p e n g u i n d e v i l

I Onde Dager.

Oh five thumbs up for this one! A Norwegian action comedy about a couple who retreat to a remote cabin. For why? Well, who knows what they are saying together but, individually, they certainly each harbor a lot of hostility towards the other! Some mistakes have been made… Failure, debt, adultery, commercials… Time to set things to right. Right?

Regardless of what they have planned, once up in the woods there is a table that gets turned, and then turned again, and then turned again, and then turned inside itself… And then yet more fun shows up. I Onde Dager (In Bad Days?) is quite a fun romp with: some blood (quite a bit, in fact), begging, lost fingers, laughs, and a trio of happy go lucky serial killers… And everyone partaking in wreaking havoc with: a shotgun and a knife and a shovel and a taser and a coffee pot and a plastic lemon and dear old dad’s teeth, and more!

A spiraling story of (mis)trust, love, crime, chaos, action, violence, and surprises.

Staring Askel Hennie who I have seen many many times as the ill-fated Volkov in Cloverfield Paradox (oh wait, pretty much everyone is ill-fated in that movie…), but everyone plays their roles quite nicely. I actually found Atle Antonsen as one of the cabin “guests” to be the most charming character of the bunch. Easily, a movie worth re-watching a bunch, plus, it has a really great soundtrack!


We then followed that up with The Hours.

I know nothing really about Virginia Woolf, and everything I know I learned from this movie. An intriguing and very thoughtful combination of Virginia’s process of writing of Mrs Dalloway in the 1920’s, plus the life of a woman in the 40’s, and a woman in 2000ish. Each woman in this trio is filled with doubt about their lives and a mortal depression. The movie takes place in, primarily, one day in the (seemingly) enviable life of each. They all have homes, family, security, a kind and kind and supportive spouse, but, sadly, those lives are not the lives for them. They are the lives that, due to society or themselves, they have found themselves in, but need to get out of. The different women each seem to have a varying degree of awareness of that… From VW bluntly not wanting her life (and making no bones about that), to the doubting housewife of the middle story trying to hold a smile (but barely able to), to the modern day woman who seems to be delighted by her life, but that sheen of delight is only a very thing coating on her doubt.

Really a great story about women who find themselves into roles/lives that just aren’t what they want and are fighting to find themselves. Fighting against their surroundings, their society, and themselves.