It's now or never

A melancholic but very realistic film by Aleksi Salmenperä. What's special about this is that one of the main roles is played by Tomi Lindfors, an amateur actor with limited mobility who lives in the Salvation Army's housing service unit in Helsinki. He actually uses a wheelchair and his speech is slurred due to alcohol addiction and a brain hemorrhage. It's also clear that he has no experience in acting, but how naturally he does it! And the chemistry with his co-star Tommi Korpela is wonderful to watch. Despite small touches of tragicomedy, the drama is quite heavy-handed in all its sadness.

This is nowhere

A film can leave a lot up to the viewer's own interpretation, but when everything is left unexplained and open, it's unreasonable. And a bit like in an escape game, the clues only lead to a new riddle. In Genki Kawamura's Exit 8, a man gets stuck in the corridors of a subway station, in some kind of mysterious loop, and must follow and implement precise instructions to get out. The film is a great idea and in places, excruciatingly awesome, but the plot and events are otherwise very thin.

Before the crimson bloom

Watanabe is told that he has stomach cancer and therefore only has about six months to live. For the first time in his life, he decides to drink and now regrets never having done it in his life. What other pleasures he has missed out on. Fortunately, there is still time to realize them. And what fun things there are to do! And what there is still to offer the world! The money he earned from his work and intended for savings has found a purpose. Stomach cancer made him think about life and realize its beauty only on the eve of death. Ikiru (1952) is Akira Kurosawa's thought-provoking masterpiece.

The shadow knows

A dog plays the lead role in this enigmatic and quite scary horror film where some kind of ominous supernatural element is ever-present. The film's uniqueness is more fascinating than the story itself, but it does meet the criteria for a perfectly decent horror film.

The rites and the rituals

A damn long movie, but could such a nuanced and enigmatic story be told any shorter? This is Rian Johnson's third installment in the so-called Knives Out series. And as in the previous ones, it's clear that the actors have had a hell of a time filming this entertaining and interesting murder mystery where a priest is murdered and someone close to him is suspected of being the culprit. Great acting from the whole cast, but Daniel Craig and Josh Brolin in particular stand out a bit in roles they are rarely used to.

Hear the grass grow

I can already say that this is the weakest movie I've seen this year. I simply can't come across anything this blatantly bad anymore. The script is a mess. Some of the initial side plot twists are left hanging in the air without any resolution, various characters are introduced into the story that seem like they have some kind of significance, but they are just forgotten. And the whole thing is smeared with some kind of Christian ideology. This apocalyptic survival movie is such an incredible waste of time that it almost needs to be watched again.

Plagued by doubts

Season 4 of Slow Horses. Three separate plots that you know will eventually come together, but following them was a bit challenging. But the action and excitement are so expertly crafted that it doesn't even bother much. And it's always a privilege to watch one of the greatest actors of our generation, Gary Oldman.

Silence calls the storm

The island of Tasmania has been transformed into a kingdom of zombie-like people thanks to a failed US military experiment. And now these poor, half-dead people need to be killed and buried. A delicious starting point for a zombie adventure and would probably work as a game too. It would certainly be much more fascinating with a bigger budget, but they bring their ideas to life just fine with this.

The hangman's ready

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is one of the landmark books of the 20th century, and this 1967 film by Richard Brooks is an excellent adaptation. In a story based on true events, two ex-convicts ruthlessly murder an entire family during a robbery. Simply because they can't leave any witnesses. As if destroying human lives were child's play. A very disturbed and haunting world of thought. You can get chills from the movie too.

An authentic hippie midsummer

Pleasantly close in atmosphere to Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973). In both films, outsiders are lured into pagan ceremonies in some remote corner of the world, where beneath the people's overflowing happiness, there lives some kind of inexplicable evil. And all the evil happens in broad daylight and in full view. No ghosts in the dark and no knife-wielding lunatics in masks. Ari Aster's Midsommar may well as well start to gain some sort of cult status because this is an extremely impressive film.

Big fish live in quiet waters

Hong Sang-soo's unhurried shooting style is gently pleasing to the eyes. This film is based heavily on dialogue, laconic humor and a very slow pace. So even though nothing is happening, the words keep the action and interest going. This naturalistic narrative also requires a slightly different approach from the viewer. 

Chaos is king

The dumbest movie in a long time. Luckily, people still manage to do these things - accidentally or intentionally. This was definitely done seriously, but you would think that everyone involved in this would have been concerned when making such a massive pile of shit. Everything here is ridiculously bad. But as I said, I'm happy to watch these. Unless it becomes a habit.

One day the devil's gonna follow you home

Somehow a very stylish - albeit bloody - horror story. Yet Ryan Coogler's Sinners still isn't quite worth all the hype. There's nothing particularly memorable here, and the story, for all its showiness, is just a vampire story ripped from old, familiar elements. Not bad by any means, especially towards the end, really entertaining, but just ok. Maybe the music and certain individual scenes could be highlighted.

Pouring burning poison to the dead

To her horror, a prison guard meets her son's killer in prison, who has been transferred there as a prisoner from another prison. She is blinded by her lust for revenge. And even though logic and reason are forgotten, she somehow gets a few of her revengeful ideas through. Gustav Möller's Vogter is too much of a one-idea affair, with barely any plot, and unconvincing overall. 

Needles in the sunlight

A Corsican goat herder refuses to sell his land to the mafia and these thugs get angry. This inevitably leads to violence, general discomfort and a manhunt. A rather simple story that doesn't really ignite at any point. But the setting, Corsica, looks damn gorgeous.

No person is without a shadow

Not the best detective reasoning in the first part of the Wallander film series. It seems that the entire Ystad police department, both young and veteran detectives, are stupid beyond belief. Logic at least is often missing. Maybe this is just a case of straightening out the curves, because Henning Mankell's stories tend to be chillingly great. However, the execution of this one was also decent enough. In the story, disciples who believe in the name of messianic cult leader Jim Jones commit a series of horrific crimes.