end of the film.

The sets and the actors look gritty and real. That director Edwards has a background in documentaries this is evident from the very first frame of the film. Monsters looks and feels like a documentary. We feel like a fly on the wall watching these two protagonists interact with their surroundings and each other.

McNairy and Able were dating during the making of this film and are now married, an interesting fact that helps to explain their characters interaction with each other in the film.

Digital only films are increasingly becoming the medium of choice by new film-makers. These digital films look good and apparently the ‘run of the mill’ editing programs on the market are very good, because the editing in most cases is almost flawless. Asian cinema has been making ‘mainstream’ films digitally for some time now.

English: Gary Oldman at the 2011 Venice Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not too long ago actor Gary Oldman made a music video filmed entirely on a mobile (cell) phone. In 2009 Juliet Landau filmed the entire process for a short documentary entitled Take Flight: Gary Oldman Directs Chutzpah. Intended as a no frills look at the filming process it looks instead at the creativity and thought process of Oldman himself. It also shows how the film medium can be captured with a device as simple as a mobile phone and still look impressive.

A lot of the filming community are mourning the new trend of digital film making. They have gone on record as saying that digital films are more transient than traditionally made films. That may well be true, but without the option of digitally made films, little gems like Monsters would never be made. And what a shame that would be.

Related articles

• On a film set (dawn.com)
• How to Successfully Get Into Film School (answers.com)
• Calling All Young Budding Film Makers – ACT2CAM Presents The Big Film (sunderlandparents.wordpress.com)
• Martin Scorcese to abandon film to shoot movies digitally – News – Films – The Independent (westudyfilm.wordpress.com)
• The silver screen no more: distribution of film to cease by 2013 in the US (arstechnica.com)
• For whom are short films made? (thehindu.com)
• Classes in media studies (thehindu.com)
• Movie makers, film buffs gather in Lake Placid (northcountrypublicradio.org)
• An Odd Aspect of the ‘Alien’ Films, Including ‘Prometheus’ (screenphiles.com)
• PACIFIC RIM Comic Con Panel! Watch Guillermo & team tell HALL H some tantalizing teases about his next work. (aintitcool.com)

Written and directed by André Øvredal,  Troll Hunter is a cracking good film and it is André Øvredal’s second feature length film. Made on a budget of 3.5 million dollars, it made just over that on it’s theatrical release. The film is a brilliant blend of Norwegian fairy tales and social satire. Considering the small budget the computer generated effects are very good and since they are based on classical paintings of Norwegian trolls the trolls appear both slightly comic and threatening.

The cast of the film is made up of ‘unknown’ actors and well known Norwegian comedians. Troll Hunter did very well when it opened in Norway and has generated enough interest and publicity that on the day it opened in the US it was announced that director Chris Columbus‘s company, 1492, and CJ Entertainment & Media had obtained rights to do an American re-make of the film.

The film opens with a black screen and the following words: On October 13, 2008 Filmdameratene AS received an anonymous package with two hard disks containing 283 minutes of filmed material. This film is a rough-cut version of that material. Everything is shown in chronological order and no images have been manipulated.

This written message goes on to say the despite investigative attempts, the film cannot be verified as being authentic or a practical joke.

We are then introduced to a three person team of college students who are filming a documentary about bear hunting in Norway. While interviewing a group of licensed bear hunters they hear about a man that the licensed hunters believe is a poacher. With their interest piqued the students track down and attempt to interview the suspected poacher.

The ‘poacher’ rebuffs their interview offer and leaves. Undaunted the team follow him until they finally catch up to him and his intended prey. Surprisingly he is not hunting bears at all. He is hunting trolls. His name is Hans (Otto Jespersen) and he works for the TSS (Troll Security Service).

The students, Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), Johanna (Johanna Mørck) and Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) decide to stick with Hans and film him killing a real live troll. The first night that they find Hans a troll demolishes their car and they have to ride out of the wilderness with him. They do this and decide to make their entire documentary about troll hunting.

Hans explains about trolls and their territories and what his job entails. He is the only troll hunter in Norway and it is a crappy job according to him. He doesn’t get a bonus for working at night or for unsocial hours and he doesn’t like how the government runs the job.  

After Hans has killed the first troll, his government contact tells him that something must be wrong with the trolls and that Hans needs to get a blood sample for analysis. This turns out to be a bit difficult as trolls either turn to stone or explode when they die.  Following a trail and reading the newspapers, Hans locates another troll.

He leaves some goats on a bridge as bait and dons his troll suit, a metal helmet and armour that protect the rest of his body. When he kills this troll it explodes and  Hans gets his blood sample.

Later the little group find out that the troll has rabies, which is bad news for Thomas as he was injured by the first troll they came in contact with. Things get worse for the troll hunters when their camera man gets eaten by a ‘mountain king troll.’ Thomas sends for a replacement camera operator and they continue their hunt.

The film is brilliantly made. Comparisons have been made with The Blair Witch Project and in my opinion the film works better than Blair Witch by a mile. It really looks like a documentary. The camera work is superb, the times when the camera operator would move the camera or put it down looks real and more importantly feels real.

The subject matter is of course meant to be a mixture of comical and frightening and it is. In fact the only problem I had with the film was that the actor who played Thomas looked the spitting image of Declan Donnelly of Ant and Dec two English television presenters. It really did put me ‘out of the moment’ several times during the film.

The amount of beautiful scenery that the film takes in while the troll hunters are tracking their prey is breath taking. If nothing else the film could be used to increase tourist traffic to Norway. The travel scenes themselves are admittedly a little too long, but they serve to show how isolated the little group of hunters are.

Hans Troll Hunter

The acting is just the right amount of stern and ultra serious from Hans. And the students act like, well, students. Disbelieving at first, amused, then frightened and at the end determined to finish their documentary.

Troll Hunter is a cracking film that entertains. It is escapism in the best possible way. Watch it and get ready to be impressed with this little Norwegian film. Oh and keep an eye out for the ‘big budget’ remake by Chris Columbus and crew.

Related articles

• A Guest Top Ten Horror Movie List – Kevin Glennon (horroraddicts.wordpress.com)
• Thank goodness I don’t know any trolls !! [Peter Jones] (ecademy.com)
• Internet trolls motivated by `low self-esteem` (news.bioscholar.com)
• Troll Hunter (simontrail.wordpress.com)
• Story Therapy and the Recycling of Fairy Tales (millennialfolklore.wordpress.com)
• You’re calling that a troll? Are you winding me up? | James Ball (guardian.co.uk)