I’m in a team participating in a short film competition called Uneton 48. The idea is to make a film in 48 hours about a subject you only get to know at the beginning. In our case, Mike Pohjola wrote the script on Friday night, and we shot yesterday with Continue Reading
Movies
Human War Movies
I wrote an article for the magazine Kumppani about the Iraq War movies shown at the Love & Anarchy Film Festival in Helsinki, starting next week. They put it on the net, it’s available here (in Finnish).
Antarctic Research Blog #71: Scott of the Antarctic
Film: Charles Frend: Scott of the Antarctic (U.K. 1948) This is the old Ealing Studios version of Scott’s fatal, final adventure. At the time the movie was made, Scott was still a saint, and you can see it in the film. This is not a movie so much as a Continue Reading
Antarctic Research Blog #70: Virus
Film: Kinji Fukasaku: Virus (Japan, 1980) Virus is an Eighties catastrophe movie about a virus that kills everyone on Earth except for the people living on Antarctic bases. Its definitely a Cold War movie, with the Americans and Russians sharing the blame for the apocalypse that follows. As sometimes happens Continue Reading
Antarctic Research Blog #68 – Ice Bound, the Movie
Movie: Roger Spottiswoode: Ice Bound (U.S.A. Canada, 2003) Based on the story (and book) of Dr Jerri Nielsen who was wintering at the U.S. South Pole station when she found out she had breast cancer. The script of this schmaltzy movie seems to consist entirely of characters spouting homilies and Continue Reading
Midnight Sun
I was at the Midnight Sun Film Festival with my wife and some friends, in Lapland. The photo was taken around two at night, after we came out of the screening of the Guy Maddin movie Brand Upon the Brain!. The drive back to Helsinki took fourteen hours. We Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #65 – Battleship Antarctica
Documentary: Morgan Mathews: Battleship Antarctica (U.K. 2007) A documentary about the Greenpeace ship Esperanza and its crew on a mission to prevent Japanese whalers from doing what they do. It’s an interesting documentary hijacked by the events: the Japanese ship has an explosion onboard, and in the end the Esperanza Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #61
Movie: Peter Delpeut: Forbidden Quest (The Netherlands, 1993) A Dutch fake-documentary Antarctic movie! This is a great Antarctic film, done with very little means. Its a documentary about the fictitious Hollander expedition, put together using the actual vintage Antarctic and Arctic footage shot by Herbert Ponting, Frank Hurley and others. Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #60: Alien Hunter
Movie: Ron Krauss: Alien Hunter (Bulgaria, U.S.A. 2003) At first you think you’re watching the X-Files, then John Carpenter’s The Thing. Closer to the end you realize this is actually a pretty clever B-movie with some moves of its own. In the beginning, alien stuff is found in the Antarctic Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #56
Movie: Ash Brannon & Chris Buck: Surf’s Up (U.S.A. 2007) A late entry in the recent spate in penguin movies. This is a bizarre film. It has the plot, the characters, the jokes, the voices, of a surf movie, except with penguins. The hero, Cody, is a young penguin from Continue Reading