If a man has one friend, he's rich

After lots and lots of flashy top-quality contemporary films, it's always refreshing to hark back to the yesteryear. Winchester '73 was released in 1950, it's a good old western, a black & white movie directed by Anthony Mann, James Stewart and Shelley Winters in the lead. And it's a story of the Winchester Rifle Model 187 a.k.a. "The gun that won the west." To cowman, outlaw, peace officer or soldier, the Winchester '73 was a treasured possession. An Indian would sell his soul to own one. In the wild west of 1876, the Winchester piece was as famous - and deadly - as the stars Crazy Horse, George Custer and Wyatt Earp.

Smells like satan's asshole

Frank Grillo and Gerard Butler produced themselves in a simple violent crime film with hilariously bad ass characters that mostly takes place in a Gun Creek city police headquarters. Just solid American noir of crooks, bent cops, feds, drugs, shoot-outs, extortion and murder. The director Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin' Aces, Boss Level) has quite a recognizable style now.

Your primary tools are observation and imagination

Norman Nordstrom is an old blind man who defends his home yet again against intruders. And not only his home, he's also protecting a little girl Phoenix (Madelyn Grace) whose in grave danger because organ-snatching junkies want to steal her heart! Stephen Lang is a menacing figure as the predator who kills them all. 

Dreaming of gold and jewels

Sandra escapes her abusive shit husband with their two children and she has to start her life anew. She decides to build a home from scratch, with pure self-confidence and the goodness of strangers. A rewarding piece of Irish cinema, a roller coaster of emotions.

He creeps, he kills, he goes home

Michael Myers is as deadly as ever. The whole city of Haddonfield is hunting him down, but the masked apex predator is virtually indestructible. Halloween Kills is bloody and funny, but the gory scenes are all the cool thing in it.

There are idiots everywhere

Bella Cherry travels from Sweden to Hollywood to become the next big porn star. The industry however is abusive and sadistic for the 19 year old, so she must toughen her act to survive. An adventurous learning curve to the Swede. Unfortunately there's hardly a proper story or substance in Pleasure, it's more like a researched look at the profession.

Too late to figure it out

Maybe Cry Macho is just a big fuck you wave by Clint Eastwood. Oh the irony if after decades of ground-breaking masterpieces both as a director and an actor (Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, High Plains Drifter, In the Line of Fire and so on) his swangsong is a boring two-cent story of a former rodeo star, a rooster and a Mexican teenager. Cry Macho is just fucken terrible and can't decide if it's a thriller, a drama, a road movie or a romantic film.

When heaven comes down

If you tried to make the worst movie ever made, you couldn't make it worse than Collision Earth. It currently has 2.2 points in the International Movie Database (IMDB). This is breath-taking badness. Something you got to see to believe.

Pain comes from always wanting things

What's this blasphemy? Did anybody really want a pre-sequel to the Sopranos TV series? Doesn't even work as its own independent film. Easily, the only thing that stands out is Vera Farmiga, she's a splitting image of Livia Soprano, originally performed by Nancy Marchand. Absolutely nailed it. Intriguingly, Ray Liotta and Michael Gandolfini, the son of James Gandolfini, in the cast.

The evil song you sing inside your brain

Window cleaner is helpless. He's a single parent to a wee lad and he's dying. He desperately needs to find a new family to his three-year-old son, people who provide a proper life to the kid when he's gone. With declining health finding a perfect family is a labour of its own. Heartfelt and just an awfully sad story.

Weakness rots from within

In the year 2257 AD, the men think they finally have their own planet. Their own mancave where they can hang out, cultivate, read each others minds, the usual stuff, as they please. One day a girl falls out from the sky and she's - of course - instantly seen as an enemy. One of the men, Todd (Tom Holland), however wants to protect the space girl and they escape. Honestly, this movie looks like a bad joke.

Close the book if the story's over

Still doesn't cease to amaze me. One amazing heist that keeps on giving. Twists and turns to no end and the robbers are always a few steps ahead of the police. Just about the perfect series and deserves all the hype. This was Part 4 (also referred to as the second part of season 2).

Leave it in the desert

Little on the slow-moving side, but thankfully Mark Rylance, who is almost in every frame, delivers a performance that keeps it together. Johnny Depp and Robert Pattison step in when things get ugly, but pale in comparison to Rylance. Set in a colonial magistrate in an unnamed empire.

Fear is the mind-killer

Interstellar travel between the stars needs "spice" that is the most valuable substance in the universe. As expected, not bad. Not bad at all. A great flamboyant science fiction adventure that definitely sets new limits to the genre. As everyone knows it's based on Frank Herbert's novel, as was David Lynch's Dune (1984), starring Kyle MacLachan and Sting, and Denis Villeneuve will start shooting on Dune: Part Two later in 2022.

The heart of a black soul

Beforehand I kind of peeked in on the reviews and saw the shit feedback. Don't know why I chose to watch the movie still. Perhaps because of the stars Jason Sudeikis, Evangeline Lilly and Shea Whigham. But it's all bollocks. A stupid script, inane characters, all that crap. A bank robber gets out on bail, his parole officer blackmails him and everyone are neck-deep in hillbilly organized crime real quick. Give me a fucking break. That's two hours worth of wasting time.

Unveiling of the deeper self of humanity

Old friends have a tradition to spend Christmas together. This time it will be their last because everyone is going to die in an environmental catastrophe that will wipe all of humanity out. It's a perfect oppurtunity to speak their minds, party their hearts out and when the end is due, take the so called exit pill to die with dignity. An off-beat and groovy British apocalyptic horror and black comedy.

Well, fucking bye

Finnish Renny Harlin was a decent Hollywood director (Ford Fairlane, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight) until he flopped (Exorcist: The Beginning, The Legend of Hercules, The Covenant). He then fucked off to China, but failed (Skiptrace, Bodies at Rest) yet again. He came back to Finland and wisely thought that he'd be better off to start at the very bottom and jump into the worst frachise of the history of comedy Luokkakokous. This shit is horrible and I wanted to see it solely because I want to know what I hate.

Losing all the leaves

Father has his ways. He's old, stubborn to shit, mean-spirited if necessary. But his memory is a losing game. Nothing seems to be what it seems. Sometimes he doesn't recognize his own daughter and even talks to imaginative people who say he's getting on everyone's tits and should be sent to a nursing home. Sounds a bit depressive and sad, but they pulled it off remarkably well and The Father is entertaining as hell. A dazzling performance by Anthony Hopkins.

Eat more, drink more, bed more

There's three versions - beautifully constructed episodes - of the same story in The Last Duel. The truth according to either Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) or Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer). Lady Marguerite was raped and by the laws of 14th century France, the justice is implemented by a duel. Not trademark Ridley Scott action, but everything is executed to perfection.

History isn't here yet

The leisurely and quiet pace of First Cow is captivating. Cookie (John Magaro) is a cook in the damp forests of Oregon in 1820. At first teamed up with fur trappers, then befriending a Chinese immigrant King-Lu (Orion Lee) and begin a cookie enterprise with stolen milk.

Hail to the king, baby

A documentary about the fans (aka Deadites) of the Evil Dead films. Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987), both etched on my memory, are my favourite horror movies as well. Bruce Campbell is an iconic figure who has done so much amazing off-beat cinema (Bubba Ho-Tep, Xena, My Name Is Bruce, Brisco County Jr., The Hudsucker Proxy) outside the franchise as well. He even wrote one hell of a memoir - If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie actor. Hail to the Deadites celebrates the movie's faithful and kinda coofy fanbase. Love the amateur homegrown feel in it, just like the original movies.

Just gushing red

Oftentimes these movies should come with an interpreter or someone who'd tell what the fuck is going on. I'm not terribly educated on things Marvel, never followed the comics, know shit of the character Black Widow's past, none of that. I felt that I was just pulled into her life and had to figure out myself where things stand. Once I got grasp of the story, I realized I was better off ignorant.

Shooting rabbits

Federal Agent Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) travels back into his old village Kiewarra in hopelessly dry south-eastern Australia to attend to a funeral of his friend who recently committed a murder-suicide. He ain't too liked in the old farming community because of his suspected foul-play as a kid. He'd happily be elsewhere, but is asked to look into the murder case a little closely and re-open the investigation. Solid thriller, a proper mystery of two different cases, little on the slow-moving side, but that's alright.

An angel with a dirty face

Meyer Lansky was one of the most notorious gangsters in American history, up there with his buddies Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. A clever man yet ruthless to the end. Harvey Keitel as an aging soon-to-be-dead Lansky, John Magaro as his younger self and Sam Worthington as David Stone, an author writing a biography of the dying mobster and who still attracts close interest to the FBI. As all biopics, Lansky (directed by Eytan Rockaway) has its weaknesses. Probably because they are trying to be as accurate as you can get, it's not a full-on guns-blazing mafia movie. The quiet moments are there, but luckily they're gripping enough to be interesting.

The dreams way overdue

Rain (Madison Iseman) thinks she's losing her shit. Her nightmares and the things she thinks she sees seem all too real. Everyone else thinks she's showing symptoms of schizophrenia and needs to be heavily medicated otherwise institutionalized. How to explain them that she suspects her next door neighbour is a sadistic kidnapper? A low-budget little thingy, really nothing too exciting.