It is no secret that Beowulf & Grendel, starring the very loved Gerard Butler, has a die hard group of supporters. The film has slowly made its way across the globe and is now knocking on North America's door. The latest breakthrough for the film was its release...
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Ancient fable lacks epic punch on big screen
Beowulf and Grendel Directed by: Sturla Gunnarsson Stars: Gerard Butler, Sarah Polley, Stella Skarsgard, Ingvar E. Sigurdsson Where: Odeon Rating: 2 1/2 - - - College students beware. This movie version of Beowulf is not the one to watch before writing your English...
A BEOWULF IN ICELANDIC CLOTHING
Sturla Gunnarsson left his native Iceland when he was seven, but the land of ice, snow and magnificent cliffs has never been far from his heart. "I went back many times when I was a young person. And after I graduated from UBC, I worked on a fishing boat off the coast...
Sturla Gunnarsson’s very cool movie
Sturla Gunnarsson is standing at a pay phone on a dirt road in a tiny village in Costa Rica talking about Vikings, fjords and monsters. The director of Beowulf & Grendel is enjoying a warm vacation after spending 45 days on the rainy, windy and very chilly coast...
For whom la belle trolls
Sarah Polley is the Swiss Army Knife of actors. She's actor/activist/scriptwriter/Genie-Award winning short film director currently making her feature film directorial debut in Away from Her, starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. She was featured in The Young...
FORGET THE GLEN OF TRANQUILLITY
..I WAS IN A WORLD OF AGONY; SUNDAY MAIL SHOWBIZ SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE ROBERT RELIVES SMASH HORROR HUNKY Robert Cavanah has revealed how his starring role in hospital drama The Royal, set in the 60s, brought back painful memories of the car crash that threatened to...
Manly Gerard Butler reveals sensitive side of Beowulf
Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson calls Gerard Butler the “manliest man acting today.” It’s a tall claim in a business bursting at the seams with six-pack abs and dancing pecs of steel, but Butler has all the razor stubble and relaxed, alpha male presence to silence...
Monster’s POV matters to Beowulf director
Sturla Gunnarsson drew on his Icelandic roots, Vancouver film studies, and a pagan ritual or two to reimagine an ancient epic into Beowulf & Grendel. Sturla Gunnarsson drew on his Icelandic roots, Vancouver film studies, and a pagan ritual or two to reimagine an...
Movie Review: Beowulf and Grendel
This is a Canada-UK-Iceland production (not made by Hollywood), and it shows. It's actually refreshing to not see an overly slick epic sword film. Written approximately 1000 AD, anonymously, possibly by someone touted as a priest, this is one of the longest old...
Lights, camera, Iceland
Hofn, Iceland — I'm standing on a mountain pass, looking out over a glacial river delta on Iceland's south coast. Looming behind me is the Myrdalsjokull, an immense glacier shrouding an active volcano. It is the most beautiful, primordial landscape I've ever seen —...
Beowulf & Grendel – moview review
Coppola was the most famous, but I suspect every filmmaker gets to play Col. Kurtz eventually. Icelandic-Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson's mad folly is Beowulf & Grendel, a gamy retelling of the Anglo Saxon epic on what seems the least hospitable film location...
Epic Tale is Poetry in Motion
Trolls are bothersome at the best of times. At the worst of times they can be downright deadly. That's what the sixth century Danish king Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgard) learns in the epic revenge tale Beowulf & Grendel. Hrothgar kills a troll but spares its young...
Beowulf and Grendel: heroic epic
WE ALL KNOW the story of Beowulf, the hero from Geatland who rescued Danish King Hrothgar by destroying the monster Grendel and his mother. We know how Grendel had savagely slaughtered Hrothgar’s thanes celebrating in the great Hall of Heorot, how Beowulf tackled him,...
1,200-year-old story has great visuals
Movie has new characters, updated dialogue and a post-modern take on the quest BEOWULF & GRENDEL Rating 21/2 Director: Sturla Gunnarsson Starring: Gerard Butler, Sarah Polley, Stellan Skarsgard, Ingvar E. Sigurdsson Classification: 14A Parental warning: Violence,...
Beowulf, circa 2006
Ancient tale remade; New version fails to satisfy purists or the bloodthirsty College students beware. This version of Beowulf is not the one to watch before writing your English literature exam. Featuring new characters, updated dialogue and a post-modern take on the...
Beowulf saga gets an update for ‘postmodern’ movie
Beowulf and Grendel ** 1/2 Starring: Gerard Butler, Sarah Polley, Stella Skarsgard, Ingvar E. Sigurdsson Directed by: Sturla Gunnarsson. Rating: 14A, gory violence; sexually suggestive scenes; coarse language. Playing at: AMC Kanata, Empire 7, SilverCity - - - College...
Epic
Beowulf & Grendel was shot on location on the Icelandic coast.By stripping the ninth-century epic poem Beowulf down to its narrative bones, and by shooting it with an unembellished, steely realism, the Icelandic-born Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson has made...
Real characters emerge from myth
Beowulf & Grendel's people have both hero and villain in them Warning: 14A: Gory violence, sexually suggestive scenes, coarse language.103 minutes Grade: B "You want a beer?" -- Hrothgar "Oo-o-hh, yeah." -- Beowulf Seems an entirely appropriate way to greet the...
Beowulf & Grendel an epic movie
Starring Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgård, Sarah Polley, Ingvar Sigurdsson. Written by Andrew Rai Berzins. Directed by Sturla Gunnarsson. 103 minutes. At major theatres. 14A By stripping the ninth-century epic poem Beowulf down to its narrative bones, and by shooting...
Beowulf rides again
With swords and monsters all the rage, an ancient literary hero is now a hot showbiz property It's revered as the first epic work of English literature, although it's written in what looks like a foreign language. And it has become the bane of English students...
A very troll sense of humour
BEOWULF & GRENDEL Troll-on-witch sex, it can be said with a heck of a lot of understatement, isn't a beautiful thing to behold. All the grunting and the body hair and surely the halitosis -- not to mention the dank and smelly caves -- hardly make for a romantic...
THE WIND, THE VOLCANOES AND BEOWULF
Making a film in Iceland in October was no picnic for Sturla Gunnarsson and his cast and crew, MICHAEL POSNER writes Director Sturla Gunnarsson has seen his share of tough feature-film shoots, from Diplomatic Immunity (1991), part of which was shot amid nightmarish...
The man for the myth
Gerard Butler plays a notorious Norse warrior in Beowulf and Grendel Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson calls Gerard Butler the "manliest man acting today." It's a tall claim in a business bursting at the seams with six-pack abs and dancing pecs of steel, but Butler...
FROM ANCIENT EPIC POEM TO THE SILVER SCREEN
Beowulf & Grendel is lost in translation If anyone ever suggests that adapting a thousand-year-old 3182-line Old English epic poem into a movie is easy, laugh. Despite the inherent difficulties, however, Beowulf & Grendel director Sturla Gunnarsson delivers a...
Troll Story
Starring Gerard Butler, Sarah Polley. Written by Andrew Rai Berzins. Directed by Sturla Gunnarsson. (14A) 103 min. Opens March 10. A lot can go wrong when you're making a movie. A whole lot more can go wrong when that movie is an adaptation of an Old English epic poem...