Brief reviews – Erik Gahner Larsen

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

Movies/TV series

7/7: The London Bombings (2025): A BBC documentary on the 2005 London bombings. The first two episodes focus on the day of the attack and the final two episodes on the aftermath in the weeks after the attack. I most likely found this documentary more interesting having been close to Aldgate for years, so I will recommend the documentary for people who only slightly remember the events in 2005.
A Real Pain (2024): A good comedy about Americans in Europe, but the opposite of EuroTrip (hence, a good comedy). A strong movie by Jesse Eisenberg, and it works much better as a drama than a comedy. Do not expect a lot of, if any, laughs.
Between the Temples (2024): The premise of the movie is interesting, and despite a few funny scenes and strong camera work, this movie lacked engagement. I also do not get why this movie is R-rated.
Cunk on Life (2024): The theme is funny and the juxtaposition between the big questions in life and the trivialities of life is funny, albeit only the first five times. Then it becomes repetitive and boring. A lot of the jokes fall flat and, if you are familiar with the other Cunk shows, there is nothing new under the sun. Yet another failed Netflix special.
Der amerikanische Freund (1977): Another Tom Ripley story (I can highly recommend Ripley on Netflix as well), this one directed by Wim Wenders. I like his other movies, including Der Himmel über Berlin, Paris, Texas, and Perfect Days, and this one is no exception. It does feel very 70s at times, but overall a good watch.
Der kommer en dag (2016): Not a bad movie but a typical Danish movie with all the limitations of the genre. The movie claims to be based on true events but reveals at the end that it is inspired by events from multiple places, which felt a bit weird. Why not say this upfront? The movie is The Shawshank Redemption with kids (there are a lot of similarities, from the narration to specific plot ideas).
Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024): A well-made movie with a weak plot. There are strong emotions but they feel fake in the context of the plot. The best thing I can say is that it feels like what you would get if Barry Jenkins directed an episode of This Is Us.
Forooshande (2016): Another great movie by Asghar Farhadi. If you like his other movies, e.g., Jodaeiye Nader az Simin, Darbareye Elly, and Ghahreman, you will also like this one. As with most Iranian movies, it helps to watch and discuss it with Iranians, so it was a good pick for a movie night with friends.
Nattevagten – Dæmoner går i arv (2023): I was not expecting a great movie, but I was not expecting something this bad. Nattevagten from 1994 was good, but this sequel is … I don’t know what. There is not a single good thing to say about this movie.
Nosferatu (2024): Robert Eggers is one of the best horror directors we have right now, and I was looking very much forward to this movie. Alas, I was disappointed. I guess I prefer the psychological horror in The Lighthouse over the Gothic horror in Nosferatu. That being said, if you like his other movies, I see no good reason to skip this one.
Pigen med nålen (2024): One of the better Danish movies from recent years. The cinematography is beautiful and the score is eerie in the best possible way. I am getting tired of movies ending with the ‘Inspired by true events’ (Inspireret af virkelige hændelser) when inspired is clearly doing a lot of the heavy lifting. A good movie, but it should not win Best International Feature Film.
Somebody Somewhere (2022): Somebody Somewhere is a dark comedy with unique characters that depict frustrations and emotions that could be anybody anywhere. It is easy to get through (only 21 episodes), and while not a perfect show by any stretch of the imagination, I can recommend it.
Straume (2024): Despite no dialogue and no clear antagonist, or maybe because of these factors, this is an engaging and interesting animated movie. I liked it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about ways it could have been significantly better. For animated movies without dialogue, I would pick Robot Dreams over this one.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024): I am a huge fan of Wallace & Gromit, and especially The Wrong Trousers from 1993. For that reason, I had high expectations for this one, that – alas – were not satisfied. There are funny moments in this movie, but it is clear in the third act that there is nothing new in this movie, and the message, if there is one, is too simplistic and boring.

Books

Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage by Peter Fader: A brief yet way too long book. I was expecting a lot more from this but it is full of pompous statements without ever getting to any actionable insights. You will find a few good points on the importance of valid LTV estimates and the like, but this is a book that is easy to skip (as one should).
Data Visualization in R and Python by Marco Cremonini: A collection of tutorials on how to make data visualisations in R and Python. The quality of the writing is satisfactory, but as a book it is not working out. That is, it is written for people who use R or Python, and not R and Python. The problem is that the tech stack introduced in the book is not well-integrated. For example, ggplot2 is used for R and seaborn is used for Python. The problem is that they do not share the same API logic (seaborn is based on matplotlib), and while the tutorials cover a lot of material, e.g., seaborn, Altair, Dash, and plotly in Python, there is no reason to read this as a book. The book would have worked a lot better if covering ggplot2 in R and plotnine in Python, and, for dashboards, Shiny for both R and Python. In sum, alas, the book feels more like it is written for R and Python in 2020 than in 2025.
How Economics Explains the World: A Short History of Humanity by Andrew Leigh: A short book covering a lot of material from microeconomics and macroeconomcis. The book is not necessarily succeeding in providing a short history of humanity, but less can also do the trick. It is primarily a collection of facts, theories and anecdotes within the field of economics, and if you like pop-sci books and are not too familiar with the field of economics, this is definitely one of the better books to pick up.
Mount København by Kaspar Colling Nielsen: I love the premise and the structure of this Danish sci-fi book. A mountain is being build in Copenhagen, and there is a mountain of stories and lives to explore in this universe. Despite the interesting premise and some interesting ideas and thoughts throughout the book, most of these smaller stories are a bit too weird for my liking.
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything by Nate Silver: I guess I rate this book higher than most academics. I liked everything in the book related to casinos, Las Vegas, gambling, poker and the like, but when it moved on to talk about Sam Bankman-Fried, Silicon Valley, LLMs, the existential risks of AI, etc., which takes up a lot of space, there was nothing new of interest to me. This could have worked much better as at least two separate books (and I could have stuck to one of them). The challenge is that there is no coherent theme, and the attempt at using a distinction between the River and the Village to connect it all falls flat. It comes off more as in-group sentiment than a systematic attempt at explaining group and individual level differences in risk profiles. A lot of noise in the latter part of the book (i.e., after and including chapter 13), but a lot of signal in the first part.