May 1: Danish Movie Night with Stauning Founder Alex Munch...
Fellow Drammers!
Sunday, May 1st, we’re going to try something completely new, and frankly, a lot of fun (not to mention free to attend). Alex Munch, the co-founder of Stauning Danish Whisky, is in town, his first time in the USA since covid and certainly the first time since we picked two barrels of his whisky exclusively for our club (a rye and a peated single malt, both on their way to us). We were out for drinks the other day, and to to talking about Danish movies, in particular how funny Danish comedies are (if you haven’t seen Klown, it is one of the funniest movies ever, led to a sequel and an entire TV series). Add on top of that Thomas Vinterburg’s Celebration, Lars Von Trier’s office comedy “The Boss of It All”, the epic “Adam’s Apples”… the list goes on and on. So I thought, well, hell, I’ve got a a 15 foot movie screen and all those movies, why don’t you come over on Sunday and we’ll do a Danish comedy movie night and drink Stauning whisky? He immediately agreed. So on Sunday, May 10th, we’ll drink great Danish whisky with its founder, while watching 2 of the best modern Danish comedies. This is going to be fun. After all, the first film, appropriately enough, is all about Drinking…
6pm - Doors open, feel free to come hang out.
6:30 - 8:30pm - Another Round (2020), Director: Thomas Vinterberg, Starring: Mads Mikkelsen
9:00 - 10:40pm - Klown (2010) Director: Mikkel Nørgaard, Starring: Frank Hvam, Casper Christensen
10:40pm - More hanging out, drinking Stauning whisky
A few thoughts on Another Round.
Thomas Vinterberg is a legend in Danish cinema, and his The Celebration is widely considered the first film in what became a movement (the Dogme films). In any case, this, his newest film “Another Round”, appropriately enough, is all about drinking. It was Denmark’s submission to the Oscars in 2020, where it won the Academy Award for best International Film. Here’s an excerpt from a review of it:
Vinterberg has made a surprisingly warm, wise and uplifting picture about a quartet of men who spend a significant portion of its running time somewhat shit-faced. I write “somewhat” because it’s for only a few scenes that the characters descend into truly embarassing excess. For the rest of the time the four men — a group anchored by Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), a history teacher at a Copenhagen high school disengaged, symbiotically, with his distracted students — teeter on various edges of drunkenness as they “scientifically” attempt to discover the level of blood alcohol that will enable the highest level of creativity and performance. Needless to say, the experiment goes too far, impacting the four men in different ways as well as adding a final note of alienation to Mads’s relationship with his wife, Anika (Maria Bonnevie). But without shying away from any harsh realities, or moments of true sadness, Vinterberg keeps Another Round inviting and light-on-its-feet — literally so in its justly celebrated final scene.
Klown
This is possibly the biggest Danish comedy hit of our lifetimes. It is the result of their wildly popular tv series (which came first), and led to a film and then to a sequel to that film. From the NY Times review of it: Mr. Hvam and Mr. Christensen have become famous in Denmark for following their own worst instincts. “When we started the series,” Mr. Hvam said in a phone interview from his garden in Copenhagen, “we made a list of 20 taboos, from racial issues to cannibalism to pedophilia to cancer, Down syndrome, all kinds of terrible things.” They then addressed them, episode by episode. There was just one line the pair refused to cross. “We thought it would be too brutal to bring in a child into our universe,” Mr. Hvam said. But when it came time to make a film based on the series’s characters, Mr. Hvam said, he and Mr. Christensen decided they had become adept enough as comedians to “manage to have a child without it all exploding.” The results are so funny, your jaw will hurt the next day from laughing so much.
And what better to drink as we watch these movies than the fantastic Danish whisky from our friends at Stauning. We won’t ask their founder to do too much work while we’re hanging out, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to say a few words, and if nothing else we’ll get to share a few drams of his whisky with him.
We hope you can join us! The event is free, but we ask that people RSVP so we know how many to set up for. We’ll provide the Stauning whisky, if people want to bring beer, wine, snacks, order in food, whatever — it’s all good. Feel free to come late, leave early, stay for only one movie, it will all be very relaxed and informal. And you won’t have any problem seeing the screen, it’ll take up the entire wall…. :)