Babycall

A short film where Noomi Rapace stood in the center of the action, although she had already been worldwide recognized in the Millenium trilogy. Before the Millenium series she had already been spotted as an interesting actress in the Danish film Daisy Diamond, directed by Simon Staho.

Kurt Josef Wagle og legenden om Fjordheksa

A Norwegian comedy built to some extent on traditional sagas but this time with a humoristic twist. The word Fjordheksa is built upon the words fjord=the  long rivers in Norway or the long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier.  Heksa=witch. A sort of Norwegian siren perhaps?

The Son of Monte Christo

Alraune/A Daughter of Destiny

While the City Sleeps

The Hitch-hiker

Asylum

Mardi Gras La Châtre

The Moon and Sixpence

Lured

The Strange Woman

Witness to Murder

Bridesmaids

This is in short a rom-com and situation comedy, though it's not as funny as we thought it would be. It wasn't either as bad as we feared it could have been.

Kristen Wiig plays the role of Annie a woman having created a business of her own - a bakery - but who goes out of business leading to an downward spiral of events, including a miserable wedding, not her own however.

St Valentin 2012

Let Me In

This is the English-speaking version of the Swedish film 'Låt den rätte komma in', the latter directed by Tomas Alfredson, this one by Matt Reeves.

The story is identical with some smaller differences. The differences being e.g. that in the Swedish film the boy who is bullied is blond and here he is darker, the girl in the Swedish movie is very dark, looks as if she has parents from another country or being born outside Sweden herself. This to emphasize the underlying aspects of being 'the other' in an ethnic perspective.
These aspects are not as clear in the American version.

Otherwise it doesn't add much to the original story and we were not impressed by the Swedish version and neither by the American one.

Aurore has read the book and it's much more 'bloody' and violent than in neither adaptation for the screen.

There are more underlying symbolism too in the book and it's not in the way knowing a little about the writer John Ajvide Lindqvist and the fact that he was born and raised in the suburb depicted in the Swedish version, Blackeberg.
Lindqvist was also bullied at school and he ended that bullying by setting fire to a locker of one of his victimizers.
He later became a succesful magician and stand-up comedian before turning to writing.

We met him at the Swedish Institute in Paris the 11th of March 2010 for a dedication of his book and also to listen to him talking about it. You can read about it below:
http://auroregunnar.blogspot.fr/2010/03/institut-suedois-john-ajvide-lindqvist.html

The Black Swan

Duplicity

The film opens five years before the present day, showing the Fourth of July celebration at the American consulate in Dubai, where Ray Koval (Clive Owen), an MI6 agent, appears to seduce Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts), who, unbeknownst to him, is a CIA agent. Claire drugs Ray and steals classified documents from him.

The scene cuts to a silent, slow motion brawl on the tarmac (over which the opening credits play) between Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), the CEO of Burkett & Randle, and Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti), the CEO of Equikrom, illustrating the longstanding rivalry between the two executives.

In the present day, Ray is now a corporate spy in New York City who recently went to work for Equikrom. At a meet, he spots Claire and thinks the mission is blown. Ray follows her and confronts her about the incident in Dubai. Claire puts on an innocent act, pretending she has never met Ray, until they both realize they were supposed to meet. Claire has been working undercover for Equikrom at Burkett & Randle for the past 14 months, and Ray is to be her new handler.

At Burkett & Randle a major development is underfoot, and Tully makes a speech that paints them as innovators defending themselves from duplicity and theft. At Equikrom, Garsik obtains a copy of the speech through Claire and plots to steal whatever Burkett & Randle has developed.

The scene cuts to two years earlier in Rome, where we see Ray and Claire again meeting for the "first" time since Dubai, replaying the same dialog as in NYC. The audience learns that Ray and Claire did not meet at Equikrom by chance--they plan to cheat both companies and sell a corporate secret to the highest bidder. However, neither still completely trusts the other, nor knows who is playing whom.

The team at Equikrom believes Ronny Partiz (Denham), a child prodigy turned genius, might be responsible for Burkett & Randle's new product. Ray and Boris Fetyov (Oleg Stefan) stake out Partiz at a casino in the Bahamas, where Claire and Jeff Bauer (Thomas McCarthy) from Burkett & Randle foil their plans by planting evidence of them cheating the casino.

In return, Tully at Burkett & Randle thanks Claire for successfully defending the company's new product, revealing it to be a cure for baldness. When Bauer is later caught attempting to steal the formula and Claire is left guarding him and the formula by herself, she uses one of the rigged photocopiers at Burkett & Randle to transfer it to Equikrom.

Back at Equikrom, Claire accuses Ray of stealing the formula for himself. He is searched and exposed when it is found. Claire waits at the Zürich airport in Switzerland and when Ray arrives, it is revealed that Claire and Ray were only putting on an act at Equikrom. Each pretends at first they don't have the formula and then Claire confesses she loves Ray and says they are each the only one who can ever understand the other. Claire proposes they each reveal what they have on the count of three but Ray says he loves Claire back by saying first that he had another copy of the formula. Claire admits that she had it too, creating real trust for the first time.

Ray and Claire attempt to sell the formula to a Swiss company for $35 million. Meanwhile, Garsik tells his shareholders that they are in the final stages of testing for a product that cures baldness. The Swiss, however, say the formula is a fraud. The scene cuts to ten days earlier, where Claire and Ray were practicing the act they would present when it was revealed that Ray would be Claire's handler. Unbeknownst to them, there was a hidden microphone in their room monitoring them. From the beginning, Claire and Ray were being played by Tully and his people. Pam Frailes (Kathleen Chalfant) from Equikrom was really working for Burkett & Randle all along, Partiz was used as the bait, Bauer staged stealing the formula, and the formula never existed at all. It was all a trick to get Garsik to announce he had a revolutionary product, which was in fact just a regular skin cream, and which would ruin Garsik and Equikrom. The film ends with Ray and Claire realizing they have been played by Tully.

Soylent Green

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

We started to look at these films again, because our local cinema projectionist and owner of the cinema in La Châtre (Cinéma Lux), Didier Godet, has a son who is a great fan of Potter and we borrowed his DVD-films.

In this film we find Harry and his friends during their third year at Hogwarts and there are some changes at the school but also troubles outside, approaching Potter and being a threat towards his life.
This threat comes by the name of Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who has escaped from 'The Wizard's Prison'. Black is the one supposed to have killed his parents. But is it really he who is responsible for that?

Before him Potter and his friends have to face the 'Dementor's', very ugly and dangerous creatures, with no mercy.
"Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them... Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself...soulless and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life." , Remus Lupin (David Thewlis) to Potter.

We've never been so enthusiastic about the Potter movies and this is no exception, even though it might be one of the better we've seen, as the first ones are, in our opinion.
I won't write more about this film from the point of view connaisseur, because I'm not and what has not been written about Potter and his world, is not worth knowing.

What I can say is that the - in my opinion - superb actor Gary Oldman, who normally is very good at playing psychopaths, is not particularly frightening in this film and neither are the other characters.
The most frightening creatures here is the 'Dementors', created in the computer and not even they were creepy.
Films made for children or very young adolescents but....

The ambivalent use of Potter's (and the other characters) powers is also a bit annoying - as in most movies with some kind of 'super heroes', if we can call Potter so.
Sometimes they are almost invincible, sometimes they can't fight the most insignificant antagonist.
This is of course always done to create suspense but it's not credible and the scripts have to become more convincing concerning these aspects of the super hero-sagas.

This is of course the same as in later years Batman-movies or the like, 'The Dark Night Rises' with the ridiculous opponent Bane (Tom Hardy), being the, almost, 'greatest' threat towards Batman.
It really makes you sigh!

Nødlanding

A Norwegian war film about a group of brave Norwegian men who help hiding a group of American soldiers when their bomber is shot down over the Oslo fjord.
After some thinking, they decide to use the local church to hide them from the German occupants.

As in all countries there were people affraid of being involved and this could either manifest itself by cooperating with the Germans ('Quisling's') or trying to stay out of involvment in an event like this.

At the whole it's a good and interesting war film without any excessive violence or shooting, just a suspensful following up of how they all try to avoid being discovered, as this would have serious consequences not only for the Americans but the whole village ('Scorched Earth'-tactics).

Generally speaking I think that most Norwegian war films are well made and realized. They have their own personal experience of war - contrary to the Swedes who hid behind their neighbours - and this is of course one important factor in making a good war film, except a good script, a good director - and of course - good actors.
We have some very fine Norwegian actors in this film: Henki and Randi Kolstad, Jens Bolling, Jack Fjeldstad.

The Americans acting in the film, seem to be amateurs, not having participated in more than, at the most, one or two, three other movies after or before this one.
In spite of this they are no bad actors.

We can recommend this film as a more realistic, less violent version of a war film.







(Foto actor Henki Kolstad among others copied from: http://www.nfi.no/english/Norwegian+Films/Festivals+and+Awards/Cannes+2011/Norwegian+films+in+Cannes+1952-2011/_image/91759.png?_encoded=2f66666666666678302f35382f3b29303436286874646977656c616373&_ts=12fd4cdc90b)
(Poster copied from: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dYSfMVBXL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)

The squirrel in Berry

This is a short film taken by one of my family members - Jean-Luc Lami - depicting the squirrel 'living with' my wife's aunt. Not actually 'with' her of course but in one of her loop-holes (windows).
She feeds it with nuts everyday and the squirrel doesn't refuse eating them!

The Social Network

Døden på Oslo S

Svidd neger

The title of the film could be translated into 'Scorched (Burned) Negro (or Nigger)' and there is a black boy in the film and later on also a fire but the title is perhaps more related to the 'fires' in his life. 

We also meet Anna (Kersti Lid Gullvåg) who lives with her totally unbearable father Karl (Thor-Inge Gullvåg) who has killed his wife when he found that their newborn child was black, indicating he couldn't be the father. Less likely it is anyway!

The goast of his wife now haunts him and he has started drinking heavily neglecting his daughter, only using her as his 'farm maiden', having her doing all the work, supplying him with alcohol. 

One day Anna - who wants to find a man - discovers another family on the other side of the mountain. This family consists of a rather alcoholized widow Ellen Margrethe (Guri Johnson), her intolerable son Peder (Erik Junge Eliassen) and Ellen's adopted son Ante (Kingsford Siayor). The latter is said to have arrived from the sea on a piece of wood.

Is he perhaps the son of Karl, having survived?

Between these two families a sort of pact is arranged where Karl and Ellen becomes a couple - more or less (perhaps less) - and they want to marry the pretty Anna with the ugly Peder, just to knit the families together. 

On the same time Anna has met a sami by the name of Normann Hætta bongo Utsi Saus (Frank Jørstad) and his plans is to go to 'Ammrica'. 

This is in many ways a bizarre film but on the same time it doesn't succeed in becoming bizarre in a more sophisticated way, whereby the somewhat weird behaviour of each and everyone becomes parodical. 

I think the director has tried to copy ideas from other major directors having depicted socially dysfunctional families or/and dysfunctional milieus but in this case it falls between different genres, leaving the viewer wondering if it's a black comedy, a parody or a serious critic of society. I guess it's a bit of everything and this doesn't work out to well we thought.

It tries to turn the ethnical questions upside down by blending different styles and approaches to life among this group of people but it's not revolutionary in its execution.

For Ante it becomes a happy end in any way, revealing his roots and belongings.