Posterized: The Best of Icelandic Cinema

by Nathaniel R

A few weeks back we celebrated Romanian cinema due to Whistlers, their most recent Oscar submission, hitting VOD. Why not follow suit today as Iceland's latest Oscar submission, A White White Day, arrives for home viewing? A White White Day is a moving character study about a widower dealing with new revelations about his wife after her death in a car accident. Meanwhile he's building a home for his daughter against the Icelandic landscape which makes for memorable recurring tableaus. We reviewed it at TIFF last year and it's worth checking out. Especially if you love Nordic cinema or are familiar with the work of Iceland's greatest movie star Ingvar E Sigurdsson, who is typically perfect here. We imagine that this film would have ruled this year's Edda Awards (Iceland's Oscars essentially) but the Eddas have been postponed indefinitely (they were originally scheduled for March) due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

And on that note let's look back at the most essential, famous, acclaimed, influential (or some combo thereof) Icelandic films of the past 40 years via our Posterized series. We've put asterisks beside all the titles that star Sigurdsson since we love him and you will too after screening A White White Day.

How many of these 18 Icelandic films have you seen? 

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The Funniest Films & Performances of the Year

 Two year in review lists per day for a few more days... Here's Michael to look back at the year in laughs

That was a tough year for good comedies that weren’t animated or special effects blockbusters. By my count only 7 of the box office top 50 were live action comedies (depending on whether or not you count Gone Girl) and of those all but Neighbors were immediately disposable. So if you want to find good comedy without animated toys or talking raccoons you had to look to the margins. In fact, the film that sits on the top of my list of list of 2014’s funniest is currently ranked 157th for the box office year.

Also interesting is how few of 2014's funniest came billed as pure comedies. Aside from the animated and sci-fi extravaganzas the laughs arrived smuggled in such genres as horror/thriller (The Guest) mystery (Gone Girl) and drama-fantasy hybrid whatchamatcallits  (Birdman).

So here are 2014's funniest movies, keeping in mind that this isn’t based on overall quality, but is ranked solely by which films most tipped the needle on the Laugh-O-Meter:

2014’s Ten Funniest Films 

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What did you see this weekend? (Besides gun-toting apes)

Given that Handsome Joe Canada (aka Amir) is too busy with World Cup mania to grace us with his presence today, I Nathaniel am here for your weekly look at the profit margin side of things. But mostly to ask you the sturdy comment question:

What did you see this weekend?

We're always curious. Your answer should be... well, there's so many good things in theaters right now it just better not be Trans4rmers. Your answer should also soon include Masters of Sex which returns tonight, my choice for Best Drama Series last season (sadly Emmy-snubbed in that category). Should we talk that up every week? Raise your hand if you're watching.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
01 DAWN OF PLANET OF APES $73 *NEW* Review
02 TRANSF4RMERS $16.5 (cum. $209)
03 TAMMY $12.9 (cum. $57.3) Review
04 22 JUMP STREET $6.7 (cum. $171.9) Podcast
05 HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 $5.8 (cum. $152) best movie dragons
06 EARTH TO ECHO $5.5 (cum. $24.5) 
07 DELIVER US FROM EVIL $4.7 (cum. $25)
08 MALEFICENT $4.1 (cum. $221.9) Podcast
09 BEGIN AGAIN $2.9 (cum. $5.2) top ten thus far
10 JERSEY BOYS $2.5 (cum. $57.1) Review

You'll notice that Snowpiercer didn't make it despite its quality. This was probably at least somewhat informed by its decision to go VOD before the movie had run out of steam at the box office. There've been quite a few articles about this (like this one) and I can't help but read them with pesky asides. I don't trust anything anyone says. I understand that VOD gives you a wider audience. But I also think not being willing to support your movie in theaters rarely bodes well for long term health on VOD. So basically I am displeased with how they've treated this action film with a big star and special effects which has now groused $2.6 or roughly half a million less than a black and white indie about Polish nuns. Yes I'm going to keep mentioning Ida whenever I see fit. Deal with it!

Because there is always so much interesting stuff hiding in way too few theaters -- Boyhood and Land Ho! -- here is that chart

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (UNDER 100 SCREENS)
01 BOYHOOD $.3 *NEW* 5 screens Review
02 IDA $.1 (cum. $3.1) 85 screens best of year's 1st half
03 A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964) 50th anniversary $.07 (cum. $.4) 56 screens
04 LAND HO! $.03 *NEW* 4 screens  Review
05 YVES ST. LAURENT $.03 (cum. $.1) 14 screens

Boyhood had a fantastic per screen average but IFC went a bit timid at only 5 locations. We'll see how wide they dare go with this one-of-a-kind feature, twelve years in the making, but I hope they make a big push. More on that one this week which I told you I loved at Sundance.