Troll Hunter

Well, of course I had to see this. One of the best films shown at the Festival!

Troll Hunter is about someone that goes online, to internet forums, and provokes people to post rants and...

Yeah, I'm not going to continue that. This is a Norwegian mockumentary (as opposed to those real ones about Trolls), in the vein of The Tunnel and the like that shows off the troubles the one person in Norway has when he hunts down the trolls that are invading the area outside their normal area. This is all captured by student film makers who get all too caught up in events.

And it's damn fine. The performances are good (Otto Jespersen could be Norway's Geoffry Rush... in looks anyway), and then there are the trolls. Which look excellent. Exactly as you'd expect, and not at all the standard troll (if you can follow that). Although some look like they could have come from Henson Studios. There are references to folklore that everyone will get, and some they won't (I'm not entirely sure what the Christian thing is about).

Definitely check this out, and in the original Norwegian before the Americans remake it (as they are threatening to do...).


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DW: Borrowed Time

And yes, there is temporal shenanigans in Borrowed Time by Naomi Alderman.

This is a great read, demonstrating that we really need more female writers. Naomi has crafted quite a bizarre story of bank workers getting in extra time, and then spinning out details of what the Doctor gets up to in the future, suddenly springing in galactic events, and having a very unusual villain (and featuring yet another duo in the vein of 'Mr Evil and Mr Deadly').

The Doctor is well written, Rory is a bumbling fool cliche, and Amy nearly has some depth. Better characters are Andrew and Sameera, and Nadia (although I keep thinking the name was Naomi, however I wouldn't say it was an author-insert character). An author idea is what's under the Millennium Dome, we'll have to wait and see if anyone else does anything with that (the range of little details authors have created that have never been picked up on is so huge that I'm not expecting anything any time soon).

In all, definitely a good read and I hope she writes another book.

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DW: 6.8

Definitely better than A Good Man, and there certainly were moments I was grinning, although overall... I'm just not sure...

Hitler? Really? Did they need Hitler? I suppose you've got the big name draw card, and the idea of killing Hitler often comes up in time travel discussions, but... you get the feeling it was a plot gimmick idea and never treated more seriously than that. Instead we deal with the prequel to River Song and Dave the justice robot. (Couldn't Amy turn the privileges bracelet thing back on?) Fine, we had to deal with River, but, aside from some points of exposition, I'm not convinced we needed the tiny tots.

Mels? Okay, so any name that remotely resembles Melody/River Song might now be her in some other form. Is this the new Master? Are we going to be treated to Gnos Revir soon? And now we know why the opening two-parter was set in Utah... about as bad as Bad Wolf Bay, innit? But the whole lead up of 'soon you will know what I did' has kind of played itself out in this episode now, so less whining from her in the future, yeah? (Yes, there's still the moment of the Doctor's death to resolve, but we all know that's not going to happen as portrayed.)

A good kicker back into the season, although Amy seems to have gotten over her daughter have been kidnapped rather quickly. Some tasty episodes looking to come up, so roll on the rest of the season!

(BTW, the Question? Pretty obvious...)


Next time: Has the writer seen Alice: Madness Returns?

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Torchwood: Miracle Day Eight

How can one show very nearly manage to do something, and yet fail so badly at it? This had exposition and plot development, then killed any forward progression... did they only have one episode of plot and everything else is delay?

Well, of course there's someone else on the inside working for the Family. Makes perfect sense. Probably many someones. Frankly, I'm surprised they only showed the one person. As for the Family it(them?)self... it's big thing is there are no records of the names? The hell? So if someone had that name who wasn't with the Family, they had their names eradicated too? Sucks to be them, I guess. (Admittedly, there is no 'Ablemarch' or 'Costerdane' in Google Search, although there are some 'Frines's.)

I guess the Danes plot line is over? Or will he not be reported now Jenny is in the Family (and that other person got shot up a few times)? Although I would think there would be plenty of preachers preaching hellfire and damnation (they have before) that I don't see Danes becoming special because of it. However, I'm not guessing we'll have some schtick where Danes joins Torchwood to help them overcome... whatever the hell is going on (eight episodes and still no explanation - I'm thinking it's not going to be something they want to give people a chance to think about).

And, hey, Torchwood is split up again! Really? What a shock! That's never happened before! With Gwen popping back to ol' Blighty, and Jack having taken a dirt nap (in the car), Esther on the run and Rex about to be (metaphorically) stabbed by the Family working on the inside, the writers have plenty to keep padding out the story with.

And the ultimate 'f u' from this episode? It's, again, irrelevant! And, I realise, last week was irrelevant too! Gwen kidnaps Jack, only to turn the tables on the people controlling her... only for them all to suddenly say 'let's go along with them anyway!'. And now we find out that Angelo had nothing to do with Miracle Day, so another plotline goes bang (along with Knight and Visitor). At least we got John De Lancie to help distract people from the lack of actual development.

There should be a fan-edit of this series, however I don't think they'd get a whole episode length of time out of it...


Next time: Some badly contrived plot device will save the day! (Before the last cliffhanger kicks it.)

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A Bull and Cock Story

Since I saw The Trip, I needed to see Tristram Shandy - A Cock and Bull Story. So I did.

Um... I think this is a rare case where it the movie adaptation didn't work well for me. I say that, because I haven't read the book, and while the movie was trying to ape the book in mixing up reality and fiction and the like... I didn't really get it. I'm sure there's some great point the movie makes that is from the book, but I have no idea what that is. Even if it is "this is a load of bull", I don't think the movie made that point well either.

The plot is that Steve Coogan is Steve Coogan as Tristram (and Walter) Shandy, in the movie about Tristram life, with digressions into his birth, history of those around him, and into the behind the scenes of the movie itself... So, yeah, the plot was deliberately trying to be mixing it like the book, so I didn't really track the plot at all. Steve was good, Rob should have been in it more (so The Trip was better there), cameos by others were nice...

Not my movie, may appeal to others.

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Windfall

I was reminded of GasLand a little in that this movie is about a power generation source getting into middle class America, however...

It does seem that every corporation is evil and only has its own profit margin in mind and never thinks of the little people. But this movie isn't about that. It does seem that wind turbines might have problems with them, and there could well be serious concerns about having them anywhere near residential areas. But this movie isn't about that. And it does appear that wind turbines can cause town citizen to turn against town citizen, and we can find all out about that and not about the actual cause. And that's what this movie is about.

I'm not quite sure what the makers had in mind when they came up with Windfall, but what we get is lots of talking heads about how neighbours got on with one another, until wind companies got involved, and now they aren't talking to each other. You'd think there should be some address of wind turbine issues, and there is a little, but there is more artistic shots of photographs, and maps of the town, and of people talking about the issues of being on planning boards and the like.

Yes, this movie isn't like other documentaries. But not in a good way. A rethink is needed here.


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POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

I'm really glad I saw this movie. Largely because it's Morgan Spurlock, and I enjoyed his previous one, but the basic write up sounded good. This is a film about product placement and advertising, as you might be able to tell from the title POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Although you might be forgiven of not realising that it is meant seriously, because of the brands mentioned in the movie... I've heard of one, maybe two...

The point of this movie is that advertising is everywhere, and moreso getting to be product placement in movies and tv shows. So while highlighting that, Spurlock creates a movie that is paid for entirely by sponsors - which are pimped out during the movie itself (sometimes subtly, somethings not so much). And I tell you what, I'd be interested to see what this did to sales, I would be inclined to buy those products... if not for the fact that they are American and not over here.

If you like Spurlock, if you like documentaries, if you like finding out about the secrets behind advertising (in that way I was reminded of Czech Dream), definitely see this movie.


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