Peace in the valley

It's there but not quite there. Lots of positives. Titus Welliwer is perfect as Harry Bosch, the famous detective from Michael Connelly novels. A good actor, nothing too flashy, a common man, coplike, suits the suit. And the story, it's all good stuff. Brilliant even. But still, at times, it feels like it's too quickly assembled together, overshadows the stories, standard issue fastly produced television.

Paradise waits for no one

I had forgotten the real shit what happened. The Taj Hotel siege and other cowardish terrorist attacks that took place simultaneously in Mumbai, India, in 2008, killing at least 174 people and wounding hundreds of others. The 9 attackers were all from Pakistan and they all now rest in hell for all eternity. In the hotel the terrorists mercilessly slaughtered its residents. The brave few employees and guests tried to escape the fuckers for several hours because the help on the way was excruciatingly slow. Pretty outstanding movie to start a new year with.

2019

MOVIES

Hereditary (Ari Aster)
The Hard Way (John Badham)
The Florida Project (Sean Baker)
Searching (Aneesh Chaganty)
The Dictator (Larry Charles)
Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen)
A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood)
The Mule (Clint Eastwood)
Green Book (Peter Farrelly)
Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher)
The Exorcist (William Friedkin)
The Place (Paolo Genovese)
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Vince Gilligan)
Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard)
Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton)
Suomen hauskin mies (Heikki Kujanpää)
Happy Death Day 2U (Christopher Landon)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann)
Vice (Adam McKay)
Donnie Brasco (Mike Newell)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mike Newell)
Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
Arlington Road (Mark Pellington)
Arctic (Joe Penna)
Tyhjiö (Aleksi Salmenperä)
Sicario 2: Soldado (Stefano Sollima)
U Turn (Oliver Stone)
Joe Kidd (John Sturges)
Sicario (Dennis Villeneuve)
Iron Sky: The Coming Race (Timo Vuorensola)
Upgrade (Leigh Whannell)
Free Fire (Ben Wheatley)

SERIES

Conversations with a Killer: Ted Bundy Tapes (Joe Berlinger)
Derren Brown: Infamous (Derren Brown)
Mindhunter (David Fincher)
The Looming Tower (Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney, Lawrence Wright)
After Life (Ricky Gervais)
Vikings (Michael Hirst)
Escape at Dannemore (Brett Johnson, Michael Tolkin)
Billions  (Brian Koppelman)
Chernobyl (Craig Mazin)
True Detective (Nic Pizzolatto)
M/S Romantic (Jani Volanen)

R.I.P.

Matti Ahde (politician) born 1945 (age 73)
Danny Aiello (actor, Do the Right thing, Leon)  born 1933 (age 86)
Claes Andersson (poet, jazz musician, politician) born 1937 (age 82)
Ginger Baker (musician, Cream) born 1939 (age 80)
Gordon Banks (goalkeeper, Leicester, England) born 1937 (age 81)
Richard Brunelle (musician, Morbid Angel) born 1964 (age 55)
Paul Benjamin (actor, Escape from Alcatraz) born 1938 (age 81)
Jake Black (musician, Alabama 3) born 1960 (age 59)
Larry Carroll (painter, Reign in Blood) born 1954 (age 65)
Seymour Cassell (actor, In the Soup) born 1935 (age 84)
Jacques Chirac (president) born 1932 (age 86)
Larry Cohen (director, screenwriter, Phone Booth) borm 1936 (age 82)
Bruce Corbitt (musician, Rigor Mortis) born 1962 (age 56)
Dick Dale (The King of the Surf Guitar) born 1937 (age 81)
Doris Day (actress, The Man Who Knew Too Much) born 1922 (age 97)
Billy Drago (actor, The Untouchables, Pale Driver) born 1945 (age 73)
Dr. John (musician) born 1941 (age 77)
Roky Erickson (a heroic music icon) born 1947 (age 71)
Albert Finney (actor, Big Fish) born 1936 (age 82)
Keith Flint (musician, The Prodigy) born 1969 (age 49)
Peter Fonda (actor, Easy Rider) born 1940 (age 79)
Robert Forster (actor, Jackie Brown) born 1941 (age 78)
Marie Fredriksson (musician, Roxette) born 1958 (age 61)
Bruno Gantz (actor, Der Untergang) born 1941 (age 77)
Grumpy Cat (grumpy cat) born 2012 (age 7)
Sid Haig (actor, House of 1000 Corpses) born 1939 (age 80)
Timi Hansen (musician, Mercyful Fate) born 1958 (age 61)
Rutger Hauer (actor, Blade Runner, The Hitcher) born 1944 (age 75)
Anna-Kaisa Hermunen (journalist) born 1948 (age 71)
Peter Hobbs (musician, Hobbs' Angel of Death) born 1961 (age 58)
Ismo Kallio (actor) born 1935 (age 83)
Jorma Kinnunen (athlete) born 1941 (age 77)
Karl Lagerfeld (costume designer, Chanel) born 1933 (age 85)
Niki Lauda (Formula 1 legend, three times world champion) born 1949 (age 70)
Kari Lehtola (a major accident investigator) born 1938 (age 80)
Reino Lehväslaiho (author) born 1922 (age 96)
Charles Levin (actor, Seinfeld) born 1949 (age 70)
Olli Lindholm (musician, Appendix, Yö) born 1964 (age 54)
Peggy Lipton (actress, Twin Peaks) born 1946 (age 72)
Ross Lowell (inventor, gaffer tape) born 1926 (age 92)
Harri Marstio (musician) born 1957  (age 61)
Andre Matos (musician, Angra, Viper) born 1972 (age 47)
Peter Mayhew (actor, Chewbacca) born 1944 (age 74)
Dick Miller (actor, The 'Burbs, Gremlins) born 1928 (age 90)
Toni Morrison (author, Jazz) born 1931 (age 88)
Robert Mugabe (President of Zimbabwe, dictator) born 1924 (age 95)
Olli Mäki (boxer) born 1936 (age 82)
Ilkka Nummisto (strongest man in Finland) born 1944 (age 75)
Matti Nykänen (ski jumper, Olympic winner) born 1963 (age 55)
Luke Perry (actor, Beverly Hills, 90210) born 1966 (age 52)
Lasse Pöysti (actor) born 1927 (age 92)
Paul Raymond (musician, UFO) born 1945 (age 73)
José Antonio Reyes (footballer, Sevilla) born 1983 (age 35)
Mikko Saarela (musician, Eppu Normaali) born 1958 (age 60)
Emiliano Sala (football player, Nantes, Cardiff) born 1990 (age 28)
Leif Salmén (journalist) born 1952 (age 67)
Jeff St. Louis (musician, DBC) born 1957 (age 62)
Roslaw Szaybo (painter, British Steel) born 1933 (age 85)
Reijo Taipale (singer) born 1940 (age 79)
Mervi Tapola (sausage heiress) born 1954 (age 65)
Anne "Heinäsirkka" Taskinen (artist) born 1958 (age 61)
Kari Toivonen (journalist, news anchor) born 1972 (age 77)
Bernie Tormé (musician, Gillan, Ozzy Osbourne) born 1952 (age 66)
Rip Torn (actor, Wonder Boys) born 1931 (age 88)
Jukka Virtanen (author, poet, actor, TV personality) born 1933 (age 86)
Scott Walker (musician) born 1943 (age 76)
Larry Wallis (musician, Motörhead) born 1949 (age 70)
Andre Williams (musician) born 1936 (age 82)
Max Wright (actor, Alf) born 1943 (age 75)

Hollow lights of the ivory tower

Three lighthouse keepers in a desperately isolated island are interrupted by a dead person and a casketful of gold. And there's always people looking for missing gold. A place where no one can hear you scream is a perfect spot for some manslaughter, bashing of heads and piling up corpses. And losing marbles. Didn't buy an ounce of this based on a true story psychological thriller, but quite watchable nevertheless.

The insect beetles

What a wonderful idea for a movie. During a one minute global power failure, a striving musician Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) has a little biking accident and he wakes up in a world where The Beatles never existed. The band has been wiped out from the collective memory of all the other people in the world. Soon Jack realizes the fame and fortune he could summon. Too bad that the movie didn't utilize the original idea much further because the semi-romantic mush they also had in mind didn't bring that much value to the story.

The underwear on the outside

Dr. Staple (Sarah Paulson) treats people who think they are comic book characters. Her patients are David Dunn aka The Overseer, Kevin Wendell Crumb aka The Horde and Elijah Prince aka Mr. Glass (Bruce Willis, James McAvoy and Samuel L. Jackson respectively). Superhumans need to prove the good doctor and the rest of the world wrong. And it's utterly boring.

Wolves of the judgement time

These Vinlanders - they're a neo nazi viking group from Richmond, Virginia. They're white power supporters and they hate blacks, hispanics, everyone really who aren't them. With all the viking and all the nazi shit, they are also pretty naive and downright fucking stupid. One lad with some neurocells left wants to get out of the organization. His former associates, the white power for life people - his own mom included - aren't too happy. It gets pretty nasty and hostile. The story is a bit too rushed really, but a pretty powerful movie nevertheless.

Never loved properly

Well, this beats the Freddie Mercury movie - Bohemian Rhapsody - to shit. Elton John's life depicted - with all the misery and extravaganza - colourfully and shamelessly. It's all about the excess use of booze and drugs, the burnouts and tantrums, pain and pleasure, pure madness, difficult relationships and otherwise hectic life of the biggest rock and roll star of the universe. Taron Egerton proves how a versatile actor he is.

Wanked off being a cop groupie

This has little bit of everything. It's a buddy comedy really, but has its action and thrills, and it's pretty violent too. On the soft note, there's laughs and little romance. There's wonderfully penned dialogue motormouthed by James Woods and Michael J. Fox. Not to forget, a great psychopath (Stephen Lang). The Hard Way (1991) is one of my old favourites and it was nice to see it has aged remarkably well.

Flies still eat shit

What a bummer. Hardly surprising for a Nicolas Cage thriller. He has done thousands of these. This time he's Frank, a con man on parole after 19 years in prison and he has a score to settle. Terribly poor, ridiculously acted straight-to-DVD garbage.

Fireball blues

I thought of quitting on this film after the first 15 minutes when I noticed that the fucking thing is almost two and half hours long. Should I spend that much time with a South Korean movie - and that only because I don't know about the local cinema. But I stuck on with it because it was kind of captivating. The story. Boy meets girl. The girl meets another boy. The first boy gets jealous. The second boy confesses of having a suspicious hobby. The girl disappears. The first boy desperately wants to find her. And it's a pretty good mystery.

Heartbeat of America

I don't know why I chose to watch Whitney - a 2018 documentary of Whitney Houston, pop singer. Never followed her life or career in any way. Sure, I was aware of her untimely demise and her time on the headlines like the next man, but that's about it. Ultimately you pick up documentaries because of raw brutal truth of things. You seek sensationalism. So, I guess I did just that. Whitney Houston loved God, her shithead husband Bobby Brown, greedy father and drugs. Not necessarily in that order. On a better note, she was loved by her family, millions of fans and she was a pretty good singer. Exceptional even. She was also a hopeless mother, a fucking devil incarnate. And that's fucking sad because she was such a sweet little talented girl in the beginning. Wrong fucking choices, wrong fucking people around her.

Broadsword calling Danny Boy

I have watched I Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968) a few times already, but made a memo to watch it again because I reckon it was Steven Spielberg who recently listed it as the best war movie of all time. And it's always cool to come back to classics. Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton killing nazis, flushing out double agents and bromancing in a nazi occupied castle.

Ophelia, call the police

This is real boogieman shit right here. A family's doppelgängers pay them a visit and it's stuff of nightmares. Continues the great macabre humour where Jordan Peele's previous Get Out left off. Creepily entertaining. Perhaps too persistently tried to explain the unexplainable, but still a hoot.

Don't text and swing

Elementals (air, water, fire, earth) are fucking up the planet. Or so it seems. Spiderman is travelling around Europe and meets up a supervillain Mysterio. To me, easily the worst Spider-Man movie, but read lots of good comments on this, so probably am fucken wrong.

The mind is a fragile thing

This X-Man, Jean aka Phoenix (Sophie Turner) feels betrayed by everyone, so with the recently acquired omnipotent cosmic forces, she separates herself from the organization. This is a perfect oppurtunity for an evil alien species to gain foothold on earth. Mutants fighting against each other. Total clusterfuck, but absolutely nothing new under the sun.

Killer beast on the rampage

I thought I had left the story of Dumbo - a flying elephant - on my childhood. And ordinary I wouldn't even consider seeing a Disney movie, but it however is a Tim Burton film and there's certain money back guarantee in it. And like all the good stories go, there's both the element of danger and a satisfying end. Both good characters and evil villains. A strong cast of Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Eva Green and Danny DeVito and, obviously, a smart baby elephant with big ears.

Haven is safe no more

There's a $14 million price tag on John Wick's head. And it guarantees that Mr. Wick leaves an innumerable body count in his wake. The way he raises hell is full of elegant and entertainment. Watching people die has never looked so groovy.

Masque of the red death

A preacher banishes alcohol, gamling and whores from a small western town Garlow. However, the first thing an outlaw gang does while residing in the town is establishing a saloon specializing on those things. The decent folks of the town - like an Irish undertaker Patrick Tate (Emily Hirsch) - are caught up in a crossfire. Literally. And the undertaker has his hands full of customers. The story in its vulgar confrontation is alright and it's pretty grim, gritty and dark, but never really properly ignites.

I heard you paint houses

Every once in a while pops up a movie that no words do enough justice. From The Good, the Bad, the Ugly to The Godfather, from Apocalypse Now to Goodfellas, from Pulp Fiction to Big Lebowski. The Irishman is one of those movies. Martin Scorsese's epic 3-hour scorcher is a masterpiece, you just sit and wonder its greatness. The quartet (Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino) should win all the possible motion picture awards this year.