Just in time to be too late

Yeah, it's the funniest shit alrite. Once you watch the first episode you know that you are hooked. Season # 1 of Norsemen and it's all laughs.

The struggle against the error

It's 1938. Adolf Hitler gains ground, nazi troops march into Austria. In Vienna an aristocratic jew, a lawyer Dr. Josef Bartok tries to escape to the USA but is arrested by the Gestapo. While imprisoned, he successfully steals a random book. A chess book. The tricks and magic of the game save him from the horrific mental torture. Makes a harrowing drama too. Oliver Masucci as the doctor is downright amazing.

There is no key to happiness

The small town of Karmack, USA, is looking to hire a middle man, a bearer of bad news. Because accidents happen in Karmack, it's a god-forsaken miserable place and people die. It's all bad news. The Middle Man is an offbeat comedy, it's bloody hilarious most of the times and that's why the negative feedback it has received is surprising.

Don't call 911

Most of the time, occupied on something else while watching, but Nobody (by Iliya Naishuller) was pretty much the same I remembered. Almost a parody of John Wick which is kind of strange in the first place. Nevertheless, really quite tremendous and funny action.

Doubt leads to damnation

This mystic totemlike shrine appears in the middle of a small town somewhere close to Boston. It heals people. Deaf can hear, blind can see, that sort of thing. Is it a Virgin Mary incarnate or perhaps yet another diabolic masterpiece from Satan himself to corrupt people's faith? Investigative journalist Gerry Fenn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the middle of this nonsense.

Refined but brutal, civilized but merciless

Thus far this (the 3rd) is the most criticized of the Kingsman movie series, but I found the adventure set in WWI actually quite damn entertaining. It's packed full of action and amazingly executed bits. Lots of cool people - Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance - in the roster.

Chained to the frozen earth

It's incomprehensible how Aki Kaurismäki's laconic film making can be so engaging and the minimalistic cinematography so utterly mesmerizing. Laitakaupungin Valot (2006) is about a gullible security guard Seppo Ilmari Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen) who is tricked by a femme fatale (Maria Järvenhelmi) to reveal the secrets of his profession, thus aiding and abetting grand larceny. Deadpan storytelling at its best. 

That house is not fit to live in

Horror the way it should be. Deliciously oppressive and atmospheric. A music professor (George C. Scott) from New York, who recently lost his wife and daughter in a freak accident, relocates to Seattle and rents a house with history of strange happenings. It's spooky shit.

The buzz that echoes in the alleyways

Candyman is back. Terrorizing the neighborhood of Cabrini-Green in Chicago. He's a vile creature with a hook for a hand and uses it to cut people's throats. Nia DaCosta's Candyman is a sequel to the original Candyman (1992), by Bernard Rose, but nowhere near as cool horror as that one. At best, a mere collection of disgusting scenes.

A rendezvous with death

Wolfgang Petersen (1941-2022) died a few days ago. Decided to pick up one of his works. He left behind a great resume from Das Boot to The Perfect Storm and from Outbreak to Air Force One. All great movies, but I chose my favourite In the Line of Fire (1993) where an aging former JFK bodyguard (Clint Eastwood) protects the life the current president of U.S.A.. John Malkovich as one of the greatest screen villains in the history of cinema as the assassin Mitch Leary.

It's time to cut out the cancer

A disgusting and vile mental patient comes back to mutilate the nurses and doctors of the institution he occupied 20 years earlier. Nightmarishly, a woman is tied up to the killing spree as a guest through some kind of psychic channels. Thus she's an accomplice to the gruesome deaths as well. James Wan's (Saw, Aquaman, The Conjuring) horror comes without that much value. The twist is ridiculously unreal, even though things get deliciously bloody after that.

Not just zeros and ones

One of the none-player characters (NPC) in a videogame Free City developes a consciousness. He's an algorithm who thinks is alive. In other words, first artificial intelligence lifeform. It's crazy. Super flashy and action-packed comedy, kind of entertaining if you let your brains to rest.

Traveling the Yangtze in search of a Mongolian horsehair vest

This (also) could be my favourite season of Seinfeld because it introduced couple of the greatest sidekicks. Namely David Puddy, a car mechanic performed by Patrick Warburton, and J. Peterman, eccentric adventurer, world-traveler and clothing designer performed by John O'Hurley. The episodes are all fireworks.

Fuck the moon

The moon is out of orbit. And a huge hole has appeared on its surface. Of all things, the fucken thing is hollow and inhabited by a monster in the form of technological lifeform! In times like these the world needs a hero. A failed and mocked astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) to rescue! Roland Emmerich makes these major blockbuster movies (2012, Independence Day, White House Down, 10,000 BC, The Day After Tomorrow) where the stories are shit but are visually quite impressive. Moonfall is plain dumb too.

People who work for criminals are criminals too

Rewatched this. A crazy cool movie consisting of six episodes, the underlying themes being revenge and human behavior in distress. Including people orchestrating mass murders, wacky road rage, mob boss being served rat poison and so on. Wicked good!

Walking around in circles

I was gutted when Gene Hackman announced he would retire from acting in 2004. His powerful and charismatic presence enriched such movies as The French Connection, Unforgiven, Absolute Power, No Way Out, Mississippi Burning, Enemy of the State, Narrow Margin and The Package. He never looked like a star. He wasn't the muscular type handsome hero, a common man instead. One of his best and most memorable roles is in Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) where he plays a socially awkward loner, a private operator in surveillance and security business, suffering a guilty conscience over the work he has done over the years. Truly a wonderful thriller, Coppola's personal favourite of his movies. Wanted to watch it immediately again after finishing it.

Metaphors aren't paying bills

We are walking on a very thin ice when you are with a movie based on a video game. Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg solving riddles and puzzles while searching for an old Magellan gold. A stupid and pointless adventure.

Very pleasant end of times

This is freaking hilarious! There's a huge comet headed towards earth. Something the scientists call 'a planet killer'. The capitalist U.S.A., the president and administration included, refuse to believe the data and opt to cash in on 'the treasure from heaven'. Adam McKay's Don't Look Up is an amazingly brilliant absurd black comedy.

Nature's first green is gold

This was more tragic than I remembered. The rivalry between two Oklahoma gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs. I heard it was trashed by the critics in the past, but Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders (1983) is somewhat a classic now. The cinematography is mesmerizing, some of the 80s naivety is there, but it's a wonderful coming of age film. And who'd have guess the insane number of really young actors turned into stars and superstars a few years later. The cast includes Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Tom Waits and Diane Lane.

Science is punk rock

Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. Jason Reitman's Ghostbusters: Afterlife where Stranger Things kind of kids are hunting ghosts and doing things adults should be doing. But the adults are idiots, oblivious what's happening and can't see the world just might come to an end before their very eyes. It definitely is an eventful piece, a well executed funny adventure. Amazing they got Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray on board from the original (1984).

Just ghosts evaporating from the earth

If Academy Awards were mine to give, I'd give one to Sean Penn every year. His outstanding career, as a director and an actor, is oftentimes forgotten. Flag Day is his 6th directional piece and it may not be his greatest, but you sense the devotion and the blood and tears he's put into this based on a true story -project. It's a unique father-daughter movie, his performance as John Vogel, a con artist, is phenomenal. So is Dylan Penn's, Sean's actual daughter, and the supporting cast including Katheryn Winnick and Josh Brolin. Can't understand the negative feedback.

Don't crawl in shit

Larisa Shepitko's 1977 piece The Ascent (original title Voskhozhdenie). They say it's cool as shit. One of the greatest war movies. A timeless classic. It's bleak and depressive. Unique in its own way. But I didn't caught its apparent magic, mysticism and allure.

Mayhem troopers

Special forces are protecting a prisoner because they are assuming he's holding valuable life-saving information. They are stuck in a secret Guantano type compound somewhere in Poland and bunch of terrorists are going to shoot them all dead. It's gung-ho macho time for the super army solders, the death toll is countless and the movie is pure rubbish of course.

She is a witch

Queen Margaret I (1353-1412) was ruler of Denmark, Norway and Sweden (which included Finland). She formed the Kalmar Union that joined the Scandinavian armies together. And that's probably the only part that is true in Margrete: Queen of the North by Charlotte Sieling, "a fictional movie based on a true story". It's a splendid looking film, Trine Dyrholm bleeds her heart out for the performance of the queen, but it's hopelessly lost in the boring power play between thrones.

Blood never lies

I never watched Dexter, the American crime drama television series where a bloodstain pattern analyst investigating serial killers for the Miami Metro Police Department is a serial killer himself. Watched the first season on a whim and I was hooked. It's groovy as fuck.

Oily blackness that glowed like a black jewel

A group of Russian prostitutes invade the privacy of a Finnish wedding in some northern Finnish village. Huonot Naiset (directed by Niklas Lingren) is a movie where an annoyingly shit sense of humour overshadows everything that is interesting in the story. Embarrassing. 

Cruel, poetic or blind

It's easy to hate this little piece of shit. It lasts 3 hours. The fucking Robert Pattison in the lead. The winged spandex creature has run its course. But it's not all shit. Never comfortable with Pattison and the story telling is a mess. Lots of the scenes seem to be just plastered in together in disorganized harmony. However, lots of the scenes are really wicked too. And John Turtorro is amazing. The unrecognizable Colin Farrell is amazing. Paul Dano too. So it's quite difficult not to like either.