Clinging to shadows

France playing against Brazil in World Cup 2006 Quarter Finals and during the game a little British boy Olly goes missing. The search ensues in Chalons du bois, the parents are gutted and the police do the best they can. A nail-bitingly thrilling TV series.

Vlad, the poker

A pack of vampires of Wellington are making a documentary. Cracking jokes of all the statutes of vampires and werewolves and zombies. And, damn, it's wicked fun.

Old world encounters

The best travel show thus far by Ville Haapasalo, Finnish actor well-known in Russia. This time he goes through the countries on the Silk Road in 30 days. Them small(ish) lands in the shadow of the mother land of the great Russia. Amazing thing. Lovely people. Absolutely stunning looking places.

Forgetting the things that made you happy

Bludgeoned to fucking death with five star reviews. This is about an elderly couple's 45h anniversary. Yawn. Despite the actors that delivered, it was tiresome shit.

Frontier justice

Can't tell will it be so the second time, but Quentin Tarantino's western whodunnit sure as hell brought forth a plenty of whoas and whatthefucks, fucken positively so. It's packed full of elements of surprise. And what a treat. I've said it before, Tarantino hasn't produced a flop thus far and The Hateful Eight, with almost three hours of western magic and myth ranks among his very best. Compared to his close contemporaries and rivals (say, Fincher, Del Toro, Villeneuve, Scott, Nolan, Burton, the Coens) he is the greatest director of his generation.

Screaming skulls calling out your name

This was fucking great. One of the best music documentaries that I have ever seen. Such an unbelievably down to earth character Jon M Thor - the frontman of the cult Heavy Metal band Thor. Fucking love these things where perseverance and sheer goodness of human heart prevail.

Devil's piss shit

The guy (Antti Jokinen) used to make music videos for a living. And his past reflects here. He can't do full lenght features. At least I was well fucking annoyed. Kätilö is a cliched piece of shit, from overly dramatic classical music played everywhere to lukewarm wartime romance and quick - rather useless - loud shots of warfare. Nothing is cohesive, a stupid fucking mess, storytelling is lost in director's mad whims. Like a pompous overlong music video really.

Shake the tree of chaos

Well, a bit like David Fincher's Panic Room (2002), only a lot worse. At times some of the scenes were hair-raisingly stupid and the actors were like fucking talentless puppets vomiting their ridiculous lines. Utter pure idiocy.

Fourth of July on steroids

Honest to fucking God I didn't know it was a Denis Villeneuve movie. I was well mesmerized and during watching the fucking thing I kept saying to myself to make a note of the director. I reckon I spoke of him before, about keeping an eye out on the fucking guy. And here he is, presenting an excellent fucking stone-cold crime thriller of the Mexican fucking drug war where life is cheap. Great as fuck.

Crazy honk of a laugh

When going to sleep, being too tired to read a book, I usually watch something from Netflix. I'm not a huge fan of stand-up comedy, but when they are rude and offensive the right way, they are alright. Liked this one just fine.

The standing man

For those who defended Russian spies in the Cold War era it was not too funky. You weren't the most popular guy on the block. I fucken enjoy these espionage features. Directed by Steven Spielberg and there's people like Ethan and Joel Coen writing it, and Tom Hanks excels as a relentless lawyer, as does Mark Rylance as an enigmatic spy. The whole US vs USSR roulette is at full swing and it's tremendously captivating.

Worse than failed

Another 90 minutes wasted. Contemporary Finnish comedy is not funny. It's sad.

Don't sit on a wall, if you are an egg

Ricky Gervais always hides meaningful grave issues under his comic routine. Special Correspondents is a story of two journalists taken fake-hostage by the Ecuadorian rebels and the people close to them are cashing in on the misery and sorrow. Not saying Ricky Gervais is at his best on feature films, but his recognizable wit, style and humour is as entertaining as ever.

The guilty feel nothing

It was confusing and chaotic in Estonia in WWII. In between two superpowers the nazi Germany and Russia (invaded, in turn, by both), the natives had to choose sides and fight against each others. Decent enough a war movie, but tad unsuspenseful to be honest.

Fate will unite us

An erotic thriller bludgeoned to death with acting nobodies and dialogue that make you cringe. Terribly irritating little thing.

Shot at redemption

All things considered, this was not that bad. Beforehand it was on a one-way street to disaster; another Marvel filmization, a fucking ant-loving microdwarf for a superhero, fucking Paul Rudd doing it, and it's, like, funny in funny-for-kids kind of way. But I've probably got a bit soft in the head because I didn't mind that much.

Choose your poison

After his mommy passes away, a California kid travels to Polignano, Italy, and encounters a beautiful local woman who seems rather enigmatic. And sure enough, she ain't no ordinary girl because oftentimes she turns into this bloodthirsty serpentine thing and that's pretty scary. She's cute though.

Poisoning people's minds with ideas

I fucken enjoy these simple kind of thrillers. Nothing too fancy or complicated, just a former high school buddy turned a little psycho. The unsuspecting couple's life takes a turn for a fucklots worse and when you dig deep enough, there's dust at every corner. Actor Joel Edgerton's directorial debut.

Go with the gut feeling

A young university student fancies her somewhat depressed philosophy professor. It's a Woody Allen picture and all the Woody Allen shenanigans are there. Some offbeat romance and psychointellectual bullshit scattered in good measure.

Kite dancing in a hurricane

The feedback this received, it was mostly negative (for example, currently only 6,9 points in IMBD). And I'm quite surprised. It may follow the old tracks and it's traditionally silly with the obligatory romances and devices and explosions and a bit dated humour, but it's still spectacular and entertaining high octaine action.

Artificial saliva

I really don't know why I watched a movie of the author I never gave a shit, but anyways, Robert Foster Wallace apparently is a big thing for literary hipster geeks. Be it as it may, Jason Segel portraying him, makes Foster Wallace a comically weird figure and Jesse Eisenberg (as a Rolling Stone journalist Robert Lipsky) continues doing the same role he's done his entire fucking career.

Small town, everyone's eyes on ya

Needless to say perhaps  - solely because I watched the first season entirely - but I fucken enjoyed it. There has been a murder in a small coastal town, people investigate the death and suspects are aplenty. Dead on cool.

Comedic words of beauty

He did a couple of books of Russia and the countries in the overall region of that great land. He decided to release another book solely based on the country of Georgia and particularly its food because, as often cited, the Georgian cuisine is the best culinary tradition. Never had the pleasure to taste their traditional food but having read this thing, it got me intrigued.

Rain purred against the windows

I enjoy reading fictional serial killer novels to death. Usually I dump them after the first couple of dozen pages because seems that writing a fast paced and gripping thriller these days is more of a rarity. Now there's this guy on the block, he seems very good.

Little wolf skin boots

I really liked what Peter Steele accomplished, he was a phenomenal song writer and a powerful stage presence. His untimely death struck me. This book did alright. Particularly the early years, I hadn't really read about the Fallout and Carnivore days before and, sadly, the last couple of years when his decline began to take toll.

Birth is always stained by death

Three stories of different types of royalties set in some kind of medieval fantasy camp. Looks like a proper adult fairytale with bizarre characters and vile creatures, and they all are dressed up accordingly. However any proper story, or adventure, or action, were never really properly - if at all - ignited.

Medium sized phenomenom

These fellows drive from Helsinki, Finland, to Katmandu, Nepal, and back, for a charity event. The road trip takes us through the amazing (and quite dangerous) places of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, India, Pakistan. Kyrgystan, Iran and then some. I wish they'd shot the scenaries and talked with the natives more often than they did interviewing each others, altho for a good cause (helping the casteless people of Nepal) that's hardly an issue.

The outside world is only a bigger prison

Shot entirely inside a taxi, the director Jaf Panahi as the cabbie. A Persian take on Night on Earth perhaps, altho this one straight-forwardly and metaphorically attacks the political persecution of Iran. The people seem awfully nice, everything is acted, but all the same.

Punched in punched out

Back then, I took them as another poseur Glam Rock band and, quite frankly, more or less a joke, but they were fortunate enough having been penned up a few decent tunes. This is an exemplary documentary of a perseverance. I had no idea they did as much hard work as they did in the 70s and 80s NY hard rock scene. The film is about their way to success and hopefully they'll make a follow-up - a next chapter if you will - because there was some greatly interesting and tragic issues coming their way.

The beginning of abuse

Samba Cissé is an immigrant from Dagar, Senegal. He's lived in Paris, France, for 10 years without a legal residence permit. To his benefit, an immigration officer (Charlotte Gainsbourg) takes to liking him and a phoney-Brazilian walks into the mix, so things take on from there on. Ultimately, it's well done drama, not my genre, but entertaining enough to leave it playing.

The covenant with death

Never explained the reason, but the world population has dropped in drastic proportions and the survivors would live off the land with ease unless they weren't at each others throats all the time. Awfully silent bunch the chosen survivors, making the end of the world needlessly boring.

Da Vinci from Brooklyn

Didn't I just a while back watch a perfectly cool documentary feature of Bobby Fischer, the eccentric chess master? Even if Tobey Maguire does the best role of his career so far and the rest of the main cast (Liev Schreiber as Bobby's nemesis Boris Spassky, Michael Stuhlbarg and Peter Sarsgaard as the assistants) are excellent as well, this has rather little to offer. After all, it's just an arrogant brilliant mind and a game of chess.

Deep darkies in a cave

When mommy's away, two siblings go to visit their grandparents for the first time. Turns out that nanna and pappa aren't quite right in their heads. A bit funny this, lots better than the shite M. Night Shyamalan has churned out in recent years.

Strictly criminal

We can end speculations that Johnny Depp is losing his talent. His role as James 'Whitey' Bulger - ruthless real time gangster in Boston - oozes wrath, craziness and utter evil. The movie - one of the best in recent years - depicts the Boston underworld better than its close predecessors The Town, What Doesn't Kill You, Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River. It has an authentic vibe to it and as a mafia movie ranks among the very best.

Desert takes children

Somewhere in the Australian outback, in the red sand district, two children goes missing. And people try to find them. This was quite an embarrassingly boring movie to tell the truth. Funniest and craziest thing is the 10/10 review in IMDB that must have been written by one of the production members or the director herself.

Grief is new

This has a bit of Groundhog Day and Memento feel to it. Christine (Nicole Kidman) is a 40 year old amnesiac. Every time she wakes up in the morning, her memory has been erased, but with a help of a video diary, her husband (Colin Firth) and shrink (Mark Strong) she begins to understand her past. In fact, a complicated, mysterious and thrilling puzzle begins to unravel. Flawed, but alright.

The past is asking something

An Austrian born lady fights for her rights on a family painting snatched by the nazis in WWII. The legal battle that ensues is rather uncomplicated and dull, and it's not only Helen Mirren's overacting, it's also Ryan Reynolds' emotionless presence that are almost quite too painful to watch.

The carrots are cooked

Well, no matter how well it is executed; the cinematography, the acting, everything, it still is a very thin and an empty story. French Philippe Petit wants to tightrope between the WTC twin towers and that's all there is to it. Sure enough, it's spiced as much as humanly possible, but in the end the vast majority of the drama and suspense and laughs had terribly constrained feel to it. Lots of the movies based on a true story battle with the same dilemma.

Not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution

I recently watched from TV the series where Ville Haapasalo - a Finnish actor who is enormously well-known in Russia - traveled the river Volga for 30 days. And I'm currently following his new series where he travels the Caribbean for, you guessed it, 30 days. Decided to take his first travel series from the library where he, by train, goes across the great nation of Russia (in 30 days). Besides being educative and funny, it's eye-opening in many ways.

Too strong to break up

I didn't play it all the way through. I left it before completing the so called final battle. I tried it a few times, but, as often, I didn't have the patience to try the same thing over and over again, so I retired. Satisfied with the, say, 95 % completion. Needless to say, I liked it.

The sad dog strategy

I like Will Ferrell, his persona and his take on humour. Without him, these comedies were sacks of shit.

Escapades are extremely bad idea

Not exactly the perfect husband and dad, Cam Stuart (Mark Ruffalo), he's a chain-smoking manic depressive, but gets the job done, more or less. A bit slow-burner, but one of those feel-good movies you can't be fucking bothered to criticize that much.

No frontiers left to conquer

The world is atomfucked, but botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) and his crew preserve trees and plants in their spacecrafts. Upon the orders to destroy the orchards for commercial purposes, Lowell gets mad angry and crafts some plans of his own. Finished in 1972, so obviously the scifi tech looks funky and silly, yet in the end that's the only thing you really want to see in this movie.

Humbug Street 6

It's a bit deranged and weird, but, damn, it's ultimately fucking funny. Probably the only Finnish comedy (consists of short stories) in the last decade that made me laugh. Great acting to boot.

Pope shits in the woods

If you hit-and-run a bigfoot, you better be prepared to deal with the consequences. In the Sasquatch land five Texan friends tread in dangerous waters and a cabin in the woods is a not a safe enough fortress. Clichéd horror shit.

Born for greatness

It was a bit surprising for me how little I knew of the greatest boxer of all time, Cassius Clay aka Muhammad Ali. Despite being an informative fucker, the documentary was great otherwise as well. At least, the people close to him (his children, manager, the rivals, Tom Jones, et al.) had their say, and, I reckon, he is loved by all.

Rap is no art

More or less an autobiographical take on NWA, a group of L.A. gangsta rappers from the late 80s to early 90s. I don't necessarily need to like the 'music' - which I don't - but I can see the importance what their rise to fame did to the freedom of speech in the particularly tumultuous times in California. In every other aspect, this is ridiculously overrated a movie.

From girls to women

Someone said it exceptionally well that this is 'soulless crap'.

Two is the perfect number

Romantic drama with a serious undertone or something of that nature. Fucklots away from my comfort zone, but the interesting cast was enough to give it a go. Russell Crowe is a reknowned author and a widowed father suffering from mental issues and custody battle. So, yes, emotional bullshit written all over it.

Ghosts are real

Guillermo de Toro paints a splendid motion picture. Crimson Peak is Gothic horror with utterly colourful visualization and the wardrobe department is funky as hell, but story is a bit of a shallow and boring kind.