Brooding ambient music

Probably the most famous unsolved murder case in Finland, Lake Bodom Murders. The film is loosely based on that event in 1960. Set in present day, four kids do a reconstruction of the case therefore make a camping trip at the very same location. And it gets teenage slasher shit real quick. I merely observed the wouldn't-happen-in-real-life - ridiculousness.

Space between the notes

Started out with a college baseball team's frat house and its non-stop parties. After going through the usual stuff such as excessive use of beer and one-night stands, what-have-you typical shit, you kinda expected something dramatically engaging to happen. But no. Nothing happened. Can't believe upteenth number of film critics thought this as one of their favourites this year.

Flushing mommy down the toilet

A family of seven (father & six children) live in the woods. Ostracized from civilization, obsessed with physical and intellectual education, they've become great thinkers and therefore against the values of western ways of living. They also worship Noam Chomsky. They have a funeral to attend to and the outside world seems 'em as these extravagant hippies. Just absolutely amazing and truly invigorating off-beat drama comedy. Looks more or less like a Wes Anderson picture and reads like Tod Solonz, and now there's a new kid on the block, Matt Ross. Well done.

Influenced by something demonic

One of the best contemporary old-school horror movies no doubt. Done with good taste and understanding of the laws and values of traditional horror genre. A house is haunted in London, England, and people investigate it. Doesn't need more than that.

Accept no substitutes

Since I saw it back in the day - watched it then a few times in fact -  and I have always thought this as Quentin Tarantino's most underrated gem and it's fucklots better than said everywhere. Partly it's still true, but - watched it again yesterday - and somewhere along the years it has lost some of its appeal. Great writing and great acting (De Niro and Jackson, in particular), but at the same time there's lots of leeway in the story. Dunno, maybe I'll watch it again in few years time and it's the greatest movie ever made.

People love a good story

I liked the Edgar Rice Burroughs books and totally digged the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies. Liked the idea on reproducing the Lord of the apes once again, but this is just plain pathetic. Belgian king Leopold wants to shove African diamonds up his ass, so he executes this clever plan to kidnap the hero himself. Everything is gung-ho when the white aristocrats and native tribes and animals either work together or hate each other at the bottom of their hearts. One of the most ridiculous movies I have seen all year.

Fuck everyone who isn't us

The 6th season of Game of Thrones. I don't want to be too disrespecteful because most of the followers are sad little twats, but this is how I sum it up: first few episodes I tried to reminiscence what the fuck had happened before, who were all these people, when I figured some of that shit out, I realized that the show looks like a soap opera. The second to last episode was great. The last episode was basically (spoiler alert) a metaphore for everyone wanting to suck John Snow up. Funniest thing is that the lady with the three dragons could easily wipe out - if not the entire fucking fantasy world - but her enemies at least, to kingdom come, but chooses not to.

Help pick up the pieces

Great Dutch beer, Heineken. True story, apparently, back in 1983, a group of desperate people kidnapped the beer tycoon Freddy Heineken, and demanded ransom. Not bad, they speculate the alternatives of the prolonged case and it's getting more and more thrilling as the days go by.

Extreme ways

Sometimes it feels like swimming in the ashes of utopia with these techno thrilles that are bludgeoned to death with IT-jargon and breakneck speed high-tech action and story telling. But it is what it is with Jason Bourne, the super agent, he has his head stuck up too deep in his asshole to realize anything better. If not, the problem is there's absolutely nothing new to offer. It's the same story all over again with the same watchable thrills and intensity.

Bolivians taste like chicken

The Chilean mining accident and its rescue operation was the biggest reality TV in 2010. This is not the only movie made of the incident. But, I reckon, this is the most international one therefore the semi-retired latino actors speak this funky fake English accent which, quite honestly, is nauseating to decipher.

Hope it comes with a manual

A man loses his wife and instead of mourning, focuses on writing his thoughts on a wending machine company. Things get even crazier as he grows a demolition fetish, then there's even more. Truly an off-beat drama that sadly lost its beat halfway through. Nice ending though.

Shit out of biscuit

Just absolutely fucking hilarious. Good old guts & gore thing with perfectly placed one-liners piercing through it all. Bill Campbell as Ash is an iconic comic genious and without his presence the Evil Dead legacy couldn't live on. First season of the series.

Spaceship turned back on

I watch these things solely for the enjoyment of second-hand embarrassment. And I'm ever so curious how pathetic and ridiculous everything to go. New heights here.

Standing in the cold

Religion, politics and crime belong to the same syndicate in Italy. Every once in a while things fumble, people die and everyone's in vendetta kind of mood. Nothing that you haven't seen here before, but when the shit hits the fan in the heart of mafia land, it's a full-blown apocalypse.

Nobody understands how the algo works

Not purposefully going against the grain of current consensus, but - despite shitty reviews - I really liked this movie. A man hijacks a live TV show, takes several hostages and continues broadcasting reality television. Of course, as unbelievable and downright silly as the next thing, but that's only entertainment.

A myriad of tumors

New York in the 1930s. Publisher/editor Max Perkins is caught in the crossfire of great minds of Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. A cultural feature and literary enthusiasts suck it up like lollipop, no doubt. The cast (Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce and Dominic West) is great, but unfortunately their charisma can't quite kill the boredom.

Every loser's lucky day

A former long-haul convict and alcoholic gets fucking mad angry when his estranged daughter is pursued by some lowlife gang people. Mel Gibson at his best, borderline good guy, getting his revenge and setting things straight.

As night falls and a snowstorm rages

A divorced father takes his two sons on a manlihood expedition in wintry woods. Things go sideways and mental more than they bargained for, so the situation is kind of shitty. A survival story that in the end is a silly fucking movie.

Rhythms of light

Following the 7th season, forgot to drop a line of the previous one. Can't say I remember much of it, I guess it was pseudo-exciting.

Splitting pines

Couldn't have believed that outside the Hollywood millions they were able to muster a convincing catastrophe movie. Tsunami caused by collapsing mountain destroys a Norwegian village and people act accordingly. Some decent thrills here.

Operation Overlord

Based on a massive government funded fuck-up, a mining company Talvivaara's ecocatastrophe that polluted Finnish soil for ages to come. Bunch of creedy dickheads on the company management walked hand in hand with the high ranking officials of the political power sucking each others dicks while the true nature of things was coolheadedly buried in the slow-turning wheels of bureaucracy. Liked the movie alright tho.

Dances naked with the devil

I expected sumthin else. This was heralded somewhere as one the greatest - and scariest - contemporary horror films. But I didn't expect the story to progress at desperately slow speed. A religious family of seven is all confused when a little bit of witchcraft enters their lives. Set in New England, 1630. Despite the slowness, still decent.

Better than all dead

The fourth and final season of Banshee. Still one of the greatest televised shit, but the story here took a slightly different approach after three amazing seasons. I'm not personally too fond of storytelling that's emphasized on flashbacks and they cultivated quite a lot of that it here. Nevertheless, the greatest hidden gem out there, one of the best shows I've ever witnessed. Holds absolutely no barriers.

Sometimes the law can't give justice

World's best kept secret. I yet haven't figured out why no-one seems to know about this show. Not that it matters. It's better, crazier and more entertaining than all the rest of the contemporary television series.

Buy me a night on the town

Before the opening credits, knowing Ray Liotta was there, I noticed hoping he - for once - would do a perfectly normal role, a likeable character, a good guy. Fat chance. He's performing a small town scumbag messing everyone up. Otherwise an easily forgettable thriller. Fucking nothing to it.

Religion for intellectual atheists

Just what I expected. Eddie Redmayne does a splendid (Oscar awarded) job as cosmologist Stephen Hawking, but otherwise the movie is a fucken bore because the intellectual musings were left to surprisingly minimal.

Clowns should be tortured

One of those movies, the first minutes in and you know you're in for the enjoyment. What struck me first was the heavy Scottish English - like Trainspotting and everything Irvine Welsh has ever penned - bludgeoned to your ears from left and right. Then you see these amazing people doing their work - the acting - the way it should be done, you don't register it, you take it as it comes. The story is about a barber who is losing his customers until some accidental and serial killings occur. Brilliant bloody fun.

Burning dust

Tom Hanks is Alan, an IT consultant and he's called to work in Saudi Arabia. The local customs are a pain in the ass until his buddies taxi driver Yousef and doctor Zahra educate him to local ways. Liked this fine enough, Tom Hanks is - as always - fucking cool and even if there's nothing much of anything in the story, it's a good-looking film and delivers by just being there.

Born of death

Okay, it was bound to happen that they were going to replace the more experienced - versatile & better - actors (Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen) with much younger generation of teen idols. The quality of the X-men series thus does make a little nosedive, but luckily it's not that drastic as you fear. This time around the forefather of mutants from ancient Eqypt surfaces in the 80s and it kind of freaks everyone out. 

A moment in the ripple of time

This seemed familiar. Either I had seen it before or the X-men movie series has become repetitive. Either way, it's still amazing as shit. The freaks are in the past, in the 70s, to save the future from world downfall.

The beating heart of the city

Sure, this is a no-nonsense drama with some thrilling qualities about NFL and its impact on head traumas. One man, pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, is determined to reveal the connection between American football and brain injuries, and the major league ain't too happy. Decent, even flawless in many ways, and somehow reminded me of Michael Mann's brilliant The Insider where one man fought against tobacco companies, but this is nowhere near its intensity. Will Smith's attempt to talk like Nelson Mandela started irritating me more and more as the film grew older.

There's something wrong with my line

I don't know where to start because the movie got me very confused. Hopefully it's all explained better in the book (courtesy of Stephen King), now it's just a mystery to me why there's people freaking out and turning zombies because of cell phones, who is the guy on the red hoodie, why John Cusack has become Nicolas Cage and what's up with the ending, is it a twist or an open interpretation?

A pagan monkey in a dress

It is like as this young London fella was all of a sudden drawn into a real life video game where everything is a tad askew, but in order to save his supposedly kidnapped girlfriend, he has to obey some weird and illogical rules of the game or figure out how to beat it. Maybe a crazy adventure for some, but it's seriously a fucking shit fucking movie.

Out monster the monster

A bit too much of everything and overall chaotic story telling where good cops and bad cops roam about in the Russian and Mexican gang territories. But, thankfully, the action is proper kind and there's plenty of it. As a sidenote, took me a while to recognize Kate Winslet as the head honcho of Russian mob, and, seems like a losing battle, Casey Affleck can't fucking act.

Buying a house for someone you hate

Well, some people did, but I didn't register the chemistry between Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Particularly Gosling has difficulties doing comedy, he's either almost slurring his lines or overacting his "funniness". Fucking overrated actor anyways. Crowe is ok. The movie is quite cool tho, 70s L.A. timepiece, a distant cousin of The Long Goodbye (1973).

Into the highlands

Rams is about goat farmers, mainly two neighbours - and brothers - who doesn't get along too well. Some kind of sheep plague infects the farms and things go sideways. Nothing much here, but watching the oddities and scenaries of the beautiful isolated country of Iceland.

Pay the ghost with what

A missing children movie. But it's not your next door pedophile or kidnapper, we're focused on a Halloween bogeyman from the underworld. Insistent father (Nicolas Cage) on the rescue, and we hope it's not too late until NYPD connects the dots. The case is as semi-thrilling average horror that as one can imagine, I personally wouldn't have watched the damn thing unless Nicolas Cage wasn't there. As for Sarah Wayne Callies, now I understand more clearly why her character's demise was one of the most rewarding things on Walking Dead.

If we only defend, we lose the war

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954), over three hours of eastern magic and warfare. Although it amazes me now, how I had the patience and time to watch this classic countless of times when I was a wee lad.

Relaxed and squared

It's about time Ben Mendelsohn gets starring roles he rightly deserves. It's a shame his character - an obsessive self-righteous gambler - ain't a too symphatetic chap here. Ryan Reynolds, as a sidekick, is a bit of a lost cause and pretty much useless in the whole story. Anyways, there are better gambling movies out there. 

Passions are like maps

Fine, they all (Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Kelly) are like great actors, the story of over a decade long murder investigation is interesting enough, but why does it need to go forward in slow motion? At least somehow they messed up the magic of the original El secreto de sus ojos (2009).

The magical flute

A woman has been hired to babysit a boy, but turns out it ain't a living and breathing human being, it's a doll that his parents see as their deceased son. And this wasn't a movie if the boy wasn't a horror doll and the babysitter wasn't losing her bloody marbles over this.

Die for a ride

At least 300 million people lost their power grid. A family of three - father and daughters - are trying to get by in a remote cabin deep in the woods. After 10 days it's martial law out there everywhere and the situation gets into everyone's nerves and things are going from bad to worse. However when you get the hang of things, it can be quite inspring, but everything can go to shit once again, so it's quite nerve-racking. It's a full life cycle in few months time.

Thermal paper turns dark

The newly elected Russian president is under life-threatening danger, but luckily Finnish spetsnaz Viktor Kärppä is on the tail of the possible assassins. At first, I was well prepared to condemn the thriller because - in general - the Finns can't make anything of their own without ripping off Norwegian, Danish or Swedish intense Scandinavian crime noir, but there was a silver lining there somewhere. Of course it was at times a bit awkward and totally average and naive, but at least they tried.

Heroin, cocaine and amphetamine, all at once

US war reporter in war-torn Afghanistan and the movie goes through all the clichés, prejudices and deviations you can imagine. Half comedy half drama. It's only briefly funny.

In short time this will be a long time ago

Young Jay Cavendish is looking for his beloved Rose in vast western American territories, but little does he know that Rosie is an outlaw hunted by dozens of bounty hunters. In about 15 minute mark the boredom started to sink in, almost surprisingly tedious fucking thing.

The flood has already come

Apparently the world is fucked, but luckily Howard has built a comfy fallout shelter. However his two guests are starting to have doubts whether or not Howard is pulling their legs. Cool as shit dunno-what-to-believe thriller with really nail-biting final scenes.

So passes the glory of the world

British government officials play out a simulation where India is struck by an atom bomb and the entire world is on the brink of nuclear devastation. And they talk about the consequence (food supply, quarantine, retaliation, et cetera) in a conference room all through the movie. Some people are fucking jazzed about these kind of thought-provoking films.

Even the French pity you

Basically Michael Moore underlines the vast difference between United States of America and other so called civilized countries such as a) Italy, where working class people have insane amount of paid national holidays b) France, where they serve 4 to 5 star meals at schools c) Finland, with its best educated students in the world d) Slovenia, another free-of-charge heaven for students e) Germany, work 36 hours a week and get paid for 40 f) Portugal, with a lenient view of drug use g) Norway, with its rehabilitating prison system h) Tunisia, with its free government funded health clinics. Of course, Mr. Moore hams it all up like the next man, but the truth is out there.

Not the triumph but the struggle

The feel-good movie of the week is about the British ski jumping phenomenon Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards. It's an iron will that takes you to places and Eddie, who gave no shit, did just that. A bit silly the whole movie, even with people like Hugh Jackman and Christopher Walken backing it up, but the ski jumper guy deserves this kind of recognition at least.

Hell or high water

Nazi Germany planted over 2 million mines on the west coast of Denmark in WWII. When the war ended, and Germany defeated, it was the young soldiers who were ordered to clean the minefields. A heavy task for the lads and the local officers guarding them. Not perhaps quite the sensational international film boldly advertised and reviewed everywhere, but a thrilling thing enough.