Poppy and Violet

An early 70s piece of shadowy meat industry. Gene Hackman and Lee Marvin as hard-headed gangsters and young Sissy Spacek as beautiful and sweet as they came. Sparks are flying.

Goddamn stabbing in Corona

Jake Gyllenhaal is a lone creep who makes news videos of tragic accidents and violent deaths. And the profession gets under his skin in murderously passionate manner. This was a cool movie, not only because of the brilliantly shot images of the city of Los Angeles.

A surfer with perfect vision

A romantic comedy a.k.a. romcom. Now that's the genre I feel the most uncomfortable with. I convulse already when I see the title The One I Love written. But anyways, this story involves - beside the wishy-washy romance - a guest house which comes from another dimension, so it's kind of intriguing.

Circle in cinnamon stew

I took this just for laughs. And laughed I did. I mean, it goes beyond my comprehension is it even possible to make such amazingly repulsive piece of shit. The Legend of Hercules's stupidity is something else. Easily one of the worst movies ever made.

We are outraged and we are fighting back

The Purge follow-up. A group of people try to survive the night of legal annihilation. It's as silly as it was last time. A bubblegum thriller that you chew and throw away.

The king is dead

I don't think there is a better game. Enjoyed immensily.

When things go sideways

I understand why Transcendence got such a bad rep. Computer nerds and other knuckleheads laugh at it's expense, I'm sure. And, yes, it's ridiculous on number of ways, it compares well with After Earth and Happening and other bona fide flops. But apart from the last 30 minutes that were pure comedy, it was kind of captivating.

Sodomized by angry clown

One of the last movies Robin Williams ever did. And that's the only reason why I bothered. Too bad it shows that he really isn't there, his mind occupied on other issues. Can't blame him, it's a shit movie. Sad though.

Long bad hair and greasy skin full of acne

A remake of the 1980 William Lustig original. I could recollect only quick flashbacks of the original one, but here Elijah Wood plays a little lunatic who goes around killing and scalping beautiful young women. A tad pointless, but a decent enough ride on the 80s stalker movie nostalgia.

The dust have come to stay

They don't make these kinds of drama movies any longer, do they? It's slow-moving as shit, but absorbing and enticing as hell.

Race against the dying of the light

For his age, Robert Duvall is in fine form and is as convincing in his artistry as he ever was. But, shit, why is he keeping his career aflame with this kind of utter fucking nonsense?

Sweet tooth monkeys

A very good movie. A hair-raising cat-and-mouse game between Palestinian friends and Israeli Gestapo. I've rarely seen this kind of shit and, truly, it must be hell living in that kind of political and religious persecution. In addition to the concrete and stone jungles these poor bastards have to live in.

To die you got to be alive first

A scifi thriller in post-apocalyptic world. The year is 2044, Antonio Banderas has lost his hair and robots are smart. If the future will be anything close like this it will be motherfucking bleak and boring.

Try listening to jazz for five years

The small harbor of Tickle Cove try to seduce a young doctor and corporate head-honchos to inhabit their little island. One of those feelgood, carefree and harmless pretty little movies. Loved the filming location (Newfoundland) to death.

A wet martini in a paper cup

A music documentary of the band The National. I don't like The National, they are the critical darlings of the past 10 years, but people like me see them as pretentious indie rock bullshit. I picked this up because of the good ratings. What a gem. And it ain't much of the band, but on the center stage is the hero of the day, the film director, singer Matt Berninger's 9 years younger slightly irritating little brother, a metalhead, Tom Beringer, who with his drinking, antics, carefree attitude and crazy-cool questions (Do you have your wallets on stage?) is deliciously out of the professional The National set-up.

Wicked is good

I could say 'a Lost wanna-be' and walk away. Past my teenage years, so I don't see the point and fully undertand the ins and outs of the labyrinthic story. Probably the coolest scifi jungle adventure of today.

Cardboard tombstones in germ warfare

HIV and AIDS are taking hold in the 80s gay community and homo sexuals are freaking out. I liked it when - intentionally or not - it was depicted like there was a hysterical zombie epidemic taking place, but fancy pancy guys in high heels bullshit was quite irritating to tell the truth.

Armageddon ain't good for business

Couple of white trash Aryan psychopaths take an entire African American family hostage. That's the deal here, in all its simplicity, everything else is more or less left unsaid. Moronic film making. Tagged: inspired by true events.

Can't put arms around memory

The late New York Dolls/The Heartbreakers guitarist Johnny Thunders on the spotlight, although the film is a nice insight to the whole 70s rock'n'roll (N.Y. in particular) and junkie scene. There were lots of talking heads that were unknown to me thence I kinda wondered why such important figures as Richard Hell and David Johansen were left out.

When the light of the chosen has died

A band biography of one the northernmost Heavy Metal acts Sentenced. Not overly well written and only touches the surface, but the quotes from the band members are great.

A snake that eats its own tail

Time travel flicks are always infested with loopholes and general ridiculousness thus they are oftentimes a fucken bore. In search of a New York bomber, Predestination does an extra mindfuck, or two, and it drops me off the radar at times, but at least it kind of stands out all the same.

House of ill repute

Somehow this reminded me of David Mamet. I recall he has penned a few excellent old school heist scripts. The Art of the Steal desperately tries to be David Mamet movie, but unmamets.

Red and blue glowsticks

An approaching comet put things jinxed in eight friends' dinner party. I liked it how this group of unknown actors kept the mindbending little fucker interesting and engaging. And I thoroughly enjoyed keeping my mind occupied with the few thousands theories and what-the-fucks it produced.

Five minutes 'til what

A secret agent Jeremy Reins (Stephen Dorff) is imprisoned in a glass coffin placed inside of a car that also contains a bomb that says boom. Of course, this thing draws strong comparisons to Buried (2010), which is an impressive claustrophopic film, whereas this is a spiritless piece and I smelled the twist and the double twist a million miles away.

Like an elephant's trunk

Mr. Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman), a grown man, has found a loophole in the rules of entry in national spelling bee. And he's a big tease in children's competition. If there ever is one, but I didn't get the meaningfulness of this particular story, not one bit.

Sacrilegious sack of shit

I don't like Channing Tatum, even less Jonah Hill. Nominating the latter once for an Academy Award was a travesty. And another fact is that I quit watching the first Jump Street after five minutes or so. I should have done the exact same thing here. Total waste of time.

21st century is a digital book

I disliked the first Captain A movie. It's still bit of a wishy-washy lassie, the character, but I liked the way to whole movie was executed this time around. Proper techno-adventure action.

His arm has had better days

This is dug so seriously into the hellspawn voodoo nonsense - and the actors (Eric Bana in the lead) are playing along - that is has turned viciously against itself. It's almost a deadpan comedy and that's why I'd like to see it with a laughing track.

Restore order with imagination

From Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) to P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), a group of people brainstorm to translate Mary Poppins into a feature film. On the other hand, we delve deep into the author's troubling past. Fuckloads of high-profile actors keep the the shit together.

For you are with me

Normally I wouldn't mind, but somehow it got to me that they glorified these reckless drivers who drove their high-speed automobiles on the ordinary streets with no fear of hurting anyone or themselves. Otherwise, a silly movie.

And they descended upon the earth

An eccentric Euro piece. An upper-class family hook up with people who show cultish features. Bits off the radar, but you never knew what was lurking behind the next corner as it eloquently dances around sadistic, black-humoured and sexual undertones.

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