Just kinda follow the instructions

When quarantined, what a better way to pass the time than conduct a little séance over Zoom. In Host, a few girls have a go of that shit and their astral plane is spooky as hell! Heck, I truly liked this, brilliant performances, cool simple horror and the film's lenght barely reach a one hour mark. Effective.

Prepare for the unexpected

A James Bond movie directed by John Glen in 1989, starring Timothy Dalton as the agent 007,  Carey Lowell as the Bond girl Pam Bouvier, Robert Brown as Bond's superior 'M' (the head of MI6), Desmond Llewelyn as 'Q' (the head of Q division), Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny (MI6 secretary) and Robert Davi as Franz Sanchez, the main antagonist. The theme song performed by Gladys Night. The agent 007 is on a private vendetta against a drug lord who did serious harm to his buddies. Timothy Dalton did only two Bond movies and this is his last. Familiar faces such as Benicio del Toro and Everett McGill in the rank as well.

Feels like there's a hole inside

Everything's falling apart in a mining community somewhere in Lapland, Finland. Drugs and booze don't work, the only woman in a 100 mile radius is a slut and the barren landscape makes you mental. Started off slowly, as minimalistic and melancholic as the environment, but thanks to the brilliant performances by the four people in the lead (Pääru Oja, Laura Birn, Tommi Korpela and Elmer Bäck), Viimeiset gained momentum and prevailed in the end. Funnily, lots of Finnish acting heavyweights - Samuli Edelmann, Sulevi Peltola and Ilkka Koivula - were cast almost as extras.

Our war has just begun

 

An unidentified virus is spreading. The fucker turns people into zombies real fast. And the zombies, running like sprinters, they're spreading the pandemic like wildfire by biting the healthy people that's left. It's a worldwide catastrophe. Former United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is flying around the world to make any sense of the insane phenomenon. Another throwback to the movies I had pretty much forgotten by now. A pretty hectic - borderline chaotic - zombie movie from 2013. Directed by Marc Forster.

Two birds stoned at once

Heard a many positive comments of Trailer Park Boys, but never got around to see it. Until now. I watched the first season during couple of nights and was suitably equipped with beer and booze. And, yeah, it's freaking hilarious. Maybe one of the best shows I've ever seen.

Black forest's flaming eyes

Film students are making a zombie movie and if the frictions inside the crew weren't enough, there's something sinister and otherwordly shit endangering their lives as well! I am a fan of Norwegian offbeat cinema (Trollhunter, Død snø, Norsemen, Kraftidioten, Lilyhammer), but I reckon Prosjekt Z won't become cult horror anytime soon.

Evil does not sleep

There are three Mother Boxes hidden on Earth. If synchronized, they scorch the entire planet. Things from another universe - Steppenwolf & his parademons - serving dark power are out to get them. Bruce Wayne aka Batman is building an army or alliance because of these enemies coming from far away. He needs warriors, so gets in touch with the rightful king of Atlantis Aquaman, the princess of the amazons Wonder Woman, Cyborg Victor, The Flash and Superman back from the dead. The freakshow lasts four hours, yet it's still pretty entertaining.

Down with the shadows

Someone has built an elaborate labyrinth - or tube - to torture his victims in various sickening ways. Through fire, water, sulphur, rotten bodies, barbed wire and painful memories, French Lisa (Gaia Weiss) crawls through the maze without the end in sight. Reckon the movie has a point in its claustrophobic horror, but I haven't registered it yet. Finnish actor Peter Franzén as a serial killer.

A badge is scarier than a gun

This was an Oscar nominee for the best picture. In Chicago 1969, in the wake of the deaths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords and the Young Patriots form a rainbow coalition against the police brutality and tyranny. However one of their security captains is a rat who feeds information directly to the FBI. Haven't seen them all yet, but thus far I'd handed the Oscar to Judas and the Black Messiah rather than the mediocre Nomadland. Cool cast. Jesse Plemons is becoming the equivalent of Philip Seymour Hoffman, almost unrecognizable Martin Sheen as J. Edgar Hoover and another strong performance by Daniel Kaluuya. LaKeith Stanfield and Dominique Fishback caught my eye as well.

Salt of the earth

There was an international settlement in Shanghai called The Shanghai International Settlement and they had a private seat the witness the massacres that took place during wars. Like surreal theatre. In 1937, across the Wusong River they watched as the Japanese forces bombarded and killed the Chinese forces defending a warehouse, their last and only fortress in the city, their last bastion of hope. Outstandinly well made historical war drama, top-notch cinematography and a gripping story of courage.

A great vacation that comes to you

David Fincher's The Game from 1997 was now like a completely new movie to me because I had forgotten most of the story. I was even blown away by the double twist in the end. One of the most amazing thrillers I've ever seen, such an entertaining roller coaster ride that I would like to see it immediately again. Hopefully I don't wait for another 20 years at least.

River of no return

A girl disappers during a canoe trip. All her buddies are suspected of foul play. Järngänget (2000) is set in rural Swedish village. The sceneries are nice and picturesque, but unfortunately the story doesn't follow suit, it's predictable and weak. 

Love never dies

Emma and Henry are prisoners of their own home. They're locked inside and given orders by an unknown voice. And it's their fuckin' anniversary! It turns into terrible ordeal, downright mental torture of the highest magnitude. It's also a bullshit fucking thriller.

The archetype of the kicked kind

An entrepreneur (Guillaume Canet) organises time travel experiences. Cartoonist (Daniel Auteuil) wants to re-enact the moment in 1974 when he met the love of her life (Fanny Ardant) in cafeteria La Belle Époque. A beautifully executed romantic film. 

See you down the road

Fern is a nomad. She's without a regular job, works short shifts where she travels. There's a whole community of like-minded people. It's a lifestyle of freedom, but it's also rather hard and lonesome. Free from bureaucracy and normal society, you've all the time in the world to think about death, life and universe, the bad choices you've made and the dreams never completed. Nomadland is a slow-moving drama, a heartfelt piece, but can't grasp why it's an Oscar winner though. Must have been a bad year.

Banished from the world

Blood Quantum is a low budget piece of shit. It's a zombie movie set in Native American community. Lots of blood spattering and cutting off heads pay homage to the George Romero movies, but it's just hopelessly bad. The actors amateur acting skills and unbridled enthusiasm is pretty amusing to watch though.

Integrity of our institutions

An award-winning school in the Long Island village of Roslyn is in a world of shit. One of its superintendents is caught of embezzlement, a theft of taxpayers money, and if the truth gets out it's a scandal of the highest magnitude. It would effect the whole town, because the town is as good as its public school. The employees, can they be quiet enough, sweep the accusations under the carpet, to save their school's reputation? Luckily on the pupils in the student newspaper smells something is rotten and investigates the fraud. A well-crafted drama of the largest school theft in American history.

Soon come tomorrow

Four young adults rent a mansion by the sea. Should be a fun weekend trip, but things blow out of proportion and it's a creepy chaos that's what it is. The visitors are neck-deep in shit, tormented to death and don't know what to do. Criticized as a garbage thriller, but I kinda like this kind of simple suspense.

Siberia with family restaurants

This is why we love movies. A car salesman orchestrates a kidnapping of his wife to cover up his expenses, but of course the deal is lined up with so many unfortunate events, wrong choices and iffy characters that it's destined to end up in misery. One of those movies that has left a lasting remark in the world of cinema. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen in 1996.

Slavering wolf on the rolling prairie

Jeremiah Johnson wants to be a mountain man. He is a man of proper wit and adventurous spirit. Suited to the mountains. All he want to do is survive alone in the wilderness, hunt for living. A settler's simple life. However, it doesn't takes long until he has an adopted son and an Indian wife. And as a family they try to make do in the land of whimsical Indian tribes. Deliciously atmospheric cult western. Starring Robert Redford, directed by Sydney Pollack in 1972.

Return to the rhapsody in blue

A paradise island where you can fulfill your wildest fantasies sounds like a lot of fun. Driven by grief, revenge or amusement, five of its quests are bewildered and horrified that the island actually does that, make impossible possible. Corny semi-horror b-movie fantasy crap where absolutely nothing makes sense.

We're a very friendly people

Thought of watching the Fargo TV series and the movie in chronological order before I have the opportunity to see the latest season 4. The season 2 is set in the Upper Midwest in March 1979. It consists of the Kansas mafia and Gerhardt crime family rivalling for power and it's mind-blowingly brilliant. Well-crafted and abundant story, lots of violence, lots of laughs too. Starring people such as Patrick Wilson, Kirsten Dunst, Nick Offerman, Jesse Plemons, Ted Danson, Zahn McClarnon, Jeffrey Donovan, Jean Smart and Angus Sampson. A roller coaster ride of excellence.

Sometimes the moon is talking to nobody

Vikings Season 6 volume 1. I read a few harsh and really negative comments of the final season of the series. I kinda jumped the bandwagon there, but it's not really all that bad. The sons of Ragnar Lodbrok aren't as cool as their dad, the actors are pretty shite really and the viking ventures outside Scandinavia are not so interesting to follow, but otherwise it's alright.

In the shadow of all the president's men

I don't know do I truly want to find out whether this was based on actual events. Anyways, a wanna-be journalist comes up with an ingenious idea to make a story of the most dangerous thing he can muster. A trip to Somalia and interview the pirates who capture foreign vessels for living. Weirdly, the movie is almost a comedy thanks to the lively character Jay Bahadur performed by Evan Peters, yet there's the volatile issue of piracy, people are dying and no-one's taking Somalia's side. Kind of a distant cousin of Captain Phillips, different narrative, but really quite good.

Cause of death haunted house

A dad and son are renovating an old house they just purchased and encounter its ghastly secret. It once belonged to a wicked old lady, a witch to townspeople, and it seems her ghost occupies the house still. The oldest ghost story in the book, but genuinely spooky little thing.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here

It's a Big Brother style reality game show where contestants are literally being eliminated one by one and the last man standing wins the prize of 5 million dollars. A worldwide audience is watching as the killings unfold, either horrified or excited, but equally entertained because death is entertainment and opiate for the masses. Not a truly outstanding film, far from it, but quite watchable popcorn horror.

Into the last good fight

If you throw away common sense in the story of a plane crash survivors against a pack of wolves, Joe Carnahan's The Prey (2011) is an intense wildlife thriller and a nail-biting survival movie. Having the towering figure of Liam Neeson in the ranks helps as well.

Caveman logic

Good guys and bad guys play hide and seek in an apartment building in Puerto Rico surrounded by a Category 5 hurricane. People write shitty scripts like this on a fucking paper napkins on a lunchbreak. Mel Gibson must have done this garbage as favour for something. I read that Force of Nature cost $23 million.

A digital invisibility cloak

A quick-tempered old-school narcotics cop Rick Bowden is transferred into a cyber crime unit for bad behaviour and he's up against geeks like Ross Ulbricht who eat megabites and nerd shit for breakfast. Ross Ulbricht uses the internet as an instrument of liberty and establishes a drug superstore in dark web where you can anonymously buy and sell anything, something like an Ebay for illegal drugs. At first, Rick Bowden has hard time adapting to the cyber crime unit. He may be old and slow, but he ain't stupid. He tracks down Ulbricht and just may crack the case the old-fashioned way. Silk Road got lots of negative feedback, but against common opinion, I found nothing wrong with the movie. Jason Clark, Nick Robinson, Darrell Britt-Gibson and Elexandra Shipp were amazing in the lead. Directed by Tiller Russell (Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer).

Learn how to suffer existence

The list keeps on growing: Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Happy Death Day, Boss Level. Palm Strings is the latest addition to the infinite timeloop movies and it's fucking hilarious as well. Like it how they don't bother to explain the unxplained, rather just go with the flow. People are stuck in a wedding and it's kind of fun waking up to the same day again and again, you don't need to worry about tomorrow because there isn't one. Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it's all the same. Yet it's full of surprises, twists and turns.

Originality is overrated

It's much the same as The Trip ten years before. Another edited version of the series. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon talk and they eat while travelling from Troy to Ithaca following in the footsteps of the Odysseus. 

Never be hot, always be warm

This is the edited version of the TV Series The Trip where actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictionalised versions of themselves are on a restaurant tour of northern England. It's a dead simple concept yet it's somewhat brilliant. These guys have an opinion on everything, it's mostly improvised and they talk ceaselessly and, as the masters of the profession, imitate well-known people such as Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Al Pacino and others. It's fun, good entertainment.

Remain in the shadows

They were supposed to be just memorabilia and collector's items, but these little fucking nazi puppets kill hotel customers like there was no tomorrow! Pretty cool waste-of-time slasher horror.

Future before the past

There's a serial killer at large in Los Angeles, California. He's been terrorizing the city for decades and ridiculed the local police thus they are under heavy pressure to capture the sadistic killer. A team of old and new detectives is frustrated as fuck. It's been a little quiet in the serial killer cinema as of late, The Little Things is something, but after a decent start it barely goes nowhere and the story doesn't really have an ending. Surprisingly, Rami Malek - Hollywood's new favourite pet - looks like a rookie in the company of the heavy-weights Denzel Washington, Chris Bauer, Jared Leto and Terry Kinney.

Human weakness cannot be killed with a gun

Bob Lee Swagger is asked to plan a presidential assassination, so the actual assassination could be stopped. He's double crossed for the actual kill and soon the world thinks the poor sniper is the assassin and there's a relentless manhunt to catch his ass. Luckily for him and the truth, he's a proper ex-soldier and he can survive shit no-one's survived before. Antoine Fuqua's action-packed thriller is as entertaining as they come.

Without mercy or malice

Vlogger celebrates his 10th anniversary as a public favourite and his friends have surprised him with an exclusive custom made escape room experience in Moscow built just for them by a Russian billionaire. Awfully bad and predictable piece of shit.

Through darkness to the twilight air

Five Norwegian friends - young adults - go to a remote cabin by a lake. And of course the fucking cottage is haunted. The lake as well! At first the people start question their sanity and then themselves. Or are the horrific experiences they encounter orchestrated by demonic dark forces or perhaps some local lad is just pulling their leg? Another useless addition to the endless list of cabin horror.

Big furry rat thing on the wing

A flight officer Maude Garrett is stuck in the ball turret of a bomber. The rusty bucket has seen better days, but that's the least of her worries because she's tormented by an uncooperative crew, attacking Japanese fighter planes and otherwordly rodentlike creature aboard. A silly B-movie garbage, but at least there's quite a hair-raising adventure in it.

You are left with ungatz

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction - his autobiographical documentary struck me deeply. Albeit entirely fictional, Lucky seems like another biography of Harry Dean Stanton. It's like a premeditated send off. It's his final role and he didn't even live long enough to see the official release. The film also reunites him with Tom Skerritt (after 38 years since they appeared in Alien) and David Lynch (who directed Harry Dean Stanton on numerous occasions). Lucky is a beautiful film of exploration of death and celebration of life. Goodbye Harry.

Conscience with a sinful sound

The most harrowing story of the year where a wee lad - surrounded by death and inhumanity - is fighting for survival in Eastern European countryside during the Second World War. His ordeal is oftentimes painful to watch, some of the scenes are downright disturbing. Václav Marhoul's Painted Bird is a visually stunning masterpiece with a poetic yet unapologetic storytelling. Essentially a European production, but spiced up with a few familiar names such as Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgård and Barry Pepper.

Tombs sit ceremonious

My head almost exploded because the flaws and stupidities of this film were too much to handle. Thankfully all the stupidity is hilarious and it creates quite a ruckus, but sometimes I wonder why the actors even bother with such nonsense.

Everything is meaningful

Hands down, one of the greatest acting performances I've ever witnessed, particularly courtesy of Mads Mikkelsen, Rolf Lassgård and Stine Fischer Christensen. Absolutely stellar shit. And it's a brilliant story. One of those movies that you pick up every so often and are always thoroughly entertained. Directed by Susanne Bier. 

Blood and sand

I've read the first two Peter James's Roy Grace novels - Dead Simple (2005) and Looking Good Dead (2006) - thus far. The season # 1 of Roy Grace is exactly those two novels and it truly is quite decent. As always, lots of material has been left out, but the adaptation is surprisingly pleasant.

The prodigal sun

I probably have said a number of times this or that movie is the worst of the year or the last ten years or whatever. However The Seventh Day hits the new low. Priests are investigating demonic possessions and you'd fall asleep if you weren't so annoyed at its diabolical stupidity. Guy Pearce and Stephen Lang doing God knows what.

Only the cold stones remain

Father Frank's and son Sean's bonding trip takes them to Ireland where they are supposed to say the final goodbye to the woman they both love and toss the ashes of her remains in a remote lake. They have several personal issues to deal with first. And the journey is full of other surprises as well. Done a million times before, but not too much to complain otherwise.

Every justification to kill

An elderly man with dementia goes on a killing spree across North America as he hunts down a nazi who served in Auschwitz. One of my favourite movies of the past few years, released in 2015, starring Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau and Bruno Ganz, all quite recently deceased.

Fountain of Champagne

Covid-19 is for wimps, Covid-21 is the shit. It zombifies the people, it's a hopeless fucking pandemic. A proper shit movie, easily one of the worst that I have ever seen, but I truly enjoyd. Shit story, shit acting, shit everything, but I love watching dismal looking cinema to death.

Into an endless void

A family moves to an apartment where an old woman had lived before. The apartment is full of her things. Everything that was left of her life. She died alone with no one left to miss her. She had no family, so all her belongings were included in the deal when the new residents bought the apartment. She would have been totally forgotten, buried in the ashes of time, unless these folks hadn't made this documentary. It's still fucking sad.

It's called a ghetto blaster

A James Bond movie directed by John Glen in 1987, starring Timothy Dalton as the agent 007, Maryam d'Abo as the Bond girl Kara Milovy, Robert Brown as Bond's superior 'M' (the head of MI6), Desmond Llewelyn as 'Q' (the head of Q division), Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny (MI6 secretary) and Jeroen Krabbé as double agent General Georgi Koskov and Joe Don Baker as arms dealer Brad Whitaker, the main antagonists. The theme song performed by A-Ha. Once again western intelligence and KGB are at each other's throats. The most overlooked film in the series, but I think it's one of the best because without the trademark cheap laughs in the story, it makes the Bond character more serious and darker as well.

Please, let this death be the last

He doesn't know how it's possible, but he keeps on repeating the same day. Always a bunch of assholes he's never seen before kills him for no reason. And he wakes up the next day, just to be killed again. It's kind of what Groundhog Day started and Edge of Tomorrow and Happy Death Day continued, and it's as wicked. And funny too. And violent like, say, John Wick. Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson and Naomi Watts in an adventurous kind of mood.