{"id":11100,"date":"2015-03-16T02:16:23","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T06:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11100"},"modified":"2015-03-16T02:39:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T06:39:33","slug":"pioneer-2013-the-dive-1989-and-norways-north-sea-oil-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11100","title":{"rendered":"North Sea Danger: Pioneer (2013) + The Dive (1989)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pioneer_pix\"<\/a>

The Ugly American vs. The Determined Norwegian.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been a fan of diving dramas for many years, probably since childhood when I saw a Warner Bros.\u2019 cartoon about a daydreaming kid who envisioned himself an action man (and diver), and maybe because of an episode of Davey and Goliath<\/a> where Davey steps along the bottom of the ocean.<\/p>\n

It might also have been a B movie whose name I still can\u2019t recall in which a rich prick blackmails a diver to enter a dangerous wreck and retrieve gold. Or maybe the comic book version of The Deep<\/strong> (1978) in which studly Nick Nolte and shapely Jacqueline Bisset explore a treacherous wreck in the Bahamas. Childhood impressions that made it clear if you didn\u2019t know what you were doing, you could become fish food (except for Davey, because I knew he was made of wood. If his suit got punctured, he\u2019d just float).<\/p>\n

Magnolia\u2019s release of Pioneer \/ Pioner<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(2013) on Blu is the latest offering of a suspense-drama about underwater danger, death, and greed, and while not fully successful for reasons outlined in the review, it\u2019s still a gorgeous production with stunning images and claustrophobic environs.<\/p>\n

Set in the late 1970s, Eik Skjoldbj\u00e6rg\u2019s film was inspired by the real-life drama of test dives in which American and Norwegian crews attempted to assemble pipelines on the ocean floor during the years that preceded Norway\u2019s incredible oil boom in the North Sea.<\/p>\n

When I was 10 years old, I took a \u2018boat ride\u2019 to Helgoland<\/a>, a former WWII military base set on remote German isle, and I remember the insane waves rocking the boat back & forth. I had to abandon a perfectly fine goulash din-din for the cabin where I did my damndest to avoid puking.<\/p>\n

\"Dive1989_R2\"<\/a>The North Sea is very active when it\u2019s in a bad mood, and the dangers go beyond losing one\u2019s goulash, as dramatized in a related and forgotten Norwegian film called The Dive \/ Dykket<\/a><\/strong> (1989) which focused almost exclusively on two divers trapped in a bell with bad weather and diminishing odds of a safe return to the surface.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve ported over my review from the old site to support Pioneer<\/strong>, and maybe some enterprising label will put out the ’89 movie in North America, preferably with some decent extras.<\/p>\n

Coming next<\/em>: a set of soundtrack reviews, including Chappie<\/strong>, Cinderella<\/strong>, The Rewrite<\/strong>, and Mad as Hell<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The early years of Norway’s North Sea oil boom are (kind of) dramatized in the suspenser Pioneer \/ Pioner (2013) from Magnolia + some related underwater danger in The Dive \/ Dykket (1989).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[3548,3549,2562,2563,3550,3551],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Pioneer_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2T2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11100"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11123,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11100\/revisions\/11123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}