Against the Odds

I don’t like cold weather, but I’ve always enjoyed movies set in a snowy landscape. Most are tales of survival, man vs. the elements. Arctic (2018) is another. I watched it last night courtesy of Netflix. The sole survivor of a plane crash holes up in the the main body of the medium sized craft. He eats raw fish he catches through holes he has bored in the ice, and periodically sends out a signal through a hand-cranked device. He times his exposure to the cold through his wristwatch. He is played by Mads Mikkelsen, a name that may be unfamiliar to most but whose face would ring a bell as the villain in Casino Royale (2006) and TV’s take on everyone’s favorite cannibal, Hannibal. The film in question allows him to play completely against those types, a heroic figure of uncommon decency. When a helicopter crashes nearby, killing the pilot, he pulls the female passenger from the wreck, treats her stomach wound and cares for her. She is played by Maria Thelma Smáradóttir, a most unusual role, as she is unconscious most of the time and has almost no dialogue. The supplies the protagonist finds on the copter motivate him to attempt to walk his way back to civilization. He builds a harness that enables him to drag the woman along. It is a grueling trek that includes a moral dilemma. There is little original material here, but it is well executed by director Joe Penna, a Brazilian, in his first stint at the helm of a big screen production, following work on shorts and TV series. He co-wrote the screenplay with Ryan Morrison, a frequent collaborator also making his silver screen debut. Shot in Iceland, the running time is a tidy 98 minutes. 26,000+ users at IMDb have rated Arctic, forging to a consensus of 6.8 on a scale of ten. Although its release was limited, it did well at the box office, returning $4 million-plus on a budget of $2 million, a nice profit that no doubt has been amplified by DVD sales and rentals and streaming, guaranteeing the creative team more work. They deserve it. Here’s Mikkelsen in character, followed by a shot of him facing off against 007:

Inspired by the conveyor-belt sushi restaurants that dot the globe, a London establishment is trying it with cheese. Here’s a pic:

Here’s possible fodder for writers, from a headline a nypost.com: “Corpses move for more than a year after death: scientist.”

How’s this for inspiration? This is 100-year-old Susan Hosang teeing off as a guest participant in the KLM Open in the Netherlands. She played the round with three pros. She didn’t take up the game until she was 70:

Action was brisk early in today’s session of the floating book shop, then died completely. My thanks to the elderly woman who bought Sandra Brown’s Play Dirty, and to the grandma who purchased a kids’ book in the Curious George series; and to the gentleman who selected two works out of the mainstream, a novel whose title escapes me and a collection of short stories by African authors.

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