Tag: 2 out of 4

Everyone reading this has a big regret. It is the same collective one. You know. Not investing in Bitcoin decades ago when it was just starting out. The same thing you said probably a decade ago, and maybe said a couple of years ago. If it keeps going up though….should you invest now? Hard to say.

It’d be easier to guess and get lucky with the next bitcoin, but there are a lot out there, and no one is reaching that same level of price, so its a hard battle.

But what does that have to do with the movie Silk Road? No, not the ancient one. The new one, that was for drugs on the internet with bitcoin! Ah yes, the story is full circle now. Sure, I would love a movie about the start up and take down of one of the most infamous “websites” out there.

Need this film to make at least this much money to break even.

Ross Ulbricht (Nick Robinson) is one of those types. You know. A libertarian. He believes in lots of freedoms and getting away from the federal and local governments as much as possible. And probably, sometimes, he believes in non libertarian ideals as well, but that’s one of the perks of being a libertarian. Being able to claim to be different despite being just like everyone else.

Anyways. He is good at computers, and likes bitcoins and thinks all of this is the future. So he ends up setting up Silk Road. An Amazon for drugs and illegal stuff! Nothing really bad like assassins for hire, but weed, LCD, fun stuff. And thanks to encryption, the dark web, and bitcoin, he can set this whole thing up and even have the drugs mailed through the US postal service right to people’s doorsteps. Ah yes. Freedom.

But the government ain’t going to let this one slide. They will have a crack team (heh) of FBI specialists who know the internet to try and trace him and bring him in. And they will also have Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke), a DEA agent close to retirement who also has huge money issues, trying to figure out how to stop it despite being mostly computer illiterate and his much younger boss not caring about what he works on.

Also starring Alexandra Shipp, Jimmi Simpson, Katie Aselton, Lexi Rabe, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Daniel David Stewart, and Paul Walter Hauser. 

“What the fuck is the internet?“

If I had to guess, Silk Road wanted to be the next Social Network with some Catch Me If You Can action. People avoiding arrest and starting tech revolutions. Hip young people out to save the world. Violence and drugs and maybe even a little bit of sex.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end up being as good as either of these films. It is a lot less witty and pretty bare bones on the plot. I liked parts, I hated parts, and I really thought a lot of information was skipped on the true story elements. I don’t even know if that is true. It just feels like a lot of it was skipped around or ignored or just accomplished during montages. And in terms of a police cat and mouse game with Ulbricht, well, it is really just mostly avoidance until a couple things get let up, and that is it.

Fun fact, Robinson and Shipp were previously in the movie Love, Simon, in definitely not a relationship, but they are in one for some time in this movie.

Back to this movie. It is such a good story in real life, but I think the movie tries to remain neutral in all of the story telling, so it can’t really fully give me a really wow granting storyline. All of the acting is just fine. It was good to find out about the DEA agent who decided to be a dickbag about this whole thing a well, but it doesn’t make this version of the story interesting enough to ever warrant a rewatch unfortunately.

2 out of 4.

Robin Wright is someone who has had a spectacular resurgence over the last decade and not enough people are giving it credit. Everyone mentions the McConaissance, but what about the Wright Stuff? No that is bad, sorry.

Okay, in the McConaissance, Matthew was in notably a lot of rom coms and became a good actor suddenly with a string of films, so we were like, “Oh! Where have you been this whole time?!” and then he won an award, probably. I don’t remember.

For Robin Wright, it was more of a “Oh, where have you been this whole time?” because despite being in things most of her career, she has felt a bit more unnoticeable since Forrest Gump. That was until House of Cards put her back on the radar, and with big roles there, and Wonder Woman, and Blade Runner 2049, she is back. So after all this time what does she wants to do? She wants to direct and star in a movie damn it. And that movie is Land. And it isn’t even based on a book.

Just a woman and her own private cabin and mounain.

Edee (Robin Wright) is tired of all the shit. You know. The social media. The news cycle. Going to work. Grocery stores. Doggy day cares. Minimum wage. Maximum wage. Racism. Electric stoves. Theme parks. Museums. War. Famine. Movies being made about Dracula. Literally all of the shit, she is tired of it, and she has decided to get away.

Full stop, no contact, she now is going to live at this tiny little cabin on a mountain deep, deep in the woods. She has brought no money, no tech, nothing but clothes to help her. She is going to live off the land (movie name!), hunt, and sleep on her own. And if it kills her, it kills her, but she is going to make a real good try of it. Why did she decide this? Well, wait until the end of the movie for that.

And despite wanting to be alone, she does have someone to help her, eventually, after saving her life. Miguel (Demián Bichir), who actually knows hunting and survival skills, can’t just leave her there to die. So he agrees to help her out and he agrees to her rules. No news about the world. Just some lessons for a season, and then off he goes.

Also starring Sarah Dawn Pledge and Kim Dickens.

Learning is great, especially when it keeps you from not dying.

Wright is a lovely actress and a strong actress. She has been doing this for a long time. And it shows. She is very strong in this as well and open. We see her at some very low moments in this characters story, and she bears it all to get those emotions across to the viewers. She is wonderful in this. 

But it is not enough to carry the movie for me.

 The entire movie it just feels like we are being teased info that we know they will tell us eventually. Why did she run away from life? What happened in her past? We get snippets, but we don’t get the real reason until the last few minutes of the movie. And it is a brief story, and honestly, I think at that point it would have been better to have kept it a mystery. 

Like, if you wait until the end of the movie, I expect something very dark, or unimaginable, because she changed her whole life, and damn it, we weren’t told why. It would be hard to live up to those expectations. And almost would have been better to keep it a secret, very true to her recluse lifestyle. It makes sense why we found out from the plot, and it involves growth, but by then I care a little less.

As for the rest of the movie, like I said, it has a lot of strong acting, but the story is certainly weak in the middle. The plot can be summarized as someone goes to the woods, they struggle, they struggle a lot more, they are saved, they learn, they thrive, and life is good. I know most films can be broken down into ridiculous ways like that one, but damn it, I wanted something more.

2 out of 4.

So far I have seen three documentaries directed by Rodney Ascher, not his entire body of work, but probably his biggest titles. The first one, Room 237, I definitely did not get. I have only seen The Shining once anyways, so watching people talk about its metaphors for what feels like forever wasn’t something I could get behind.

What I could get behind was The Nightmare, about people describing their sleep paralysis. A terrifying thing, that I had only heard about years prior, and I was so glad to never experience it personally (although I think maybe I did once? Just once). It’s use of visuals to go with the stories just really got me in the fears. And it might have made my best of the year list, or at least the honorable mentions.

And the third documentary of his? Well, it is A Glitch in the Matrix, the one I am reviewing right here, right now. And sure, let’s talk to people and “Experts” about why they definitely have arguments that we are likely stuck in a computer simulation and not the base level world. That won’t give me extra nightmares at all, no.

Glitches be like. Now, experts is a loose term. We get people who really believe that we are in a simulation, describing why, what makes sense, what doesn’t, and moments when they have had an out of simulation experience and their expectations from when they die.  Some are more ingrained in it than others.

And uhhh, one of the people interviewed is actually a guy who thought he was in The Matrix so much that he killed his family. And that isn’t a joke. It is a real person, and they describe their experiences and he went to jail. I wasn’t expecting that part of the story, it was dark. It fits, but I still feel a bit conned that I heard the disturbing tale without like, a real warning on that, so not sure if it is spoilers, but there is warning on that. If you want to hear a recount of someone who killed his family, because of computer simulations, you will get it in this documentary.

Overall, the whole thing is a bit disjointed. It is a few people having conversations that are somewhat related, but it just feels like I am being ushered around the room to hear different people talk about things. It doesn’t fully answer the question (because it couldn’t), just gives some snippets that someone could probably find with some googling.

And apparently this documentary is all Elon Musk’s fault, for talking about simulations in interviews and really driving up that theory. I’m not saying we aren’t. I am not saying we are. But I am saying, this documentary could have had a lot more going on for it.

2 out of 4.

The Little Things, if I do say so, was probably the most hyped up movie coming out in January, 2021. Sometimes it is hard to say that with certain, but for movies that hit theaters and online at the same time, I think I saw more advertisements for this on social media than any other movie this month. Heck, I was excited to see it. But the more ads, the worse some of them look.

For example, most ads ended up looking something like this. Great, cool, advertising the three leads, looks suspenseful, that is what it is going for.

But I also saw an ad like this for Cinemark. In teacher land, sometimes we ask questions to get students to discuss, usually “What do you notice, what do you wonder?” And well, I found the Cinemark ad odd, given that it focused on two thirds of the leads, leaving out the one who happens to be black.

Is it to highlight academy awards? I hope not, because Denzel has two for acting, compared to the others having one each. (And arguably those single Oscars are pretty debatable for each of their roles). It is just something I notice and wonder. You know. The Little Things.

Yes, yes, I was in Suicide Squad. Please, please. No Autographs.

Joe ‘Deke’ Deacon (Denzel Washington) is small town sheriff far outside of the city of LA, working where things are calm most of the time, but still good at his job. He is asked by his superior to head to the city though, to pick up some evidence they have for a case.

Turns out, Deke used to work at that same precinct about 5 years back before an incident. He became transferred from the area, and accepted his new life of solitude. He does minimal snooping around, because he’d prefer to be there and out and not stay and hang with his former coworkers. But, there is an interesting new case. And Jim Baxer (Rami Malek), a young hot shot detective who wears suits and has a family and charisma, who got the job with Deke being ousted. Jim just finds Deke interesting and wants his input.

There’s a serial killer afoot it turns out. They might have a live witness too. And some bearings of the kills and bodies might be connected to what Deke was investigating years earlier.

So of course, Deke puts in some vacation days and decides to hang out longer. He will find this guy, damn it. Also they think it is a person played by Jared Leto.

Also starring Chris Bauer, Michael Hyatt, Sofia Vassilieva, and Terry Kinney.

Don’t cross the tape they say. Don’t murder they say.Acting. Acting is important. And the advertisements for this film really wanted to make sure you knew that for the main three roles of this movie we had three academy award winners for acting. That way the viewer can walk up and go, “Hot damn, look at all that acting talent, I am in!” at the theaters or, more likely, on HBO Max.

And sure enough, Washington, Malek, and Leto, act pretty darn good. Washington doesn’t just play a serious good cop, you can tell he is also obsessive and willing to skirt the law. Malek normally plays more serious characters, or friendly characters, I don’t think I’ve seen him play the young hot shot charismatic type before. (Yes, this is very different than Freddie Mercury). Leto just has to play a mysterious and smart normal person who may or may not be a serial killer. Seems like that is in Leto’s normal wheelhouse.

So if you want to see two hours of some cop drama and investigating with some pros (mostly Denzel is the driving force here), then sure, go for it.

But damn do I hate the overall plot and final act of this movie. It throws in some surprising (ish) moments and it leaves some things up in the air, but not in a satisfying way. Prisoners, for example, was a long cop drama, with questionable actions along the way, with an ending that wasn’t fully explained or finished, but still extremely satisfying and fulfilling at the same time. This ending feels hollow and absent. This ending doesn’t make me want to see the movie again. It just leaves me disappointed.

And you don’t want to leave a movie feeling unfulfilled and disappointed, even if the acting was top notch. Jut the mystery wasn’t worth the time.

2 out of 4.

The Dig is the next of these big movies that Netflix plans on releasing weekly. The one I very recently did before this was The White Tiger, and there was also Pieces of a Woman, and damn it Netflix. Where are the shit films?

Well, despite this being an intro, I can technically say this is the shittiest new to Netflix film this year that I have seen, but the film is not inherently shit. One of those strange situations.

I shouldn’t have to wait for The Kissing Booth 3 to get something potentially bad though. Maybe they are hiding the bad movies from me. Yes. That must be it.

Picture: A woman and her hole. 

In 1939, Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) is wealthy and owns a good chunk of land in Great Britain. And she is a widow. And on her land are a few interesting mounds that she believed, along with her late husband, to maybe hold some great old architecture or burial site. And now that he is gone so early and tragically, she wants to hurry and carry out a dig of the site to find out if there is anything down there.

She wants to hire a guy known by reputation and not by official degrees, Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to survey and dig her land, and apparently at a higher than normal rate, because he is allegedly a great archaeologist.

And now it becomes a meticulous race to dig. Racing to finish before WWII gets bigger. Racing to finish before the British government decides to take the find for themselves. Racing to finish before they get old and just die, I guess.

Also there are subplots. And starring Johnny Flynn, Lily James, Ben Chaplin, and Ken Stott.

Picture: A dirty old man creeping on a young widow. Surprise! The Dig is a true story, and it is really just a specific time frame bio of Basil Brown, which is most certainly an Archaeologist whom you have never heard about before. Which I guess can be a reason for the movie to exist.

Apparently in the area he was known as being amazing, and they showed that in one scene because he was sought after. But due to his lack of credentials, it took awhile, even for things he helped dig up and discover, to mention his name as part of it.

And well. Sure, okay. It is an okay story. It has fine acting done from the two leads. But this is a film that also seems to need the sub plots purely to pad the length of time of this movie, to give us more characters to care a bit about. But honestly, a non-real love triangle, because of a character hiding their gayness, and someone being sent off to fight in the war, and all of that, have nothing to do with our main two characters. They are just other people on the dig. Are they even real? I forget if the end told me that. It just feels so indifferent to the story.

It is good for side characters to have small arcs and growth as well, and not just be two dimensional. But these stories took away from the main story, which admittingly could not stand on its own legs. It needed more. Or, maybe, it just needed a lot less, with a shorter run time.

2 out of 4.

Psy. Cho. Gore. Man.

Psycho Goreman.

Really rolls off the tongue there, doesn’t it? It implies a lack of sanity, and a man who enjoyes producing gore. That is certainly not a good combination. And it is sometimes advertised as PG: Psycho Goreman. For most people, PG means parental guidance, and it is what most kid friendly movies are. There are G level, but those are super basic. I have to feel the branding and the acronym are intentional to combine these two thoughts together. They aren’t doing it to “trick” parents into taking their kids to see a violent R rated film, but given that this film plays with the tropes of “alien crashes to earth and is found by kids”, it just continues to play up that ridiculousness.

I mean, what if the alien was actually not a nice and docile creature? And what if humanity is worse?

In this picture: A sociopathic evil mastermind, a little boy, and a deadly alien

Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) are two siblings who often play their new came Crazy Ball with each other, but Mimi is much better at the sport than her brother. She is also meaner, like on a sociopath level. So because she won, she makes her brother dig a big hole in the background and eventually they find some glowing light alien stuff. They don’t do anything with it, go to sleep, and then the Arch-Duke of Nightmares (Matthew Ninaber, Steven Vlahos) is awoken and escapes his prison.

A ruthless killer alien, who has been trying to destroy the galaxy, has now been unleashed on the world and is ready to kill with blades, magic, and more. Fuck life, says this incarnation of evil. But Mimi ends up getting a hold of his special orb, which means he has to do what she says and cannot try to actively harm her. Ain’t nothing wrong with being in control of a villainous killer assassin. Also she renames him Psycho Goreman, because its better, PG for short.

Also there is an alliance of aliens who imprisoned him who now have to head to Earth to try and stop him from like, destroying everything too. Yep, that is a thing.

Also starring Adam Brooks, Alexis Kara Hancey, and Kristen MacCulloch.

Speak softly and carry on you the blood of your conquered foes.

Psycho Goreman is surprising, while at the same time not.

It hits a lot of the expected beats you would expect to see of “Alien comes to Earth, kids find him, but he is super evil.” Some of the chaos he does is pretty gorey, but wit the low budget they are still limited there. And honestly, the plot line of the Templar aliens rushing to stop him costume wise feels a lot like the enemies in power rangers. It could be intentional, but it still lowers the overall quality.

The surprising aspect comes from one of our leads, Mimi, as they did another reverse trope by making the strong determined sibling to be the girl, with the passive one being the boy. It was a great reversal. And I am shocked at hour menacing they made that girl. Absolutely one of the scariest anti-heroes of the year already, and someone I would not want to cross paths with ever in my own life. She did amazing and deserves praise there.

Overall the story is a bit amusing, but is dragged down sometimes from the lower budget and ways they had to work around it for the film. It didn’t shock me too much given the point of the plot, and most of the shock value came from unexpected stars.

2 out of 4.

Most of you can likely assume by now in my 9th year of reviewing movies that I kind of love movies.

But I have other passions. I create art, I play games (less and less), I do twitch things, and I also play board games. I actually LOVE board games, but getting older, having young kids and a family, makes it harder to spend hours with others doing the board game thing. Really, I am just trying to make it through the awkward younger years for the kids, getting them older so I can just play the games with them. That is the dream goal.

Then retirement, play more games with strangers and shops and all of that. This assumes no pandemics in the future.

So board games are a passion of mine, so I was thrilled to be able to see a movie about board games. I am hoping it takes it to a high, or even medium leve with the topic. Just something more than standard Monopoloy and Sorry bull shit. Come on, Murder Bury Win. Wow me.

Okay if this game is like Fuck Marry Kill, I know who I’d pick for all three.

Adam (Erich Lane), Barrett (Henry Alexander Kelly), and Chris (Mikelen Walker) are best friends and work friends, because together they have made and designed their own board game called Murder Bury Win. They are ready to sell it and get rich and famous as game designers. [Yes, we know game designers aren’t really famous and more like “rich”]. They put their game on Gamechanger for funding (like Kickstarter), but after a month they got no where close their goal, except for a few anonymous donors. Fuck. Their dreams are ruined.

Well, the next day, Adam gets a call from a mysterious stranger. He wants to meet up with the creators of the game Murder Bury Win and talk about it, maybe invest, maybe help out. And this dude lives out in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, by himself. The don’t even know his name.

After a terse encounter and some talking, they discover it is actually V.V. Stubbs (Craig Cackowski), one of the most famous board game designers ever. These men made their game after they were inspired by Stubbs’ biggest hit, Murder Wall. Oh great, what luck. He will help them out and maybe even choose to buy it from them, that would be a wonderful start.

And then someone dies, accidentally. Maybe. This leaves the leftover people wondering how to get out of this mess. After the murder, they have to leave no trace and accurately bury, in order to win. Can they win?

Also starring Brian Slaten as a cop.

Everyone knows if you play the murder card you are allowed to murder. That’s the rules! 

Is Murder Bury Win a great game? Eh, not by my looks of it and the vague understanding of the rules. But that is acknowledged in the film as well that it needs work. So it is hard to judge this film on its board game love on that fact, but there are two elements that are really strong. One being the kickstarter-esque quality to the board game community. As far as I know, board games have been some of the most successful categories on Kickstarter, and Kickstarter has led to a huge boom in board game success. They’ve worked well together, so it was a nice element to include.

It also is clear that the writer or director really hates Exploding Kittens, and wanted to talk bad about it a few times, but they changed the title for this film. That is fair, but we still know what they meant, and I agree.

For the film itself, I really enjoyed the performances of Kelly and Walker the most. They felt the most believable, as they seemed like characters who knew the world wasn’t black and white, and had passions and dreams and actual struggles facing their decisions in the film.

The film has a decent amount of good moments, both in terms of conversation and visuals. But almost too many moments that don’t seem to work well either. For example, the cop scene has some good lines and moments, and also moments that don’t make a lot of sense given the situation. The scene went on for a long time, which is great as a purpose to make us uncomfortable, but it allowed these questionable parts to pop up more frequently, so it is hard to really get an overall great feeling out of it.

It has potential overall, just like the board game itself apparently had potential (but as a board game snob, ehhh the game looked like trash to me. Although meeples are always a plus). And it surprised me by going a bit darker than I imagined in some aspects, letting me fully call this a Dark Comedy and not just a comedy with some death in it.

2 out of 4.

On the second night of Fantastic Fest my screeners gave to me, a film with a non-descript title!

Girl premiered on Friday, September 25, the second night of Fantastic Fest, but the review is coming late (despite me watching it early) because I wanted to also be able to link a review with the director. That interview is here.

Girl is unique in that out of all the movies coming out this week for the festival, it already has a publisher (out in November) and actually has some actors your are likely to recognize! And that probably makes it the most hyped up film of the festival.

This is the most non-descript Thorne has ever looked. Girl (Bella Thorne) travels home. Girl has letter. Girl mad at someone? Girl mad at daddy. Girl want kill daddy!

Girl in small town. Girl don’t remember others. Girl go to house. Girl can’t find daddy. Girl eventually find daddy. Daddy dead! No! Girl want kill daddy! Daddy already dead. 🙁

Girl tell cop (Mickey Rourke). Girl tell others. Girl fend off Charmer (Chad Faust). Girl sleuth. Girl figure out mystery. Girl find daddy killer.

Also starring Lanette Ware, Glen Gould, and Elizabeth Saunders.

A lot of zoomed in faces, what is this, Les Miserables? Girl gives off a real small town vibe in a few ways. One, small amount of locations. Two, the locations used are run down. And three small amount of characters.

Speaking of characters, they all are not given names that are given to us, but referred to by other things like Girl, or Charmer. It gives a unique “everywhere” feel to the film, and lets you insert your own character names into the roles if you’d like. It also makes the IMDB page for these actors look like they did when they first were getting roles in tv and film.

The story for this movie is really simple, but one that has emotional weight. This is all mostly due to Thorne in the lead role. I know she has a lot of flack lately for various reasons, but she does nail this role.

Given the simplistic nature, I did want something a bit more overall still. I personally could never feel attached to the store and only maintained a small interest in its resolution. I needed some other hook to really go hard with the emotional journey they went on.

It definitely is a film with promise and does a lot with its presumed limited resources at the disposal. And worth it for those fans of Thorne.

2 out of 4.

Click HERE to see my interview with the director and HERE to see my interview with the main star of the film!

One of the scariest concept horror movies you could probably watch this year would definitely be about getting a hair cut. Why the battle of the lockdowns started with people protesting hair care, I don’t know. I haven’t had my hair cut since January (and it is a lot of hair now), but I am not dying from it, you know?

In The Stylist, we are going to have people dying from getting their hair cut. Okay, they don’t die from the hair being cut actually, it is usually the other parts of the body that get cut that really does the job.

But maybe the whole movie is a metaphor? A quiet virus waiting to strike in the most unlikely of places? Let’s run with that.

Yeah, I’d be nervous with anyone behind me trying to cut my hair. Claire (Najarra Townsend) is a quiet hair stylist. She is good at her job. People often compliment her skills. She doesn’t force extra small talk, but does what is required. Hell, some people love her for that, because they can do all the talking.

But Claire also, you know, sometimes, if the feeling is right…kills her clients. You know, ones who wouldn’t be repeat customers, or who wouldn’t have people looking for them, and don’t know they are at that specific shop. Thank goodness these women like to say so much personal stuff to someone they don’t know!

Claire doesn’t just kill them though. she does the full descalping, making sure the hair that was cut is preserved and then she can wear it herself! She can pretend to be another person, yay!

The plot of this movie comes about when one of Claire’s normal clients, Olivia (Brea Grant), is in desperate need of a new stylist for her wedding. This puts Claire into her social circle, with new women friends, and into Olivia’s home. What’s a murder stylist to do, you know?

It would be creepier if she worse the face too, we all agree, right?

As already mentioned, The Stylist potentially picked the perfect time to come out during the virus issues that have plagued the US this year. But really, any movie coming out now has picked a bad time to come out, so it is a hard balance.

The Stylist was based off of a short of the same name, same director and star, and led to a successful crowdfunding campaign to make it into a full film. In this film, we figure out what is going on with this stylist, why does she do the things she does (sort of), and all of this leads to a logical conclusion by the end.

Because it is a logical conclusion, it does take away some of the weight or shock of its impact, but I am a little disappointed in that what is happening can be predicted with ease.

The film shines in its early moments and in the general creepiness of the lead, when she isn’t even going for creepy, but because she is atypical in her actions that is how it comes across, digging her deeper into despair.

I know so little about hair styling for weddings that I had to ask my wife, “Wait, why would someone get their hair done days before the wedding, don’t they sleep and get messed up with pillows?”. Ah test styling. That is a thing.

Overall, this is a film that works well when focusing on the strong lead acting and strange nature of her job and uh….side job?, telling a story that is believable for the most part, but little shocks along the way.

2 out of 4.

Greenland. Green. Land. Greeeeenland.

A country with a lot of mystery, because honestly, they don’t have an army and don’t affect the world in any other way that makes us look at them. That isn’t a bad thing. Just somewhat of a truth. People hear about Greenland mostly when we hear about melting ice sheets and similar topics and that is bad.

Enter Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. You may know him as Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones. You may know him from Black Hawk Down, you may even know him from Wimbledon!

He has a history with this country, but also knows little about it. His dad worked here in the 1980’s away from their home in Denmark, and his wife (Nukâka) is a Greenlander, also an actress and a former Miss Greenland. So he has been to the country, he has met with her family and friends, but he hasn’t really experienced all of what the country has to offer.

So in this five part mini-series, that is what Nikolaj is going to do. Experience the shit out of Greenland. He wants to go Through Greenland, which yes, is the name of the thing.

Regardless of content, it is a bitchin’ graphic to open the show.

At five episodes with around 45 minutes an episode, there is a lot of Nikolaj to go around. It is spread over a longer period of time of course, with various people he knows acting as camera men and guides along the way. He is visiting towns and communities, both small and really small. A military base! Schools! And places far from the communities as well. The ice sheets to spend the night, to go on a long arduous hunting trip and more.

Nikolaj has always cared about climate change and so it is clear another reason for this series is to focus on the changes that are affecting Greenland that are notable to the residents, who can attest to the melts.

And if you want your content to be in Danish, then I have good news for you. This is a lot more Danish than I expected. It started out misleading, since the first thing he did was go to an American military base, but after that it goes a lot out of the window. I can’t tell you if it is mostly in Danish or Greenlandic, but maybe our host knows the latter and thus naturally can communicate anywhere on the island.

This small docu-series is not going to change the world. But it does offer some insight to a country that is often ignored for its human population. When we speak of Greenland, we speak of ice and emptiness, and ignore that it has its own communities, customs, and ways of life. So it is good that something is putting a stamp on it.

It features Nikolaj going the whole Greenland experience, I don’t recall him saying no to anything really. And it really shows those details which might be a curse or a blessing. I feel at times we spend a lot longer on a scene than necessary, or conversation. As a viewer, you may wonder if they didn’t want to do too much editing? That becomes the problem. If they edited it down, then we wouldn’t see the real country. But then they’d also need more content to fill five episodes. I hope the goal was to showcase the country and then give it the episodes they felt represented their footage, and make it a goal specifically to just pad it to five episodes.

Oh well. Two-Handed Jamie Lannister does manly and impressive things in nature with friends. That is what most people might take away from this.

2 out of 4.