#there were so many good scenes in lars' christmas stories...

[hydralune]

gift from the world

[letterboxd]

Found Family.

Riders of Justice writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen opens up to Aaron Yap about grimly funny fairy-tales, woke teenagers and creating an accidental Christmas movie with hunky muse, Mads Mikkelsen.

“Genres, that’s just a sales tool really. That’s to give people, show people, ‘are we having sushi or are we having Italian?’ Sometimes I like it when you don’t know what you’re getting.” —Anders Thomas Jensen

It’s stupidly easy to sell writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen’s new film Riders of Justice on its thirsty pulp appeal alone. Who can resist the promise of Danish acting force Mads Mikkelsen finally getting a decent John Wick-ish vehicle of his own, stoically meting out anguished, bloody vengeance to a cadre of underworld thugs? Certainly not, among many Letterboxd members, Harlequinade, who was moved to write this ode:

“MikkelGod sporting a bushy beard MikkelGod wearing a military uniform MikkelGod wearing a suit MikkelGod having this whole silverfox daddy thing going on MikkelGod killing a man with his big beautiful bare hands MIKKELGOD 🤗🙏🏻😍”

But to dismiss Riders of Justice as another entry in the seemingly endless slew of action-revenge pics would also be to undersell its other layers. Much more than Wick, your average Liam Neeson thriller-of-the-month, or even the recent avenging-dad flick, Nobody, Riders positions itself in a more emotionally and psychologically rewarding space, one perhaps closer to its tonally fluid South Korean counterparts. “What lingers,” Douglas Davidson writes, “are the questions Anders presents and the strange hopefulness that flickers upon the credits roll, burning like the embers of a dying fire in the darkness of night.”

It’s of a piece with all of Jensen’s directorial work thus far. A prolific screenwriter who’s penned everything from soulful early Susanne Bier heartbreakers to the recently misfiring The Dark Tower adaptation, Jensen, as a director, has found a sharply honed groove in the form of grimly funny, genre-defying modern fairy-tales populated by oddball characters forced to contend with the chaos of the inscrutable cosmos around them.

Causality plays an even more pronounced role in Riders. The film’s unlikely heroes—hard-bitten special forces soldier Markus Hensen (Mikkelsen) and a trio of bumbling data wizards (Lars Brygmann and Jensen regulars Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro)—are drawn together to take down a vicious biker gang, but also preoccupied with processing the hows and whys of grief and trauma, and of course, the value of revenge.

Amid the terse blasts of gunfire, the film foregrounds scenes of connection and healing between its characters, an assortment of progressive teens and bumbling middle-aged men whose unusual found-family dynamic recalls Jensen’s previous dark, offbeat comedies like Adam’s Apples and Men and Chicken. As More_Baddass writes, the film gifts us some “Christmastime therapy of an unorthodox family”.

Over Zoom, we spoke about whether it’s possible to make Mikkelsen less handsome, why Denmark won’t be getting a sci-fi blockbuster anytime soon, and the time that Jensen and a friend tried to break the Guinness World Record for movie-watching.

‘Riders of Justice’ cast members Lars Brygmann, Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro.

Riders of Justice is one of your more action-packed films. Did you watch any other action flicks, or were there any specific movies that inspired you while you were designing and creating the action in this film? Anders Thomas Jensen: It’s funny, because it’s always subconscious. I never look for inspiration directly because for me, that would be weird to do because then you’re just copying. Definitely in the back of my mind, there’s a lot of action movies and a lot of revenge movies that I’ve seen in the past that will work their way in there. The process for me is very, how do you say, unconscious? What’s it called?

Intuitive? Intuitive, that’s the word. Thank you. First of all, a revenge movie is not easy, but it always has a strong lead and it has a strong will, which is obviously really good if you want to do a script that moves forward. Hamlet is a revenge story, right? I love Once Upon a Time in the West. I love that. The Searchers. The Sting, I guess, is also a revenge movie. Also, there’s so much identification in people who are wronged.

Wish fulfilment. Yeah that too. It’s one of the obviously basic human feelings. Revenge, love. There are these emotions that you’ll do dramas based on long after we were here.

I understand that you took a break from directing for a while and you were spending time raising your family. I’ve noticed, with Men & Chicken and Riders of Justice there’s a lot of attention paid to parenthood, and the role of the parent. Was that intentionally woven into these narratives and something you were thinking of? Yeah. I don’t do it on purpose, but I can definitely see that every movie I ever made I’m very much a part of it. So the whole father story is part of my life in this movie. I have a teenage daughter who I sometimes feel like … I don’t at all have the emotional tools that she and her friends have. This new woke generation that I’m aware of; every single feeling and the environment and everything. I was brought up in a different way. So that’s quite personal in the story, the whole ‘father who has to learn how to communicate through feelings when he’s not very good at it’.

Mads Mikkelsen and Andrea Heick Gadeberg in a scene from ‘Riders of Justice’.

Would you consider Riders of Justice a Christmas movie? Well, it’s so funny because I didn’t see it at all before one of my editors said. No, I wouldn’t because I didn’t pay attention to it at all. The only reason it ends on Christmas is because that’s the perfect coming together of a family. I needed it in the end, but it could have been Easter, but it wasn’t. Perhaps it is a Christmas movie now because it does have Christmas in it.

What was the first film that made you want to be a filmmaker? There are several, but I think the first time I had was Lawrence of Arabia. I saw that when I was very little, when I perhaps shouldn’t have seen it. But when I was around ten, I got a bootleg copy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. VCRs were a brand new thing and we got a VCR. I saw that film every day for half a year and I still know every line in it. It’s not getting out of my head. I love that film and I think from there on, I knew that I wanted to do films.

As a screenwriter, do you have any other screenwriters that you respect and admire? I have many. Billy Wilder is one of my favorites. Also, Ingmar Bergman, the Coen Brothers, Robert Towne, but many others also. There are a lot of good screenwriters.

I can see elements of those writers coming through your work, especially the first three. You’re really good at blending elements from different genres and putting strange characters together. Are there any other genres you want to explore that you haven’t yet? Well, it’s funny because every time I open up a new streaming service, I look for sci-fi movies first. I’m part of the Academy and when I get the screeners, I’m always checking for sci-fi. I have a love for sci-fi, but unfortunately I’m born in a country where doing a sci-fi film would just be insane. It’s never been done. If you have a really big budget, you have five to six million here. So it’s just something that won’t happen. But of course, you could get ambitious and write a sci-fi movie and hope you could do it somewhere else. I hope one day [to] do a good sci-fi movie, or at least something within that genre because it is a favorite.

But I also have to say, basically, I love all genres. Perhaps not rom-com that much, but I really like Westerns. I like war movies, revenge movies, dramas. I love to mix genres. Every time I do a movie, I get this from the distributors: “What are we going to call it?” Because it is this mix of genres. Genres, that’s just a sales tool really. That’s to give people, show people, “are we having sushi or are we having Italian?” So people don’t get confused. But I think sometimes I like it when you don’t know what you’re getting. That’s also what I love about the Coen Brothers and other directors that play with genres, is that I never know where it’s going.

‘Riders of Justice’ writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen.

Let’s talk a little about Danish cinema. You have your Lars von Trier, you have your Vinterberg and Susanne Bier. Is there an older Danish film that you would recommend that people should see? I actually thought about it and it’s going to sound arrogant, but I couldn’t find one. Not when I compare to what else is out there of American, French, Italian, British, German, Russian and Asian. No, there isn’t. Of course there’s Carl Dreyer. He’s an icon in early, early cinema. That’s the obvious thing to say, but no. For me, Danish cinema starts in the ’90s. Also, I haven’t watched many Danish movies before that, because there aren’t that many. Some people will hate me for saying this, but that’s how I feel.

Are there any recent Danish films or filmmakers that you can recommend? This year I saw a film called Shorta, which was great. It was made by two directors with no budget, about two cops venturing into this Muslim part of Copenhagen where there’s a riot. That was really a promising debut. Also, I really like the idea they had. They made a lot of great stuff visually and for almost no money.

What are your movie-watching habits? You said when you turn on a streaming service, you look out for sci-fi movies. Do you have any other weird behaviors? It’s crazy, but if I really like a movie, I see it many times. I also see it many times where I do not look at it. I hear it. I will just lie with my back to it and just hear the movie. Actually, if the movie is really good, it also works without the picture.

I think that’s [as] weird as it gets, otherwise I’m pretty much normal. I used to binge-watch. Actually, I tried to get into a Guinness Book of Record with a friend when I was fifteen, where, for five days continuously, we watched movies. I can’t remember if it was 107 movies. We watched movies and we had a video store sponsor us. We were lying in an all-night video store, and just saw films until we collapsed. That’s the craziest thing I’ve done, but we never got into the book because there are people that are better at not sleeping, so somebody else beat the record by far.

Do you have a list, or a record of what you watched? No, but there was a journalist that asked us what number afterwards. He asked me, “What film was the film number? 47, 46?” I remember him being very impressed that I could differentiate them.

It would have made a great Letterboxd list. Preserve it for eternity. The funny thing is years after I would actually see a film, and I would get an hour into it and I would go, “Oh, I’ve seen this one.” It was because when I saw the last 30 films, I was unconscious.

I need to ask about Mads Mikkelsen because he’s massive with our community. You’ve worked with him for quite a long time now, so you’ve got a pretty solid working relationship. Having just watched a number of your films in a short period of time, it was impressive that you found that range in him that maybe other filmmakers haven’t tapped into. Is there a type of role that you want to see him in that he hasn’t had a chance to play yet? Yes. There are many roles, but I don’t know. I could put a job description or a feeling on it, but it’s much more complicated with Mads, I think. We have this common thing that we love exploring people who lie to themselves, whether it’s comedy or drama. People who are not being honest with themselves and people who have this screwed up self-image, which in all the films we’ve done together, his character has. There are many other characters I would love to explore with Mads.

His looks are quite specific in each film. He just looks like a different person each time, which is great. You just want to see how he is going to look in the next one. His wife is like that too. She’s always excited and she was so happy this time because he wasn’t ugly. Normally he doesn’t look very well, like in The Green Butchers. Because he’s so handsome, so I try to do him not so handsome.

Riders is the hunkiest he’s been in your films, I guess. Definitely. The competition isn’t tough, though. You’re up against a guy who masturbates and a guy with a bad receding hairline. But it is by far his most hunky.

Related content

Softspacedad’s annotated rundown of 46 Mads Mikkelsen films, and ‘Mads Mikkelsen movies ranked based on how good of a father he is’

‘Mads Mikkelsen is filled with rage and has only one eye’, a list by King

Onebear’s lists of all Danish movies released within each cinematic year since 2009

Anders’ list of films by Danish directors or in the Danish language

Leyner’s list of Danish films nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Film

Mikkel’s list of Danish Christmas films

Follow Aaron on Letterboxd

‘Riders of Justice’ is screening now in select US theaters and available on demand. Images courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

[lucadina]

Choke

A/N: It’s an ereannie ice skating AU story! with angst

It's another Saturday spent as a lonesome spectator seated front row among a big crowd. Not a big deal; she doesn't have many friends, let alone any who'd sit through five hours of ice skating just to support her for three minutes.

He's the exception.

Nearly half the program elapses before Eren starts yawning. Stay awake, he wills himself, and his vitality resurges when the speaker finally welcomes Annie Leonhart. A second later, said contestant glides onto the rink, weightless on her blades, a glimmering belle in a pale, blue number. Might be the chill of the stadium, but the wind knocks out of him and his lungs freeze over. The music starts, and so does she, and he can't help but lean in, palming the glass. Come closer, he wishes, so he can almost touch the artistry that charmed him all those years ago.

She passes him, briefly. He sees that she's wearing the choker he gave her last Christmas.

She doesn't win, but she places— she always does, just not first. Eren watches as she stands (awkwardly) on top of the platform marked 2nd, her father hobbling up on stage with his cane to pat her on the shoulder. The pair remain half an arm's length apart, and further distance themselves from each other when the cameras turn their attention elsewhere. Her father whispers in her ear, probably something along the lines of You'll get em next time, little cub. 

Annie doesn't respond, just fingers the silver snowflake dangling from her choker.

When most of the attendees have left, Eren makes his way beneath the bleachers. He waits a good ten minutes before he's joined by Annie, who hasn't changed out of her costume but has traded in her skates for sneakers.

'You were amazing out there.'

'Mm,' is all she responds with. Eren extends a hand out to her, which she takes, enabling him to pull her close so he can kiss her properly. When they part, there’s a faint blush on his cheeks, and through half-open lids, he gazes downward to see her reaction. There's not much difference from her usual stone-face, save for her widening pupils. He's disheartened till she speaks again, 'Thanks for coming.'

His brows furrow, though his lips curl upwards playfully. 'Come on! When have I missed a dance?'

'Never,' she smiles, takes his hand in hers.

At the unexpected contact, his brain scrambles. His clothes are too heavy, his fingers are trembling, and he's got to do something about his anxiety or she'll catch on that he's a dork, 'Where's Lars?' he asks, surprised by how smooth his voice is.

Annie frowns, 'Daddy? I told him I'd see him at home later. So, you know,' she thumbs his knuckles— he shivers and her tone climbs, almost cheery, 'I have the rest of the day to spend with you.'

He takes her to a movie neither of them pay attention to. How could they? It's each other they're engrossed with; stolen glances, feather-light caresses, quick kisses when they can't take it anymore— enough to satiate so they don't go mad. 

He observes her, far more vigilantly than she does him, to burn the nuances of her mask to the back of his mind, to recall in moments wherein he wonders if she's capable of love.

When she laughs at a funny scene, or looks at him longingly when the plot turns romantic; those sharp eyes of hers glaze over, like she's about to cry, as though she wants to confess a dark secret but the words have grown thorns and have lodged in her throat. Impossibly deep scars; he kisses them away, wordlessly, for he understands what she doesn't. 

'I love you,' he'll say and despite the fact that she's not once said it back, her feelings reach him as she nuzzles the crook of his neck, warm tears staining his collar.

Somewhere down the line, they fall apart. Not his fault, nor hers. Perhaps he wasn’t mature enough to accept the notion that he had fallen in love with the rubble beneath her permafrost, and she was too proud to burn with him.

‘You’re hurting me,’ he confesses, ‘This is unbearable. I want to be with you—’

‘You are with me.’

‘In a fantasy world that only you and I live in.’

‘And it’s the perfect fantasy,’ she hisses, baring teeth, ‘Don’t ruin it.’

The next day, she’s on the rink. He’s nowhere to be found during or after the performance. She places first.

They meet later in the week, and he admits that although he still loves her, she no longer makes him happy. She cries because he’s the only thing that makes her smile.

He holds her until she can collect herself. They kiss, embrace, undress, and she’s gone before the sun rises, well aware that she lacks the dignity to leave him when he’s awake.

They keep in touch, just never meet. He moves away, she goes wherever her career takes her. She ends up a success, a good daughter, a queen: one that rules a frozen kingdom from behind familiar glass.

When she sees Eren again, he’s got a woman on his arm and a band on his finger.

And Annie still has her choker.

[evenstevensranked]

#46: Season 3, Episode 14 - “Dirty Work”

This episode was pretty popular. Ren and Principal Wexler have a falling out after she starts to realize he assigns her all of his “dirty work.” So, Larry Beale ends up temporarily taking over as Wexler’s student assistant. Petty drama ensues. Meanwhile, during the plot everyone remembers: Louis decides to start his own "Lumberjack Club" as an excuse to slack off in school. Where all they do is hang around, speak with semi-hillbilly accents, eat pancakes and wear flannels.

Let me start off by saying... To this day, people fondly remember the Lumberjack Club as if it were some major thing, but in reality it was only a (very) small subplot. That’s crazy to me. I did my research, and this Lumberjack Club plot resonated with people so much that students were directly inspired to start their own Lumberjack Clubs at school irl. I’m not joking. Here are some more examples. 

All of these clubs have basically the same mission statement as Louis’ and were formed in the Early 2000s. This alone made me feel like I should rank the episode much higher for “iconic” points. Buuuut, this was never one of my personal favorites *gasp!* and that’s outweighing a lot of things for me. So, please know that I had an extreme internal struggle when deciding where to put this one. I was originally going to rank this around #59-55. But, I didn’t think that was fair enough to the ~cultural impact~ it made, and decided to put it here at #46. That being said… let’s get into it.

This one opens with Coach Tugnut driving up to his school parking spot singing “‘cause I got a brand new suit, and pair of shoes to match! I wish I had a mustache—“ before he gets cut off by Ren. I just felt like those lyrics were worth sharing honestly. She tells him that Wexler has ordered his parking spot to be moved a block and a half away from the school. We find out the reason why when Wexler comes driving up in a new red convertible. He wanted that spot for himself. Idk why Wexler needed Tugnut’s spot though? Surely he has his own prominent spot? He asks Ren to look into some “Lumberjack Club” he came across while looking over the school budget.

What is up with Ren’s pants, btw? This outfit always bothered me. When I was young I always thought they were, like.. freaking Louis Vuitton pants or something, lol. I mentioned before that her wardrobe starts to include loud patterns and gives off an overall “older” and stuffy vibe towards the end of the series. 

The camera pans over to Louis and Twitty, who are accepting and signing off on a syrup delivery. They recycle their code names (Lars Honeytoast and Frenchie Von Richter) from an earlier episode in the series when accepting the order. The delivery man refers to Twitty as "Mr. Honeytoast." This is such a small thing that’s easy to miss, but it’s awesome and top notch casual continuity! I really like it.

It’s “New England’s Finest” syrup. I’m from Boston. This pleases me, tbh.

It cuts to Lumberjack Club! Where Louis, Twitty, Tawny and Tom are cooking pancakes and celebrating the fact that they’ve upgraded their syrup to premium quality, lol. “Lumber Tawn” asks “Lumber Lou” (yes, these are the nicknames they’ve given themselves) to tell them how he came up with the idea for the club again. Louis goes on to tell the story of the club’s origins. The hillbilly accent really kicks in now, accentuated by bluegrass music in the background. He starts off by saying “Well, ‘bout two weeks ago, when yous kids was much younger… everyone was siiignin’ up for cluuuubs.” That is one of my favorite lines though. Not gonna lie. He explains that anyone could get money to form a club as long as they got 50 signatures. So he decided to create a Lumberjack Club after remembering his “deep and loyal love for the pancake.” Incredible. 

Dat face tho.

Right about now is when Ren comes walking in, finding the four of them toasting to The Lumberjack. (See first image.) She grills them about what kind of club they are and what sort of things they do. Louis starts pulling crap out of his butt saying “We sing Lumberjack Songs.” Ren asks them to sing one and it’s great. None of them are in sync. They’re all making stuff up off the top of their heads and clashing miserably. The best part is Tom -- who’s repeatedly saying "Wood... Wood... Wood..." God bless Tom.

Louis says they’re “legit… with a big L!” “…and a small ‘egit’!” Twitty finishes. I feel like this is worth mentioning because one of the real-life clubs’ requirements for joining is that you have to “be legit.” Oh my god. Obviously, Ren vows to shut down the club.

Wexler surprises Ren with her own desk outside of his office. We’re getting into creepy territory again, guys. Wexler makes Ren, a 14-15 year old, do ALL OF HIS WORK while he goes out gallivanting in his new car. Remember when I said that Ren Stevens is basically the principal of Lawrence Jr. High…? Well, this episode really exemplifies that and takes it to a new level. She literally takes over as principal. How is this not illegal?

One of her tasks for the day is to fire the school janitor. Wow. (Fun fact: Jackie the Janitor is played by Knobby Frostybump -- the old elf from the Lizzie McGuire Christmas episode lol) This is the last straw for Ren. She confronts Wexler and quits being his assistant. But much like in Ren-Gate, that doesn’t last long. Over the course of a period, she gets all emo and decides she wants her job back. But, oh no! When she goes back to the office, guess who’s already taken over for her? Larry Beale. Dang, that was fast.

Another lazy name flub happens again here. Larry is polishing his nameplate and it reads "Lawrence M. Beale" when earlier in the series they say his full name on a few different occasions and it's "Lawrence Anthony Beale." I don't understand why something like this is so difficult to remember?! Although, I actually always thought it was weird that Larry's middle name was Anthony because Louis’ full name is Louis Anthony Stevens. Even weirder... The actor who plays Beans is named Steven Anthony Lawrence. What a strange coincidence. 

Ren and Wexler are being extremely passive aggressive towards each other while Larry sits there gloating. Out of spite, Ren decides to become Tugnut's new assistant instead. Like he even needs one. It becomes a petty, all out war between the pairs.

It’s Larry’s job to shut down Lumberjack Club now, so he busts into their meeting the next day. I’m pretty sure they’re not even going to class anymore. They hired a marimba player named Nate to entertain them during club meetings — which I think is absolutely hilarious. It might just be because I'm a musician, but any music-related humor kills me. I mean, a MARIMBA PLAYER?! And this dude is such a Jazz cat. It’s great. This is honestly probably my favorite scene in the whole episode:

So, yeah. Lumberjack Club needs to make an educational presentation in order to stay a thing.

Tugnut is chilling in a lawn chair, eating a burrito and telling his life story (”I thought about moving to Canada, but I don’t speak Canadian...”) while Ren does work on his car. Now she’s a mechanic. This is child abuse, I swear. She’s about to quit as his assistant, but she looks up and sees Larry and Wexler blissfully driving around in his convertible. She gets jealous and keeps working for Tugnut. These student/teacher relationships are so, so strange and not appropriate. Let’s be real... 

Anyway, the whole assistant war thing starts to come to an end when it becomes obvious that Ren is much more qualified and has a better relationship and understanding with Wexler than Larry does. Larry royally messes up as Wexler's assistant and ends up doing a lot of things wrong. Including inviting Wexler’s mother to school, putting nutmeg in his coffee, and forgetting to pay Wexler’s car insurance bill. (Really, what adult would trust a 14-15 year old to pay their bills…) 

Louis organizes the most impressive Lumberjack Club presentation ever within a few hours at the most. I do like seeing Louis at least fully see his schemes through, though. So that’s nice, I guess.

It’s like a freaking carnival.

Nate returns as the musical entertainment. I love this guy, lol. Everything’s going well, until Louis and Twitty chop down a tree during a demonstration which falls on Wexler’s car. Ouch. Wexler’s devastated and sobbing, but manages to mutter “Look what they’ve done to my sweet, sweet ride!” through tears. That made me laugh harder than I probably should’ve. Wexler faints when he finds out Larry didn’t send the insurance payment, and nowww Ren is responsible for Wexler’s literal life. 

Something always gotta go wrong. Louis was actually sort of pulling this whole Lumberjack thing off.

Wexler could be on his deathbed right now and it’s up to Ren to save him. Wow. “Breathe, Principal Wexler! Breathe!!!”

Turns out Ren sneakily sent out the insurance payment the other day and everything’s fine. The episode ends with Ren becoming Wexler’s assistant again. The end. 

So yeah, that’s it. I’m still shocked at how short the Lumberjack Club plot actually is. Pretty crazy how it somehow managed to burn itself into the memories of so many people. I’m also like, 99% positive it was inspired by this Monty Python skit. There’s even a song playing during the school presentation that’s near identical melodically (and lyrically a bit) to the one sung in this skit. The fact that it’s just a subplot also affected my ranking, because I’m not the biggest fan of this episode’s main plot. I love Larry/Ren conflict.. but this situation is just... slightly annoying to me for some reason. ALSO! I realized the other day that I should base my rankings on character development, as well. I’ve actually been doing that subconsciously so far, I think. Barring a few, the majority have been filler episodes basically. No material that actually advances the overall arc of the show. Just random, silly plots -- which makes it difficult for me to really consider it a “good” or “great” episode. And unfortunately, that’s what Lumberjack Club is to me. I’m so sorry. I just love these characters so much, so when there’s little to no character growth in an episode.. it sort of bothers me. I know the show is silly, but there’s a lot of heart there as well. Episodes that have a little meat to them are the ones I’m more fond of. 

We’ve officially reached the point in my list where I drew a line separating the lower half from the better half though, guys! The ball’s really rolling now. I’m excited. 

Thanks for reading! Were you a Lumberjack Club fan? Did you start your own?! Please, do tell. Haha. 

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