In 2004, the transplanted Nashville act Old Crow Medicine Show came into the public consciousness with their massive hit, “Wagon Wheel.” Unlike standard millennial country acts, OCMS was an all-string ensemble of double bass, banjo, fiddle, guitar, and something called a gitjo (presumably a distant cousin to Bertie Wooster’s banjolele). They billed themselves as an “old time string band.”

 

In the wake of “Wagon Wheel,” old time string band acts have sprung up like daisies. It’s to the point that upstanding American youth are forsaking their Stratocasters and developing a lyrical obsession with geography, particularly mountains and bodies of water. Indeed, geographical terms frequently work their way into the names of these acts -- Yonder Mountain String Band, the Lost Bayou String Band, and the On Pearl Alley Right Behind Long’s Bookstore String Band. Like goddamn Mapquest with fiddles, really.

 

 

 

Borgman reminds me of a movie I kind of liked. But it also reminds me of a movie I hated.

The flick I liked was the recent Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien who uses sex to lure men to their doom. The flick I hated was 2007’s Funny Games, in which two creeps take over an upper-middle-class household and begin treating the family in a most sadistic manner.

Borgman has eccentricities all its own, but it contains elements of both films. Like Under the Skin, it’s about a mysterious figure whose malevolent actions are never quite explained. And as in Funny Games, the individual’s target is a well-to-do family.

Written and directed by Alex van Warmerdam (Voyeur), the subtitled Dutch film begins with a scene that sets the off-kilter tone: A priest leads a Communion ceremony, then grabs a shotgun and leads a small posse into the woods. There they locate and attack the underground bunker of a grizzled man who goes by the name of Camiel Borgman (Jan Bijvoet).

 

 

The inscription on the Marvel superhero Thor’s hammer famously reads, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” Previous writers have used that hook to shake things up before by having the hammer used by other “worthy” heroes, first by the alien Beta Ray Bill, then later by familiar faces like Captain America and Storm. But for the first time, the beefy blonde Asgardian we know and love has proven himself so unworthy that he’s being not just punished but actually replaced, and the new wielder of not only the hammer Mjolnir but the very name of Thor will be a woman!

In Marvel’s official announcement of the upcoming change, series writer Jason Aaron explained, “This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”

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