Privacy has been dead for years

A lawyer is caught in a crossfire of mobsters, corrupt politicians and National Security Agency officials. He teams up with an old-school hacker to formulate a plan to separate the righteous from the unrighteous. Enemy of the State is a brilliant Tony Scott thriller from 1998 where everything is somehow overshadowed by the dazzling performance of Gene Hackman.

Forlorn friends obliterated

Disappointing. A few deliciously nasty and disgusting scenes thrown here and there, but they can't keep the movie together. The film is constructed on unexplained bits, so by the time it's finished you are as unlightened as in the beginning. And just like the first time, the ending is just weird.

The space is space, it doesn't change

A man builds a time machine and travels forward into the time, thousands of years into the future revealing a volatile society where things called The Morlocks raise humans as cattle and feed upon them! The Time Machine (1960) is classic science fiction film and a bloody good one, directed by George Pal. Rod Taylor in the lead.

Homeward bound

Gabby Petito wanted to be an internet star, but her asshole boyfriend Brian killed her. She first went missing and there was a nationwide search and she was found strangled in the desert. The boyfriend went missing as well and killed himself later. It all was all very well documented before this film, but these true crime thingies are still compelling to watch for some reason. 

You can't escape from yourself

A body horror film by Coralie Fargeat. An aging celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle creates a younger version of herself by a drug. The drug has its side effects and misuse unveils somewhat sickening consequences. The Substance is entertaining, a grotesque satire quite similar to David Cronenberg works, but the ending, bludgeoned to death with blood and gore, was a bit off the rails.

We're all still just cave dwellers

A family of three meet new people who are cool at first, but turn out to be aplenty different. Not necessarily the most original of thrillers but pretty good scares here. Speak No Evil by James Watkins (Eden Lake, Bastille Day). A remake of the Danish-Dutch film (by Christian Tafdrup) of the same name.

Hail Satan, shoot dope, kill children, fuck the pope

The craziness of the first thirty minutes of Ari Aster's Beau is Afraid was spectacular. With a runtime of 2 hours and 69 minutes, the black nightmare comedy has its needlessly confusing and dull moments. And falls short with its logic at times. Being weird for the sake of being weird doesn't quite cut it.

Burn the future

They say Swedes are so full of themselves that they are annoying. Apparently they were like that already in the 16th century, so much so that Denmark had to wage war against them. Mikael Håfström's Stockholm Bloodbath started out great, like a wicked comedy, but turns out to be a weird mess in the end. And not very good.

Rhapsody without war

There's a sad undertone in La passion de Dodin Bouffant's (The Taste of Things), by Anh Hung Tran, culinary journey. They sure do feast, devour and cook exquisitive food in the film, honoring the art of food and preparation of it to the bone, but the human drama in romance and death are there in the mix as well. Cooked with passion, culture, love and cuisine. An excellent watch.

Lost dwellers swooping in

A man, on his way to the hospital where his wife's in labour, is kidnapped inside his own vehicle! With no proper explanation given he's threatened to drive to another city. At gunpoint no less. It's no joke, the kidnapper obviously is a psycho prepared to do anything. Nicolas Cage delivers hits from time to time, but Sympathy for the Devil is more his niche. A cliched and predictable little thriller.

Man is only truly alive when he confronts death

In the Orinoco river, Venezuela, a German submarine destroys a U.K. merchant ship killing its entire crew except for private Murphy. The lone survivor swears revenge against the Germans. He intends to blow the sub to kingdom come and its Nazis within! However the war, WWII, is almost over, so the retaliation must be executed before the peace is declared. Murphy's War is a 1971 movie, by Peter Yates, starring Peter O'Toole, Siân Phillips, Philippe Noiret and Horst Janson.

Tits is good

Little bit of indie anarchy. Socially awkward and shy Patty (Emily Skeggs) is a huge fan of Psyops, a punk rock band. She's particularly attracted to the lead singer John Q (Kyle Gallner), sends him sexually tinged fan mail and everything. Patty meets a rebellious young man, hits it off with him, obvious to the fact that she's suddenly dating her punk rock crush! These two outcasts of society go on a journey together through America's Midwestern suburbs. A quirky, somewhat satisfying and heartwarming, film by Adam Rehmeier. Ben Stiller in the production department.

Riding into the moonlight

It would have been so much cooler if this French comedy would have been funny. Not that it ain't watchable. It's a gentle and harmless little thing with quite likeable characters and it's a film where John Malkovich speaks French. But that's all.

Evil begets evil

The Northman, by Robert Eggers, is rather wicked. It's great visually, crafted to perfection really. A classic revenge tale, simple and straight-forward, and therein lies the problem. The unique looking piece craves for more engaging storyline.

Tangled chains of agony

Maybe not every suspense movie can be The Usual Suspects or The Silence of the Lambs or Se7en, but this sort of thing is a travesty. Scottish, French and US detectives team up to catch a serial killer. It's embarrassing trash entertainment.  

At the gates of moral and consequence

Season # 3 of Tunna blå linjen. The show humanizes the police in uniform, portrays the streets and people of Malmö, Sweden, shot similarly you see in documentaries thus it feels like a real, living and breathing thing. The narrative seems so authentic that you are emotionally involved yourself. Easily, one of the best television dramas.

Nothing is a secret for long

Jackal, a hitman for hire, intends to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. Once the French police finds out of his heinous plan, they - with the help of Scotland Yard - do everything to catch the perceptive killer. It's a cat and mouse game with lots of thrills and deductive reasoning. The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 film, by Fred Zinnemann, starring Edward Fox, Michael Lonsdale and Olca Georges-Picot. A close to a masterpiece political thriller.

Skeletons in the closet

Everything's a bit askew. What Remains is a film done by a Chinese production team (directed by Ran Huang), it's shot in Finland with a cast of mostly Swedish and Finnish actors (Stellan Skarsgård as the heavyweight) and they all speak English. It seems so unrealistic that it inevitably makes weird nordic noir. Based on the case of Thomas Quick, a Swedish man believed to have been a serial killer who confessed to more than 30 murders while detained in a mental institution. 

Sunrise hymns

A stone-cold rubbish B movie. Quite early you realize you are watching a shipwreck, so bad that you could easily think it's a parody of a thriller. And the end twist is just embarrassingly bad. 

The end of something or the start of something new

A bunch of young adults indulge in playing a Tarot card game. And their readings are coming true, but in ways no one could have imagined. They are getting killed one by one! This bad mojo must be stopped! Tarot by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, a few jump scares stretched out enough so you can call it a horror movie.

Lord of the idiots

Twelve episodes in season 2 only, yet the show is shaping beautifully into form. It introduces couple of significant characters, namely Jerry's uncle Leo (Len Lesser) and Jerry's neighbor Newman (Wayne Knight), although the latter makes his first physical appearance in season 3.

Abandoned to a purposeless existence

Shit. Two vampires rise from their graves after being buried for 200 years! They want to live again and foremost begin a campaign to possess the body of a beautiful princess in Moldavia! Vintage gothic horror by Mario Bava. Released in 1960. Abounds in old-fashioned horror atmosphere with plenty of darkness and shadowy evil.

Death is as unfair as is life

Not much happening in Matt Brown's Freud's Last Session. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and professor C.S. Lewis, Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode respectively, are having a talk. Mainly they debate over the existence of God. Sadly, the film delivers so little.

Justice can be a messy business

The batmobile is fucking stolen from a car museum! The actors of the Batman shows and movies, Adam West and Burt Ward, want it back. It's a mystery and to crack it they've to find clues to it by reminiscing their filmography together. Good try, but the sarcasm was left half-finished.

Sharing the same sky

A father and daughter from Scotland are on a holiday in Turkey. Aftersun, by Charlotte Wells, is shot interestingly and it's open to a whole of interpretations, but quite a fucking bore to be honest.

No one loves more than one who dies for friends

After getting caught spreading propaganda flyers, Sophie Scholl wasn't scared to say he hated the fucking Adolf Hitler. She was a fearless activist, one of the members of the anti-Nazi resistance movement, The White Rose. Her interrogation, trial and sentence took place Munich in 1943. An unsettling movie, but a touching and inspiring story.

Lizards scared of entropy

Miki Liukkonen (1989-2023) was a Finnish writer and poet. A Finlandia Prize (the most prestigious literature award in Finland) nominee. The gifted and quite paradoxical young lad died by suicide at the age of 33. Heartbreaking. Documentary by Minna von Reiche.

A blade in the dark

The other main character of the movie makes one stupid decision after another, so that kind of takes the edge away of this otherwise decent thriller. At least it has the premise of becoming a decent thriller. It's flawed and predictable, annoying as shit, but entertaining enough.

Cool under heat

Senegalese cousins Seydou and Moussa want to become African immigrants to pursue their careers as musicians in Europe. They've worked hard to pay for it. They're excited. Should be a fun trip. And once they make it big in the music industry, they become superstars and their entire family is all smiles. The journey through the dangers of the desert, the horrors of detention centers and the perils of the sea  is adventurous alright. An intense, illuminating and heartbreaking rollercoaster of a film.

Sometimes truth defies reason

Bill Paxton's (1955-2017) directorial debut. Adam's and Fenton's dad suddenly realized he's a demon-slayer! He starts receiving orders from God to kill people. Those who to his eyes are demons. To an untrained eye they become a serial killing family. Makes a macabre story and a twisted fun horror movie!

2024

MOVIES

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Eric Appel)
Lone Survivor (Peter Berg)
Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli)
Unhinged (Derrick Borte)
Midnight Run (Martin Brest)
All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor)
People Under the Stairs (Wes Craven)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein)
Titane (Julia Ducournau)
The End of the Storm (James Erskine)
The Last Stop in Yuma County (Francis Galluppi)
Civil War (Alex Garland)
The Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard)
The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass)
The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass)
Jason Bourne (Paul Greengrass)
Saw X (Peter Greutert)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 (James Gunn)
The Hitcher (Mark Harmon)
Big Game (Jalmari Helander)
Riders of Justice (Anders Thomas Jensen)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman)
I Hired a Contract Killer (Aki Kaurismäki)
Kuolleet lehdet (Aki Kaurismäki)
High and Low (Akira Kurosawa)
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos)
The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman)
The Old Oak (Ken Loach)
Myrskyluodon Maija (Tiina Lymi)
Renfield (Chris McKay)
Die Hard with a Vengeance (John McTiernan)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
The Greatest Night in Pop (Bao Nguyen)
Peluri (Teemu Nikki)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
The Accountant (Gavin O'Connor)
Arlington Road (Mark Pellington)
Joker (Todd Phillips)
Linnan juhlat (Tapio Piirainen)
The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
A Man Escaped (Robert Presson)
Häiriötekijä (Aleksi Salmenperä)
A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)
Onibaba (Kaneto Shindô)
The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer)
Traffic (Steven Soderbergh)
As Bestas (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg)
Lynx Man (Juha Suonpää)
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
Ohjus (Miia Tervo)
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)
Jagten (Thomas Vinterberg)
Kong: Skull Island (Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
White Heat (Raoul Walsh)
River (Junta Yamaguchi)

SERIES

American Murder: Laci Peterson (Skye Borgman)
The Sopranos (David Chase)
Baby Reindeer (Richard Gadd)
From (John Griffin)
American Nightmare (Bernadette Higgins, Felicity Morris)
The Chestnut Man (Dorte Warnøe Høgh, David Sandreuter, Søren Sveistrup)
Resident Alien (Chris Sheridan)
Beckham (Fisher Stevens)

BOOKS

Pedro (Janne Flinkkilä)
Melankolian Mestari (Nefertiti Malaty)

R.I.P.

Steve Albini (musician, audio engineer) born 1962 (aged 61)
John Amos (actor) born 1939 (aged 84)
John Ashton (actor) born 1948 (aged 76)
Paul Auster (author) born 1947 (aged 77)
George Baldock (footballer) born 1993 (aged 31)
Franz Beckenbauer (Der Kaiser) born 1945 (aged 78)
Seth Binzer (musician) born 1974 (aged 49)
Andreas Brehme (footballer) born 1960 (aged 63)
Juan Brujo (musician) born 1963 (aged 61)
Kevin Campbell (footballer) born 1970 (aged 55)
Jimmy Carter (president) born 1924 (aged 100)
Victoria Catlin (actress) born 1952 (aged 71)
Kaj Chydenius (composer) born 1939 (aged 84)
Tony Clarkin (musician) born 1946 (aged 77)
Bill Cobbs (actor) born 1934 (aged 90)
Roger Corman (director) born 1926 (aged 98)
Peter Crombie (actor) born 1952 (aged 71)
Alain Delon (actor) born 1935 (aged 88)
Paul Di'Anno (musician) born 1958 (aged 66)
Shannen Doherty (actress) born 1971 (aged 53)
Shelly Duvall (actress) born 1949 (aged 75)
Eija Elenius (friend) born 1960 (aged 64)
Sven-Göran Eriksson (football manager) born 1948 (aged 76)
Kinky Friedman (author, musician) born 1944 (aged 79)
Teri Garr (actress) born 1944 (aged 79)
Louis Gossett Jr. (actor) born 1936 (aged 87)
Jami Haapanen (musician) born 1963 (aged 60)
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (academic researcher) born 1963 (aged 60)
James Earl Jones (actor) born 1931 (aged 93)
Quincy Jones (musician) born 1933 (aged 91)
Maria Jungner (television presenter) born 1973 (aged 50)
Janne Kela (musician) born 1972 (aged 52)
Maki Kolehmainen (musician) born 1966 (aged 58)
James Kottak (musician) born 1962 (aged 61)
Wayne Kramer (musician) born 1948 (aged 75)
Kris Kristofferson (musician, actor) born 1936 (aged 88)
Timo Laukkio (journalist) born 1948 (aged 76)
Kimmo Leijala (poet, friend) born 1982 (aged 42)
Perttu "Pepe" Laaksonen (musician) born 1961 (aged 63)
Richard Lewis (actor) born 1947 (aged 76)
Timo Löyvä (musician) born 1964 (aged 59)
Ewen MacIntosh (actor) born 1972 (aged 50)
Marjorie (singer) born 1965 (aged 58)
John Mayall (musician) born 1933 (aged 90)
Heidi Melan (friend) born 1978 (aged 46)
Michael Mosley (doctor) born 1957 (aged 67)
Bjørn Müller (musician) born 1960 (aged 64)
Alexei Navalny (activist) born 1976 (aged 47)
Juhani Palmu (painter) born 1944 (aged 79)
Olli "Rock-Ola" Pihlajamaa (musician) born 1962 (aged 61)
Jussi Raittinen (musician) born 1943 (aged 80)
Jack Russell (musician) born 1960 (aged 63)
Ritva Santavuori (attorney) born 1932 (aged 91)
Reetta Räisä (musician) born 1975) (aged 49)
Pentti Saaritsa (poet) born 1941 (aged 82)
Leif Segerstam (composer) born 1944 (aged 80)
Craig Shakespeare (football coach) born 1963 (aged 60)
James B. Sikking (actor) born 1934 (aged 90)
Heikki Silvennoinen (musician) born 1954 (aged 70)
O.J. Simpson (criminal) born 1947 (aged 76)
Maggie Smith (actress) born 1934 (aged 89)
Morgan Spurlock (filmmaker) born 1970 (aged 53)
Petri Sulonen (footballer) born 1963 (aged 60)
Tapio Suominen (journalist) born 1964 (aged 60)
Donald Sutherland (actor) born 1935 (aged 88)
Ari Taskinen (musician) born 1959 (aged 64)
Esko-Juhani Tennilä (politician) born 1947 (aged 76)
Jaakko Teppo (musician) born 1953 (aged 71)
Anssi Tikanmäki (musician) born 1955 (aged 69)
Dennis Thompson (musician) born 1948 (aged 75)
Tony Todd (actor) born 1954 (aged 69)
Erkki Vanhanen (TV broadcaster) born 1940 (aged 84)
Hannu Velmala (teacher) born 1948 (aged 76)
Vilma (beloved cat)
Kari Wahlroos (childhood friend, network marketer) born 1968 (aged 56)
M. Emmet Walsh (actor) born 1935 (aged 88)
Carl Weathers (actor) born 1948 (aged 76)
Tore Ylvisaker (musician) born 1970 (aged 54)

Fight fire with fire

A teen-aged boy and his mother move to a small town after their father and husband is shot dead in the streets of Chicago. The boy meets new friends and is immediately introduced to the backwoods gun culture. Good Guy with a Gun, by John Mossman, is a rural noir thriller that attempts to draw attention to the horrors of gun violence, but makes a lacklustre film.

A peerless fucked-up butcher

One of the best movies of all time. Maybe the best thriller in the world. Sure there's the riveting unique plot with a twist of a lifetime, but a masterpiece as a whole. A tremendous performance by the cast. Suspense of almost mythic proportions! No words do justice.

The cemetery in human heart

Former CIA executive, a woman living in the woods, is brought back into action. Pretty inconvenient because she was just about to kill herself. But the instincts kick off and bunch of commandos are just something to shrug off your shoulders. Solid, but a little stupid thriller. 

Quone a patient

And just like that, almost imperceptibly I watched the first season of Seinfeld. Of course, it's only five episodes, but still. The series that keeps on giving and hasn't aged one bit.

That kid ain't a killer

A hitchhiker leaves quite a many dead people in his wake. A young man escapes the clutches of him and is subsequently stalked by the fucker. Even framed for his crimes! A perfect old-school thriller and a bona fide cult classic.

Godless suburban life

A riveting film full of paranoia. A man suspects there's something fishy going on next door. The neighbors are not what they appear to be. But you can't just walk to the police and say they are terrorists or otherwise a threat to the society. You need evidence. Mark Pellington's Arlington Road is a bloody good thriller.

Liberated from the hell of living

An FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned to catch a serial killer responsible for murdering multiple families throughout Oregon for decades. Creepy horror shit as a whole, but Nicolas Cage still steals the show as an off-putting and disturbing occult freak Longlegs. To an acquired horror taste only.

Damnation without applause

Hectic as shit. Too much action to chew on and the plot itself, the characters and their motives were buried under tightly paced action. However lots of the cool 90s action thriller vibes. Reminiscences of Speed, Die Hard, Phone Booth and others. An enjoyable ride with a pretty weak story line.

How you wage war on your own family

Traffic by Steven Soderberg has a triple plot. Three stories all involved with narcotics. There's Mexican policemen and ruthless drug cartels everywhere, DEA agents protecting a witness about to testify against a drug boss and the daughter of the head of DEA addicted to crack cocaine. This amazing film travels between these universes with bottomless ease.  

Kill, adapt or die

Wolves can be a relationship killer. A man goes hunting with the friend and former lover of his fiancée and it becomes a fight for a survival. A pack of wolves out there in the woods as well. A survival thriller genre has hit the all-time low.

Where the end times begin

Architect John Kersey is back in L.A. He's hired to eliminate drug dealers. From the smallest street corner pushers to the fat cats on top, anybody connected with drugs has to die. Kersey's girlfriend's daughter just overdosed on cocaine and died, so the mission is a no-brainer to Kersey. Gotta keep the killing discreet though because the police have a hunch that's he's the Vigilante, an unknown justice-fighter who has cleaned the streets of scumbags in New York and L.A. before. He's so good, Kersey, cops and drug lords are helpless. Too bad the movie is terribly outdated and flawed.

The long road home

Russell Crowe is a menacing figure in Unhinged. Too bad the main character, Caren Pistorius's Rachel, is silly and sometimes downright stupid, so it takes a lot away from an otherwise cool flick where road rage turns crazy revenge. 

It all starts with a simple choice

Six strangers meet at the El Royale hotel of Lake Tahoe. There's secrets hidden. Drew Goddard's Bad times at the El Royale is such a fun crime thriller, outstanding cinematography, brilliant soundtrack and an overall hoot.

Where fun goes to die

Some of the scenes in Gave O'Connor's The Accountant you need to pause, just to let it sink what you just witnessed. Then rewind and watch them again. The action, not that it comes around too often, is arrestingly straight-forward and firm. Easily Ben Affleck's strongest role to date. He's plays a smart accountant, and a part-time mercenary, Christian Wolff who is such a cool character that it's a shame they didn't franchise it like Bond or Bourne.

March of the boom boom

The security of a British outpost in Afghanistan has been compromised. An enormous compound is guarded by two soldiers. I was as busy counting plot-holes as they were counting bullets. Combat movie trash.

A blind pig must use its nose

Nothing but a popcorn movie. Freelance is an action comedy adventure where bodies are piling up for fun. It's silly and easily forgettable waste of time packed full of embarrassingly corny one-liners that are supposed to make you laugh.  

In men there is madness

 

Nothing can go wrong when a hot summer day in Ostrobothnia, Finland, includes debt collection, a submachine gun, moonshine liquor and stubborn brothers. Pekka Parikka's Pohjanmaa (1988) is a narrative into landscape of the Finnish soul.

Feed the beast within

Esko Ketola is a veteran weightlifter. Teräsvaari is a documentary where this 72 year old iron man prepares to compete in a World Cup in Argentina. He's a confident man, resiliently fights against the hardship of getting old. Quite decent, but they just as well could have written an article somewhere instead of filming the process.

Bad vibes terminated

People are collectively seeing dreams of Paul Matthews who is an actual man, a professor, in real life. First they are normal dreams, harmless, good dreams and some of sexual nature even. And that makes Paul famous, a national phenomenon. Then the dreams turn into nightmares. And he's no longer popular. He becomes despised and ostracised. What a movie. A bloody hilarious dark comedy, a borderline horror flick. Nicolas Cage is on fire.

A chalice of poisoned blood

A Danish movie set in Greenland. And based on it the life out there is quite straightforward and nice. To Jan, a Danish nurse working there, the Greenlandic way of living gets under his skin. Kalak is based on an autobiographical novel by Kim Leine, who also contributed to the screenplay, it's directed by Isabella Eklöf. You don't get to see movies shot in places like Nuuk, Greenland, too often, so it's a treat. By the same token, had it been shot somewhere else, no one would hardly bat an eyelid.