Icelandic director gives Beowulf the Monty Python treatment Beowulf & Grendel Directed by Sturla Gunnarsson Union Station, opens July 7, Quad Today's moviegoers may have all the respect in the world for Anglo-Saxon poetry, Norse legend, and the tenets of early...
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NEW MOVIES. Opening Next Week
URBANSCAPES Photographer Camilo Vergara documents the changing topography of urban America and its unique neighborhoods through refections of its residents and artists. Wednesday at Two Boots Pioneer Theater. [b] BEOWULF & GRENDEL This saucy Icelandic update of...
SEA SICK
Another repetition of pirates and producers looking for big booty Spoiler Alert: The end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is a cliffhanger. That means after watching Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom still fighting pirates and ghosts, still...
Politically Aware ‘Beowulfs’ Miss an Ancient Delight: Terror
"Beowulf," as college lit majors used to have to learn, is the first significant work written in English, or in what passes for English: a 3,000-line epic poem composed — in alliterative, unrhymed verse — probably during the first half of the eighth century. It's also...
Fun With Flesh Wounds
The epic poem Beowulf gets the Monty Python treatment Beowulf told with a postmodern punk sensibility. If nothing else, give the makers of Beowulf & Grendel high marks for boldness, and for a certain playful irreverence. It's a good bet that today's moviegoers...
‘Beowulf’ turns page to screen: Adaptation has some dialogue issues, but visuals successfully capture tale
THE EPIC POEM "Beowulf" is -- as every high school senior should know -- the oldest extant work of any significance in our (or any other modern European) language, and the point from which we normally date the beginning of English literature. In some 3,182 lines of...
Poignant beast makes ‘Beowulf’ memorable
'BEOWULF," you may recall, is a ninth-century epic poem traditionally foisted on students by sadistic teachers. Most people graduate with no memory of its content beyond the presence of swords, a monster and pages of impenetrable language. "Beowulf & Grendel" may...
Beowulf meets girl; girl meets troll. Eeew.
Beowulf & Grendel: Drama. Starring Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgard, Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson and Sarah Polley. Directed by Sturla Gunnarsson. (Not rated. 102 minutes. At the Opera Plaza.) It's a danger that looms for every young actress. Choose the wrong role,...
Speaking of Gerard Butler
The programing for this year's San Diego Comic-Con has yet to be announced, although based on the amount of email everyone is getting about whether they will be on panels or not, it's imminent. The one thing we've been telling everyone who wants us to be on their...
Review: Beowulf and Grendel
I'm a sucker for obscure 8th Century (or so) Old English poetry, so when I saw that Beowulf and Grendel had been made, my inner lit geek trembled with equal parts trepidation and excitement. Danes and Geats fighting an evil troll, descended from Cain, the first...
2007 Comic-Con Preview
You won’t find gutsy heroes such as Spider-Man and Batman in corporate boardrooms, but the stellar box-office receipts their movies bring in have Hollywood’s suit-and-tie brigade shouting “Wham!,” “Kapow!” and “Shazam!” Often featuring primal story lines pitting good...
Potty-Mouthed Dialogue Mars Scenically Stunning `Beowulf & Grendel’
The eighth-century epic poem "Beowulf" is - as every high school senior should know - the oldest extant work of any significance in our (or any other modern European) language, and the point from which we normally date the beginning of English literature. In some...
‘Beowulf & Grendel’ is best when it shuts up
Coming along like a Viking picture abducted by Monty Python, "Beowulf & Grendel" is so crazy it sometimes works. Other times, this movie seems to have taken a wrong turn in its remote Icelandic location and gotten hopelessly lost. It's based on the epic ancient...
“Beowulf & Grendel”: Long poem (zzzz) becomes horror film (eeek)
In "Beowulf & Grendel," warriors from Sweden go to Denmark to aid a kingdom being savaged by a powerful troll. "Who does he think he is, some [bleeping] troll Caesar, laying claim to everything his eyes fix upon?" Nowhere in the 3,182 lines of the...
Hollywood Reviews and Movie Trivia
The Beowulf story has endured numerous retellings in the modern era, through both complex interpretations for adults and illustrated books for children. Until independent director Sturla Gunnarsson took on a project to direct a film adaptation in Iceland, no serious...
Beowulf & Grendel, Look Both Ways, and Nacho Libre
This limp, big-screen adaptation of everyone's favorite Anglo-Saxon epic, which screened at the Seattle International Film Festival last week and is (oddly) beginning its U.S. theatrical run in Seattle, opens with an abrupt and suspenseless chase. A loinclothed...
Seattle Film Festival- Days 16-18: A Day in the Life
With another hectic weekend under my belt, I'm feeling pretty good right now about closing out the final seven days of the Festival in strong fashion. I saw nine more movies, attended two more SIFF forums, and recorded two great interviews (one with the filmmakers of...
Hot Button: Seattle Film Festival Notes
The 32nd Seattle International Film Festival started May 25 and continues through next weekend. My 2nd annual Seattle International Film Festival started on Thursday and ends on Sunday. But I'm off to a speedy start. Since arriving here at about 12:45p today, I have...
Seattle International Film Festival: Danes take a walk on the noir side
The 32nd Seattle International Film Festival continues its eight-film tribute to contemporary Danish Cinema tonight with "Manslaughter," a noirish tale about a professor drawn into an affair with a much younger former student (6:45 p.m., Pacific Place Cinemas). Also...
June movies at Heritage
Heritage Theatre, 86 Main St. N. returns to its roots as a movie theatre Monday nights in June. Tickets cost $5 and can be purchased both in advance and from the box office by calling 905-874-2800. Films run at 8 p.m. June movie schedule: June 5: The 2006 Academy...
New PlayStation Game, Movie Spun from Frank Miller Graphic Novel
Frank Miller, the pioneering artist who helped reinvent the Batman franchise and whose 2005 Sin Cityfilm adaptation has grossed $99 millionworldwide, has been tapped for two Warner projects that will bow next year: an adaptation of 300, Miller's 1999 graphic novel...
WHERE ARE THEY NOW ON FORMER WWE ODDITY
Marc Poitras sent this one. ... Former WWE Wrestler Kurrgan (real name Robert Maillet) was featured this week in an newspaper article in his native New Brunswick, Canada. He will be in an upcoming film called "300", by director Zack Snyder (Dawn of The Dead). The man...
‘Beowulf’ catches ride at Union Station
Union Station Media has acquired U.S. distribution rights to "Beowulf and Grendel" from Arclight Films. Pic is directed by Sturla Gunnarsonn ("Snakes and Ladders") from a script by Andrew Rai Berzins ("Chasing Cain"). The cast includes Gerard Butler as Beowulf and...
Delay in Burns bio-pic goes from bad to verse
THE best-laid movie plans have been known to gang aft agley and, in the case of a £20 million film to portray the life of Scotland's bard Robert Burns, they've have done so again. One of its collaborators, Eric Rowan – ex-conman turned film producer who wrote the...
Beowulf battles his conscience, and evil
Copyright 2006 The Leader-Post, a division of Canwest MediaWorks Publication Inc. 'Beowulf and Grendel' Tonight-Sunday Regina Public Library Film Theatre Rating 2 1/2 (out of five) - - - Students beware. This movie version of Beowulf is not the one to watch before...