Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)

11/01/2020

Halloween Movie 2020: My Friend Dahmer (2017) - Meyers' & Co. pull off a uniquely unsettling psychological horror

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The film's graphic novel origin is evident on this busy poster for Marc Meyers' My Friend Dahmer

 

Jeffrey Dahmer has a mother, who is crazy, and a father, who is miserable and worried about his son. And then the adolescent also has a strange hobby; he picks up and dissolves roadkill as a pastime in his lonely high school life.


My Friend Dahmer is written and directed by great American filmmaker Marc Meyers (Approaching Union Square (2006)), adapting the same-titled 2012 graphic novel by Derf Backderf (Punk Rock & Trailer Parks (2010)), who in it recounts his personal experience of befriending the later legendary serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in high school in Ohio in the 1970s.

My Friend Dahmer is a very positive surprise and far superior to Dahmer (2002), the preceding major - though similarly independent and low-budgeted - film based on the gruesome killer also known as 'the Milwaukee Cannibal'. Derf's basis creation serves as an original angle on the familiar serial killer territory, namely, how does a boy grow up to become such a monster? In this respect the film lives up to both of the expectations that one could reasonable have for it: 1. It gives insight into the specific case of Dahmer. 2. It gives indications of where his later macabre murderous preferences may have come from, (biological fascinations and deep-seated alienation coupled with sexual frustrations.)

Still there is a chasm between the young fella we meet here, - Ross Lynch (Cleo (2015)) is excellent in the part, - and the horrendous crimes that we know he is going to commit. It is part of the film's sombre mission to lay this before us as our job to try to make sense of. Meyers chooses to be restrained in the use of gore, instead in some cases indicating distressing tendencies using dialog, behavior and animals.

My Friend Dahmer is probably the creepiest film in years, and it isn't one that's easy to wash off your mind after you've seen it. Additionally it has tremendous performances from Anne Heche (Cedar Rapids (2011)) as Dahmer's deeply self-involved mother, Dallas Roberts (Mayhem (2017)) as his father and Alex Wolff (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016)) as his phony friend, SPOILER who in the film's only nearly terror-inducing scene towards the end perhaps saves his own skin by withdrawing from his spazzed out 'friend' Dahmer.

Some may argue that not much happens in this film, but it is made for those already familiar with Dahmer and interested in serial killers, and for this group My Friend Dahmer is deeply, deeply unsettling, a dark independent movie gem.

 

Related posts:

 

Past Halloween Movies: Halloween Movie 2019: Altered States (1980) or, Reversed Darwinism

Halloween Movie 2018: Misery (1990) - Bates ignites an iconic villain in Reiner's rock-solid King adaptation
Halloween Movie 2017: Candyman (1992) - Racial tensions inform Rose and Barker's Chicago-set horror favorite  

 







Watch a trailer for the film here
 

Cost: 1.5-2 mil. $

Box office: 1.4 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned in the vicinity of 0.8 times its cost)

[My Friend Dahmer premiered 21 April (Tribeca Film Festival) and runs 107 minutes. Meyers' script was on the 2014 Black List. Shooting took place in Ohio, including Cleveland, from August - September 2016. Scenes of Dahmer's home life were shot in his actual childhood home. The film opened #49 to a 35k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #22 and in 110 theaters (different weeks), grossing 1.3 mil. $ (92.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 50k $ (3.6 %) and Australia with 24k $ (1.7 %). Meyers returned with We Summon the Darkness (2019). Lynch returned in R5: If (2017, music video) and R5: Hurts Good (2017, music video) and theatrically in Status Update (2018); Heche in Armed Response (2017); Dallas Roberts (Dallas Buyers Club (2013)) in American Crime (2017, TV-series), FBI (2018, TV-series)) and theatrically in Motherless Brooklyn (2019); and Wolff in Red Oaks (2017, TV-series) and theatrically in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). My Friend Dahmer is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.08/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of My Friend Dahmer?

10/29/2020

Me, Myself & Irene (2000) - The Farrelly brothers falter

♥

 

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.]

 

What do you think of Me, Myself & Irene? 

10/27/2020

Shorta (2020) - Debuting duo Hviid/Ølholm's intense Danish ghetto blast

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+ 2nd Best Movie of the Year

+ 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.

 

Related post:

 

2020 in films - according to Film Excess

 





Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: In excess of 1 mil. $

= Uncertain

[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.]


What do you think of Shorta?

10/25/2020

Mennesker Bliver Spist (2015) - Clausen hits home with jewel of a film

♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Dramedy of the Year

 

'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. 

 

Related post:

 

Erik Clausen: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

The Great Day on the Beach/Den Store Badedag (1991) or, My Copenhagen Boyhood (actor)

 



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.]

 

What do you think of Mennesker Bliver Spist?

10/22/2020

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009) - Herzog and Shannon take us down the rabbit-hole

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+ 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.

 

Related posts:

Werner Herzog: Jack Reacher (2012) - Highly entertaining, dark hero-vehicle for Tom Cruise (supporting actor) 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010) - Herzog and Vasyukov invite us to meet a remote, tough Siberian people 
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans/Bad Lieutenant (2009) or, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
Cobra Verde/Slave Coast (1987) - Herzog and Kinski's final work delves into the madness of slavery   

Fitzcarraldo (1982) - Herzog's mad Amazonian opera monument 
Even Dwarfs Started Small/Auch Zwerge Haben Klein Angefangen (1970) - Herzog teases us to react with uniquely odd experimental drama 





Watch a trailer for the film here


Cost: Estimated 2 mil. $

Box office: 76k $

= 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?

10/21/2020

The Mole: Undercover in North Korea/Muldvarpen - Undercover i Nordkorea (2020, documentary miniseries) - Brügger facilitates brave, incredible sting operation

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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?

10/20/2020

Marci X (2003) - Benjamin slips with awfully scripted class comedy

♥

 

+ Career-Killer of the Year: Richard Benjamin 

 

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.

 

Related posts:

 

Richard Benjamin: 2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

City Heat (1984) - Eastwood and Reynolds wrestle dispassionately in Benjamin's messy period affair

 




Watch a short clip from the film here

Cost: 20 mil. $

Box office: 1.6 mil. $

= 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.]

 

What do you think of Marci X? 

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (5-25)

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (5-25)
Kleber Mendonca Filho's The Secret Agent (2025)