The King of Devil's Island

 

The King of Devil’s Island/Kongen av Bastön

• Director: Marius Holst
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Benjamin Helstad, Trond Nilssen, Stellan Skarsgård, Kristoffer Joner
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Benjamin Helsted – Endeavour
• Stellan Skarsgård  - many, including Hamlet.
•  Kristoffer Joner – The Revenant, Vågen
• Why? Skarsgård
• Seen: 6 September 2023                   

             Norway 1915. A boys prison on a wintery island, with Skarsgård as the kind, cruel hypocritical Christian warden and Joner as the paedophile house father. The boys, with Erling (Helsted) in the lead, rebel.

       It’s no surprise that it’s grim and depressing.

       We’ve seen many prison films: The Shawshank Redemption, Papillon, The Rock, Bad Boys. This one is better. 

 4 * of 5  

 

 

 

Shakespeare connection: Stellan Skarsgård is in Hamlet.

 

Summerland

 

Summerland 2020

• Director: Jessica Swale
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lucas Bond, Penelope Wilton, Tom Courtney, Dixie Egerickx, Siân Phillips, Amanda Root
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Gemma Arterton – Their Finest, The Girl with All the Gifts, 100 Streets, A Song for Marion, Byzantium, Tamara Drewe, Kick Ass Girls 2, The Boat that Rocked, Quantum of Solace, Lost in Austen
• Gugu Mbatha-Raw – The Cloverfield Paradox, Beauty and the Beast, Jupiter Ascending, Belle, Lost in Austen, Bonekickers, Doctor Who
• Penelope Wilton – Downton Abbey, The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, BFG, Hotel Marigold 1&2, Belle, South Riding, Doctor Who, Pride and Prejudice, Calendar Girls, Shaun of the Dead, Cry Freedom, King Lear, Othello
• Tom Courtney – The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, Unforgotten, Quartet, The Golden Compass, Flood, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith, The Dresser, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Doctor Zhivago, The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner.
• Dixie Egerickx -The Secret Garden
• Siân Phillips – C B Strike, Dune, I Claudius, Shoulder to Shoulder
• Amanda Root – Unforgotten, Sherlock, Their Finest, Rose and Maloney, Little Britain, Daniel Deronda, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith, The Man Who Cried
• Why? The cast.
• Seen: 5 September August 2023      

             Alice Lamb (Arterton and Wilton) researches, analyses and writes about folklore. She lives alone and is furious with everybody. The villagers, especially the children, call her witch and Nazi, and torment her.

       Into this unhappy atmosphere comes young Frank (Bond), an evacuee from the London Blitz. Alice is as unwelcoming as she can possibly be, and he is relentlessly cheerful.

       Of course, she melts, especially when he shows interest in her work.

       Flashbacks show the reason for her anger – an unhappy love affair with Vera (Mbatha-Raw).

       It is sentimental and predictable, until the twist, which is so unlikely that only superior actors like Arterton and the others could pull it off. Beautiful Kent also lifts it and even the love story works quite nicely. 

3 ½ * of 5

  

 

 

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The Lifeguard

 

The Lifeguard 2013

• Director: Liz W Garcia
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Kristen Bell, Mamie Gummer, Martin Starr, Joshua Harto, Alex Shaffer, David Lambert, Amy Madigan
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Kristen Bell – Veronica Mars
• Mamie Gummer – Rickie and the Flash, Cake, Taking Woodstock
• Joshua Harto – This and that
• Amy Madigan – Fringe, Gone Baby Gone, Pollack, Crocodile Shoes, Field of Dreams, Streets of Fire
• Why? Some good reviews
• Seen: 4 September August 2023     

             Leigh (Bell) is 29 years old and dissatisfied with her job as a journalist in NYC. She moves back to her parents in Connecticut, gets her high school lifeguard job back and hangs with two ex-classmates and a gang of teenaged skateboarding guys.

       Even this description is boring. The film is boring. Kristen Bell is good but I just want it to end. A few moments of drama work well, though, so it’s not a total loss. 

2* of 5

  

 

 

State of Play

 

State of Play 2009

• Director: Kevin Macdonald
• Seen by this director: Last King of Scotland
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Russell Crowe, Rachel Macadams, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Robin Wright
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Russell Crowe – many
• Rachel McAdams – Doctor Strange, About Time, Sherlock Holmes 1&2, The Time Travellers Wife, Slings and Arrows
• Ben Affleck – Gone Girl, He’s Just Not That Into You, Daredevil, Dogma, Shakespeare in Love, Good Will Hunting,
• Helen Mirren – many including The Tempest, Prince of Jutland, Cymbeline, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Robin Wright – many
• Why? The cast
• Seen: 2 September August 2023     

             A complicated story of politics, journalism, scandals, friendship, murder, drugs, secrets and cover-ups. A multi-billion-dollar military corporation is trying to take over the US government’s domestic and international armed forces. Congressman Ben Affleck is trying to stop it. Journalist Russell Crowe is investigating it.

       Like I stated above, it’s the cast that drew me to the film. It’s not my favourite genre but it’s quite exciting and well-acted. Crowe is cute in long hair and he drives a Saab instead of the movie world’s favourite, a Volvo. 

3 * of 5

  

 

 

 

Wendy

 

Wendy 2020

• Director: Ben Zeitlin
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Devin France, Jashua Mack, Gage and Gavin Naquin
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• None of them.
• Why? Some good reviews.
• Seen: 1 September 2023                  

             Sort of a spin-off of Peter Pan. Wendy (France) is a 10-year-old working in her worn out mother’s diner by a railroad track in Louisiana. Longing for adventure, Wendy and her twin brothers (the Naquins) are lured by Peter (Mack) into running away. He takes them to an island where kids never get old. At first they love it, but there are dangers and Peter is not always nice. In fact, he’s often nasty.

       Me, I couldn’t wait to grow up. I have never wanted to be a kid again. So this is kind of a nightmare, which the kids do discover eventually.

       Peter Pan has never been a favourite but this is darker, thus more interesting. But still, it’s quite silly and it gets maudlin at the end. 

2½ * of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reunion/Återträffen

 

The Reunion/Återträffen 2013

• Director: Anna Odell
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Anna Odell, Anders Berg, David Nordström
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Anders Berg – Sameblod
• Why? Curious
• Seen: 31 August 2023      

       Anna Odell was controversial in Sweden even before this film (Google her).       Here she plays herself in an imagined class reunion to which, in real life, she wasn’t invited. At the dinner table she confronts her classmate (all actors) with how miserable her school years were because her classmates bullied her. They become more uncomfortable and dismayed as she gives one example after another. It’s quite painful to watch.

       The first half is imaginary. The second half is not, or is it? Anna shows the film to some of her classmates. Most of them don’t wanted to see it. They tell different stories of why she wasn’t invited (they insist she was) and why they were/were not guilty of the bullying she claims took place.

       It’s a most unusual and powerful film about bullying. 

4 * of 5  

 

 

 

 

 

Daybreakers

 

Daybreakers 2009

• Director: The Spierig Brothers
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe, Harriet Minto-Day, Michael Dorman, Isabel Lucas
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Ethan Hawke – Stockholm, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Maudie, Cymbeline, Before Midnight, Hamlet, Snow Falling on Cedars, Gattaca, Before Sunrise, Reality Bites, Waterland, Dead Poets Society
• Sam Neill – Blackbird, A Long Way Down, Little Fish, Jurassic Park, Skin, The Piano, Ivanhoe
• Willem Dafoe – many
• Chris Klein – American Dreamz
• Why? Vampires. Good cast.
• Seen: 30 August 2023      

       Vampires have taken over the world. Their lives and cities are pretty much like the ones we have today but they are slowly starving for lack of human blood. The army hunts down humans who are then hung up to be drained of their blood. But there aren’t many humans left either.  

       Edward (Hawke) is a haematologist, working to find a surrogate blood for the company that drains the blood of humans. His brother Frankie (Dorman) is a soldier, a human hunter.

       Edward helps some human escape and they in turn ask for help in the cure they have discovered.

       The film is intelligent, imaginative, different and quite exciting. The problems are Dafoe, who can be good, is here annoyingly macho, the clothing of the two main women characters is gender stereotyped (cleavage) and there’s too much shoot ‘em up action. Sam Neill is also a little hammy. 

3 ½ * of 5