Living in the past is dying in present

Every May for 30 years a group of men have played a game of tag because playing keeps them young and literally untouchable Jerry is a resilient little devil that no one has ever caught. Perfect example of the decline of western humour.

Crushing through the bones

There's a secret world beneath the Mariana Trench and it's the kingdom of the great super shark species called megalodon. People tresspass their privacy and they are out to get a revenge. Too bad the massive prehistoric killing machines are just supporting actors because the people spew out ridiculous clichés like there was no tomorrow.

Blissful ignorance

Had there not been the 1973 Papillon film with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, this (with Charlie Hunnan and Rami Malek) would have been more than alright. I just can't get away from comparing between these two and, frankly, there's no way whatsoever the new one stands the comparison. Somehow I'm still glad they did it, it was interesting to see it, a decent enough an attempt.

Relentless purple butterflies

Mom acts against all logic when her son is kidnapped. Actually everyone else is oblivious to the heinous crime taking place even though the mom and kidnappers leave a high-speed car chase, couple of car crashes and one dead cop on a busy highway behind. The only thing more annoying is Halle Berry's character who constantly speaks to herself. It's an often occurring 'mistake', it only reveals that the filmmakers fail to deliver an option how to keep viewers up to date with the story.

Be kind for everyone's fighting hard battle

Auggie ain't quite an elephant man but he has facial differences enough to get bullied and ridiculed at school. Basically, it's the same story that has been told a thousand times, but the rollercoaster of emotions hits its mark, so much so that I truly wished it hadn't an unhappy ending.

The souls of men

The cover of the DVD has Ethan Hawke wielding a gun and it also says 'from the producer of John Wick.' Didn't bother reading the synopsis on the back cover. Hawke's character is a semi-retired super agent who dies, is temporarily fixed and has only 24 hours to live but a few hundred people to kill. That's exactly the sort of shit you expect from the producer of John Wick, if bullets are fired from left to right, there's no need for anything profound. And if you add enough useless flashbacks, there's enough to go by and call it a full-lenght feature film. Probably the worst movie I've seen thus far this year.

King of madness

Catching up with the Derren Brown shows I've missed before from Netflix. With a selected group of elderly he cleverly executes an art robbery. Yet again, the hoax is brilliant.

Down the road apiece

CIA and FBI were too busy measuring their dicks than co-operating with each other to inflitrate and properly investigate Al Qaida cells before the '98-'01 terrorists attacks (most notoriously in Kenya, Yemen and the World Trade Center) took place. The Looming Tower grabbed my interest immediately, as far as I know it's mostly based on true events, the characters were real people, so seeing how things played out is - in spite of the horrible consequences - exciting and entertaining. Jeff Daniels - in particular - as FBI's counter terrorism expert John O'Neill excelled.

Pigs have wings

A boy barely out of school gets what he wished and serves in the trenches of the frontline of the First World War. He finds out that war is hell and most of the veterans are either mad or act insensitive, but they all are scared out of their tits because the Germans are coming for the final kill. Solid British war drama, tension and thrills built up nicely and splendid performances throughout the line.

The ballad of man on fire

With the boxing movies you kinda know what you get. In Jawbone there's a boxer gone astray. He's a lonely penniless alcoholic about to get evicted from his childhood home. He gets a second chance and you just see where it goes from there; baby steps to get back into profession, Alcoholics Anonymous, the final fight, the whole nine yards. Not bad, but easily forgettable.

When the lizards sleep

WWII, former athlete, baseball player Moe Berg has been assigned to locate - possibly assassinate - Werner Heisenberg, German physicist and principal scientist in the Nazi German nuclear weapon project. Paul Rudd does alright as the secretive agent as does the rest of the famed cast (Paul Giamatti, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Strong, Jeff Daniels, Guy Pearce), but unfortunately the movie looks like bad TV drama.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

Fixing bullet holes

Hotel Artemis is hospital for the criminals. Ongoing riots ensure that Los Angeles in 2028 is a very violent city. The citizens have nearly lost the supply of clean water and that´s why they are stark raving angry, but the privileged criminals have a perfect hiding hole from both the law and the looters. Its nurse (Jodie Foster) and another health professional Everest (Dave Bautista) who run the place however compromise the hospital's security and get all sort of shit coming their way. Nowhere near perfect, but quite a sympathetic little indie. 

Carnival of carnage

What a crap. In a very one-sided documentary or show, Piers Morgan interviews three notorious serial killers - Mark Riebe, The Kansas City Strangler Lorenzo Gilyard and Bronx Serial Killer Alejandro Henriquez - but prefers putting himself on the spotlight. Yes, the killers most probably are in the prison for all the right reasons and they are disgusting maggots, but Piers Morgan does his everything to annoy and therefore shut them up. They all had something to say, they all wanted to say something, but the interviewer was biased to begin with and didn't want to hear anything. We probably lost the last and only change to dig up something new from those cases because of the idiot journalist. Had this been handed to someone like Louis Theroux, it would have been amazing.

Life eater in the sky

The virus, it's an influenza that makes you kill yourself if you open your eyes outside. You only live if you are blindfolded while you go about your business outdoors. It's a steadily spreading beast out there, steadfastly annihilating the human population. It's a total endgame! Something like straight from The Twilight Zone territory and actually it's pretty good!

Girls pleasuring phantoms

Django ain't someone to fuck with. Armed with coffinful of secrets he's ready to combat Mexicans and an army of Confederates. My Western streak continues and this one is from 1966. One of many Quentin Tarantino's influences, I hear. Franco Nero (Django) even appeared in Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012).

Steaming ball of foreshadowing

Cancer-ridden superhero Deadpool is at the end of his rope and lost his desire to live. Once he's saved by the X-Men organization and improsoned due to his rough way of problem-solving, he's head to head with a cyborg called Cable from the future. Lots of wild, borderline batshit crazy, things going on, but as some sort of deranged cousin from the whole Marvel universe, Wade Wilson as Deadpool continues being cool and the offbeat style in the movies is truly entertaining and refreshing. 

Rapture of the black night

Sometimes the little things get under my skin. Why they had to fill up the quiet moments of the film with outrageously loud soundtrack? This is supposed to be a lovely little relationship drama with a dose of rural nostalgia set around Christmas time and the shitty soundtrack overload is fucking everywhere.

A splash of whiskey to wash the trail dust

What a hoot. Ethan and Joel Coen's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs probably is the funniest and the most beautiful and entertaining film I've seen all year. It's a western anthology film featuring six stories and they all are great and unique in their own way. They are all set in the Wild West, but otherwise has nothing too much in common. However it's a trademark Coen film, so it's funny, smart and looks absolutely gorgeous (courtesy of Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography). Little bit of heaven.

North of blue moon

Anders Breivik is a despicable human being. A proper fucking cunt. Paul Greengrass' movie sums up the massacre that happened in Utøya, Norway, at 22nd of July, 2011. As they shoud, made the effort to utilize Norwegian actors, but I cannot fathom the reason why they made them speak English, it's utterly useless and takes away a lot of effectiveness from the film.

Gnarly psychos and crazy evil

Approximately a two hour movie and the first hour was shit. So much annoyingly surreal, hypnotic and artsy cinematography that I almost gave up on it. I would have if Nicolas Cage hadn't been his cool self. The rest of the movie is pretty wicked, a man who has lost his wife goes against Jesus freaks and a demon-biker gang called Black Skulls.

Hideous hearts

It really ain't anything else than two snipers spotting and trying to kill each other. Compared to Mine, Buried and Phone Booth, where one character is isolated, trapped in one place and tries to find a way to escape. This one didn't get too much credit, people said that soldiers don't operate like that, all that, and I understand the criticism, but I was well entertained.

Envious of the finality of death

Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) has fought against indians his whole adult life and when, as a goodwill gesture from the president, he's ordered to escort a Cheyanne chief and his family back to indian reservations in Montana, the posse meets a woman whose family has been brutally executed by the Comanches. The journey through dangerous territories has a good chance of becoming a truly violent adventure. This looks like a good old western, one of the best contemporary ones I've seen, they don't come by too often.

See you later, irrigator

The fourth James Bond film, directed by Terence Young in 1965, starring Sean Connery as the agent 007, Claudine Auger as the Bond Girl Domino, Bernard Lee 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 Adolfo Celi as Largo, Number 2 of SPECTRE, the main antagonist. Title song sung by Tom Jones. The criminal organization steals two nuclear warheads and demands for a ramson from the NATO countries. Bond investigates the international extortion scheme.

A masquerade of recreation

Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and the Godfather of Punk Iggy Pop collaborate to release an album "Post Pop Depression" and a tour that follows within. Iggy is Iggy, he doesn't reveal too much of his persona, but once again Joshua Homme proves he is the most creative and versatile musician of his generation. Not saying their co-operation spewed the most mind-blowing music, but it's a fucking good movie at least.

Kill someone who matters

Vikings season 5 part I. After the death of Ragnar Lothbrok (brilliant Travis Fimmel) I feared the series would take quite a nosedive. On the contrary, it's possibly better than ever, the remaining next of kin cause havoc and mayhem and fear in Italy, Africa, Britain and in their own soil fighting with and against each other. Bloody marvellous.

A long line of bastards

Supervillain Thanos wants to capture all the infinity stones of the universe, so he can be the supreme leader, get total control and kill the inhabitants as he pleases. The superheroes of the galaxy must gather up, join forces to stop this madman. It's a very good movie, possibly the best of its genre, altho I wish they'd ease off the pedal a little and wouldn't produce these Marvel flicks at such a frantic pace because thrills of excitement may die out of oversupply.

Get up and fight in the void

A legend amongst his peers, a rogue CIA agent is suspected of foul play, so they kidnap and lock him up in a submarine. Vesselful of conspiracies, things are bound to get volatile, thus begins a cat and mouse game that is, frankly speaking, fucking stupid.

Strangers in the hollow

After losing their daughter in a freak accident, they need a fresh start, Ray and Maggie, so they purchase a roadside motel. The thing is the motel has its secrets, a peeping hole (one-way mirror) for one and few other things the former owner chose not to mention. Although there must be method to his madness, Nicolas Cage keeps on building up his resume with trifling thrillers.

Forced to coexist

The island inhabited by dinosaurs is about to blow to kingdom come because a volcano is about to explode. So a group of scientiests and military gunslingers - both with different intentions - go there to rescue the poor endangered primal beasts. I'm usually very excited and inspired to watch these kind of blockbuster thingies, but it's funny how all the excitement just dies out when the movie is on.

Money is honey

This is so bad and horrible that it's downright entertaining in its silliness. It's like they were seriously trying to make a film something in the footsteps of Hard Rain (1998) and Twister (1996) but came up with Sharknado instead.

Here be precious and grace

Usually the scripts that revolve around prom night are either sweet sugary flicks of growing up or they are horror nasties. At first this seemed like the former and it is, in a way, but little nuances, black humour in between the lines, make a whole lot of difference. Would have done better without excess farceness and the last 20 minutes of syrupy mush, but better than expected.

The last black minute

Another one of illusionist Derren Brown's elaborate social experiments. Gone are the magic and the illusions and they've been replaced with carefully crafted scenarios where one human being acts opposite his primal instincts, opinions and beliefs. Not Derren Brown's best efforts, but his abilitity to stimulate human mind is mesmerising at times.