Sometimes truth defies reason

Bill Paxton's (1955-2017) directorial debut. Adam's and Fenton's dad suddenly realized he's a demon-slayer! He starts receiving orders from God to kill people. Those who to his eyes are demons. To an untrained eye they become a serial killing family. Makes a macabre story and a twisted fun horror movie!

2024

MOVIES

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Eric Appel)
Lone Survivor (Peter Berg)
Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli)
Unhinged (Derrick Borte)
Midnight Run (Martin Brest)
All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor)
People Under the Stairs (Wes Craven)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein)
Titane (Julia Ducournau)
The End of the Storm (James Erskine)
The Last Stop in Yuma County (Francis Galluppi)
Civil War (Alex Garland)
The Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard)
The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass)
The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass)
Jason Bourne (Paul Greengrass)
Saw X (Peter Greutert)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 (James Gunn)
The Hitcher (Mark Harmon)
Big Game (Jalmari Helander)
Riders of Justice (Anders Thomas Jensen)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman)
I Hired a Contract Killer (Aki Kaurismäki)
Kuolleet lehdet (Aki Kaurismäki)
High and Low (Akira Kurosawa)
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos)
The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman)
The Old Oak (Ken Loach)
Myrskyluodon Maija (Tiina Lymi)
Renfield (Chris McKay)
Die Hard with a Vengeance (John McTiernan)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
The Greatest Night in Pop (Bao Nguyen)
Peluri (Teemu Nikki)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
The Accountant (Gavin O'Connor)
Arlington Road (Mark Pellington)
Joker (Todd Phillips)
Linnan juhlat (Tapio Piirainen)
The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
A Man Escaped (Robert Presson)
Häiriötekijä (Aleksi Salmenperä)
A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)
Onibaba (Kaneto Shindô)
The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer)
Traffic (Steven Soderbergh)
As Bestas (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg)
Lynx Man (Juha Suonpää)
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
Ohjus (Miia Tervo)
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)
Jagten (Thomas Vinterberg)
Kong: Skull Island (Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
White Heat (Raoul Walsh)
River (Junta Yamaguchi)

SERIES

American Murder: Laci Peterson (Skye Borgman)
The Sopranos (David Chase)
Baby Reindeer (Richard Gadd)
From (John Griffin)
American Nightmare (Bernadette Higgins, Felicity Morris)
The Chestnut Man (Dorte Warnøe Høgh, David Sandreuter, Søren Sveistrup)
Resident Alien (Chris Sheridan)
Beckham (Fisher Stevens)

BOOKS

Pedro (Janne Flinkkilä)
Melankolian Mestari (Nefertiti Malaty)

R.I.P.

Steve Albini (musician, audio engineer) born 1962 (aged 61)
John Amos (actor) born 1939 (aged 84)
John Ashton (actor) born 1948 (aged 76)
Paul Auster (author) born 1947 (aged 77)
George Baldock (footballer) born 1993 (aged 31)
Franz Beckenbauer (Der Kaiser) born 1945 (aged 78)
Seth Binzer (musician) born 1974 (aged 49)
Andreas Brehme (footballer) born 1960 (aged 63)
Juan Brujo (musician) born 1963 (aged 61)
Kevin Campbell (footballer) born 1970 (aged 55)
Jimmy Carter (president) born 1924 (aged 100)
Victoria Catlin (actress) born 1952 (aged 71)
Kaj Chydenius (composer) born 1939 (aged 84)
Tony Clarkin (musician) born 1946 (aged 77)
Bill Cobbs (actor) born 1934 (aged 90)
Roger Corman (director) born 1926 (aged 98)
Peter Crombie (actor) born 1952 (aged 71)
Alain Delon (actor) born 1935 (aged 88)
Paul Di'Anno (musician) born 1958 (aged 66)
Shannen Doherty (actress) born 1971 (aged 53)
Shelly Duvall (actress) born 1949 (aged 75)
Eija Elenius (friend) born 1960 (aged 64)
Sven-Göran Eriksson (football manager) born 1948 (aged 76)
Kinky Friedman (author, musician) born 1944 (aged 79)
Teri Garr (actress) born 1944 (aged 79)
Louis Gossett Jr. (actor) born 1936 (aged 87)
Jami Haapanen (musician) born 1963 (aged 60)
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (academic researcher) born 1963 (aged 60)
James Earl Jones (actor) born 1931 (aged 93)
Quincy Jones (musician) born 1933 (aged 91)
Maria Jungner (television presenter) born 1973 (aged 50)
Janne Kela (musician) born 1972 (aged 52)
Maki Kolehmainen (musician) born 1966 (aged 58)
James Kottak (musician) born 1962 (aged 61)
Wayne Kramer (musician) born 1948 (aged 75)
Kris Kristofferson (musician, actor) born 1936 (aged 88)
Timo Laukkio (journalist) born 1948 (aged 76)
Kimmo Leijala (poet, friend) born 1982 (aged 42)
Perttu "Pepe" Laaksonen (musician) born 1961 (aged 63)
Richard Lewis (actor) born 1947 (aged 76)
Timo Löyvä (musician) born 1964 (aged 59)
Ewen MacIntosh (actor) born 1972 (aged 50)
Marjorie (singer) born 1965 (aged 58)
John Mayall (musician) born 1933 (aged 90)
Heidi Melan (friend) born 1978 (aged 46)
Michael Mosley (doctor) born 1957 (aged 67)
Bjørn Müller (musician) born 1960 (aged 64)
Alexei Navalny (activist) born 1976 (aged 47)
Juhani Palmu (painter) born 1944 (aged 79)
Olli "Rock-Ola" Pihlajamaa (musician) born 1962 (aged 61)
Jussi Raittinen (musician) born 1943 (aged 80)
Jack Russell (musician) born 1960 (aged 63)
Ritva Santavuori (attorney) born 1932 (aged 91)
Reetta Räisä (musician) born 1975) (aged 49)
Pentti Saaritsa (poet) born 1941 (aged 82)
Leif Segerstam (composer) born 1944 (aged 80)
Craig Shakespeare (football coach) born 1963 (aged 60)
James B. Sikking (actor) born 1934 (aged 90)
Heikki Silvennoinen (musician) born 1954 (aged 70)
O.J. Simpson (criminal) born 1947 (aged 76)
Maggie Smith (actress) born 1934 (aged 89)
Morgan Spurlock (filmmaker) born 1970 (aged 53)
Petri Sulonen (footballer) born 1963 (aged 60)
Tapio Suominen (journalist) born 1964 (aged 60)
Donald Sutherland (actor) born 1935 (aged 88)
Ari Taskinen (musician) born 1959 (aged 64)
Esko-Juhani Tennilä (politician) born 1947 (aged 76)
Jaakko Teppo (musician) born 1953 (aged 71)
Anssi Tikanmäki (musician) born 1955 (aged 69)
Dennis Thompson (musician) born 1948 (aged 75)
Tony Todd (actor) born 1954 (aged 69)
Erkki Vanhanen (TV broadcaster) born 1940 (aged 84)
Hannu Velmala (teacher) born 1948 (aged 76)
Vilma (beloved cat)
Kari Wahlroos (childhood friend, network marketer) born 1968 (aged 56)
M. Emmet Walsh (actor) born 1935 (aged 88)
Carl Weathers (actor) born 1948 (aged 76)
Tore Ylvisaker (musician) born 1970 (aged 54)

Fight fire with fire

A teen-aged boy and his mother move to a small town after their father and husband is shot dead in the streets of Chicago. The boy meets new friends and is immediately introduced to the backwoods gun culture. Good Guy with a Gun, by John Mossman, is a rural noir thriller that attempts to draw attention to the horrors of gun violence, but makes a lacklustre film.

A peerless fucked-up butcher

One of the best movies of all time. Maybe the best thriller in the world. Sure there's the riveting unique plot with a twist of a lifetime, but a masterpiece as a whole. A tremendous performance by the cast. Suspense of almost mythic proportions! No words do justice.

The cemetery in human heart

Former CIA executive, a woman living in the woods, is brought back into action. Pretty inconvenient because she was just about to kill herself. But the instincts kick off and bunch of commandos are just something to shrug off your shoulders. Solid, but a little stupid thriller. 

Quone a patient

And just like that, almost imperceptibly I watched the first season of Seinfeld. Of course, it's only five episodes, but still. The series that keeps on giving and hasn't aged one bit.

That kid ain't a killer

A hitchhiker leaves quite a many dead people in his wake. A young man escapes the clutches of him and is subsequently stalked by the fucker. Even framed for his crimes! A perfect old-school thriller and a bona fide cult classic.

Godless suburban life

A riveting film full of paranoia. A man suspects there's something fishy going on next door. The neighbors are not what they appear to be. But you can't just walk to the police and say they are terrorists or otherwise a threat to the society. You need evidence. Mark Pellington's Arlington Road is a bloody good thriller.

Liberated from the hell of living

An FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned to catch a serial killer responsible for murdering multiple families throughout Oregon for decades. Creepy horror shit as a whole, but Nicolas Cage still steals the show as an off-putting and disturbing occult freak Longlegs. To an acquired horror taste only.

Damnation without applause

Hectic as shit. Too much action to chew on and the plot itself, the characters and their motives were buried under tightly paced action. However lots of the cool 90s action thriller vibes. Reminiscences of Speed, Die Hard, Phone Booth and others. An enjoyable ride with a pretty weak story line.

How you wage war on your own family

Traffic by Steven Soderberg has a triple plot. Three stories all involved with narcotics. There's Mexican policemen and ruthless drug cartels everywhere, DEA agents protecting a witness about to testify against a drug boss and the daughter of the head of DEA addicted to crack cocaine. This amazing film travels between these universes with bottomless ease.  

Kill, adapt or die

Wolves can be a relationship killer. A man goes hunting with the friend and former lover of his fiancée and it becomes a fight for a survival. A pack of wolves out there in the woods as well. A survival thriller genre has hit the all-time low.

Where the end times begin

Architect John Kersey is back in L.A. He's hired to eliminate drug dealers. From the smallest street corner pushers to the fat cats on top, anybody connected with drugs has to die. Kersey's girlfriend's daughter just overdosed on cocaine and died, so the mission is a no-brainer to Kersey. Gotta keep the killing discreet though because the police have a hunch that's he's the Vigilante, an unknown justice-fighter who has cleaned the streets of scumbags in New York and L.A. before. He's so good, Kersey, cops and drug lords are helpless. Too bad the movie is terribly outdated and flawed.

The long road home

Russell Crowe is a menacing figure in Unhinged. Too bad the main character, Caren Pistorius's Rachel, is silly and sometimes downright stupid, so it takes a lot away from an otherwise cool flick where road rage turns crazy revenge. 

It all starts with a simple choice

Six strangers meet at the El Royale hotel of Lake Tahoe. There's secrets hidden. Drew Goddard's Bad times at the El Royale is such a fun crime thriller, outstanding cinematography, brilliant soundtrack and an overall hoot.

Where fun goes to die

Some of the scenes in Gave O'Connor's The Accountant you need to pause, just to let it sink what you just witnessed. Then rewind and watch them again. The action, not that it comes around too often, is arrestingly straight-forward and firm. Easily Ben Affleck's strongest role to date. He's plays a smart accountant, and a part-time mercenary, Christian Wolff who is such a cool character that it's a shame they didn't franchise it like Bond or Bourne.

March of the boom boom

The security of a British outpost in Afghanistan has been compromised. An enormous compound is guarded by two soldiers. I was as busy counting plot-holes as they were counting bullets. Combat movie trash.

A blind pig must use its nose

Nothing but a popcorn movie. Freelance is an action comedy adventure where bodies are piling up for fun. It's silly and easily forgettable waste of time packed full of embarrassingly corny one-liners that are supposed to make you laugh.  

In men there is madness

 

Nothing can go wrong when a hot summer day in Ostrobothnia, Finland, includes debt collection, a submachine gun, moonshine liquor and stubborn brothers. Pekka Parikka's Pohjanmaa (1988) is a narrative into landscape of the Finnish soul.

Feed the beast within

Esko Ketola is a veteran weightlifter. Teräsvaari is a documentary where this 72 year old iron man prepares to compete in a World Cup in Argentina. He's a confident man, resiliently fights against the hardship of getting old. Quite decent, but they just as well could have written an article somewhere instead of filming the process.

Bad vibes terminated

People are collectively seeing dreams of Paul Matthews who is an actual man, a professor, in real life. First they are normal dreams, harmless, good dreams and some of sexual nature even. And that makes Paul famous, a national phenomenon. Then the dreams turn into nightmares. And he's no longer popular. He becomes despised and ostracised. What a movie. A bloody hilarious dark comedy, a borderline horror flick. Nicolas Cage is on fire.

A chalice of poisoned blood

A Danish movie set in Greenland. And based on it the life out there is quite straightforward and nice. To Jan, a Danish nurse working there, the Greenlandic way of living gets under his skin. Kalak is based on an autobiographical novel by Kim Leine, who also contributed to the screenplay, it's directed by Isabella Eklöf. You don't get to see movies shot in places like Nuuk, Greenland, too often, so it's a treat. By the same token, had it been shot somewhere else, no one would hardly bat an eyelid.

Part science part religion

To understand and choke them, Kate studied the fuck out of tornadoes. Her friends die. Years later she's hunting them dust devils yet again, meets a charming YouTuber and things fall into place. Purely on technical terms, Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters is very well made, but everything else bit of a bore and seen so many times before.

Lured there for a reason

This is grotesque and bloody disgusting. One of the most graphic contemporary video nasties. Art the Clown ain't messing around. He doesn't talk but kills like a motherfucker. Absolute sickening bonkers the whole thing, it's horror would have been more effective and scarier without the unnecessary supernatural bits though.

Discarded headlines

A decent Danish film. But unfortunately Mikkel Serup's Mørkeland (a sequel to Nikolaj Arcel's Kongekabale) is nothing else. There's an investigative journalist (Anders W. Berthelsen) in the middle of political conspiracy. It's as exciting as the next political thriller, but hopelessly dull and carried too much by the performance of Anders W. Berthelsen only.

True king builds bridges

It feels like you are looking at a video game and you are bored out of your tits. It's like an animated feature and they plastered real people like Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman and Dolph Lundgren in it. It probably was just played out in a green room somewhere and that's it. Perhaps they just photographed the actors and let the AI generate the rest. Sure it's colorful and wild, but it's as much stupid too.

One more river to cross

Finnish director Joey Palmroos's The Outlaws (aka 5 Outlaws) is just amateurish western indie that really gives you nothing. A posse makes a train robbery, hide in the woods and suddenly their loot disappears. That's 75 minutes that last like a lifetime. Although advertised as the lead star everyhere, Eric Roberts makes his first appearance in the 57th minute, his screen time is mere crumbs.

Never going to find any peace

The CIA's former operative Jason Bourne is drawn out of hiding! And his former employer wants to kill him dead! This is a welcome return of the character, Paul Greengrass back at the helm. Plenty of well executed high octane action sequences and the new cast (Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassell and Alicia Vikander) delivered incredibly well. Besides the director Greengrass, Matt Damon returns to the series.

God sends dogs for the unfortunates

A childhood tragedy made Douglas Munrow (Caleb Landry Jones) to trust none but dogs. He runs a New Jersey State dog shelter and if necessary he can use them to offer protection services for others or even perform robberies and implement his own revenge on his enemies. Dogman is a Luc Besson film. It's quite boring to tell the truth and particularly towards the end the story gets carried out a bit too much.

A coffin considered as furniture

These things are the greatest. Unfamiliar faces as the actors, but they are all great. A simple crime thriller without too much excess nonsense, just good writing and shot brilliantly. There's a gas station in a middle of nowhere and they've run out of gasoline. Little by little it's getting crowded, all sorts of folks hole up in there to wait for the fuel truck. Couple of bank robbers on the run included! A lovely story. Possibly the biggest positive surprise of the year.

Sometimes we fight alone

A man is found dead in the snow under a balcony. They suspect it's the wife who killed him. The defense says he fell down from an open window, accidentally or on purpose. The couple's blind son is the only eye witness. It's quite a riveting trial.

Monsters aren't real

FBI and the police know that he's one of the 3000 men in the audience of over 20,000 in the concert of pop star Lady Raven. He's 'the Butcher', a notorious serial killer. He's also a dad watching the show with his daughter. M. Night Shaymalan's latest piece Trap is entertaining in its own right, but c'mon it's fucking ridiculous and full of gaping plot-holes.

All this and more

A stand-up comedian struggles to co-parent his autistic son. A simple story, seen many times before, but solid and entertaining little flick nevertheless. Them actors are all pretty good.

Going down to blood circus

Esa Jussila's (Pri)sons is ultra-violent Finnish film. They're bashing heads aplenty, it's ridiculously bloody and disgusting. There's no story to speak of and the acting is terrible.

Not everyone is cut out for everything

What a letdown the last episode in an otherwise interesting movie. Kinds of Kindness, by Yorgos Lanthimos, is in fact three movies in one movie. They are starring the same people, namely Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Yorgos Stefanakos, Hong Chau and Mamoudou Athie. The absurd triptych fable includes a domineering boss (Willem Dafoe) and his subordinates (episode:The Death of R.M.F.),  a policeman (Jesse Plemons) who thinks that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person now (episode: R.M.F. Is Flying) and a sex cult is looking for a prodigious spiritual leader of a sex cult (episode: R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich). Begs patience for a viewer, but pays off a too little in the end and indulges itself in surrealism too much. A few funny bits were great though.

Don't break the circle

Push the floor numbers on a certain order and the elevator takes you to journey of nightmares. Elevator Game has couple of good scares and it's a decent attempt of old-school horror as a whole. But the understanding of keeping the brooding atmosphere going throughout the movie turns out to be difficult. Low budget and flaws everywhere don't help.

From the past comes the storms

They would have made something decent out of this had they got the courage to left a big chunk of the material on the editing room floor. So slow-burning western pathos that it's frustrating. Written and directed by Viggo Mortensen.

Seize the identity you want for yourself

A college teacher helps out the local police portraying a hitman and thus uncovering people looking for a liquidator doing a murder for them. He falls in love with one of his clients and we pretend it's all very funny and exciting.

Until months, to days, to hours, to seconds

Had there not been John Krasinski's A Quiet Place (2018) and A Quiet Place Part II (2020), A Quiet Place: Day One, by Michael Sarnoski, would be a terrific horror flick. Obviously it rides on the original idea, but even though manages to cover some of the plot-holes of its predecessors, doesn't come with a fresh approach. It's more or less the same, these alien freaks with excellent hearing hunt down humans who can't keep their noise down. This movie introduced a cancer-ridden woman (quite excellent Lupita Nyong'o), accompanied by a cat and a British student, who wants to get a slice of pizza in Harlem before she dies.

The fifth rider of the apocalypse

A thrill ride of crazy stunts and choreography. George Miller's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It's full of action and the story is epic madness. A mixed bag of entertaining things. Rich characters, awesome sequences with wacko graphic violence and wholehearted fun.

The poisoning of the earth

A crime thriller masquerared as a comedy. In a nutshell, Potsy Ponciroli's Greedy People is a flawed story that's not funny. It starts off light as a feather and ends up dark as night. The askew narrative didn't know where it was going.

Some water is magic

A swimming pool is evil. A former major league baseball player Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), with his wife and their two children, moves into a new home and in its backyard lies this malignant pool. It's haunted, but drowns you in boredom really.  

Harpoon to the heart

A cult movie but no one really understands why. It's shit any way you look at it. So bad it's really bad. Some camp value on a side note only.

The law is wrong

Humans ruled the planet for thousands of years. But when a weird virus spread out, humans became stupid and apes took control. They somehow robbed human's intellect and ability to speak. Coexisting with one and other was a fucking mess still. Wes Ball's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is probably the weakest film in the whole Planet of the Apes franchise.

No time to get ginger ale

To put it short, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have aged a little bit more and they still can't act. Of course it's a shit story too.

The unfortunates of the world

Classic. What's there in the chemistry between Robert de Niro and Charles Brodin alone. But Dennis Farina as a mob boss, Yaphet Kotto as an FBI honcho and John Ashton as a bounty hunter. They make a terrific cast. Midnight Run, by Martin Brest, is an adventurous buddy comedy and a road movie of a bondsman escorting a former mob accountant across country from New York City to Los Angeles. Hardly no weak moments here.

Written on the wind

Earth is pretty much uninhabitable because there's no oxygen left. Handful of people are holed up living in basements and underground tunnels. Luckily they are quite intelligent and have devices to produce precious air. Freshen up a bit, eat healthy and do normal stuff like read. With state-of-the-art oxygen kits they can explore the world, scavenge for food and supplies. Things get tricky and possible volatile when people meet other people and it's a guessing game are all the gun-toting strangers reliable and nice. It's a bit silly, Stefon Bristol's Breathe, but there are worse dystopian flicks out there.

Tuning chemistry

Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass didn't want to have anything to do with this movie. It's a different animal. Jason Bourne is mentioned only in passing altho the film rides quite shamelessly on his name. It's still packed with great action. Packed on shit storyline. But still. 

Not with a bang, but a whimper

This is great. It's so unbelievably bad that the total shittiness is an absolute asset and Ice Storm is entertaining as fuck. That comes with the worst of the worst, it's like a natural phenomena, you're nailed to your seat, mesmerized by everything you see. Super cool.

The sky singing with all its might

It's quite simple. Anchorman 2, like lots of Will Ferrell comedies in fact, it's either pure comedy gold or it's embarrassing and not really funny at all. Particularly embarrassing was Steve Carell's performance and what was penned for his character. Otherwise, it's something like 10 minutes heartfelt laughs and the rest is abominable rubbish. Should never have been released.

Muddy springs aren't always deep

It's a Finnish road movie. And it looks like a Finnish road movie. A philosopher (Ville Myllyrinne) residing in Lapland is invited to Independence Day Reception in Helsinki and he takes a 1200 km taxi drive through Finland accompanied by an eccentric driver (Kai Lehtinen). It's an easy-going and relatively funny trip.