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Reviews
The Orville: Primal Urges (2019)
Iloved it
Amazed by the amount of negative reviews, I have to say this was a funny, thought provoking and both harth breaking and hillarious episode. I loved everything about it. I really hope this show continues to a season three. We need The Orville now, more than ever.
Emma (1972)
Lovable adaptation
Yes I see this production is low budget and all, with an amateurish feel about it, and yet still I found it quite excellent - admirable indeed. Doran Godwin gives an expressionist portrayal of Emma which suits the character, and John Carson is a likable Mr. Knightley. All in all the casting is mere perfection; Thimoty Peters is a funny, yet realistic Mr. Elton; Debbie Bowen as Harriet Smith might be to much of a good thing, but then again Constance Chapman is most excellent as Miss Bates. Whats great about this "cheap" production is you feel the uneasiness of family gatherings, the ugliness of character and how irritating and limited this polite language can be. In more updated Jane Austen films, things might seem a bit artificial, as if the characters live in glossy prints. Certainly Austens times were just as "real" and shitty as ours, and this comes to front in this brilliant, yet quite forgotten, miniseries of Emma. The best dramatization of this marvelous novel so far.
Charles tante (1959)
Souverign
Great film this, a danish classic. Perfect balance of poetic romance scenes, including full moon walks, swan statues, parks, moonlight sonatas, beautiful women, grumpy old uncles
everything.
Hilarious comedy from Dirch Passer, of course, but this is not solely a Passer flick. Legendary Ove Sprogøe plays Charles. Mr. charming and dead to early Ebbe Langberg is Peter, and they both want to marry Susse Wold and Ghita Nørby.
Here is also a great performance from Holger Juul Hansen whom we love so much in the series «Matador» and «Riget» (Lars von Triers «The Kingdom»).
A must see!
Blindpassasjer (1978)
Classic Norwegian SciFi
OK. I admit. I'm one of those nerds who have spent all to many hours with my beloved DVD player and my wonderful television set watching science fiction series. Star Trek (Next Generation) was my first space date, and since then I've switched partners regularly. I've seen'em all, it seems, and my favorites are «Lexx», «Farscape» and the new «Battlestar Galactica», in other words: the newest, state of the art space operas. But, I also have a general crush on the old fashioned ones, the cheap ones, like the magnificent four seasoned BBC show «Blakes7». Here, the budgets are smaller than hobbits, the special effects seem to be made on a Commodore 64, but who cares when the scripts are sharp and intelligently written with dark humor, the acting dead serious and at times even high class?
But why do they always speak English in the space future? Because this is NOT the future, it's fantasy for kids. Still, it can be irritating at times. Me, being a Norwegian, have often damned this appalling fact that one never makes genre series, like science fiction, for Scandinavian viewers. I never ever thought of the fact that this might have happened. But it did, actually, once, and even in my own homeland, Norway. I was two years old when the so called Fjernsynsteatret (TV theater section) of our national public service channel Nrk produced this three episode version of Blindpassasjer (The Stowaway).
When I first heard of it, I was not surprised of the fact that until this day, the show has only been screened once in Norway, making it impossible for me to actually see it. It went on Swedish, danish and Finnish television also, in it's time, but that was a long time ago. There have been no video or DVD release of it, not a surprise either, and when it was screened on an art house cinema, this happened in Bergen, a city far far away from Oslo (where I live). And then there's another fact about «Blindpassasjer» that didn't surprise me, that it was written by the two Norwegian authors Tor Åge Bringsværd and Jon Bing (Bing&Bringsværd). This duo basically introduced the SciFi genre to Norwegians in the seventies; they published anthologies and wrote what they called fable prose. In my opinion, Bringsværd is the most interesting of the two writers, and has written several great and entertaining novels, masterpieces even, some of them hilarious, such as «Bazar» and «Syvsoverskens Dystre Frokost». No other than this guy, also an acclaimed dramatist, could construct the script of «Blindpassasjer».
When I finally got to watch it, it was because a strange swede who recorded the three episodes on VCR in the 80's, eventually managed to transform it to DVD and give it to me. He was a nice bloke. So I sat down and watched it, with Swedish subtitles, bad sound and some scrapes and errors; but the thing came through and I was surprised that I eventually came to love it.
The exterior scenes with the spaceships and planets are better than the ones in Blakes7, and the credit goes to Caprino studios (who made the famous Flåklypa Grand Prix), and the interior of the Marco Polo (the space ship) works better than I'd expected. The acting is typically theatrical, but it works better than when they play Ibsen, to put it mildly, and Bjørn Floberg carries his role solidly, as does Trini Lund. The legendary actress Henny moan delivers her lines in a serious and laid back tone which fits the genre, but this is an ensemble play, and I'm happy to say that Ola B. Johannesen carries his mustache with nobility, and Marit Østbye is a really hot space chic of my standards.
But is it really that good? Well, one have to swallow the rather abrupt ending, the pretentious criticism of «modern society», but yes, it's, well, not really really really fantastic, but charming, cool, nostalgic and pleasant. One and a half hour of classic Norwegian SciFi.
The Baby of Mâcon (1993)
A must see
Well, "The Baby of Macon" is surely no Disney trip to the sea, but thank God for that. Compared to other Greenaway movies such as "The cook, the thief...", "Prosperos Books" and the other paintings come to life-classics, this one is the most terrifying an uncompromising flick you ever will lay your eyes upon, and it does not contain any of the minimalistic (senil) music of Michael Nyman, but serves a fantastic blend of true renaissance melodies. Key themes from Monteverdis "Orfeo" fits Greenaways vision perfectly. And the movie is great in all its complex aspects. The smart mixture of fictional levels, questioning who are the viewers and who are the actors, manages weirdly enough to state a deep impression.