Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Green River killer

Ted Bundy is probably the most famous serial killer of all time. He was a sadistic sociopath who raped, mutilated and murdered at least 30 young women. Netflix's Ted Bundy Tapes immerses itself on Bundy's modus operandi and unlocks the cases enough to advocate death penalty.

Thrown into a shredder

Chose to watch it just because I want to know what to hate. But I really hadn't the time to hate Ocean's Eleven reboot because I was so occupied in the sheer stupidity of the whole damn film. Constrainedly built up group of clever multiracial girls steal jewelry. I shivered in embarrassment.

New world unfolds

WWII rages on and a small island in the English Channel called Guernsay has been occupied by the nazis. In order to survive, a few neighbours have to make up a sudden excuse for going about outdoors during curfew, therefore they establish a literary club, hence The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society. A few years later, after the war, the club still stands and gains interest from a Times journalist who soon realises it's a story far too heartfelt and intricate than just bunch of literary enthusiasts. In spite of the aftermath of horrible war, a beautiful tale of love of literature, friendship and romance.

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Hope is not a strategy

I admit, I lost a plot there. It's packed full information and disinformation, different intelligence agencies and terrorist cells, good guys and bad guys, backstabbers, agent and double agents, and so much action that if your concentration wavers a bit, you might have lost something important. It happened to me, but luckily the action is so high octane that I didn't even care. People were exchanging a vile terrorist to missing plutonium and it was all very exciting.

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Dirty old town

Police are investigating the death of former Olympic gold medalist and find out several people had reasons to hate him. Quite sympathetic little Finnish crime movie from 1988, but cinematically terribly out of date.

Lost in the blue hotel

Conan Without Borders on Netflix. Conan O'Brien travels to various countries to make fun of himself. There's Cuba, South Korea, Mexico, Israel, Haiti and Italy. The Italy episode stands out because of the weird chemistry between the host and his associate producer Jordan Schlansky.

Feeding the monster

People come to speak with a nameless man to find solutions to their problems. The man gives them tasks to do and if they succeed, their wishes are met. Blind man wants to see, a girl wants to be prettier, a man wants to fuck a calendar girl, and so on. But in request, are they really willing to rape, kill or steal to acquire personal benefits. Who is this all-powerful man? A devious jester, psychologist from hell, magician or plain bullshitter? Anyways, it makes a wonderful film that is as surreal and intriguing as the main character and it's open to aplenty interpretations.

Long gone before the storm

A boxer hurts his brain on a Championship fight and its fuckenlot trouble for him and his family from there on. Read a lot of great things of this film, but somehow all the misery and sorrow and struggle for life just seemed all too underlined and predictable. Patty Considine directing himself and can't see much of a fighter oozing from him either.

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Mother of shit

The most popular students in school are dying because Penelope's teen angst has a body count. The hilarious dark comedy is still one of its kind. Probably the best college comedy ever. Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty truly boosting their careers, while all the rest dozen or so young actors sunk into oblivion.

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Through the stars of the voiceless

There's a UFO sighting, but the FBI covers it up. An argumentative whiz kid at the University of Cincinnati don't buy the explanations and starts deciphering recorded signals using mathematics. He finds out that the aliens will come back in a week! Are they hostile or do they come in peace? And do we get answers to one of the most important questions in the world? FBI wants to keep everything shrouded in mystery, but the college kid is determined as fuck. Mathematic and scientific musings in the film left little room for anything else.

The duck of death

It's been whopping 27 years since its release and at least I still call Unforgiven as one of Clint Eastwood's more recent releases. Be as it may, it has lost none of its charm, aged remarkably well, a proper old western.

Sunday, January 13, 2019

Down in the gutter

This thing is set around a scrubby roadside motel somewhere in Florida, its tenants and manager (fantastic Willem Dafoe). It shows the other - uglier - side of the land of the free. Kids have nothing to do, everything is noisy, dirty and hopelessly derelict, people are desperately poor, uneducated and they eat junk. It ain't the Florida you get when you google it up, it's the one no one speaks about, a proper nature of things, a third world country hidden in the shadows of a once great nation. It's still a very good movie, the kids steal the show, their performance is so natural that it looks improvisational and if it is, it's even more amazing.

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Seven minds are better than one

One child earth. The fucking thing is so overpopulated that we've run out of food and space, plus polluted the globe to shit, so the ingenious solution is to uphold one-child policy and deep freeze all the leftover siblings in cryobanks, so they can wake up later to a less crowded world. One particular family with a set of identical septuplets has a bit of a dilemma. The director Tommy Wirkola (the Død snø movies) has seven different Naomi Rapace's character's under his wing and his dystopian thriller has a cool storyline, but fails to really deliver.

The kingdom of vipers

Could quite well be the sequel to Die Hard films. Huge building is one fire and the hero of the day is involved in aplenty hair-raising situations. Too bad that Dwayne Johnson as Bruce Willis ain't much of an actor.

Wednesday, January 09, 2019

Messy but necessary

An elderly couple run off to have one final vacation together. They hop into an equally old Winnebago motorhome and just drive into the horizon. Their kids are obviously worried of their parents wanting to reminiscence the past on the road. Overall a lacklustre piece, but still rather openly and warmly delves into the issues of health, aging and death.

Dry bones in the alternate world

Wayne Caraway is a hillbilly officer of the law, he's a bad crooked cop, but even a worse father. His daughter and her new boyfriend are frightened beyod belief, but bagful of one million of dollars just might be their way of escape. Bill Paxton's last major film before his untimely demise, too bad the movie is frustratingly tiresome at times.

Thursday, January 03, 2019

Surrounded by the spirits of the dead

Derren Brown's live stage show and I have absolutely no idea of the craftmanship of his trickery. It was absolutely spellbinding. His television programs are one thing, fluctuating from decent to great, but the delivery in the live shows? Thunderously clever and entertaining tricks of the mind.

Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature

If I turn on the television and it's showing Big Lebowski, I start watching it. This time around I purposefully watched it from start to finish, chose it as a New Year's film. Seen it a few dozen times. Makes me fucken happy.

Tuesday, January 01, 2019

2018

MOVIES

American Made (Doug Liman)
American Valhalla (Josh Homme, Andreas Neumann)
The Apostle (Gareth Evans)
Armomurhaaja (Teemu Nikki)
Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
Before The Flood (Fisher Stevens)
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)
Brimstone (Martin Koolhoven)
The Commuter (Jaume Collet-Serra)
The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci)
Deadpool 2 (David Leitch)
Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow)
The Disaster Artist (James Franco)
Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)
Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Colin Hanks)
Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson)
Happy Death Day (Christopher Landon)
Hevi reissu (Juuso Laatio, Jukka Vidgren)
The Hitman's Bodyguard (Patrick Hughes)
Hostiles (Scott Cooper)
The Invitation (Karyn Kusama)
Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik)
Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
Man of Fire (Tony Scott)
Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh)
The New York Ripper (Lucio Fulci)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood)
The Player (Robert Altman)
The Pledge (Sean Penn)
[Rec] (Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza)
Revenge (Coralie Fargeat)
Ricky Gervais: Humanity (John L. Spencer)
The Ritual (David Bruckner)
Thelma (Joachim Trier)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)
Train To Busan (Sang-ho Yeon)
You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)

TV-SERIES

Ash vs Evil Dead
Better Call Saul
Dark
Game of Thrones
Norsemen
Seinfeld
Sledge Hammer
The Staircase
Stranger Things
Vikings
The Walking Dead
Westworld

GAMES

Far Cry 5
Fifa 2019
Red Dead Redemption 2

R.I.P.

Kofi Annan (diplomat) born 1938 (age 80)
Davide Astori (footballer, Fiorentina) born 1987 (age 31)
Bernardo Bertolucci (director, Last Tango in Paris) born 1941 (age 77)
Steven Bochco (producer, Hill Street Blues) born 1943 (age 74)
Anthony Bourdain (chef) born 1956 (age 61)
Barbara Bush (first lady) born 1925 (age 93)
George H.W.  Bush (president) born 1924 (age 94)
Fast Eddie Clarke (musician, Motörhead) born 1950 (age 67)
R. Lee Ermey (actor, Full Metal Jacket) born 1943 (age 74)
Milos Forman (director, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) born 1932 (age 86)
Arethra Franklin (the Queen of Soul) born 1942 (age 76)
Stephen Hawking (physicist, cosmologist) born 1942 (age 76)
Brett Hoffmann (musician, Malevolent Creation) born 1967 (age 51)
Dave Holland (musician, Judas Priest) born 1948 (age 69)
Perttu Häkkinen (journalist, musician) born 1979 (age 39)
Markku Into (poet, underground activist) born 1945 (age 72)
Esa Kaartamo (musician, Broadcast) born 1961 (age 56)
Reijo Kallio (singer) born 1933 (age 84)
Ingvar Kamprad (business magnate, Ikea) born 1926 (age 91)
Matti Kassila (director, Vodkaa, komisario Palmu!) born 1924 (age 94)
Killjoy (musician, Necrophagia) born 1969 (age 48)
Koko (western lowland gorilla) born 1971 (age 46)
Jussi Kummala (hardcore activist, Today's Waste) born 1974 (age 44)
Armas Lahoniitty (mayor) born 1944 (age 74)
Stan Lee (superhero) born 1922 (age 95)
Sondra Locke (actress, Sudden Impact) born 1944 (age 74)
John Mahoney (actor, Frazier) born 1940 (age 77)
Olavi Mäenpää (politician) born 1950 (age 67)
Arto Paasilinna (author) born 1942 (age 76)
Vinnie Paul (musician, Pantera) born 1964 (age 54)
Randy Rampage (musician, Annihilator) born 1960 (age 58)
Burt Reynolds (actor, Deliverance) born 1936 (age 82)
Dolores O'Riordan (musician, The Cranberries) born 1971 (age 46)
Philip Roth (author, American Pastoral) born 1933 (age 85)
Otis Rush (musician) born 1935 (age 83)
Conway Victor Savage (musician, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds) born 1960 (age 58)
Mark Shelton (musician, Manilla Road) born 1957  (age 60)
Hanna-Riikka Siitonen (actress-singer) born 1970 (age 47)
Mark E. Smith (musician, The Fall) born 1957 (age 60)
Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha (owner of Leicester City club) born 1958 (age 60)
Pete Shelley (musician, Buzzcocks) born 1955 (age 63)
Sebastian 'Basse' Särekallio (friend) born 1970 (age 48)
Chris Tsangarides (producer, Painkiller) born 1956 (age 61)
Elmarie Wendel (actress, 3rd Rock from the Sun) born 1928 (age 89)
Tony Joe White (musician) born 1943 (age 75)
Jerry Williams (rock and roll singer) born 1942 (age 75)
Scott Wilson (actor, The Walking Dead) born 1942 (age 76)

They listen to toilet bowls these days

Four Finnish men, and a pig, celebrate Christmas in the middle of a summer. It includes male nudity, stiff drinks and an innovative makeshif...