Brief reviews #5 – Erik Gahner Larsen

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

Movies/TV series

28 Years Later (2025): I wish I liked this movie more than I did. The movie is hellishness, anarchistic and uncompromising. There is so much energy combined with British cultural references and montage footage, and there are certain scenes that you will easily remember (even if you do not want to). That being said, I was slightly disappointed with the movie, especially the second half, and I did not like the ending at all. I might rewatch it again later (before the release of the sequel), and I am not ruling out the possibility that I might actually like it more upon a second viewing.
Angrebet på Shellhuset (2013): A documentary about the bombings of Gestapo’s headquarters in Copenhagen, the Shell House, during the Second World War. I was vaguely familiar with the mission but I learned a lot from watching this documentary. Most importantly, I did not know that the casualties from a local school were due to a mistake following the crash of one of the planes. There are some interesting moral dilemmas to discuss in the context of this documentary, and it works well that the documentary is not trying to provide any easy answers or moral judgments.
Back to the Beginning (2025): I associate Ozzy Osbourne more with The Osbournes than Black Sabbath, and combined with the fact that I am not the biggest fan of heavy metal, I was not totally sold on this event. For what it is worth, I did not spend ~10 hours watching this and primarily second screened the whole thing. I guess I could (or should) have waited for the 100-minute concert film set to be released in 2026. I did enjoy the performances by bands such as Mastodon and Metallica. Of course a concert that will primarily be remembered due to the short proximity to Ozzy Osbourne’s passing.
Ballerina (2025): From the world of John Wick. A great action movie. Yet another well-executed gun fu movie. The plot is over-the-top and unrealistic as always, but that is part of the charm of the universe. I have not watched The Continental, but I plan to continue watching all movies in the John Wick universe (in other words, everything in the universe with Keanu Reeves).
Battle of Britain: The Real Story (2010): James Holland takes a close look at the battle between Britain and Germany in 1940, dealing with not only questions about which airplanes were better and the relevance of the battle by sea, but also the complexities related to understanding why the Battle of Britain ended up as a success for Britain. What works well in this documentary is that it relies on interviews with people on both sides and provides nuances to the traditional narrative and interpretation of the battle. That being said, not a must watch and only recommended for people very much into World War II documentaries.
Film Geek (2023): A feature length personal essay about Richard Shepard’s love for movies. It is a love letter to movies but also a love letter to New York, and – most importantly – a love letter to his dad. The movie is primarily made from clips from popular and less popular movies from the 70s and 80s, and it captures perfectly what it means to be a film geek. The documentary is full of energy and childhood anecdotes. Recommended if you are into movies about movies.
Im Westen nichts Neues (2022): According to my data, I watched All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) on October 10, 2010, so I am not able to easily compare the more recent German version to the older movie. What I can say for sure is that I find both to be really good movies and I would recommend watching them both, as they of course are very different with almost 100 years between them. There is something immensely claustrophobic about trench warfare, and I was a bit disappointed by how this movie had to focus a lot on the negotiations between Germany and France. Overall, I would like to see more movies about World War I rather than World War II.
Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns (2001): Ken Burns is one of the best American documentarists. He is great at telling a coherent and engaging story about a topic of interest. In this music documentary it is about the history of jazz in the United States, primarily up until 1961 with an epilogue episode covering the forty years from 1961 to 2001. The documentary deals with a lot of American history in connection to jazz, from World War 1 and the Great Depression to the World War II and the civil rights movement. I liked it but the ten episodes with a total run time of 19 hours is a bit too much. I would easily have settled for, say, 10 to 15 hours.
Materialists (2025): This is a bad movie. It is a romantic comedy but it is not romantic or intentionally funny. It is not even an anti-romantic comedy. There is nothing of substance here. The plot is weak, all of the characters are one-dimensional and the dialogue is unintentionally funny. It is such a shame as I loved Celine Song’s previous movie, Past Lives. I guess there is a thematic overlap between Materialists and Past Lives in its focus on a love triangle with noticeable differences between the two men in the protagonist’s life (with an emphasis on cultural differences in Past Lives and economic differences Materialists). However, the two movies are like night and day in terms of substance. Skip Materialists and watch Past Lives.
Mountainhead (2025): This movie was apparently finished six months after Jesse Armstrong started writing the script. It shows. Yet another example that Jesse Armstrong is much better at comedy than drama. I like an Ayn Rand reference as much as the next guy, but why write characters like Ayn Rand? No subtleties or nuances. One-dimensional characters with nothing left to interpretation. AI could have done a better job. There are so many great minimalistic one-location plays that would make great movies, and yet we are left with movies like this.
Nobody 2 (2025): I did not like Nobody and it is a fair question why I bothered with Nobody 2. Fool me once, etc. There is no reason for this movie to exist. The movie is – unintentionally – presenting a bleak and pessimistic view on human nature and conflict resolution (or lack hereof), and even glorifying it. Accordingly, this is the type of movie that will do fine in the United States with a lot of people not being able to see what is wrong.
Oh, Hi! (2025): The first 15 minutes were great and promising, but as the movie progresses it is clear that it had a great idea for a premise but not a story. The movie could have been saved if the people in the movie did not make one stupid decision after the other, but this is just a mess.
Palmemördaren (2021): The assassination of Olof Palme is an interesting case, especially as it – for the most part – remains unsolved. There is not much new under the sun in this documentary. The focus is on Stig Engström as a likely suspect in the context of the conclusion to the investigation in 2020. The lack of evidence in this case makes the documentary less interesting, and there is no need to watch this documentary (unless you are completely unaware of the case and would like a recap).
Sex (2024): I have been looking forward to Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy for a while but, alas, the first installation was a disappointment. I did not find the story realistic nor interesting at any level. There are simply so many other movies that deal with these topics in much more interesting ways. I am still looking forward to watching both Kjærlighet and Drømmer though.
Sorry, Baby (2025): A strong directional debut by Eva Victor. The story is simple but with a lot of emotional complexity and empathy. A fine balance between humor and sadness.
Spermageddon (2024): A Norwegian animated movie about … sperm cells. I can best describe it as Inside Out meets Sausage Party. And a bit of Olsenbanden (yes, you will see Olsenbanden as sperm cells in this movie). There are too many stupid puns and the movie overall is just stupid. There is a disclaimer at the end of the movie declaring that sperm cells can indeed not travel through the entire digestive system, out through the urine and then into the uterus to impregnate egg cells. If that sounds funny, you might enjoy the movie. I did not.
The Bear (2022): Who would have thought that we would get several seasons of The Bear? And that it is not even a done deal yet. I liked the earlier seasons more than season 4, but the writing and the acting is still superb. I also like that there is actual progression in the plot. However, I do find some of the plot beats repetitive and I have specific issues with the editing and the soundtrack (e.g., people talking on top of R.E.M.). Still one of the best post-COVID workplace dramas though.
The Day of the Jackal (2024): This should on paper be a great show. It is a mix of a British spy thriller, a Nordic crime drama, and a Spanish (melo)drama. The problem is that the writing is ridiculously bad. The moment you begin to think about plot holes, you stumble upon them again and again, especially as we get towards the end of the season. The main character, played by Eddie Redmayne, is smart and pays attention to all details in the beginning of the show. Throughout the show you see how he acts haphazardly, emotionally and flat-out stupid. I will not waste my time on a second season of this show.
The Life of Chuck (2024): This is a movie you will only find smart if you are not into movies. The Life of Chuck, based upon a short story by Stephen King, is structured in three chapters told in reverse chronological order. It is well-known that Stephen King has an issue with endings, and I like how they get the bad ending out of the way in the first act. The only problem is that the actual ending of the movie, i.e., Chapter 1, is even worse. To the extent that this movie is trying to say something, it is flat out stupid. However, I did enjoy the performances by Tom Hiddleston and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
The Mega-Brands That Built America (2023): A TV series on the history of various companies and products in the United States. I found most episodes informative but also way too American. That is, the storytelling is too dramatic and focuses primarily on the contributions of and conflicts between individuals rather than the societal trends and the context in which these companies and products operate. As a result, upon watching this show, you will know a bit more about specific brands, but not be able to connect the dots and have a better understanding of mega-brands in America.
The Naked Gun (2025): The first Naked Gun movie is a classic and I found the idea of a sequel (beyond the original trilogy) bad. For that reason, I am happy to say that this is not a bad movie. Is the movie stupid? Sure, but what did you expect? Is the movie better than the original? No, but what did you expect? Liam Neson has great comedic timing (or, if it is bad it is either intentional or saved with good editing), and there are a lot of jokes and visual gags to be found here. Not a masterpiece, but there was no reason to expect that.
Thunderbolts* (2025): One of the best movies in the MCU. I know that it does not say a lot as most of these movies are bad, but this is actually a good movie on its own. The movie takes a dark turn (literally and metaphorically) when it deals with mental health issues and how a villain is not only a bad person, and not always driven by a destructive force, but a force to be reckoned with. That is, the movie is much better at moving beyond the ‘good people fighting bad people’ structure than most superhero movies. Thunderbolts* is yet another good example of how superhero movies are much better when they deal with internal struggles rather than multidimensional struggles in time and space.
Under stjernerne på himlen (2025): Here’s Tommy! I honestly do not know why I watch new Danish movies. There is nothing of interest in this particular biopic about Tommy Seebach. You do not even get a better understanding of who Tommy Seebach was as a person or as an artist. Sure, it is not easy to balance family life and career ambitions, especially if you are running out of time and the people around you say that time is up. But this movie had little to nothing to add to this. The sentimental endings (both the ending to the story and the actual ending to the movie) were equally bad and only confirms that there was not really anything of substance in this movie.
Weapons (2025): A good movie with narrative layers and interesting metaphors. One interpretation is that a lot of things can be weapons and psychological and social dynamics can be weaponised. I was disappointed in the direction of the plot towards the end of the movie. I was hoping that the movie would move more in the direction of, say, We Need to Talk About Kevin, than The Blair Witch Project. Overall, I was happy that I got to see this movie in the cinema as there are several amazing shots and a brilliant score.
World War II in Numbers (2019): Another generic but good World War II documentary series. The selling point here is the focus on numbers, and while there is a lot of focus on key statistics and numbers throughout the different episodes, especially in the early episodes, the documentary does not bring anything new to the table. Alas, it is a missed opportunity for trying out novel ways to understand World War II through numbers and data visualisations, and I would have liked to see more experts in statistics and data visualisation being involved in this documentary. The problem is that most, if not all, documentaries about World War II deals with numbers – from casualties to resources – and there is nothing unique about this documentary. Still a good documentary though.

Books

463 Hard to Believe Facts: Better Explained, Counterintuitive and Fun Trivia by Nayden Kostov: I like random facts about this and that. However, I did not really like this book. Most of the facts presented here are not hard to believe, not counterintuitive, and in most cases not funny. Some of these facts are not even facts as I found examples of facts that I know (for a fact) come from scientific studies that failed to replicate.
Annie Hall: Screenplay by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman: One of the best romantic comedies ever written, if not the best. I have watched the movie a lot of times so it is easy to see all scenes play out in the mind’s eye when reading the screenplay. I decided to read the screenplay prior to the book Remembering Annie Hall, but you do not need a reason to read or watch Annie Hall. Always recommended.
Bad Education: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them by Matt Goodwin: I was looking forward to reading this book, especially because I worked at the same department as Matt and we worked together on various projects while I lived in the UK. The book is brief and aims to understand challenges to higher education in Western countries (with a focus on Matt’s own experiences). He relies on economic and political explanations to shed light on the challenges to contemporary education. However, there is an emphasis on the political factors, especially when talking about solutions. I do not question that there are systemic challenges within and to higher education in the UK, but I do believe a proper analysis should focus substantially more on the structural economic challenges and the nested bureaucratic layers, also if the objective is to understand challenges to academic freedom. Alas, the book ends up having a populist framing where relatively simple political solutions are offered to deeply complex and interrelated structural challenges.
Data Analysis with LLMs: Text, tables, images and sound by Immanuel Trummer: A primer on how to analyse data with the help of LLMs with a particular focus on connecting to LLMs in Python via API calls. My guess is that we will see a lot more books like this coming up over the next few years. That is, how to use LLMs to do data analytics/data science. There is nothing bad about this book, but I struggle to see who will be the key audience for this and similar books. If you are already familiar with most of the material, there is not much to be gained from a book like this, and if you are not familiar with the material, you are most likely better off by watching some high-quality tutorials on YouTube.
Hands-On Large Language Models: Language Understanding and Generation by Jay Alammar and Maarten Grootendorst: A practical introduction to large language models. The book is full of simple examples with illustrations and, when relevant, Python code to show how to run things. There is content on transformers, text classification, prompt engineering, semantic search and retrieval-augmented generation, multimodal embeddings, etc., so basically all important topics for an introduction to LLMs are covered. The book is especially suited if you do not care too much about the mathematics and statistics, but still want to improve your understanding of generative AI.
MySQL Crash Course: A Hands-on Introduction to Database Development by Rick Silva: The average person working with data, directly or indirectly, would be better off knowing a bit more SQL. I would recommend this book to most people. If you are already familiar with a lot of MySQL, you can easily skim through huge parts of the book, but most likely still pick up on a few things and learn a lot. The only thing I did not like was, while consistent, the use of lowercase for keywords.
Polars Cookbook: Over 60 practical recipes to transform, manipulate, and analyze your data using Python Polars 1.x by Yuki Kakegawa: I have recently been refactoring a code base from pandas to polars. There is something very satisfying about refactoring a code base and seeing how much faster everything can run. Polars is truly optimised for speed and the API, while it takes some getting used to, is much better than pandas. You do not have to deal with indexes and axes, there are (good) limitations (such as column names must be unique), and you should generally avoid using brackets (similar to dplyr in R). This book gives a lot of good examples on how to use Polars, and it is relatively easy to pick up and read as you can safely ignore the chapters that are not relevant for your use case. I would have appreciated a bit more of a coherent structure to the book, and there are a lot of repetitions (there should be no need to install polars in every chapter).
Remembering Annie Hall by Jonathan Ellis and Ana María Sánchez-Arce: An edited volume with chapters on Annie Hall. Several chapters could fit into a book that could be published in The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series with entries relying heavily on Freud and Lacan. A lot of variation in the quality making the book uneven. I did enjoy the various chapters exploring the legacy of Annie Hall in movies such as Francis Ha, Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, Appropriate Behavior, and Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, but my favourite chapter was the one on the legacy of Annie Hall’s Windsor font.
Replay by Ken Grimwood: The premise of this book is that the protagonist dies at the age of 43 and wakes up again at the point where he was 18. This is a great idea for a book and I liked a lot of the ideas and topics being explored throughout the book. However, while I enjoyed the book, and without spoiling anything, I found the plot to be a lot weaker as the story begins to unfold within a bigger universe. If there was a sequel to Replay, I would not read it.
Small, Sharp Software Tools: Harness the Combinatoric Power of Command-Line Tools and Utilities by Brian P. Hogan: I have read several books over the years talking about and showing the wonders of CLI tools. I am a great fan of the minimalism and the meticulous nature of working with a proper set of tools far away from any point-and-click graphical interfaces. This is one of the better books but I would not recommend it for people not familiar with working from the command line (i.e., this is better to improve your skills rather than as an introduction).
Useful Not True: whatever works for you by Derek Sivers: A generic self-help book. The main point is that there is no such thing as ‘truth’ and you should do whatever works for you. All models are wrong, but some are useful. That kind of stuff. I am not sure why this was written up as a brief book rather than, say, a blog post. If you are a great fan of Derek Sivers’ writing in general, this one might be of interest as well, but I would not recommend it.
What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon: This is an awful book even within its respective genre. The plot is laughable at best and toxic at worst. The dynamics between the characters are problematic, even in the places where the book is trying to depict them as charming. It is an immediate red flag if a person reads this book without finding it problematic. If you find anything about the plot realistic in this book, you have definitely never lived in Amsterdam. However, the most annoying part in the book is the Western privilege in thinking that, as an American, your visa situation is sorted in the Netherlands if you can work as a tour guide. Spare yourself from this type of ignorance and lazy writing.