Brief reviews #3 – Erik Gahner Larsen

Here are a few brief reviews of some of the things I have been watching and reading lately.

Movies/TV series

A Goofy Movie (1995): I read that this movie is now a cult classic. A slapstick-driven road trip movie with Goofy and Max Goof exploring father-son dynamics in the most predictable way. It is not a very bad movie but it feels like a movie where you need a fair proportion of nostalgia in order to consider it a good movie. It is not even close to being in my top 10 of Disney movies from the 90s.
Adolescence (2025): Such a great show. I like the idea behind each of the four episodes but of course it is impossible to talk about this show without the fact that all episodes are single takes. While the show might not be perfect in terms of plot, it is definitely worth watching in full. If you like Stephen Graham’s performance, I can also recommend the movie Boiling Point (it feels like a long episode of The Bear when it is best).
American Dream (1990): In this documentary you follow the events around a local union going on strike. You see events from the media coverage, interviews with meatpacking workers, and the ups and downs of being on strike. If you are into labour rights, unions, strike actions, etc., this documentary will definitely be of interest despite depicting events that took place almost 40 years ago.
Black Bag (2025): Finally another good movie from Steven Soderbergh (maybe his best since Contagion?). And yet another great performance by Michael Fassbender. There is not a lot of action in Black Bag, and I would have preferred for there to be even less (the perfect version of this movie would have been one long dinner scene).
Conclave (2024): The less you know about this movie the better. However, since Pope Francis’ death I am sure you have already heard a lot. The only thing you need to know is that this is a ‘conspiracy thriller’ about the conclave tasked with electing a new Pope. A lot of twists in this movie and this is one of the odd cases where the bigger the twist, the less I like the direction of the plot.
Elskling (2024): A romance about a couple going through a divorce. What makes this movie great is that the focus is not primarily interested in the dynamics in the relationship, but rather the individuals in the relationship and how their own issues such as low self-esteem manifest themselves in the relationship.
Five Broken Cameras (2011): I have no strong views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I am less certain what I should think of this movie post-October 7. It is impossible not to feel a lot of sympathy with Emad Burnat and his community, but it feels like a lot of context is missing throughout various scenes, making the movie feel manipulative at times.
History of the World: Part I (1981): Life of Brooks. Weird and bad movie. Too much energy, too much singing, too much slapstick, too much Roman Empire. I guess it is a must watch if you are a hardcore fan of Mel Brooks, but easy to skip for everybody else (i.e., most people). The R rated content in the movie has not aged well.
L’histoire de Souleymane (2024): The story of Souleymane. The movie takes place over a few days and it is stressful in the best possible way. While recent French movies like À plein temps deal with the challenges of the working class and the reliance of public infrastructure (and lack hereof), this one goes one step further in dealing with a character outside the legal labour market. Highly recommended.
La cocina (2024): Kitchen sink realism. This primarily black-and-white drama set in a restaurant in Times Square is really good. Specific scenes are as intense as those in The Bear, and despite specific themes being similar in the context of the American Dream, this is nothing like The Bear.
Mid-Century Modern (2025): A show following the classic sitcom formula but without being funny. Most of the episodes are flat out bad and I do not understand how this show has received a lot of positive reviews. The only good thing to say is that there are only ten episodes.
Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror (2025): A chronological overview of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Primarily archival footage combined with interviews of the police, journalists, victims, etc. The documentary is too aware that the source material is nothing special beyond the descriptive facts so the editing, and in particular the overly dramatic score, has to do a lot of the heavy lifting. It is interesting that a documentary about the worst domestic terror attack in US history makes the event look so … ordinary.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024): A dark comedy about the death of a family member in a Zambian family. Maybe it is a bit of a stretch to even call it a comedy. The movie relies on humour in the same way as its characters – i.e., as a coping mechanism. It is interesting to explore how different cultures deal with the rituals around death, but what makes this movie interesting is the social dynamic and in particular the psychological aspects of how people deal with pain.
Reading Lolita in Tehran (2024): Based upon the book of the same name from 2003. The plot is taking place in the context of Iran and in particular the aftermath of the revolution in 1979. I was expecting more from this movie, and the scenes that were intended to have emotional substance felt detached from the rest of the movie. The movie is, sadly, timely and relevant, and it is very much aware of this, even to the point where Baraye is played during the end credits. Maybe the movie is a bit too much aware of this fact for my liking. Accordingly, this is not the best movie dealing with themes such as equality and freedom in Iran from 2024. I would opt for Dane-ye anjir-e ma’abed for a movie in the context of ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ and Keyke mahboobe man for a movie dealing with repression and nostalgia. Both of these movies are significantly better than this one.
Review (2014): I give Review six stars. This is a funny show albeit way too American. The premise is amazing and I like how they try to make a cohesive narrative within and across the episodes, but there are more mediocre segments than great segments in this show.
Schmeichel (2025): A documentary about the Danish goalkeeper. This is a fine documentary pretty much following the same formula as most other uncritical documentaries about former top athletes. Nothing new under the sun and I could easily have waited another 5 to 10 years for this documentary (which would most likely make it more interesting).
Severance (2022): I have been looking forward to the second season of Severance since I saw the final episode of season 1. Alas, I never really got into season 2 and I do not care for a third season. The production value is great but I do not care about whatever direction they are planning to take this show in anymore.
Sommersturm (2004): A movie that is very much a product of its time. Compare it to other romantic comedies from 2004, and this movie is trying to do something different, but by 2025, it feels like just a bad movie. The movie is trying to strike a balance between comedy and drama, but with the sad result of achieving neither.
The Bibi Files (2024): A good documentary on the corruption charges against Benjamin Netanyahu. A big part of this documentary consists of leaked interrogation videos. If you have been following the reporting on Netanyahu over the past few years, there is not much new under the sun here. The documentary is a bit repetitive and while there is no doubt that Netanyahu is accountable for a lot of the bad things happening in the region today, I do find the interpretation provided in the movie a bit too monocausal.
The Pitt (2025): I am not sure this is a realistic portrayal of how it is to work in a hospital in the U.S., but it gives a very realistic vibe. I found the acting and script great, although specific plot points lack subtlety or nuance. An easy show to pick up but by no means an easy watch.
The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015): I might not like all of Robert Eggers’ movies, but I am still going to watch them all. This one is a bit overrated but is still a good movie. Better than The Northman, worse than The Lighthouse. Worth watching for anything but the plot (although the dialogue is great).
Van Gogh by Vincent (2025): An interpretation of the ten-year career of Vincent Van Gogh through his various self-portraits and related paintings. It is interesting how self-portraits were the only types of paintings he could paint during his mental health crises. It is also a curious decision to categorise his chair painting as a self-portrait. This is a British documentary so it is no surprise that the experts are British art historians. I do not mind using an actor to give voice to the letters from Theo, but showing an actor playing Vincent does not really work in this context.
Warfare (2025): This is a good one-location movie based upon a true story of an attack on American soldiers on November 19, 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq. The first act of the movie reminds me of Jarhead, but with the primary difference being that this movie builds up a lot of tension as you have an idea about what is about to happen. I have seen this movie being called an anti-war movie, but I fail to see how it is anything but a typical American movie with the usual dedication to veterans. A good movie for what it is.
Watership Down (1978): A great movie about war and the life of refugees. You are on the run and you have to deal with danger in many forms, including different political regimes led by authoritarian leaders. Also, this movie is an animated movie about a small group of rabbits running away from their home because of a development project. (Maybe the book and movie can explain a cultural component to a generation of NIMBY boomers in the UK?) While it has a PG rating, it at times feels more like a PG-13.

Books

Causal Inference for Data Science by Aleix Ruiz de Villa: A lot of material on causal inference techniques with data science applications. I like a lot of the content, but I find the order and priorities confusing at best. Why only introduce potential outcomes in chapter 10 (following a chapter on instrumental variable regression), and not define a causal effect in the PO framework much earlier? There is a good focus on DAGs throughout, but it could have been presented in a much more guiding and systematic manner. Yet another book where it would have worked better to show examples in R or Python, not R and Python.
Everyday Data Visualization: Design effective charts and dashboards by Desireé Abbott: An easy book to get through if you are already familiar with the basics of data visualisation. Actually, you do not even need to be familiar with data for that matter (you are introduced to the very basics, including the logic of tabular data). A lot of attention is given to colour theory and how to work with colours in data visualisations, so if that is one of your blind spots, this book might be worth checking out. The book has an issue that you encounter in most books on data visualisation, i.e., a lot of trivial and obvious points (you will find points such related to the importance of a good chart being truthful and descriptions of the power of storytelling).
Learning AI Tools in Tableau: Level Up Your Data Analytics and Visualization Capabilities with Tableau Pulse and Tableau Agent by Ann Jackson: It is always interesting to explore new developments in the domain of BI tools. This book works best as a high-level overview of AI tools in Tableau, also in the context of other offerings from Salesforce, especially when it comes to what we can expect in the future. Based upon the examples and comments in the book, I am not convinced about the current state of prompting in Tableau. It also limits the relevance of the book significantly that these tools require a Tableau+ license.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder: A timely book. I mean, for certain parts of the world. There is some generic but good advice in this book. However, most of it feels like it is written for and to an audience already familiar with those general ideas at some basic level. The book recommends to read books, but what do you think I am doing? There are some good specific book recommendations as well, but I do wonder how much reading those books today will make a difference (that is, even if everybody read those books, I am not convinced we would be in a much better place). ‘Christians might return to the foundational book’? Hell, I don’t buy it. I guess everybody will agree that we need to ‘believe in truth’, but the greater challenge in the 21st century is of collective epistemological nature rather than simply making people ‘believe in truth’. Sure, it can lead to cute catchphrases like ‘post-truth is pre-fascism’, but what exactly is there to disagree on here? Maybe one issue is that too many of the examples throughout the book are in the context of the Second World War and Nazi Germany. There are of course still a lot of lessons from those periods of tyranny we can learn and internalise, but I would have appreciated a bit more spatial and temporal variation in the examples (and yes, I know the subtitle of the book is Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century). Also, advice such as ‘Figure things out for yourself’ is a bit too close to ‘Do your own research’ for my liking. I am also a bit tired of seeing references to Milgram whenever people talk about the power of authority.
Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought by Drew Neil: This is an amazing book if you are looking to get better at Vim. There are a lot of good exercises, and the material is introduced in a friendly way. It does not require any prior knowledge. Recommended.
The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han: A brief book but not a quick read. There are a lot of novel ideas and sensible arguments here, but they are definitely not communicated with the reader in mind. A lot of the reflections on achievement society resonate a lot with how I perceive contemporary life in the 21st century and my own life within it.
The Customer-Base Audit by Peter Fader, Bruce G. S. Hardie and Michael Ross: Yet another book on the importance of customer-centric planning in a business setting. I get the importance of an audit of the customer base, but most of the book is driven by very basic examples and a lot of figures and tables. A few good points here and there, but not worth the time. Also, good to know that 99% of the content deals with sales in noncontractual settings so do not expect anything on the sales of subscriptions.
The Manga Guide to Regression Analysis by Shin Takahashi and Iroha Inoue: It is always interesting to explore new ways to teach statistics and in particular advanced statistical topics. This book is about regression analysis, including logistic regression, but told as manga. While I liked the idea, I did not like the execution. There is not really a story here and most of the material would benefit from more variation in the examples. People might read this manga and think they learned a lot, but I would – at best – recommend this book as a supplement to brush up on regression analysis. I have no plans to check out the other books in the series.
The Simply Vegetarian Cookbook: Fuss-Free Recipes Everyone Will Love by Susan Pridmore: One of my objectives in 2025 has been to not cook using meat at all. So far, so good. This is one of the cookbooks I have consulted for inspiration. I did not follow a lot of the recipes, but I could use it as input to improve my search for recipes. Some easy go-to dishes include chickpea curry, cottage cheese alfredo, creamy mushroom risotto, and spicy chickpea gyros. A fine book to pick up if you are looking for inspiration.
Æbleskiver: A New Take on Traditional Danish Pancakes by Pim Pauline Overgaard: I used to love æbleskiver as a child and I do eat them now and again when I am in Denmark. The funny thing is that I have never thought about the possibility of savory æbleskiver. This cookbook begins with the traditional recipe, introduces gluten-free and vegan options, and then things become unhinged. I am not sure whether it counts as cultural appropriation, but I am all for it. Tired of traditional æbleskiver? What about almond and raspberry æbleskiver with matcha glaze? Or carrot pecan æbleskiver with cream cheese custard and caramel drizzle? Or sausage-filled æbleskiver with five kinds of mustard? Or bacon-wrapped æbleskiver with butter lettuce and blue cheese dressing? I would never attempt to follow any of these recipes, so I appreciate the great photos throughout the book.