Where greater men have fallen

Special U.S. forces kill Russian soldiers. Elite ex-Navy Seals are targeted by Russian operatives on American soil. Looks like someone wants to start a war. Brainless junk, but it's the kind of combat movie it wants to be I guess. Based on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan universe.

Sounds like a pile of shit

A comic book artist loses his fucking hand in a cruel car accident. The severed hand then goes on a killing spree and murders people that aren't too cool. Despite all the negative feedback, Oliver Stone's The Hand (1981) is decent atmospheric horror. Michael Caine in the lead.

Can't rush inspiration

Something else. A quasi-autobiographical story of a Hollywood screen writer Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage) as he battles a writer's block with his latest work adapting "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) for the screen. No one's ever done a movie about flowers before, so it's understandly very difficult. Adaptation is manna from heaven, witty and brilliant piece of cinema. Funny as shit, too.

There's no news like bad news

A James Bond movie directed by Roger Spottiswoode in 1997, starring Pierce Brosnan as the agent 007, Michelle Yeoh as the Bond girl Wai Lin, Judi Dench as Bond's superior M (the head of M16), Desmond Llewelyn as Q (the head of Q division) and Jonathan Pryce as Elliot Carver, the main antagonist. The theme song performed by Sheryl Crow. A media mogul is determined to mess the minds of the great nations of the United States, the UK and China and set the world on fire! James Bond sets out to stop it.

There will always be more

There's a nazi officer in a concentration camp who wants to learn Farsi. A clever jew pretends to be Persian and decides to teach the nazi thus survive the inhuman conditions and, ultimately, death row. But instead of Farsi that he knows shit about, he educates the officer some proper gibberish! Splendid, a different kind of war and concentration camp movie and two really quite excellent actors Nahuel Pérez Biscayart and Lars Eidinger.

The world is coming undone

Dunno, but somewhat a mess. If you are not familiar with the Dumbledore, Grindelwald or Fantastic Beasts stories, or the Harry Potter crap what-have-you, you feel left out and don't understand a word they're sayin'. By the same token, it's spectacular, quite exquisitive looking crap and the actors (Jude Law, Eddie Redmayne, Mads Mikkelsen, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Oliver Masucci) add another cool green screen experience to their resume.

No time left

Bruce Willis, stricken with aphasia, did a number of low budget movies (Wrong Place, Vendetta, A Day to Die, Gasoline Alley, Wire Room, White Elephant, Corrective Measures, Fortress: Sniper's Eye, Deadlock, Out of Death, etc.) - each shittier than the next - before his untimely retirement. If else, just to cash in what's left of his career. Megan Fox however burnt a few bridges in the past and gets now offered the shitty roles only. And Emile Hirsch - he has struggled with his profession throughout his career. Can't say stars were aligned with Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021) by Randall Emmett. But kudos to them, it has the worst serial killer script for decades.

They are dead and all messed up

George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead from 1968. People barrigade themselves inside a farmhouse because outside is crowded with zombies! They don't refer them as zombies however, flesh-eating ghouls instead. Absolutely wicked, gruesome and cool.

For shadows are not hospitable hosts

This would be an amazing revenge flick without the superstitious mumbo-jumbo and the gushing sugar-coated Norse mythology. Then it would be a 15 minutes film, but still. In the end I reckon I still liked it though, fucken brutal and beautiful at the same time.

Just in time to be too late

Yeah, it's the funniest shit alrite. Once you watch the first episode you know that you are hooked. Season # 1 of Norsemen and it's all laughs.

The struggle against the error

It's 1938. Adolf Hitler gains ground, nazi troops march into Austria. In Vienna an aristocratic jew, a lawyer Dr. Josef Bartok tries to escape to the USA but is arrested by the Gestapo. While imprisoned, he successfully steals a random book. A chess book. The tricks and magic of the game save him from the horrific mental torture. Makes a harrowing drama too. Oliver Masucci as the doctor is downright amazing.

There is no key to happiness

The small town of Karmack, USA, is looking to hire a middle man, a bearer of bad news. Because accidents happen in Karmack, it's a god-forsaken miserable place and people die. It's all bad news. The Middle Man is an offbeat comedy, it's bloody hilarious most of the times and that's why the negative feedback it has received is surprising.

Don't call 911

Most of the time, occupied on something else while watching, but Nobody (by Iliya Naishuller) was pretty much the same I remembered. Almost a parody of John Wick which is kind of strange in the first place. Nevertheless, really quite tremendous and funny action.

Doubt leads to damnation

This mystic totemlike shrine appears in the middle of a small town somewhere close to Boston. It heals people. Deaf can hear, blind can see, that sort of thing. Is it a Virgin Mary incarnate or perhaps yet another diabolic masterpiece from Satan himself to corrupt people's faith? Investigative journalist Gerry Fenn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the middle of this nonsense.

Refined but brutal, civilized but merciless

Thus far this (the 3rd) is the most criticized of the Kingsman movie series, but I found the adventure set in WWI actually quite damn entertaining. It's packed full of action and amazingly executed bits. Lots of cool people - Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance - in the roster.

Chained to the frozen earth

It's incomprehensible how Aki Kaurismäki's laconic film making can be so engaging and the minimalistic cinematography so utterly mesmerizing. Laitakaupungin Valot (2006) is about a gullible security guard Seppo Ilmari Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen) who is tricked by a femme fatale (Maria Järvenhelmi) to reveal the secrets of his profession, thus aiding and abetting grand larceny. Deadpan storytelling at its best. 

That house is not fit to live in

Horror the way it should be. Deliciously oppressive and atmospheric. A music professor (George C. Scott) from New York, who recently lost his wife and daughter in a freak accident, relocates to Seattle and rents a house with history of strange happenings. It's spooky shit.

The buzz that echoes in the alleyways

Candyman is back. Terrorizing the neighborhood of Cabrini-Green in Chicago. He's a vile creature with a hook for a hand and uses it to cut people's throats. Nia DaCosta's Candyman is a sequel to the original Candyman (1992), by Bernard Rose, but nowhere near as cool horror as that one. At best, a mere collection of disgusting scenes.

A rendezvous with death

Wolfgang Petersen (1941-2022) died a few days ago. Decided to pick up one of his works. He left behind a great resume from Das Boot to The Perfect Storm and from Outbreak to Air Force One. All great movies, but I chose my favourite In the Line of Fire (1993) where an aging former JFK bodyguard (Clint Eastwood) protects the life the current president of U.S.A.. John Malkovich as one of the greatest screen villains in the history of cinema as the assassin Mitch Leary.

It's time to cut out the cancer

A disgusting and vile mental patient comes back to mutilate the nurses and doctors of the institution he occupied 20 years earlier. Nightmarishly, a woman is tied up to the killing spree as a guest through some kind of psychic channels. Thus she's an accomplice to the gruesome deaths as well. James Wan's (Saw, Aquaman, The Conjuring) horror comes without that much value. The twist is ridiculously unreal, even though things get deliciously bloody after that.