Klansman don't play with no black man

These racist hillbilly cunts establish a place called The Redneck KKK Museum in Laurens, South Carolina. Mike Burden, the owner of the establishment and the young member of local chapter, however has second thoughts of his commitment as his new girlfriend has friends with the colored folks who are incredibly nice. Particularly the reverend Kennedy (Forest Whitaker) has a kind soul. Always actual a topic, with some proper contradictions, but Burden is frustratingly slow at times.

The time of tortured existence

Apparently something pretty bad has happened to the planet Earth. It's uninhabitable and that's why people have died or evacuated the place. There however are some people left who doesn't want to leave and, also, someone who wants to come back. Highly anticipated a movie by George Clooney that received shitloads of harsh criticism when it came out. Some of the shit is justified, but The Midnight Sky was altogether quite entertaining. 

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct

Mystery virus called QTB or commonly known as 'Female Plague' has spread across the Earth. It kills women exclusively and effectively. They are almost extinct. A discriminatory bug. Imagine that. One man has a daughter and she obviously needs protection from all the men in the world. John Hillcoat's The Road (2009) was very similar, also a lot better, but this still is a decent enough a survival movie directed and written by Casey Affleck.

In darkness until something flips on the switch

You'd assume that over two hours of historical courtroom drama is boring. But Roman Polanski's J'Accuse (The Officer and a Spy) is like the most interesting history lesson. It's all true, accurate, it all happened. Starts off in 1894 when a French captain Alfred Dreyfus in convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s Island. Brave few had the courage to fight against injustice, defend the captain and even an influential author Emile Zola wrote an open letter in the newspaper L’Aurore and that caused quite a stir in the French government. The movie is close to a masterpiece.

Astrology is superstition

Unlike somewhat a similar group the anti-vaxxers, the flat-earthers don't do that much harm. Some poor soul may be lead to believe their agenda that science is out there to trick you and construct their reality on flat earth. But that's all. Loved it when they tried to prove a few times that the earth is flat, and the only thing they proved is that the earth is actually circular.

The hammer comes down

Couple of small-time crooks are about the rob the central bank of Cosa Nostra in Providence, New York. If their mission goes sideways they're off with their heads. If not, the Sicilian Mafia in New York might just go bankrupt and die, but the fear or retaliation is there and that brings forth panic and paranoia. Until the robbery bit, Vault is great, but the story started cutting corners immediately after and the disheveled shit got difficult to digest.

It takes courage to change people's hearts

One of the best movies in recent years. A gay black classical pianist and his new American-Italian chauffeur take a concert trip through the 1960s racist American South. Haven't checked did Viggo Mortensen win all the possible awards for his performance as a rough but loveable character Tony Lip, but he should have. A powerful, inspiring, funny and in every ways utterly wonderful buddy film.

Let the dust settle

An embarrassing thriller. Ava (Jessica Chastain) is all John Wick in a killing business. She's a hired gun, but after breaking protocol, she's got a target on her back. One of those movies that takes itself way too seriously and when it goes sideways the result is just ridiculous. Ava (aka Final Target) was produced by Freckle Films which is owned by the lead star Jessica Chastain and somehow I got a notion that she wanted to franchise herself as the new badass action star like Jason Bourne or John Wick. But frankly, even Steven Seagal makes better action movies.

Rendered absolutely useless

A James Bond movie directed by John Glen in 1985, starring Roger Moore as the agent 007, Tanya Roberts as the Bond girl Stacey Sutton, Robert Brown as Bond's superior 'M' (the head of MI6), Desmond Llewelyn as 'Q' (the head of Q division), Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny (MI6 secretary) and Christopher Walken as Max Zorin, the main antagonist, and Grace Jones as Zorin's bodyguard May Day. The theme song performed by Duran Duran. Former KGB agent is scheming a microchip monopoly and intend to end the domination of Silicon Valley by an earthquake. But the MI6 agent Bond is on the case. Roger Moore's last 007 movie, he turned 57 during filming.

The end of yesterday's unholy terror

Must be nice to work for Mossad as an undercover agent. Travel places like Thereran, spy the infidels and learn their government secrets. You only need to get used to telling lies and cope with the pressure of getting caught for them. And it ain't easy to be completely honest with the people you're supposed to trust either. Agent Rachel (Diane Kruger) is jammed in such a shitstorm. Makes a disappointing thriller though.

Leaves scars

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami was a fucken terrible tragedy. Doctor María Belón and her family (husband and three sons) went through hell and purgatory in Khao Lak, Thailand. They were the lucky ones because - after being hammered to shit - they survived, but only after witnessing inhuman suffering, total devastation and feelings of hopelessness. But thankfully beneath all the rubble, pain and death, there's room for acts of courage and miraculous stories.

Old green mountains

Over two hours of Mexican cinema. It's a leap into Mexican society of early 70s and particularly in the life of a middle-class family's maid. Stunning cinematography in Roma, but unfortunately it ends there, the story ain't that interesting even though the movie has been praised to hell and back.

Invocation for strenght

A promising young boxer finds out he has a brain tumor. He was abandoned as a child, fought through puberty and got the shitty news at worst possible time. However, worst is yet to come because the lad gets involved in an almost farcelike robbery of drugs where people from police, yakuza and Chinese mafia has stuck their noses in. Takashi Miike's (best known for Audition and 13 Assassins) crime flick is an action-packed thing, but unfortunately does not make much of an impact in the end.

The absurd mystery of the strange forces of existence

Not going to lie about it. Lots of times, didn't know what the fuck was going on. Normally I'd hate such humbug and throw it to the wolves, but the second coming of Twin Peaks is strangely alluring. I reckon, no show or movie, piece of art, literature or music, has harvested so many thoughts and senses of bewilderment before. The abstractness, the absurdity, all the little things and the grand scheme of things, it's all bone fide entertainment. A little strange watching a series where a plethora of people involved in it passed away on the verge of its release; Brent Briscoe, Harry Dean Stanton, Robert Foster, Linda Porter, Miguel Ferrer, Peggy Lipton, David Bowie, Catherine E. Coulson. Rest in peace you all.

Wedding at graveyard

It's Christmas time, Anja Richter has a houseful of family members and friends, and she finds out she's got cancer in the brain. Does she share the appalling news or play along a joyful Christmas? A Norwegian movie that avoids being too sappy, sentimental shit, and doesn't try to sugar-coat death either.

Under fixed stars

Camp Keating was an outpost in Afghanistan surrounded by mountains and gun-toting Talibans. It probably was the most dangerous place on earth. After a clichéd start of basic wartime images and military banter, the movie proceeds towards explosive finalé. Reminiscences of Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (2001) and starring Clint Eastwood's son Scott who is a spitting image of his old man.

British don't do cowboy

I've read the novel Los Angeles Without A Map by Richard Rayner a couple of times and truly liked it. When the movie (directed by Mika Kaurismäki) came out I was pretty jazzed about it. It was funny and pretty rough around the edges. Now, 20 years later, the story of a Scottish undertaker following an American girl he just met to Los Angeles and finding the place amazing and weird at the same time, it's bit outdated. And it's not that funny now either, reasonably entertaining though.

North winds make them disappear

The good old Cold War times in East Germany, the communist Shangri-La, where Stasi (The Ministry for State Security) kept an eye on every citizen, as closely and comfortably as hemorrhoid. It's a wonder people wanted out. But they did. Hundreds of defectors got killed, the lucky ones escaped. And the means were many. Balloon is based on a true story and it's a gripping one, packed full of suspense and captures the repressive period wonderfully.

Victim of borrowed time

Theo can't tell the difference between the real world and the nightmares he's having. Apparently the moment he lost his wife, he lost sanity and a track of time of as well. A new girlfriend and their daughter for company a trip to picturesque Welsh countryside might drive the inner demons away. Pointless horror with no suspense.

Covered with spikes and fuelled with bile

Old-school police officers Ridgeman and Lurasetti (Mel Gibson & Vince Vaughn) are suspended for being too violent. Without income, even for honest cops, it's tempting to use their skills and streetwise to provide livelihood for their families illegally. The officers get involved with some really wicked shit. S. Craig Zahler wrote and directed couple of fresh and almost groundbreaking movies Bone Tomahawk (2015) and Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) that put violence in American cinema in new heights and Dragged Across Concrete follows suit. He's one of the directors I've bookmarked to follow his career.

Hungry, cold and hunted

"In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkettsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found." Back in the day, how they advertised and prepared audience for the movie was more impressive than The Blair Witch Project film itself. Now, 20 years later, that effect is gone, the film hasn't stood the test of time and, in fact, the only legacy that remains is that they should be held accountable for the hundreds of shitty hand-held camera movies that followed in the wake of this project. 

In the wake of the weary

Rayburn runs a wildlife sanctuary. It's a nice place, but he has to deal with shit like poachers and vandalism. Rayburn has had a fair share of misery; the disapperance of his daughter and a divorce that followed within. Unsurprisingly he tries to drown his sorrow with booze. As if this wasn't enough, wrong kind of men and women with terribly wrong and illogical decisions start popping around every corner. A messy thriller, horrible script with surprising yet silly twist in the end, bits entertaining though.

Circles around the bronze ashes

Liam wakes up from a car accident not only oblivious to his own being, but he's also become a grim reaper incarnate causing immediate death to anyone in his proximity. He sucks the life out of someone or something by just coming close. He fucken radiates death. I like these low-key indies where inventiveness and perseverance overshadow the low budget.

Someone somewhere forgot a zero

To capture cop killers, they isolate Manhattan, N.Y., by closing its bridges (hence the title 21 Bridges), tunnels, rivers and railroads. A complete Manhattan lockdown. Sounds interesting altho in the end it's only a sidenote in a cliché-ridden plotholed story of good cops and bad corrupt cops. Decent cast of Chadwick Boseman (his last theatrically released film), Sienna Miller, J.K. Simmons, Keith David and Taylor Kitch.

Man in the jar

An emotionally charged story of a construction worker turned a basketball couch. His former life was ridden with booze and death and misery, so leading a Catholic high school team could be a welcome change. There's lots of sadness, with little glimpses of hope, and the film deals with the emotions comfortably enough. Ben Affleck in one of his better roles.

Allsång på Skansen

Just a while ago I read Miika Nousiainen's hilarious novel - Vadelmavenepakolainen (2007) - about a Finnish man who desperately wants to be Swedish. The movie is a wasted opportunity. Not only have they left most of the contents out, but they've just snipped the basic idea and cooked up the rest. Almost a completely different entity. And the result is close to terrible.

Where the lightning strikes

I decided to choose between two films from 2019 that I haven't seen before and that I kind of knew weren't going to make much of an impact. Nicolas Cage's Grand Isle or John Travolta's The Fanatic. Randomly picked up the former where, during a hurricane, a fence repairman gets stuck in the mansion of a rather batshit crazy couple and can't seem to figure out what to do. He just wants to survive the night. Completely embarrassing to everyone involved, me included.

On trial for thoughts

Chicago 7 were a group of American activists/anarchists and they were on trial for several things including conspiracy and inciting a riot. They did amazingly well with the legal drama, some of the best courtroom sequences ever witnessed. It's both funny and shocking. Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman, the social activist, and Mark Rylance as William Kunstler, the lawyer defending the Chigaco Seven, particularly stood out.

What's the point ending up dead?

After 29 years things are falling apart for Grace (Annette Bening) and Edward (Bill Nighy). Edward has found someone else. But can he just walk away, disappear into a new life? They have a son who, albeit unwillingly, is joining in as a mediator and a messenger boy between the parents. A hopelessly decent relationship drama set in a picturesque coastal town. Nothing remarkable anywhere except that it's always a pleasure watching Bill Nighy's somewhat inconspicuous and leisurely acting.

It's like riding a bike

Four young women steal professional diving equipment and enter an underwater cave for fun. Their stupidity deserves to die because shit like getting trapped in the cave with a great white shark and running out of fucking oxygen might happen. B-movie horror full of claustrophobic panic and hysterical screams, but that's all.

Voices from a starless domain

It's just awfully disgusting and disturbing. Chris Watts cold-bloodedly murders his wife, unborn baby and two little daughters, aged three and five. Left a stinking feeling in my stomach that will linger there for days. A true life documentary and a true testimony to the evil that men do.

Tip of the pentacle

A James Bond movie directed by John Glen in 1983, starring Roger Moore as the agent 007, Maud Adams as the Bond girl Octopussy, Robert Brown as Bond's superior 'M' (the head of MI6), Desmond Llewelyn as 'Q' (the head of Q division), Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny (MI6 secretary) and Louis Jordan as Kamal Khan, the main antagonist. The opening theme "All Time High" sung by Rita Coolidge. A story of illegal jewellery trade is quickly escalated into a threat of nuclear war, but luckily James Bond is awfully good at sniffing out the perpetrators. 

Like nothing you've ever seen

Curtis (excellent Michael Shannon) has bad dreams and he sees signs everywhere that something awful is looming on the horizon. It's catastrophic storm of the end of the world magnitude or his mind is playing tricks on him. Either way, it's better be prepared with a proper tornado shelter and some psychoanalysis. A superb drama of severe paranoia with a truly all-powering oppressive atmosphere.

An arrow shot into the sun

Late 18th century, England and France are fighting for the possession of the American continent. Native American tribes such as Hurons and Mohicans have joined the war and if people aren't bombing themselves to death, the more primitive ways like scalping and burning humans alive are as effective causing chaos and increasing the bodycount. It's a Michael Mann film from 1992, often cited as a masterpiece and a timeless classic. Were I to say it's decent but overrated and not aged particularly well, I'd prob'ly be wrong.

People should know when they are conquered

I've been wanting to see this even though I've seen it a dozen times already, know and remember every scene by heart. It's one of those things. You sit down with it and you are terribly entertained. Gladiator is an emotionally charged story, revenge flick, suspenseful adventure and an epic drama in one brilliant piece of cinema.

Wiser than men or wolf

Fuckers steal a goofy massive dog Buck to sell it to prospectors to utilize its strenght finding and transporting gold from Yukon. A very long way from home, unaccustomed to snow and ice, let alone open sky, the final frontier of earth sends Buck from one adventure to another. He's very much on his own in the wilderness, until he hits it off with another lone soul, an experienced frontiersman John Thornton (Harrison Ford). Based on Jack London's classic novel. The dog is entirely computer generated, a bit cheesy, but surprisingly likeable at that, and overall an entertaining family movie.

We all have blood on our hands

An Austrian farmer voices his opinion that he ain't too pleased with the values of fascism. For speaking his mind, he and his family are ostracized from their home village and things are worsening by the minute. He either has to join the Third Reich army in World War II or hide in the woods, thus possibly captured, executed. Three hours is a little excessive to tell the true story of Franz Jägerstätter,  a conscientious objector, but Terrence Malick keeps it interesting. And, as always, watching a Terrence Malick film, it's like watching hundreds of works of art in a row. Michael Nyqvist's and Bruno Ganz's last film.

Luton is a four-letter word

It's Luton, late 80s, the city like the rest of England is overrun by poverty and bigotry. It's not particularly easy for a Pakistani student Javed, a gifted writer, who is controlled by a stern traditional family and a hostile society. But once he discovers the music and words of Bruce Springsteen, he is in for a massive dose of self-confidence. In spite of bleak British environment that was delivered brilliantly, it's still a rather uplifting and heartwarming a movie.

Under the hammer of malignancy

The Grudge: The Untold Chapter is just a collection of jumpscares caused by a super haunted house on 44 Reyburn Drive, Pennsylvania. There's a Japanese spirit - or curse - that terrorizes people and families in connection with the residence. Nothing is interesting or entertaining, it's just a terribly bad movie.

Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration

The year is 10191. The people in the known universe are fighting over a precious substance, spice called melange, that extends life and expands consciousness, and it's vital to space travel. Denis Villeneuve will have his say to the story later this year. The David Lynch cut, cult movie or not, is surreal and somewhat confusing with crappy and unintentionally funny special effects.

Friends are the family you choose

An orphan dude with a Down syndrome escapes from a nursing home and ends up in the company of a poacher, who is also on the run. The two baddies on the road make a pretty fun bunch and their adventure across the marshlands of North Carolina an eventful one. Can't help it though that it's a bit too naive and goofy. A well-meaning little thing nevertheless.

Home crap home

Sometimes I wish these kind of movies came with a laughter track, so you could at least pretend to laugh at the right places. A Finnish remake of the 1986 American film The Money Pit, starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, that already was a remake.

The bruises left behind

Tinder matches are on a date. While returning home they're pulled over by a police officer who gets killed and the couple have a nationwide manhunt on their back. However it's not really a high-speed chase across the nation, they more or less leisurely drive around Kentucky and New Orleans, take occasional breaks and casually chat what to do next. And the people, obviously, support them because killing cops is so nice and wonderful.

The jackrabbit always wins

It's like a fox hunt, but humans have replaced the foxes. Group of people are kidnapped, left in the forest and rich liberal elite start hunting them for sport. A dark comedy that starts out great, but unfortunately uses too much of its ammo midway, still a rather great and fresh approach to survival horror.

Should the mountain crumble to the sea

From hero to zero. Security guard Richard Jewell saves dozens of lives from an exploding bomb at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, but the incompetent fucks at the FBI incomprehensibly treat and profile him as the primary subject. Clint Eastwood's take on the case is excellent, without too much fuzz and nothing over the top, he keeps the story going forward, with unwavering intensity and top notch acting by Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell and Kathy Bates.

Shores in flames

Well, there are not that many films or TV shows that make me laugh out loud, but Norsemen does that, numerous times. Season # 3, unfairly only six 30 minute episodes, but what a fucken hoot.

Full of misery from top to bottom

A young woman wants to get her revenge for sickening stuff a few British officers did to her family. Travelling with a local guide, she goes through ruthless Tasmanian wilderness and hopes to find the murderous bastards. A low-budget indie that nourishes itself on disgusting shit as the hunt itself, criss-crossing across the island, has a bit of an aimless feel to it, but above average revenge flick nevertheless.

First dig two graves

A James Bond movie directed by John Glen in 1981, starring Roger Moore as the agent 007, Carole Bouquet as the Bond girl Melina Havelock, Desmond Llewelyn as 'Q' (the head of Q division), Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny (MI6 secretary) and Julian Glover as Kristatos, the main antagonist. Title song performed by Sheena Easton. There's a missing British vessel with secret nuclear intelligence called A.T.A.C. (Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator) underneath the water and James Bond has to get there first. And it involves lots of driving, diving, skiing and rock climbing.

Happiness loves company

The Jesus Rolls tries its dearest, but Big Lebowski's legacy is far too great to be tarnished. It's a shame though, I'm sure John Turturro's intentions were sincere and good, but this is all bollocks and embarrassing. Jesus Quintana repeats the phrases he already uttered in Big Lebowski as he and his buddy Petey (Bobby Cannavale), both on parole, are involved in petty crimes. A sad attempt coat tailing a cult movie.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise

A day in the lives of three police officers in a working-class suburb of Montfermeil, Paris. They are head to head with the underworld, try to maintain peace with the influential community leaders and tread a tightrope between the demands of the law and real life. All hell breaks loose when one arrest goes tragically wrong. A pretty hard hitting drama of police brutality and racism.