Dann in reel life: 'Buck' takes his own path

Reel Life review: ‘Buck'

Buck Brannaman grew up in a house where his father would frequently get drunk and beat his two sons so severely, they would carry welts and bruises for weeks.

One time, little Buck was so afraid of his dad that he ran out into the winter snow in his pajamas. He huddled for a while with the family dog to keep from freezing to death.

We don't know any of this until well into Cindy Meel's quietly forceful biography “Buck,” an amazing documentary that poet William Ernest Hensley might adore.

We first meet Brannaman as a silver-haired horse trainer, a respected authority on how to handle problem horses. How? By handling problem horse owners.

“A horse is a mirror to your soul,” Brannaman says in the movie's most important revelation. “Sometimes you may not like what you see.”

Part horse whisperer, part psychiatrist, part family man and part mystic, Brannaman affirms our faith in people and their ability to choose their life paths.

He could have followed his father in drink and violence. He could have let his childhood crush his future. But, he chose to use his experience as an abused child to help people understand horses: to view them as frightened children needing not bridles and threats, but reaffirmation and gentle guidance.

“Buck” is an incredible movie — captured in arresting widescreen compositions by Luke Geissbuhler and Guy Mossman — about an even more incredible man with the spiritual strength to create his own life and to choose light over darkness, love over fear, respect over callousness.

Brannaman's fame as a horse tamer got the attention of Robert Redford when he directed “The Horse Whisperer.” After eight hours of trying to get a trained Hollywood horse to stomp its hoofs and let a young Scarlett Johansson gently caress its muzzle, Redford gave up.

Brannaman asked if he and his horse could give it a go. Redford had the shot in 20 minutes.

“Buck” opens at the Century Centre in Chicago and the Evanston Century 12, but it expands to South Barrington's AMC-30 on July 1. Rated PG. 88 minutes ★ ★ ★ ½

Reel Life review: ‘Trollhunter'

I couldn't tell if this was a legitimate Norwegian documentary, a prank or a horror remake of Jim Henson's TV series “Fraggle Rock.”

Actually, Andre Ovredal's Norwegian thriller “Trollhunter” telegraphs that it's not the real documentary that it wants us to believe it is.

Why would one of the filmmakers explain to the others what a night-vision lens is? They would already know that. This info is for us, the viewers. Plus, when the filmmakers are running for their lives from killer trolls, would they really stop to take reaction shots of their fleeing teammates to increase the drama?

Taking its cue from “The Blair Witch Project” and its legion of copycat pseudo-docs, “Trollhunter” chronicles a college filmmaking crew following a mysterious man named Hans (Otto Jespersen) who claims to be a hunter/dispatcher of trolls under the authority of the Troll Security Service.

They're skeptical, of course, until they run into their first troll, a three-headed giant with bulging schnozzles and bad coiffs.

From this point forward, the only way Ovredal could salvage his film would be to drop the “this is real” approach and go comic camp. But he persists in framing this footage as the real deal, even though his camera crew (mostly Johanna Morch) has obviously been coached to comically overreact to the camera over and over and over.

“Trollhunter” can't decide to be a breezy adventure or a serious discussion of racial injustice. (Hans nonchalantly describes how he orchestrated a massacre of a troll community along with pregnant trolls, baby trolls and elderly trolls.)

As we learn, the trolls hate humans, especially Christians, whom they can easily smell and target for destruction. (Apparently, this is in keeping with classic troll mythology.) Good thing the crew picked up a Muslim cinematographer after a troll crushes the Christian one.

Call it thinning the college filmmaking herd. One crew member actually asks Hans, after he has run for his life through the woods, “Why did you shout ‘Troll'?”

Note: “Harry Potter” director Chris Columbus has purchased remake rights to “Trollhunter.” Maybe he can make it work.

“Trollhunter” opens at the Music Box Theatre, Chicago. Rated PG-13 for violence. 90 minutes. ★ ½

Reel Life review: ‘Conan O'Brien Can't Stop'

Rodman Flender's doc ”Conan O'Brien Can't Stop!” chronicles a celebrity's addiction. Not to drugs, alcohol or sex.

An addiction to being a celebrity.

Soon after NBC-TV gave the boot to late night talk show host Conan O'Brien in 2010, the wiry haired Irishman announced he would go on a 32-city tour with his live stage show, the “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour.”

As part of a rather hefty buyout, the deposed host of “The Tonight Show” agreed to stay off the tube for several months. So, he and his sidekick Andy Richter hit the road with their band to kill time and keep the Conan brand in the public mind.

At first, O'Brien's crew puts on likable facades. As the months drag by and the tour takes its toll on the performers, they give up pretenses and let the cameras record the raw and real them. They come off neither as heroes or creeps. Just genuine people struggling to get through an increasingly tough job.

O'Brien appears to be a wonderful family man — the few times he actually sees his family — but his thirst for the limelight, his hunger for attention, proves all-consuming as he triple and quadruple books his schedule with meetings and concerts and jam sessions and interviews and autograph sessions.

Unlike most addicts, O'Brien concedes he has a problem saying no to any opportunity that might feed his ego. He doesn't change, though.

”Conan O'Brien Can't Stop!” opens at the Century Centre in Chicago. Not rated. 89 minutes ★ ★ ★

Sound on for D.J.

Congratulations to Schaumburg native and Conant High School graduate D.J. Lynch for winning his first Emmy award last weekend.

Lynch, son of Dan and Carol Lynch of Schaumburg, won an Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing in Live Action and Animation for “The Penguins of Madagascar” on Nickelodeon. Last year, Lynch won a Golden Reel Award for sound quality for the same program. A few years ago, Lynch shot his first feature film “Missy and the Maxinator” at Conant High School in Hoffman Estates.

Caves! Dreams! 3-D!

The After Hours Film Society presents Werner Herzog's doc “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” (in 3-D) 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 27, at the Tivoli Theater, 5021 Highland Ave., Downers Grove. Tickets cost $11 ($7 for society members). Go to afterhoursfilmsociety.com or call (630) 534-4528.

• Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time out!