Men & Chicken/Mænd & Høns (2015) - Jensen scores with hilarious cinema bizarro original

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 + 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.

 

Related posts:

Anders Thomas Jensen: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

The Salvation (2014) - Classic western yarn meets Danish dynamite (co-writer)
Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012) - Bier strikes gold with Italy-set romcom (co-writer)
In a Better World/Hævnen (2010) - Bier's Big Moral Drama lives on its actors' performances (co-writer)
Sprængfarlig Bombe (2006) - The two Jensens' satire is unrefined but hilarious (writer) 
Murk/Mørke (2005) or, Shutter Jutland (co-writer)

The Green Butchers/De Grønne Slagtere (2003) - Great performances in Jensen's hilarious morbid comedy 
Open Hearts/Elsker Dig for Evigt (2002) - Bier's excruciating Dogme chamber drama (writer)

Grev Axel (2001) - Frödin and Gråbøl pull laughter from 18th century-set crazy-comedy (writer) 

The King Is Alive (2000) - Levring's trying desert theatrics (co-writer) 

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here 

 

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.]

 

What do you think of Men & Chicken?

Warrior (2011) - O'Connor's superbly acted MMA drama packs emotional fireworks

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4 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Actor: Joel Edgerton (lost to Jack Black for Bernie)
Best Supporting Actor: Tom Hardy (lost to Michael Shannon for Boardwalk Empire S2)
Best Supporting Actor: Nick Nolte (lost to Michael Shannon for Boardwalk Empire S2)
Best Practical Effects (lost to Haywire)

 

 

+ Best Boxing Movie of the Year

 

Stars Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton flash commendable physiques on this poster for Gavin O'Connor's Warrior

 

Two alienated brothers, who are both estranged from their newly sober alcoholic father enter for each their own reasons into heavy training for a coming, big MMA tournament.

Joel Edgerton (Black Mass (2015))) is excellent as the physics teacher, who fights to keep his family's home, - with a very different strength than Tom Hardy (Child 44 (2015)), who fights on pure hate and gives a very strong and frightening performance in Warrior. In the middle is Nick Nolte (The Good Thief (2002)), who is heartbreaking as their improved father that returns to them hat-in-hand, wishing for a relationship with his now adult sons.

If you are an MMA enthusiast or like martial arts generally, the fights towards the end of Warrior are fantastic in themselves. As such, however, this is a powerfully and soberly staged film that lives on its story of brothers at odds, which reaches mythical heights. It is written by Anthony Tambakis (Jane Got a Gun (2016)), Cliff Dorfman (Entourage (2005), TV-series) and great New-Yorker co-writer-director Gavin O'Connor (The Accountant (2016)), whose 5th feature it is.

 

Related posts:

 

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Listen to the song by The National About Today here, which is featured in the film

Cost: 25 mil. $

Box office: 23.3 mil. $

= Huge flop

[Warrior was released September 9 and runs 140 minutes. Hardy went into heavy training for the part, gaining 28 pounds (13 kg), which he retained for his performance in The Dark Knight Rises. Filming took place in and around April 2009 in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California. The film opened #3, behind newcomer Contagion and holdover hit The Help, to a 5.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 the following week and grossed 13.6 mil. $ (58.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2.8 mil. $ (12 %) and 2.1 mil. $ (9%). Roger Ebert gave the film 3/4 stars, equal to a notch harder than this review. The film was nominated for 1 Oscar: Best Supporting Actor (Nolte), which it lost to Christopher Plummer in Beginners. It has won more popularity over time and now rests at #149 (between Sunrise/Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)) on IMDb's user-generated Top 250. Warrior is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Warrior?

Northwest/Nordvest (2013) - Strong performances make Noer's underwritten crime thriller work

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Lead Gustav Dyekjær Giese frontlines the tough guys on the poster for Michael Noer's Northwest

QUICK REVIEW:

Casper is a young burglar in Copenhagen's Nordvest [Northwest] neighborhood, who has gotten really tired of answering to the local immigrant hood Jamal. When he takes a job from a rocker-related gangster, his little brother gets mixed up in it ...

Great co-writer/director Michael Noer (R: Hit First, Hit Hardest/R (2010)), whose first solo-directing feature this is, succeeds in creating a suspense and a sense of realism in Northwest, which a lot of the time is carried by the actors: Roland Møller (A Hijacking/Kapringen (2012)) especially, and Lene Maria Christensen (Terribly Happy/Frygtelig Lykkelig (2008)) is good as the mother, but it is debuting amateur actors Gustav Dyekjær Giese (When Animals Dream/Når Dyr Drømmer (2014)) and his real-life younger brother Oscar Dyekjær Giese (Attack of the Lederhosenzombies (2015)) who are the film's real scoop. Lead Giese's face and gesticulation communicates his character's dual sides as a scared kid and a semi-hard kid very well.
Rasmus Heisterberg (A Royal Affair/En Kongelig Affære (2012)) co-wrote Northwest, which is a good film but unfortunately a little short, (it runs 91 minutes.) More plot elements could have been elaborated and escalated further.
Noer is currently out with his third fiction feature, Key House Mirror/Nøgle Hus Spejl (2015), about growing old and falling in love.

Watch the trailer for the film with English subtitles here

Cost: 12.6 mio. DKR (approximately 1.8 mil. $)
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[Northwest was shot in and around Northwest, Copenhagen. Despite many good reviews, the film only drew 97,452 tickets in its native Denmark, which is far from hit status. It was shown in many other countries, mostly at festivals, and a gross is not made public, so saying how it did commercially is difficult, but I will generously label it a big flop.]

What do you think of Northwest?

Jeff Who Lives at Home (2011) or, Signs of Jeff

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The very small-typed tag-line above the picture of Ed Helms as a boy reads, 'The first step to finding your destiny is leaving your mother's basement.' For Mark and Jay Duplass' Jeff Who Lives at Home

QUICK REVIEW:

Jeff lives in his mother's basement and gets as his day's assignment to fix a shutter in a door. That leads him on an 'adventure' with his brother and later also their mother.

Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)) is back as comical male #1 of today as the pot-smoking Jeff, who follows different signs in his uneventful life to look for his destiny. Ed Helms (We're the Millers (2013)) is perfect as his dope of a brother, and Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise (1991)) is predictably good as their mother.
As an audience member you don't take an incredible lot with you from the dramedy romance Jeff, but it matters less as the film is so good and makes you roar with laughter so many times.
It is well-written and directed by New Orleanian brothers Mark and Jay Duplass (Cyrus (2010)) and very unusually, - and almost completely successfully, - shot hand-held and with plenty of zooms by Jas Shelton (C.O.G. (2013)). Jeff Who Lives at Home is one of the year's most pleasant and funniest films, one to watch.

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 7.5 mil. $
Box office: 4.7 mil. $
= Huge flop
[After premiering at the Toronto Film Festival, Jeff got its release many months hence in March 2012 and didn't score the audiences it deserved. It made 4.2 mil. $ in North America (89 % of the total gross), and its poor distribution was handled by Paramount Vantage.]

What do you think of Jeff Who Lives at Home?
Seen other movies by the Duplass brothers?
If so, how was/were it/they?

C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) - Rich French-Canadian coming-of-age tale from Vallée

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+ Best Canadian Movie of the Year + Best Coming-of-Age Movie of the Year

One of the colorful posters for Jean-Marc Vallée's C.R.A.Z.Y.

QUICK REVIEW:

C.R.A.Z.Y. is about a French-speaking Canadian family, who only get boys: 5 sons. We follow one of them closely: Zack, who grows up struggling with his homosexuality.

The central in Canadian co-writer-director Jean-Marc Vallée's (Dallas Buyers Club (2013)) cozy and realistically specific film here is the family and the relations between parents and children, and brothers among one another. It is a beautifully rendered coming-of-age story with good acting, particularly from Michel Côté (Cruising Bar (1989)) and Danielle Proulx (Monsieur Lazhar (2011)) as the father and mother. The film is heightened by smart editing and a style that invokes Alan Ball's Six Feet Under (2001-05)), along with a booming soundtrack that would make angels sing. C.R.A.Z.Y. is moving, relevant and truthful.
It is the best film that I have yet seen from Vallée, who premiered Wild last year and will release his Jake Gyllenhaal-starring Demolition later this year. - A happening director indeed.

Related review:

Jean-Marc Vallée: Dallas Buyers Club (2013) or, Taking Life by the Horns

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]  

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 6.5 mil. CA $
Box office. 5.8 mil. CA $
= Uncertainty
[But most likely financially a minor flop. The film didn't get a US release, but it did win awards at a handful of film festivals. It was also Canada's official Oscar entry of the year, and nearly 450k paid admission to see it in France.]

What do you think of C.R.A.Z.Y.?

Chop Chop/Fukssvansen (2001) - Oplev's Danish crazy-comedy

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The colorful poster for Niels Arden Oplev's Chop Chop

Chop Chop is the second feature by Danish co-writer-director Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo/Mænd Der Hader Kvinder (2009)) after his crime drama Portland (1996), which also starred Anders W. Berthelsen (King's Game/Kongespil (2004)).

Two brothers, one slightly retarded, the other indebted to a dubious druggie who boards with them until he can collect, live together in their rural childhood home, as a mysterious woman enters their lives, and macabre mishaps begin turning everything around for them.

The original title of the film is an archaic Danish word for 'saw'. - The key conflict of the movie arises because the brothers loan their neighbor's saw.  
Chop Chop is very much a Danish crazy-comedy, which therefore may seem a bit esoteric to outsiders (non-Danes that is), although the DVD I've acquired at least has English subtitles.
The film lends space for some really hilarious Danish actors to go all out with some outrageous characters: Especially secondaries Tommy Kenter (Otto the Rhino (2013), voice) and Birthe Neumann (The Celebration/Festen (1998)) are uproarious as the semi-fascist spying neighbor and his timid housewife. Thomas Bo Larsen (The Hunt/Jagten (2012)) also provides some laughs, often due to his physicality in his acting the part of the ill-fated Finn.

Thomas Bo Larsen with the title 'fukssvans' [saw] in Niels Arden Oplev's Chop Chop

The details:

The movie references Jaws (1975) and Apocalypse Now (1979), but generally, its script (by Oplev and Håkan Lindhé (Family Secrets/Familjehemligheter (2001)) is heavy-handed and lacks upwards motion. Music motifs are over-used and so are catchphrases. The film lacks material. And it doesn't help that Oplev has chosen to use cutting ploys that invoke sit-coms. - The film is already slight.
It also seems to suffer under a budget that's just too small: Boring score music is made up, where original songs were called for; the ending should without question SPOILER have seen the brothers' home getting blown up, but isn't, etc. etc. The photography is nothing to write home about (by Lars Vestergaard (We Shall Overcome/Drømmen (2006)), and the (unsubtle over)lighting is just bad.
Chop Chop is amusing (probably especially to Danes), but it also isn't smart enough to really score, and it has the mark of 'learning picture' written all over it. - Which it probably was for Oplev, who experienced much bigger success later on in his career: After Dragon Tattoo, he was invited to make Dead Man Down (2013), a Hollywood actioner that totally flopped, so he returned home after that to make the more successful (and homely) Speed Walking/Kapgang (2014).

Related review:

Niels Arden Oplev: Speed Walking/Kapgang (2014) - Funny and sweetly nostalgic 70s coming-of-age in rural Denmark
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo/Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (2009) - An exciting adult ride in sadism and mystery from cold cold Sweden

Martin Buch and Anders W. Berthelsen before their home in Niels Arden Oplev's Chop Chop

The trailer for the film is available here, with Spanish subtitles

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[But most likely a flop. The film couldn't have faired well outside of Denmark, if it even had theatrical premieres anywhere outside the small Scandinavian country. There, just over 100k people paid admission to see it, which isn't considered a hit (that would be more like at least 250k). The film won one Bodil and two Robert awards (Danish film awards). - 2001 was a weak year in Danish film.]

What do you think of Chop Chop?

American History X (1998) - Strong neo-Nazi repentance drama

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+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Crime-Drama of the Year + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Career-Killer of the Year: Tony Kaye

 

Provocative and troubling, Edward Norton stares straight at us from this dulled B/W poster for Tony Kaye's American History X with his hand on his swastika tattoo

In the Venice area of Los Angeles, Derek Vinyard is released from prison after serving 3 years for killing two black robbers. His mission: To save his younger brother from repeating his own violent, hate-buoyed, neo-Nazi déroute.

American History X is a great film due to career-defining performances from Edward Norton (The Invention of Lying (2009)) and Edward Furlong (American Heart (1992)) in the central brother roles. Norton is dazzling at times and scary at others as the charismatic agitator and unfortunate rolemodel, and Furlong is perfect as the run-along, apathetic smaller brother.
American History X is a violent, shocking film, and it is loaded with scenes that are played to their maximum effect. It is also a strong and good drama, which has grown in reputation since its relatively small release to become a generational cornerstone film, and its high quality is only impeded by a few minor poor decisions in it.
The film is written by David McKenna (E-Ring (2005-06)) and directed by feature-debuting great English filmmaker Tony Kaye (Detachment (2011)).

 
Related posts:

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Top 10: Best crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Edward Norton painted as his character from a frightening moment in the film in the prime of his racial fanaticism

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 20 mil. $
Box office: 23.8 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.19 times its cost)
[American History X premiered 30 October (USA) and runs 119 minutes. Norton turned down a role in Saving Private Ryan (1998), gained 30 pounds of muscles and shaved his head, as Furlong also did, for the film. Shooting took place Los Angeles, California from March - May 1997. The production was beleaguered, as Kaye became so upset with script changes instigated by Norton and Furlong that he took out a Variety ad about it and then unsuccessfully tried to have his name removed from the film. - The Alan Smithee anonymous name reserved by the DGA for such instances was not granted, because Kaye had breached the rule that a director using the name cannot have spread stories of why he wanted the ghost name. His edit of the film was 96 minutes, but the studio and Norton were unsatisfied and took over. Kaye's rage then targeted the studio (New Line Cinema) and their edit, and he reportedly sued them and the DGA for misuse of his name to the tune of 275 mil. $, a suit which was rejected in court in 2000. Kaye disowned the film and was marked in Hollywood for his behavior, which strongly limited his future opportunities. The release was delayed due to all of this but eventually opened to a 156k $ first weekend in 17 theaters, peaked at #13 and in 512 theaters, grossing 6.7 mil. $ (28.2 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. The film was nominated for 1 Oscar: Best Actor (Norton), lost to Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful. IMDb's users have voted into the site's Top 250 list at #33, sitting between Interstellar (2014) and Psycho (1960). Kaye returned with 4 video and documentary projects before B/W war movie Lobby Lobster (2007), which nearly no-one has seen. Norton returned in Fight Club (1999); Furlong in Detroit Rock City (1999). American History X is certified fresh at 83 % with a 7.33/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of American History X?