One more death

The Good Father by Shô Kataoka. It's kind of weird and that makes it exciting, but the more you watch it, the more it transforms stupid and silly. The Kubo family are involved in a car accident and they don't come back the same as before.

Prelude to the alchemy of the future

It's embarrassing. Chris Pine writes. And directs. And he's the lead star in Poolman. An absolute joke of a movie. A comedy that's nowhere even near funny. Tries to be offbeat and cool, but it's only confusing. Just a bunch of quirky dialogue thrown around hoping some of it would stick. None of it does. Horrible drivel. Not worth a fucking cent.

Fury forged in war

To properly retaliate Nazi Germany's bombing of England's cities, the Brits build the Lancaster bomber that was a machine made for war and that in fact of major reason for Allies winning the damn WWII. The story is told through the words of the last surviving crew members. Epic and eye-opening material.

The worst of humanity's traits

A stuntman breaks his back, ruins his career and workplace romance. He's called back, but soon framed for murder! The Fall Guy is a light-hearted comedy thriller with a very thin plot where Ryan Gosling looks weird.

On a shoot-on-sight authorization

Incredible. One of the most thrilling high-octane agent flicks. Paced to perfection and executed with relentless energy. This is the way how thrillers should be made. Nothing but impressiveness.

Nuns have more fun

People are losing interest in religion, so in all wisdom Church needs to create something to fear. A small, but powerful group of priests and bishops, even higher, they decide something drastic has to be done. These priests believe they can birth the Antichrist and then control him! Allow him to bring his dark forces to bear on the world just enough to drive people back to the Church! Blimey! A prequel to the original The Omen (1976), it has a few decent moments but pretty dull as a whole.

The art of kissing the cold ground

Tough one. Outlast season 2 was presented like a proper survival reality TV, sending bunch of people to Alaskan wilderness with bare essentials only and a mere good luck note. They have to eat mushrooms, hunt squirrels and mice for food. Somehow keep themselves warm, nourished and hydrated. And 6 out of 8 episodes it’s exciting. Needlessly the producers watered down the whole project. The last two episodes ruined the whole thing, it no longer was about surviving in the forest and making the ends meet. The competition became extremely unfair, favoring certain individuals, to the point that it’s fair to say it’s a fixed result.

Barely braking the skin

An ex Marine on his way to bail out his cousin from jail confronts hillbilly cops who are crooked to the bone. Rebel Ridge harks back to the Reacher films and it’s overall an okay film, but unfortunately not much more.

Nothing but a fuck puppet

Boy (Bill Skarsgård) has only one purpose. To kill Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), the devious leader of an unnamed city and responsible of the death of Boy’s family. One of these non-stop blood-drenched mayhem and carnage flicks, heads are bashed in and the violence is graphic and it’s everywhere. It’s either a real blast for some or it suffocates in its own excessiveness for others. In the region of Bullet Train, Sin City, John Wick and Kill Bill, but not as balanced story telling.

A wish beyond daydream

Millions of dollars of drug cartel money is hidden inside a hospital that's scheduled to be demolished. Three desperate parties want the find the money and run away before the charges are set to blow the establishment to kingdom come. The clock is fucking ticking. Dolph Lundgren's Castle Falls is cheap and stupid garbage.

Legacy of misery

It's like a man walks out of prison and he seems so unhappy that it makes you wonder if he want to go back in. Elsewhere a young woman is raped. Kills a cop, too. These two lost souls meet and their path is paved with unexceptional boredom.

Guys wound so tight they were bound to snap

An amnesiac agent Jason Bourne has retired in Goa, India, but he's framed for murder in Europe, so he's forced to resume his profession. The Bourne Supremacy (2004) is a sequel to The Bourne Identity (2002), and those two make better and exciting spy thrills than the James Bond franchise altogether.

In a bodybag by sundown

Do they make thrillers like this these days? If not, they should. The Bourne Identity is a clever high-octane thing with no loose ends. A nail-biting fucker. Agent Jason Bourne is found bullet-riddled and suffering from amnesia. He gradually understands a little bit of himself and what he's supposed to be doing. But everything is a great labyrinth of deception and the truth is hard to decipher.

School of hard knocks

The film follows the continued career of Fisherman's Friends (a sea shanties performing folk group), their second album and performing at Glastonbury music festival. A few struggles with the pressures and such, but nothing too challenging. A too predictable a piece, an unnecessary sequel, but heart-warming and quite lovely shit to watch nevertheless.

An ocean of dungeons

It’s 1907. Norwegian miners aren’t too happy with their greedy owners, so they make a rebellion against them. It looks like Nordic Wild West and that’s kind of cool. But otherwise, a fucking bore.

Before the piano wire gets too tight

America is in a civil war. We follow a carful of journalists and their journey towards the capital Washington D.C. and the President of the United States to get a quote of the fucking mess. They witness and encounter shit that's pretty repulsive and are constantly in danger. Alex Garland's Civil War is quite brilliant in its warfare, but disappointing in a sense that it hardly carries any message within. Exciting and intense, but a missed opportunity.

A void in humanity

Pretty wonderful. It's sad with wars and deaths and all, but those are beautifully put together with a simple yet harsh family life in an isolated island of Stormskerry (Stormskär) in Åland, Finland. Annoyingly slow-moving at first, but when it got going, it never let go. Directed by Tiina Lymi.

Always carve with compassion

Something else. Bella's own brain is replaced by the brain of her unborn baby. Thus begins the evolution of a young woman. Take that for a premise of a story. The movie is quite off-putting with its abstract imagery at first, but turns out to be engaging and unique. A weird masterpiece.

The winds of a patient man

A man is in a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean when his yacht collides a floating shipping container disabling his navigation equipment and radio. It takes proper wits and self reliance to survive the disaster and the incoming storms alive! All is Lost is a film with hardly any dialogue and just proves the versatility of the talent of Robert Redford. The movie however is just his character trying to stay alive. It's a brilliant adventure of isolation and great danger.

Thinning the herd

Architect Paul Kersey, a vigilante on free time, has kept the streets clean from scum and filth in New York and Los Angeles before. And now he returns to New York to make things right again. This time however, he has a right to vigilante! And become the neighbourhood hero if justice is brought to the streets record time! Scumbags, street gangs, drug dealers, rapists and degenerates better beware! Michael Winner's Death Wish 3 (1985) is exaggerated urban lawlessness to no end.

Countdown to cold graves

Paul Kersey, an architect by trade, is a vigilante. In New York, wrong-doers killed his wife and raped his daughter. He took revenge on the fuckers! Paul moves to Los Angeles and eight years later, some scumbags hurt his family yet again! Retribution must be executed at all costs! Death Wish II was directed by Michael Winner in 1992, the soundtrack was composed by his then neighbor Jimmy Page and the movie stars Charles Bronson as the architect and people like Laurence Fishburne, Kevyn Major Howard and Thomas D. Duffy as the muggers.

Prophets get stronger when they die

Reckon it would be blasphemous to criticize and ridicule anything so epic and grandiose. Dune: Part Two is yet another endless journey in a sand planet somewhere where a couple of tribes fight for power and a valuable spice that is a key to interstellar travel. It's done well, stripped off some of its running time and pseudo-mythical mumbo-jumbo, it would have been better.

The return of the sun after long darkness

Everything is shrouded with factitious mystery. To be part of the True Detective franchise, they probably just decided to be super mystic and obscure. Backfires big time. It's just weird and plastic. And after all the secrecy and puzzlement a simple and silly ending top offs the stupidity of the fucking thing. Ridiculous plotholes are aplenty too. And to be perfectly honest, not sure about Jodie Foster's performance either.

Even ghosts must have feelings

A ghost writer, completing the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister because the previous writer had been found dead, uncovers secrets and, in turn, puts himself at danger of death. The Ghost Writer is an amazing espionage thriller, courtesy of Roman Polanski. It’s old-fashioned thrills and atmosphere. Quite smart and exciting.

Burned by thousand dawns

The Lapua Cartridge Factory explosion happened in Lapua in 1976. It is Finland’s worst industrial disaster. 40 workers dead and 60 injured. Lapua 1976, the movie, directed by Toni Kurkimäki, is a wishy-washy love story of two workers in the factory. They could have carved so much more of the incident, but the catastrophe is just a sideshow.

Top of the world

Wasn't it quite brutal. Raoul Walsh's White Heat. From 1949. James Cagney is a mean and violent son of a bitch, a frightening figure for both cops and fellow criminals. A perfect psychopath. A brute force of nature. Makes intense film noir.

Obsolete and unspoken

A Finnish-Iranian action movie. Nothing can go wrong. Right? A hero fire fighter becomes the Persian Chuck Norris after his wife is kidnapped and suddenly he has enemies everywhere. Little embarrassing the whole charade, but somehow an appreciating effort nevertheless.

The ones who left in time

Caught from Netflix. A 3-episode piece of the murder of Laci Peterson. Horrible tragedy, disgusting details of the life and death of a beautiful young woman. Happened in 2002 and now twenty years later, Laci's mother and friends speak out, revisiting this terrible thing.

Dreams between two worlds

What a bleak little Aussie indie. It's b&w, so the heavyheartedness is emphasized even more. A cop investigates an unsolved 20-year old case where a small town girl had been kidnapped, possibly killed. No funny moments here. Hardly anything really.

Fortunate men taste the same misery as the unfortunate

Fuckers kidnapped the wrong son! But a wealthy businessman still decides to pay up. It builds up a proper thriller. Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963) is the best detective reasoning I've ever seen. The story unfolds slowly but once it gets going it's a mesmerizing and magical ride.

A dusk of damnation's pride

John Knox is a mob hitman. He's diagnosed with a fast-moving form of dementia called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It's worse the Alzheimer's they say. He needs to retire. Go away. But before that Knox has few things he gotta do right. Including saving his son from trouble. Nothing's amiss in Knox Goes Away, directed by Michael Keaton. It's a cool thriller.

A psychic jail for the rest of eternity

The Ghostbusters team stumbles upon a mysterious orb that is a magical prison for a phantom God called Garraka. And he's the ruler of the undead and can free ghastly forces from the depths of history. Pretty scary, but because there are two or even three generations of ghost hunters fighting side by side, it's a walk in the park really. 

Paint it black

It started as an art exercise, an art school student digs deep into his subconsciousness and he starts seeing crazy nightmarish things. Elsewhere, his dad is experiencing more or less the same shit. Some of the jump scares were cool, but in the end Insidious, by Patrick Wilson (his directorial debut), is rubbish.

War in heaven

A 2021 James Bond movie directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, starring Daniel Craig as the retired agent 007, Lashana Lynch as the officiating 007, Ralph Fiennes as Bond's superior M (the head of M16), Ben Whishaw as Q (the head of Department Q), Naomie Harris as Miss Moneypenny (secretary to M) and Rami Malek as the main antagonist Lyutsifer Safin. Theme song No Time to Die performed by Billie Eilish. James Bond has retired, but his old pal Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) in the CIA needs his help. The consequences are devastating.

Space does not cooperate

A super fun and exciting movie. As was the novel (by Andy Weir). Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm in Mars and he's left behind by his crew. Once he manages to signal to Earth he's alive, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring Watney home, until then he must rely on his ingenuity to survive. Ridley Scott's The Martian sits among his best works.

Let's go be immortal

It's hard to believe this is a true story. A Gran Turismo (a driving simulation game) player develops into a full-blown race car driver. Not only it's cool story, it makes a perfectly entertaining movie as well. Its told with passion and expertise. Great acting, particularly by Orlando Bloom and David Harbour.

Bullets in the chamber

What a load of crap. A stupid film. A computer geek, former hacker, sits on a chair filled with explosives. He stands up, he blows to kingdom come. He's blackmailed to hack into high-level banking systems and breach their firewalls. And while doing so everyone in the world thinks he's a terrorist blowing shit up. Hot Seat is another plotholed movie, the only fun thing is to find the goofs. They're aplenty. Starring Mel Gibson, Kevin Dillon and Shannen Doherty. Otherwise, the acting is horrible.

No stranger to danger

There's something else. We find out that Kong and Godzilla are not the only great beasts in the world and Hollow Earth (an internal region inside the world). In fact, Kong is a pretty mellow chap as a whole, Godzilla has more temper. But nevertheless there's more terrible titans terrorizing the planet and endangering its future. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is brainless fantasy junk, but it's entertaining.

Kids are little cunts

A screenwriter often visits his parents who passed away in a car accident when he was 12. Such a critically acclaimed drama, All of Us Strangers, by Andrew Haigh, but also a slow-moving boring affair.

Who's not pagan in some matters?

In 11th century Normandy, a knight builds a defensive fortress in order to guard the borders against barbarians and falls in love with a local pig farmer woman. The story is quite nice and for a 1965 film, the action bits are brilliantly executed. Too bad all the characters were despicable.

Messenger for the ghosts

The Danish original, Gustav Möller's Den skyldige (2018), was flawed as shit. Some changes in this Hollywood remake, but they couldn't find and fill up the most gaping holes in the story. However it's in spite of everything quite exciting. Unfortunately it also proves why Jake Gyllenhaal just yet ain't an A-list actor.

For the ones who stayed

Kenneth Branaugh's film is an autobiographical account from his childhood. Belfast, 1969. Times were hard and intimidating as Protestants and Catholics were at each other's throats. Stunning cinematography, excellent artistry, but otherwise little to offer.

A smelly pirate hooker

Why is that when you see bits of these Hollywood comedies on your feed and they are always freakishly funny and when you decide to watch the actual movie, it's a fucking bore?

Working class has no fatherland

A man attempts suicide, but can't go through with it. So he hires a hitman to do the job for him. However he falls in love with a flower-seller and would very much like to continue living. Cancelling the contract turns out to be difficult. I Hired a Contract Killer is an Aki Kaurismäki film, beautiful laconic cinema. And funny at the most unusual places!

Sympathy for the devil

What an interesting little thing. At least at first it is and then you are irritated by the actions of the lead character and the obvious mistakes and plot-holes thrown your way. An alarm dispatcher answers an emergency call from a kidnapped woman and he enters a race against time to save her. Danish Den skyldige, by Gustav Möller, is an intensive film, but ultimately fails to deliver.

The ones above, the ones below, and the ones who fall

It's a simple premise. A prison is split in levels. A platform of an exquisite buffet travels downwards and stops for 2 minutes at every level. During that time, two prisoners in the level can eat all they want from the buffet. Of course, the supply diminishes each level and by the time it reaches the bottom, there's no food left. To make it more interesting and arbitrary, prisoners are changing levels each month, so they might get lucky. Or they don't. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia's El hoyo is a movie full of symbolism and social study, but it's also quite a vulgar and darkly comical bit as a plain film too. 

The hope that causes so much pain

Perhaps a little bit too idealistic and sugar-coated story of Syrian refugees locating in a small village of Northeast England, but quite heartfelt and wonderful all the same. Apparently director Ken Loach's final film, his retirement is well deserved.

Afraid of time

Earth is becoming uninhabitable. They are running out of food to eat and oxygen to breathe. Astronauts are tasked to find a new planet for humans. Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is a visually stunning and thought-provoking sci-fi movie. A monumental epic even though some of the scientific jargon is quite unimaginable.

No man comes home from war

Explorers and soldiers explore an uncharted island only to soon discover that their mission may be complicated by the wildlife which inhabits the place. It's a bit silly and stupid the whole thing, but nothing too complex and it makes good fantasy. Just enjoy the ride.

Angry heart inherits the earth

A groundbreaking film. By Steven Spielberg. The security of a theme park for cloned dinosaurs is compromised and a group of experts invited to inspect the facilities find themselves in a battle for survival. One of the greatest and exciting adventures in modern day cinema.