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From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. December 2024: Updated lists of the best and worst of 2002, 2014 and 2016 - Now with 2,300+ reviews!
Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)
Johnny Depp's Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness (2024)
Star Jim Carrey's face is split in half as two radically different personalities on this poster for Bobby and Peter Farrelly's Me, Myself & Irene
In the Rhode Island State Police works a doormat of a man, who lives with his ex-wife's triplets. But now he suffers a mental breakdown, which makes him split in two opposite personalities, just as he is about to transport hit-and-run driver Irene to New York.
Me, Myself & Irene is written by Mike Cerrone (Homie Spumoni (2006)) and great co-writer/director filmmaker brothers, Rhode-Islander Bobby Farrelly and Pennsylvanian Peter Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber (1994)). Peter Farrelly also produced the film.
Although Me, Myself & Irene begins with some promising signs, what follows is an often unfunny and actually tedious film. Jim Carrey's (The Majestic (2001)) performance is labored, and neither he nor Renée Zellweger (The Low Life (1995)), who plays Irene, have particularly interesting or well-shaped characters here in a story that is frankly an ungainly patchwork. That so many gags and jokes in this darkly humorous crude comedy fall through, - there are bright moments, but they are precious few, - actually make periods of Me, Myself & Irene a bit embarrassing on sexist and racial planes. You may remember this film as fun and zany but chances are you'll be sorely disappointed, if you revisit it, as it is truly a bummer.
Watch a clip from the film here
Cost: 51 mil. $
Box office: 149.2 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.92 times its cost)
[Me, Myself & Irene premiered 15 June (USA) and runs 116 minutes. Shooting took place in Vermont and Rhode Island from May - July 1999. The film opened #1 to a 24.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for another 2 weekends (#3-#3) and grossed 90.5 mil. $ (60.7 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. The Farrelly brothers returned with Osmosis Jones (2001). Carrey returned in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). Me, Myself & Irene is rotten at 47 % with a 5.44/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
+ Best Action Movie of the Year + Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best Fight Scene of the Year: The laundry room fight + Best Poster of the Year
A heavily equipped cop stands on a vandalized police car during a stylized sundown on this poster for Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Ølholm's Shorta
A rookie cop gets partnered up for patrol with a seasoned 'conflict specialist' colleague and against orders the two venture into the tense ghetto neighborhood, where a recent violent arrest has brought tempers up to the boiling point.
Shorta is written and directed by debuting great Danish filmmakers Frederik Louis Hviid (Follow the Money/Bedrag (2019)) and Anders Ølholm (Ækte Vare (2014, writer)).
The story opens with a moment from the arrest that results in the hospitalization of the young man from the ghetto, a scene that seems inspired by the tragic George Floyd arrest and death in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May 2020, - but the scene was written and shot long before that time. What follows is a story of strife, conflict, crime and ghetto problems, racism vs. hatred of authorities and the police especially, a reflection of reality unfortunately, which takes a Danish context and problem and amplifies it.
Hviid and Ølholm do so with clear role-models in Training Day (2001) and John Carpenter movies such as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Escape from New York (1981), and the result is a heady brew of testosterone-laced low-budget action full of adrenaline, great dialog and dedicated performances:
Simon Sears (The Exception/Undtagelsen (2019)) is good as the conflicted younger policeman who takes a mostly passive approach to the wrongs of his colleagues but gets pushed to reckon with himself here. Jacob Lohmann (The Rain (2018-19)) goes through a lot in Shorta, which makes good use of his bull-ish physique. Debuting Tarek Zayat impresses as young Amos, a boy who gets arrested for a misdemeanor and becomes a kind of hostage/helper to the two cops as they get lost in enemy territory.
Despite the film's violent action-aspirations, the filmmakers keep it real and related to issues that will be relatable to those living in or near ghetto areas: The unprovoked and demeaning public personal search of a young man; recruitment of children and teenagers to gangs, the struggle against that; the hardening and tribe mentality in both the gang and police cultures; the downwards spiral of a neighborhood; the mother's anxiousness for her children and so on, - Shorta successfully incorporates it all with winning performances all around.
The film ends a bit abruptly, and I would have liked an epilogue fade-out scene from say a week or a month after the events in the film. But this doesn't rock the fact that Shorta is a thrilling and rare feat that shouldn't be missed in the cinema.
[Shorta premiered 5 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 108 minutes. Hviid and Ølholm began working on the project 6 years before its release. Shooting took place in Denmark. The Svalegården neighborhood portrayed in the film is fictional. The film has sold 87,775 tickets in Denmark in its first nearly 3 weeks, coming to a roughly 1 mil. $ gross. The release is negatively affected by the China Virus pandemic, which is closing down thousands of cinemas in Europe. The film is set to open in film festivals in Lithuania and Sweden in November. Hviid and Ølholm do not have their next project announced yet. Lohmann returns in Retfærdighedens Ryttere (2020); Sears in Shadow and Bone (TV-series, post-production); Zayat does not have another gig yet, (and is studying law in Copenhagen.) 329 IMDb users have given Shorta a 7.5/10 average rating.]
'Sometimes you've gotta go far to find your way home' reads the tagline on this poster for Erik Clausen's Mennesker Bliver Spist
Herluf is an auto mechanic with a wife who is no longer very impressed with him. Now he is beginning to suffer from dementia, but no one really notices it, which leads him on an unplanned journey.
Mennesker Bliver Spist is written by Louise Clausen (Aldrig Mere i Morgen (2017)) and great Danish co-writer/director/co-star Erik Clausen (Cirkus Casablanca (1981)). The title translates to 'people get eaten'.
Clausen's films are especially for Danes. But you don't have to subscribe to every societal opinions of his in order to enjoy Mennesker Bliver Spist, which is his best film in years and maybe the year's best Danish film. (Just as a matter of form, some of those opinions of his include; being a national-conservative is a life-crisis; modern man is selfish and without a sense of propriety; Danes are extremely concerned with possessions and forget the value of human care; and finally, that women are tough on their men.)
Clausen himself is deeply moving and convincing as Herluf. The story, which involves the increasingly blank man going to Poland by mistake, is outstanding and inventive, and it contains a long list of good performances: Bodil Jørgensen (Badehotellet (2013-20)) is matchless as the wife who has frozen herself into an iceberg in their marriage and has begun cheating; Nicolas Bro (Sorrow and Joy/Sorg og Glæde (2013)), Charlotte Fich (Drabet (2005)), Lærke Winther (Mille (2009, TV-series)), Rasmus Botoft (Danish Dynamite (2012, TV-series)), Leif Sylvester (Hodja fra Pjort (1985)) - all are great. Unknown amateur actors also light up scenes; a son, the shop master in Poland and a lady there, Herluf's car-interested old buddy among them, - the cast is terrific.
The title comes from John Mogensen's song Mennesker Bliver Spist i Polynesien (1975), used to great effect in the film. Clausen also pokes fun at modern missing persons searches here, and he generally keeps the film in an often moving farce style. Whatever you'll hold against Mennesker Bliver Spist, you'll easily forgive due to its warm-hearted, funny and edifying qualities.
Watch a clip from the film here of Herluf being forgetful while on a stage
Cost: Reportedly 17.5 mil. $, approximately 2.78 mil. $
Box office: 2.6 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.93 times its cost)
[Mennesker Bliver Spist was released 26 February (Denmark) and runs 104 minutes. Shooting took place from February - April 2014 in Denmark and Poland. It spent its first two weekends at #1 in Danish cinemas, where it sold 235,547 tickets, a decent haul in the small country. Its only foreign market was Brazil, which doesn't have a listed gross. The film was nominated for 3 Robert awards, Denmark's Oscar. Clausen returned with Aldrig Mere i Morgen (2017). As an actor he returned in Sverige Er Fantastisk (2015); Jørgensen with a voice performance in Albert (2015) and a physical performance in Parents/Forældre (2016). 457 IMDb users have given Mennesker Bliver Spist a 6.6/10 average rating.]
+ Best Box Office Disaster of the Year + Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Michael Shannon + Best True-Crime Movie of the Year + Most Under-appreciated Movie of the Year + Worst $ Return of the Year: 0.03 times the cost
Co-star Michael Shannon looks intense in B/W on this gloomy poster for Werner Herzog's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
In a San Diego home a man stabs his mother to death with a sword. Key figures to the man attempt in the period leading up to his arrest to relate and understand this terrible action.
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is written by Herbert Golder (Ballad of a Righteous Merchant, documentary (2018)) and great German co-writer/director Werner Herzog (Signs of Life/Lebenszeichen (1968)), based on the bizarre 1979 Mark Yavorsky San Diego matricide case. The title is a Biblical quote.
The film doesn't look like much, but do not be mistaken; Herzog rarely deals in the insubstantial, and here he delivers a solid motion picture. Narratively the film is structured in a somewhat humorist fashion as a mass of flashbacks, a bit like cinema classic Citizen Kane (1941), and always good Willem Dafoe (Victory (1996)) as well as Udo Kier (Stingers (1998)) in a considerable and well-acted supporting role add subtle humor with societal sting to the psychological crime drama. This feels good, seeing as the central story of matricide here is mighty heavy stuff, and Michael Shannon (Blackbird (2007)) is frighteningly precise in his portrayal of the psychotic grown son. He is perfectly coupled with Chloë Sevigny (Lizzie (2018)) here.
The impressive cast also has good performances from Grace Zabriskie (The Waterdance (1992)), Loretta Devine (For Colored Girls (2010)), Irma P. Hall (Collateral (2004)), Brad Dourif (Interceptor Force (1998)) and Michael Peña (Observe and Report (2009)). My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done has a strange Herzogian imprint in the shape of static, stagnant, evocative shots and sequences shot in Peru and China, but the film remains straight-forward in terms of understanding it. It is ultimately a devastating portrait of the insane person led to commit murder; devastating in its level of detail and accuracy. The film's theater dimension, - an old Greek tragedy informs the crime, - is fascinating, but you will have to read about the film to know that it is part of its true-crime basis and not an actual fantasy created by the filmmakers.
= Box office disaster (returned 0.03 times its cost)
[My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done premiered 6 September (Venice Film Festival, competing also against Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans) and runs 91 minutes. Golder and Herzog wrote the script together over the course of 4 days in 1995. Golder had met the then released, strange recluse Yavorsky several times, and Herzog joined them for the last meeting. Herzog termed Yavorsky "argumentative" and was disturbed by the man's shrine for Herzog's film Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) in his home. Golder and Herzog decided to keep the script mostly apart from Yavorsky's personal story, while keeping the basis in his Greek myth-inspired matricide by sword. Financing did not prove easy and only came together, when David Lynch came in contact with Herzog with an interest to produce. Shooting took place in California, including San Diego and Los Angeles, Mexico, Peru and China from April 2009 - ?. For the China shoot, Herzog elected not to go through a lengthy permit period and instead went alone along with Shannon and producer Eric Bassett to shoot 'guerilla style' as tourists at a remote market. Shooting was done with the RED ONE camera, which Herzog later criticized as an "immature camera". The film was released mostly at a string of festivals. In the US it also had releases in New York, Chicago and San Diego, but these are not recorded on the film's Box Office Mojo site, which only has grosses listed for Portugal and Italy. (UK is the only other general release market for the film and is also missing.) Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review. Herzog returned with 7 documentary projects prior to his next theatrical release Queen of the Desert (2015). Shannon returned in The Runaways (2010)); Dafoe in Daybreakers (2009); and Sevigny in Beloved (2009, short),The Fragile White Blossoms Emit a Hypnotic Cascade of Tropical Perfume Whose Sweet Heady Odor Leaves Its Victim Intoxicated(2009, short) and theatrically in Barry Munday (2010). My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is rotten at 49 % with a 5.76/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?
The duplicity of being a mole is thematized on this poster for Mads Brügger's The Mole: Undercover in North Korea
An ex-chef contacts Danish documentarian Mads Brügger following his exposé of the crazy North-Korean regime in his The Red Chapel/Det Røde Kapel (2009, documentary miniseries) with a proposal to infiltrate the Danish-North Korean friendship organization. This over the course of several years evolves into a high-risk mole operation.
The Mole: Undercover in North Korea is written and directed by Mads Brügger (Danes for Bush (2004, documentary miniseries)).
It may contain the most sensational reveal of any of Brügger's works to date, as the Danish mole Ulrich Larsen introduces a Danish billionaire, - actually a former foreign legionnaire and cocaine drug dealer, - to the Spanish head of the international Korean Friendship Organization, Alejandro Cao de Benós, who soon facilitates meeting between the three and North-Korean military leaders, offering missiles, weapons and drugs. The sting comes to focus on creating a factory for producing weapons and methamphetamine on an island in Lake Victoria, Uganda, which local officials are willing to strip of its inhabitants to appease the foreign criminals.
What the reveal actually reveals is being debated: It was already known that North Korea sold weapons to other evildoers such as Iran (and the film also mentions Syria as a purchase nation from the Communist autocrasy.) It is shocking that the regime is apparently so open to sell heavy war weaponry and drug factories to anyone who shows up claiming to have deep pockets. - The acting, big-mouthed billionaire is only known as Mr. James and is never forced to prove his wealth to the gullible North-Koreans. Some have ascertained that the film shows that the UN sanctions against North Korea works, as no country would act like this unless they were desperate for foreign finance. Others have interjected that such desperation and willingness to sell dangerous material is troubling and highly dangerous.
The fascinating part of the documentary, which is structured as a 3-part miniseries in Denmark and as a 2-part miniseries in English, is especially the incredible mission that the regular guy Ulrich undertakes, ostensibly out of a disdain for Communist dictatorships and a willingness to take risks and gamble with his own safety. Regrettably we get little insight into Ulrich: Though the film deals in intelligence, we are left in the dark as to what debilitating illness has landed the seemingly healthy man an early retirement, which is a shame. Even less gets revealed about Mr. James' real identity, but of course the two men's faces and actions tell a lot in themselves. Their undercover work is impressive and incredible. One also twists in discomfort and incredulity at the gatherings of Western friends of the North-Korean evil that Ulrich the mole infiltrates.
Unfortunately the film is structured poorly. A former MI5-agent, Annie Machon, is hired to debrief the mole for the camera, but their scenes are extremely staged and unnatural. Machon could have worked as an expert giving testimony to the camera next to the action, whereas a great, big-shot journalist like Lesley Stahl would instead have been ideal to interview Ulrich and Mr. James (and secure publicity for the film in North America). Brügger refuses to back out of the story as the actively storytelling documentarian that he sees himself as, and in The Mole: Undercover in North Korea it hinders the affair as a whole. Apart from Machon (and some female performers during the film's North Korea visit), the only other woman character is Ulrich's wife, who is brought up a few times only so we can be told that she is kept in the dark. In the end she is also brought in for another unnatural 'scene', in which Ulrich informs her of his undercover mission, and she blames him for inattention without in any way recognizing even the existence of North Korea, an ending that it is a mystery why Brügger thinks we need, mostly probably because we don't get closer to Ulrich during the ordeal than we do.
Still The Mole: Undercover in North Korea is an incredible derring-do and another reveal of a bizarre country that obviously needs to be ended sooner rather than later for the good of everyone.
Watch a news segment about the documentary here
Cost: Reported 1.9 mil. €, approximately 2.24 mil. $
Box office: None (TV release)
= Uncertain
[The Mole: Undercover in North Korea was released in on TV and the internet 10 October (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the UK). Shooting took place in London, UK, Copenhagen, Denmark, Stockholm, Sweden, Brussels, Belgium, Pyongyang, North Korea, Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona, Germany, Oslo, Norway, Dublin, Ireland, Kampala, Uganda, Amman, Jordan, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Beijing, China and Washington DC, lasting upwards of 10 years. Around 500,000 people saw the miniseries initially at its Danish release. The documentary and additional intelligence from its making are being studied at the UN Sanctions Committee. Brügger does not have his next project announced yet. 1,050 IMDb users have given The Mole: Undercover in North Korea a 8.8/10 average rating.]
What do you think of The Mole: Undercover in North Korea?
The star duo attempt to lock your interest down on this poster for Richard Benjamin's Marci X
A white, Jewish socialite's father incurs serious health problems, as a hiphop act causes a crisis for his record company, so said daughter Marci rolls in to handle the situation.
Marci X si written by Paul Rudnick (Jeffrey (1995)) and directed by Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year (1982)).
Opposites meet in this hard-to-categorize film, which angered many somewhat overly serious critics back in the day, probably because it dares to both lampoon overclass whites and black working class culture (namely hiphop). It does so in a childish manner, which feels as if the script must have been written in 1990.
Lisa Kudrow (The Other Woman (2009)) is fun nonetheless, and the same goes for Jane Krakowski (Open Season (2006)) and Christine Baranski (Happy Family (2003-04)) in particular here as a right-wing virago judge. Damon Wayans (Goosed (1999)) is less fun, but he is embarrassing from time to time in Marci X.
The film in general is a bit embarrassing; the plot is completely grotesque, its structure totally checked out. What on earth were they thinking, one wonders often during Marci X, and where does this idea come from? It fully ignores good taste and common practice, doing so with an at time Mel Brooksian comedic enthusiasm. Marci X is a pretty funny really bad movie.
= Box office disaster (returned 0.08 times its cost)
[Marci X was released 22 August (USA) and runs 84 minutes. Shooting took place in New York. The film opened #17 to a 872k $ first weekend in 1,200 theaters in North America, where it only decreased from there, grossing 98.4 % of the film's listed gross at Box Office Mojo, with the remainder coming from 26k $ made in South Africa. Benjamin has directed two TV movies since, but never again a theatrical feature. Kudrow returned in Wonderland (2003); Wayans in Luther Vandross: Dance with My Father (2003, music video), My Wife and Kids (2001-05) and theatrically in Behind the Smile (2006). Marci X is rotten at 8 % with a 3.48/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
+ Best Comedy of the Year + Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year
Star Mads Mikkelsen, holding a chicken, next to a literal egghead on this poster for Anders Thomas Jensen's Men & Chicken
A pair of brothers receive from their recently deceased father a video, which explains that he wasn't their real father. On a small island in a decrepit sanatorium their actual closest relatives reside ...
Men & Chicken is written and directed by great Danish filmmaker Anders Thomas Jensen (Flickering Lights/Blinkende Lygter (2000)).
The year's undoubtedly strangest film is also Jensen's best to date (in my book), and certainly his most eccentric, which carries a real brilliance in it. Politically incorrect and shamelessly weird, we here spin around themes of brotherhood, the mysteries of biology and genetics, the absurdities of life, - and violence.
The film has a more or less auspicious framing device and an ending that is rather sudden, but its list of winning performances is long: David Dencik (Gentlemen & Gangsters (2016, miniseries)), Mads Mikkelsen (Bleeder (1999)), Bodil Jørgensen (Se min Kjole (2009)), Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Sprængfarlig Bombe (2006)), Nicolas Bro (Beast (2011)) and Søren Malling (Karlas Kabale (2007)) are all stark raving mad and absolutely wonderful in the film. It also has outstanding production design and an excellent score by Frans Bak (Albert (2015)) and Jeppe Kaas (That Time of Year/Den Tid på Året (2018)).
Men & Chicken is bizarro and quotable to an incredible extent; an absolute favorite.
Cost: Reportedly 36 mil. DKK, approximately 5.66 mil. $
Box office: 4.7 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.83 times its cost)
[Men & Chicken was released 5 February (Denmark) and runs 104 minutes. Shooting took place in Funen, Denmark, and in Germany. The film opened #79 to a 2k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #43 and in 11 theaters (different weeks) and grossed a measly 30k $ (0.6 % of the total gross). The film was a hit in its main production country Denmark, where it scored Jensen's biggest opening weekend yet and became the year's 2nd highest-grossing local film, selling 351,632 tickets, behind Klovn Forever, coming to 4.3 mil. $ (91.5 %). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 245k $ (5.2 %) and the Netherlands with 113k $ (2.4 %). The film won 3/10 Robert awards (Denmark's Oscar). Jensen returns with Retfærdighedens Ryttere (2020). Mikkelsen returned in Rihanna: Bitch Better Have My Money (2015, music video), Hannibal (2013-15) and theatrically in Doctor Strange (2016); Dencik in Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015). Men & Chicken is certified fresh at 83 % with a 6.81/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Eva Green clad in leather fronts this fantastical poster for Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
The adolescent Jack has an unexciting daily life in Florida. But when his beloved grandfather dies mysteriously, he is driven to visit a strange orphanage in Wales, where he claimed to have previously lived.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is written by Jane Goldman (The Limehouse Golem (2016)), based on the same-titled 2011 novel by Random Riggs (Hollow City (2014)), and directed by Californian master filmmaker Tim Burton (Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)), whose 18th feature it is.
Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)) is well cast as the kind and a bit haunted protagonist; Eva Green (Euphoria (2017)) is charismatic as the orphanage leader Peregrine; and Samuel L. Jackson (Resurrecting the Champ (2007)) enjoys himself as the villain. The unusually beautiful blond that Jack falls for, played well by Ella Purnell (Wildlike (2014)), and others of the peculiar children are also sweet, especially Finlay MacMillan's (Waterloo Road (2014-15)) Enoch.
Burton fans will enjoy recurring imagery from earlier works by the master such as Beetlejuice (1988). The film has fantastical effects, fascinating characters and a strange story. It is spun about 15 minutes too long, but Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is still an imaginative and fun journey to be on.
= Box office success (returned 2.69 times its cost)
[Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children premiered 25 September (Fantastic Fest, Austin, Texas) and runs 127 minutes. Fox bought the film rights in 2011. Shooting took place in Belgium, England, Florida and California from February 2015 - ?. The film opened #1 to a 28.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it remained in the top 5 for another 3 weekends (#2-#2-#4) and grossed 87.2 mil. $ (29.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 20.1 mil. $ (6.8 %) and South Korea with 18.6 mil. $ (6.3 %). Burton returned with Dumbo (2019). Butterfield returned in The Space Between Us (2017); Green inD'Après une Histoire Vraie(2017); Jackson in xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017). Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is fresh at 64 % with a 5.95/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children?
