Mystic lightning

A heist, well, two heists turn almost into Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers (And Then There Were None) in pursuit of a Keyser Sösean mystery shooter. Otherwise, it's a decent farce with some old-school robbery vibes.

That's what bullets do

These are the greatest. Low key thrillers or crime capers with unknown yet immensely talented actors (Macon Blair in the lead) who bring certain authenticity to the project. This little vendetta -thing here, one of the best pieces I've seen for a long while.

An army of naked zombie women

Bunch of armed redneck hillbillies, meth cooks, crooks, one Elvis impersonator, sadists and otherwise stupid people bound together. Episodic B-movie where stories are entwined, the binding issue being a wedding ring - as it's been either a dollar bill, a coin or such thing before in other similar movies.

Remnant of last millennium

At first, this was an intriguing study of the future of film. Robin Wright as herself selling her ageless body ("from now on, you are substance, a chemical formula") to the motion picture industry and only the digital version of her keeps on making movies. Pretty wicked, the whole futuristic concept, but the last (mostly animated) part of the movie was kind of confusing mumbo-jumbo.

Choose hate

Doesn't have the filth and ferocity of Deadwood, but this is a decent western series to watch. All in all, it's a bit missed opportunity though, something doesn't quite sound and look right. But fortunately they have at least four more seasons to prove me wrong.

A stinking introduced species

Nothing new to the outback terror. A crazed hillbilly keeps on hunting backpackers and massacring them to death.

Epic scrap metal

This should be heralded as one of the greatest contemporary TV series. It's not expensive and flashy and mysterious, yet it's thoroughly entertaining. I fucking like it more than the others.

Abominations of nature

Honest to fuck - cult classic or not - I think I hadn't seen this before. Now I'm ever more wiser. But I believe, the movie has been studied to hell and back already, so there.

Morons need friends

The Expendables 3. The extended version. Yauza. Despite the millions shots fired and bombs exploded, despite all the near misses, all the top of the tech guns, cars, aeroplanes, choppers, trains and military equipment, this is probably the most motherfucking boring movie I've ever seen.

A lot of people die at the fair

A western parody. Infantile and stupid, but I lied if I said that I didn't laugh at some of the jokes. Then again, majority of the funny material was just tired and hackneyed humour.

.50 calibre and above

They removed the old fucker from rust and put him to work at present - or future - day Detroit. There, but with missed opportunities, not quite there. Lighting without the roar of thunder.

I watched him drain

While reading several books (Lars Kepler, a Jack Nicholson biography et al) simultaneously and never coming to terms with them, I picked up a Lehane. One page. Two pages. Bang. Hooked. Very fucking good.

Nothing grows the right direction

Four episodes on Sunday. The remaining four episodes on Monday. There. Now I can wipe this off from my bucket list. After one or maybe two episodes, I thought this as an overhyped piece of shit. I mean decent, but slow-moving with head stuck too deep in its own asshole, trying to be too clever for its own good with wisearse mythical shit with nonsense biblical dialogue. But it grew on me, I started to like it and turned out to be very interesting. Not quite the calibre of, say, The Wire or The Sopranos though.

Glitter made of glass and blood

Well, shit. One of the most unforgiving pieces that I have ever seen. Hopelessly brutal and intense hostage film with reminiscences of the great Funny Games. Amazingly, the movie has only 12 shots (of course, long ones) and they are executed brilliantly.

Fucker-people-upper

Just a terribly bad parody in the same category with shits like Scary Movie, Breaking Wind, Epic Movie, Not Another Teen Movie and so on. If the first Machete piece was groovy and funny, original even, this is just junk. Call me a humorless git, but the joke's on you, asshole.

What's a little blood between friends?

A Clint Eastwood film of 50s and 60s supergroup The Four Seasons. I had thought nothing of them before, but the band from stardom to a long slow dive with Jersey wiseguys in the mix, there's enough for a story. Another quite adventitious piece from Eastwood and again proves that he makes better movies than most of the guys on the block.

Eat the fruit from the wily serpents jaw

A clown risen from the dead is a party crasher and vengeful to bash a few skulls in a teenager's birthday party. The gore horror fun cracked me up a few times, it's generally more entertaining and funnier than lots of Night Visions products.

Throw the hole away

Arnold Schwarzenegger and a bunch of TV nobodies (Josh Holloway from Lost, Joe Manganiello from True Blood, Mireille Enos from The Killing, Harold Perrineau from Oz) in an embarrassingly macho action flick. I reckon, the worst movie of the year category got itself a strong contender at the 2nd of January already.

Digging her own grave

I had a case of a hangover and wanted to cheer up a little. And this one did alright. I laughed a lot. One of the best horror-slasher-comedies of recent years.

Best of 2014

Not the best 2014 releases, but what I witnessed and thought as the best - or most memorable whatever. The picks. In random order.

MOVIES:

Happy People (Werner Herzog)
The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg)
Parkland (Peter Landesman)
TT3D: Closer To The Edge (Richard De Aragues)
Dredd (Pete Travis)
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (Sophie Huber)
Her (Spike Jonze)
Labor Day (Jason Reitman)
Cabin In The Woods (Drew Goddard)
Lone Survivor (Peter Berg)
War Photographer (Christian Frei)
The Wolf Of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
The Book Thief (Brian Percival)
The Railway Man (Jonathan Teplitzky)
American Hustle (David O. Russell)
Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée)
Raid 2 (Gareth Evans)
Jane Mansfield's Car (Billy Bob Thornton)
Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller)
All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor)
Shock Waves (Ken Wiederhorn)
August Osage County (John Wells)
Still Mine (Michael McGowan)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)

HONORABLE MENTION

The Stranded (Roger Christian) - so shitty, it's good

TV SERIES

Derren Brown (various shows on DVD)
Breaking Bad
Justified
The Fall
The Americans
Louis Theroux - The Collection
The Lakes
Fargo
Generation War
Game Of Thrones
Walking Dead
Top Of The Lake

BOOKS

George Pelecanos - The Double
Jonas Jonasson - The Hundred Year Old Man
Sami Lopakka - Marras
Ricky Gervais - Extras

GAMES

Destiny
Sniper Elite III

R.I.P.

Rik Mayall
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Eli Wallach
Lauren Bacall
James Garner
Mike Nichols
Richard Kiel
Johnny Winter
Rick Rosas
H.R. Giger
Robin Williams
Dave Brockie
Harold Ramis
Matthew Cowles
James Rebhorn
Richard Attenborough
Joe Cocker
Bob Hoskins