Reviews

The stench of neon lights in a sinful city street are always interesting to me, and these are the elements this film promised. On that front it absolutely delivered, but what else? The movie takes place, as the name suggests, on one night in a decrepit hotel. One positive I can say is that the hotness of the summer night is absolutely palpable in this piece.

The story is about an old crook who gets out of the prison. His best friend, our main protagonist, has a plan to move to Las Vegas and start a new, legit life with the money he has managed to save. But the old jailbird's blood flow's too hot and he kills a prostitute in anger. Now the duo must get rid of the body before the buss leaves and before this messes their shiny new future before it even begins.

That's a nice premise and all, but few things stuck up like a sore thumb. First of all, the recently released character is a complete jerk, and thus as a watcher it was rather difficult to accept our main character's necessity to keep this parasite out of responsibility just because, we are told, they used to be mates. The main dude himself was fine, but a more three dimensional sidekick would have made a more balanced double act so that a viewer would not want anything bad to happen to either of them.

Secondly, neither of these old crooks really develop as characters throughout the thing. The movie just ends and doesn't really resolve anything - as if they would have started to free ball the script without any idea where they were heading.

Actually much more interesting than the main story is a B-plot about a young, empty headed girl whom a slippery tongued pimp (Vinnie Jones) half cons to become a prostitute. The girl is completely at lost inside her tough interior, but luckily meets an older harlot who takes her under her wing. This particular hooker is the best and most positive character in the film. Their plot line actually goes somewhere, which is welcome.

Other good stuff: the world of the film is made nicely pathetic and slimy. This is good. The drunken idiot who works the hotel's reception is a fun character. The almost "Weekend at Bernie's" -style corpse charade by the main duo at the end part of the film goes into a total farce. This, and other humour is good to balance out the darkly lit nihilism.

Unfortunately, in the end the result is still somewhat forgettable. The drama never ascends the smallness of it's characters which became rather numbing after a while. Also we had slowness and nothing really happening at times. It isn't, by no means, a horrible film and one can still do much worse.

Naturally the only reason to watch this for me was the fact that it had Sharon Stone in it. Unfortunately, though I was expecting absolutely nothing, I somehow got less.

The movie takes place within the rustic country side, in the world of the rednecks, the folksy, "The Real America. The Small Town America". Thusly it must belong to the "city idiots move to the country side and get buggered, either literally or figuratively, by hicks" -genre. This is not merely flogging of the dead horse anymore, but waving your whip over the nearest glue factory. Yes, Deliverance was and is a brilliant film, but it also contained such elements as a plot, some common sense, mood and characters you didn't hope to die from the word go.

The story is, in all of it's generic depression, this: Sharon Stone and her husband, a documentary movie director guy, move out of the city since their children are either bred wrong or it's just natural selection that makes them run in front of cars like it's going out of style. They manage to find a huge Wayne's Manor with it's own forest, the yard the size of a golf course and a swimming pool for about $3,50, since "it's foreclosed, yo, so the bank sells it real cheap like". But who would have know, the former owner shambles in looking for a job.

I hated this character from his very first scene. And I don't mean that he is written to be a hateful character; I mean I am amazed how it is possible to write such a generic, pointless, irritating and uninteresting main antagonist. Of course also the dad starts to immediately hate this newcomer and this feeling is mutual. The audience merely hates everybody, since they are all equally boring, pretentious, over reacting bunch of monkeys.

My very favourite series of events begins when the redneck dude saves the children from a snake that is in the pool. When he himself gets fired, the whole house is suddenly full of snakes. And every family member magically places their hands on the slimy buggers at the exactly same moment. I can hardly imagine the mountain of Oscars that must adorn the window sills of the responsible parties' trailers. And somehow the horrendous musical score manages to make this embarrassing mess even stupider than it already is. Which is an considerable effort.

Of course the movie is also eternally long. After 30 minutes I had spent all my hospitality, but the thing just keeps chugging along. To my peer Sharon Stone fans: let it be known, that she does what she can with the stuff she is given, but her role could just as easily be played by a marionette made out of dead rats. Juliette Lewis is also present, wasted like everything else.

In the name of honesty I have to report that there were few rather decent scenes near the end, and they bothered to even pay off some of the things that are set in motion. This is good, because almost an hour and a half is used to nothing but these preliminaries. Also, the ending is so sickly anticlimactic and the zenith of predictable, that even the makers of silent movies would have laughed it out of the room. You could easily foretell everything that happens, and usually it looked better made and more visionary in your mind.

So, this was, in a word, wretchid. I was lucky I saw it on the television and didn't pay a dime. Even though I would like to urinate on my audiovisual equipment just to make sure no remnant of it remains within my apartments threshold.

After Romans and Tolkien's Orcs, vikings are pretty much the coolest thing there is. So it was only a matter of time before I gave a chance to this show. I have, however, only seen the first season, so take into consideration, that this review is only based on that.

The show looks rather good. The intro sequence is fine both musically and visually. Apparently no unnecessary CGI is not used, which is always great. I also liked the fact that the cast very much looks like real vikings down to their hair pieces, and everything seems dirty and grimy. Costume and art departments deserve appreciation for their skills.

And that's about the good of it, since the show is thought out and written extremely poorly. The season doesn't seem to have any sort of sensible structure or goal, but rather fumbles around from here to there. At the worst, the dialogue comes of as old time -style exposition hell where characters with great pain explain to themselves their own mythology, and at best terse and unnatural. Some individual scenes might work, but then the show surprises you with bewildering bafflement: for example the scenes at the court of Northumbria would suit well to one of the Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King -movies.

Why couldn't the whole season be about one, single raid mission to somewhere? They could have left during the first episode, and the whole thing would have been about adventuring, bonding and back stabbing of the crew. That could have been so interesting! Not to mention, it would have necessitated some sort of an arc and a goal. Now we spam ourselves here and there, and every long and dangerous sea voyage is over in two scenes. It's a wonder these vikings don't take us with them to the moon when they're at it.

About the actors: Gabriel Byrne does his villain role in autopilot. Other than that, as I said, it's nice that the actors look believable vikings, but they could still be able to act. Especially the main character is unbelievable annoying mumbler with a very punchable joker grin that never leaves his face. The actor of his brother would have been actually a rather charismatic performer, but doesn't yet really get to do anything.

We also get a woman, who has a sword and kills people. This is nothing if not cool (historical accuracy be damned). Unfortunately she has the ungrateful task of being pregnant and crying about her husband much more than doing anything interesting for much of the show. The child actor is also one of the worst I have ever seen - and now, when we have finally learned to actually spend some time and effort to really find talented, good young actors and actresses to TV shows.

Well, truth be told, Gustaf Skårsgard appears as a rather interesting character - sure, someone could say over the top, but I'd rather take that than the gray forgetfulness disappearing into it's own rectum.

The show has some blood and some nudity, but that about covers it's "adult" themes. All those lovely, dark spiders living in the human souls, that make the following of long shows such a perverse pleasure, are only noticeable in their non appearance. The characters are as interesting as card board cut outs. Even Batman -show of the 60's operated in more dimensions.

Vikings was an unbearable disappointment in every way. Like Heroes at it's time, this also had almost limitless potential but every time there was a choice between poignant, interesting and exiting on the other hand and pointless, boring and tired on the other, it is determined to pick the second one. Other easy comparison is the contemporary Spartacus -show - especially as the bad writing goes - but even that at least had some balls and exploitation values, if nothing else. Vikings would have been something unbelievable if it had come out in 1993 instead of 2013, but what's it's purpose in the era of Game of Thrones, Rome and Boardwalk Empire, I simply do not know.

I must admit I have seen some rather impressive comic based movies lately, that must have lulled me into a false sense of security.

Somewhat new Marvel offering Ant-Man had all the possibilities to be a rather enjoyable adventure action film: a fun concept about a guy changing size, comic books that nobody really cares so the film makers should be able to paint with almost any sort of brush, good actors cast and above all, the movie was reported to be a comedy, so maybe it would give us something more than the usual fare about a loser changing his life for the better through unbelievable super powers (whilst simultaneously learning humility and that Uncle Ben was right). Even the trailer looked quite okay.

And how hard can a disappointment be.

I haven't despised anything related to Marvel Comics this much since X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And even though Ant-Man isn't quite the same mile stone of ineptitude, the curve of annoyance was pretty much stabilized to pretty much the same level.

But let's start with the positive: the movie is, of course, very visually appealing. That is rather expected from a budget this size, but the pomp and circumstance even has some sense of style behind it.

Evangeline Lilly is by far the best the movie has to offer, since her role most resembled a real character. Oh, if only this movie would have been about her. Michael Douglas was there too, somewhere, and he is, of course, a very fine actor. In smaller role we had Bobby Cannavale from the outstanding Boardwalk Empire. Even our main lead Paul Rudd didn't seem to be a completely charisma free, zero-interest lump of wasted resources, and if the script would have been something else than a puddle of repulsive night soil even he might have amounted to something.

There is a scene where Ant-Man battles Falcon, and this moment had a real Marvel Comics -feel to it. Luckily it was over in an instant.

Then to those bad aspects. Somehow I have a feeling this list is going to be longer.

The "humour" of the film - term here applied with it's laxest meaning - was absurdly horrible. As if a modern, American sitcom that had three episodes made before mercifully putting it out of it's misery was submerged with to the worst humorous episodes of Baywatch. Pseudo-clever, nerdy blathering of nothingness with internet terminology sprinkled in. To take a scene straight out of Spider-Man and do it in exactly the same way, but end it in some forcedly awkward one liner is not, has not ever been and will not never ever be funny.

And don't let me start on the so called comic relief characters, that manage to form a level of nail scraping on the black board all by themselves. These three wacky comrades who come from the rogue-like background of our main character and have no reason to reside in the movie after the first few scenes, even get to say their last words in the piece. They act and talk like an internet meme made flesh with satanic magic and pure evil.

No Rob Schneider, no Adam Sandler, no Marlon Wayans has ever been equal to the grotesque awfulness that this movie calls it's side characters. And decides we should care about them on some level. Jar Jar Binks is the best thing that has ever happened to the art form of film making after these dudes.

Before the release of the film people talked about the main character being an anti hero. This is all fine, since I adore anti heroes. But what does this mean in Ant-Man's case? That the protagonist is contained in a prison in the beginning of the film for braking the law for a really good reason.

Goddamn, you guys. Watch Dirty Harry. Watch A Clockwork Orange. Watch Escape from New York. Those films star anti heroes. This is the same, used and abused Spider-Man again with his troubles with family members and endless babbling about the mythology of heroes than always before, now just with a very slightly edgier, calculated finish. No personality to be found here. Uninteresting banana peel on the floor of existence only fitting for a first person shooter video game.

Michael Douglas gets lost into his wannabe Obi-Wan -role, and the most he gets to do is mumble directions to our protagonist's earplug and have at least five obligatory speeches about the importance of heroism, the joy of helping others and blah blah bloody blah.

The antagonist simply could not be any more boring. Characteristicly speaking ethereal, hairless plank of wood. To have a completely unmemorable block of cheese and then have the same powers as the lead for the end is only horribly stupid and unimaginative. Actually it's so sad state of affairs there should practically be a law against it. Doesn't Marvel have enough baddies to put into their movies? Is this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III -style nonsense truly necessary?

In the end, what we have here is a movie equivalent for an atrocious, smoking pile of toxic waste. If you want to see a humorous super hero film, rather watch Steel. Yes. Even that is a better film. Or reward yourselves and see Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, for it is actually funny and has a successful adventure plot. I mean, sure; it's overtly cute fun for the whole family, but so is this.

This much of horrible indifference with no soul is that cancer that threats to engulf the entire fictive entertainment business. This could, and should, have been almost anything but what it is - but then, that would have demanded some imagination and love for the art instead of just shoveling CGI spurts to the faces of the wife beater and stench of sweat wearing audience.

I had no expectations on this movie. Maybe my appreciation is by some amount explained by my enjoyment of all kinds of witch or occult things - and by the mere fact that I didn't expect anything from it - largely because it was so critically banned and I truly hated Rob Zombie's Halloween fiascoes. But in the end, Lords of Salem showed up as a real, moody, beautifully simplistic and most of all interesting occult thriller.

The obligatory Sheri Moon Zombie has, for a change, a good role as a former drug addict radio jockey who finds herself tormented by visions and experiences related to the old nick after she plays a mystifying record by the band "Lords" in her rock'n'roll show. The lead role is also a perfect example on how to write identifiable and sympathetic characters without making them insufferably boring - an almost unprecedented case in the modern, main stream cinema.

Other main role is inhabited by Bruce Davidson as an author who is interested about the history of the town of Salem. He starts to find clues about the coven of witches disturbing Sheri Moon's character's life. Other actors include always pleasant Ken Foree and Patricia Quinn, who still in her older age manages to create a rather mesmerizing antagonist (or rather, one of them).

Stylistic stuff Rob Zombie is so known for fits into this film like Satan to Halloween night after few beers. The movie is unbelievably pretty to look at in it's nicely grungy way, and for once the visuals serve the story and the mood, and not the other way around.

By no means am I saying this is new The Devil's Rejects - in terms of quality or otherwise; the middle section staggers a little, the writer character gets pushed to serve his part of the story kind of stupidly and some scenes go a tad into the direction of unintentional comedy. Though, of course, Satan is one of those things that are nigh impossible to put in anything with any kind of seriousness - the whole concept is of course quite ridiculous. But even in that the film does a good job, as it draws you into it's world so that even the rougher edges don't really spoil the over all mood.

I honestly can't understand the negativity people have about this movie - especially if by the same breath they support nothing-in-particular, ready made, over generic stuff as The House of the Devil. For over all, Lords of Salem is beautiful, small-scale but effective film with a lot of elements well put together, that one could ask for films to utilize more often.

If not one of the best movies of the recent years, definitely one of the coolest.

It's astonishing, how so many good, workable and clever ideas, interesting moments and a huge number of well done scenes can, in the end, amount to such an infantile and meaningless whole.

Let's start with the good bits: Our main characters are just the kind of people I happen to like - even though if these mister and madame from Die Antwood -musical group aren't exactly natural born actors. But they portray immoral bastards, whose doings are still a pleasure to follow. Even their character arcs are not quite so boring and immediately obvious as some of the other characters'.

Especially this young Yo-Land is favorable to the eye with her bizarre hair cuts and clothes. Maybe this is part of some South-African exoticness. The whole Johannesburgian underworld - over the top even as it is here portrayed - is a rather virginal element for filmmakers to use.

Also, as per typical to the director, the movie is a visual feast. Even though I support practical effects, it is a clever work of art when you honestly can't differentiate between existing props and a computer generated simulation. Also visual story telling and the over all design of this in all it's pop artsy visual misery is a lovely thing to see, indeed.

About the other actors: Hugh Jackman is for once in a not-quite-so-horrible film, and fits well into a role of a complete prick. I wouldn't protest of seeing him again portraying a complete bastard. The creator of the robotic A.I is a rather uninteresting dweeb, who has immediately all the symptoms of a god complex kicking inside his skull. Not that those really amount to much in the end. Sigorney Weaver plays the big shoe in a technology company, but her character is forgotten long before the end. It is still pleasurable to see her in a role, that isn't completely based on the premise of "Remember, I was in that Alien movie once upon a time, wink wink".

Then to the stupid stuff. Why, oh why in the name of Jesus Christ's white testicle does every movie featuring a moral choice need to take the whole point away from itself with the most over used, idiotic, annoying and predictable way possible - by making the morally neutral source promise it won't kill people? God be damned, when I go to see an R-rated movie about robots, I expect to see people made into minced meat.

Those moronic, down right retarded moral quandaries that our technological protagonist is left with are just as glued on and annoying as can be imagined. And seen billions of times made as many times better. In terms of action, this movie is as PG-13 as is humanly possible.

The film is rated R because couple of swear words used a bunch of times and some characters smoke. That's it. And as good things as both of those are, and as pleasurable it is to see Yo-Landi suck on a big cigar, I think it tells you more about the sadness of our times than it does of the movie being "daring", that that is what gives it the R-rating.

And when they have no guts to show people being splotched, they stole ED-209 straight from RoboCop to fight our main robot. This is as interesting and captivating as me sitting in the floor of my room banging two TransFormers -action figures together for 90 minutes.

Where are the exploding innards? Where the chopped, gutted and mutilated pedestrians? Showing those was no problem in Distric 9, the earlier work of our director. This movie would have given ample opportunity to play a little, and imagine the real moral choices our main character would have to make, when he would have already done some real damage without really thinking about it.

The main point is, the R-rating in a movie such as this amounts to false advertising, that someone should rightly be sued over.

As said, the movie still has good ideas to spare. Seeing Chappie grow and learn is often funny and interesting. But even this would require some real resolution instead of obvious platitudes. Transhumanism is glossed over, yet no stance about it is taken.

Plot holes are big enough to drive an oil tanker through, and the whole film ends in a imaginative brain fart. Those things could easily be excused, since they fit a sort of comic book -like, "who cares" -fun making. Or a Troma -film. But then you would need to also have guts to go balls-to-the-walls. You can't have your cake and eat it too: either make a genially cerebral, well thought out movie with something to say, or give us our primal human carnage. Now we live in an exploitation movie without any exploitative elements.

I still wish this movie makes even some money, so that some day we might get a real, R-rated, big budget action adventure movie. The director Neil Blomkamp has obvious talent and vision, now is his time to gather his testicles from her mothers coin purse and get to work. Realzies, this time.

This movie perfectly sums up what I despise in any movie. So, if you already know you like the same movies as me, you need not to read further.

Ultraviolet is completely based on three factors: scifi-detail, CGI and Milla Jovovich. One of those I usually actually like, one I can stand if necessary and one I wish I never have to glance again. Everyone can guess which one is which.

But as I said, there is nothing more on this movie than those aforementioned factors, all wrapped up in non-stop action. The scifi-detail, in this case, happens to be completely nonsential and has nothing to do with the plot. Kurt Wimmer must have watched Minority Report and decided, that he would love to do something similar. All the things person can make up in, let's say, a weekend about future's what-if's are all crammed inside this one-and-a-half-hour. Result is a list of trivia that has nothing to do with anything and most laughable dialog presently existing. CGI is always present, and it's bastard child, colour manipulation, too. Both ridiculously horrible and unjustified. This is a movie made by George Lucas on his laptop in a hangover. And what comes to Mrs. Jovovich, well... She is just as she has always been. No need to say more.

This movie has everything, including the kitchen sink, crammed into it, starting from vampire clichés and ending with a bad guy who has stuck two button ear phones up his nose. All things this movie hasn't got any, are plot, character development, timing and style.

Ultraviolet tries to be sexy and violent, but it wusses away. It tries to be intelligent, witty and humoristic, but fails miserably. It tries to be stylized and revolutionary, but it ends up looking like a PlayStation game about the wonderful world of clichés.

Ultraviolet balances between unintentional comedy and painful masochism. Plus, it has Milla Jovovich in it, so the scales drop so low down the negative side it is hard to see how far they went.

I have to say, I am not a huge fan of Wachovski brothers. Sure, I liked the first Matrix and all, but not those "bad" things that followed it: a huge mass of brainless, purely action-oriented rip-off movies with the central point in massive effects on the count of character development and plot. The sequels to Matrix also fell into this grey mess: all the intellectual sides of the first one were sacrificed totally.

So, for this, I was not expecting much from this movie. I knew I'd probably like the graphic novel, but I feared it would be completely raped and mutilated into just another Matrix-clone. My little brother bought the DVD cheaply from somewhere and forced me to watch the movie. And what a surprise it was! The story is fantastic: the thematic questions of anarchy vs. order, tolerance vs. intolerance, freedom vs. "protection"... all those things we as voters decide year after year, that are age-old, always important concepts are very well pondered in this film. Should we destroy everything we can't understand? Should we use the easy way of iron rule for the sake of our own well-being? Should we help the less fortunate? And still, the movie manages to entertain all the way through. The drama of characters gets you from the first scene. V is such an outstanding character; he says he is more an idea than a man, and that became so for me. All the glory to John Hurt, Hugo Wieving and Natalie Portman, who were all spot-on brilliant. The direction was brilliant: the movie became a true epic, both with visually and personally. The lesbian love flashbacks in the middle completely broke my heart. The movie was full of surprises and plot twists.

Also, after reading the graphic novel I dear to complement Watchovski Brothers for one of the best comic adaptations of all time. Themes and character and events have been slightly changed, but that's only for the best of the film. I know some people complain about the changes, but I do not. I rejoice for both versions of this brilliant story.

Mennen tullen is a mixture of comedy and crime series, provided by famous comedy troupe from Finland called Julmahuvi. Funny thing is, that this mini series makes such an impressive satire of mystery/crime genre, that it almost ceases to be a satire, not to mention, comedy. Of course, the plot is pretty weird and the characters are crazy as hell, and it has some damn funny gags, but you won't find yourself laughing when you watch this. Oh no. This makes the viewer gape for amazement. You should really watch the previous things that Julmahuvi has made before you watch this, because otherwise you won't understand the characters, but then you can let yourself to dive into a two-hour pool of genius directing, magnificent plot twists, all those little things you take serious no matter how ridiculous they are. You will completely forget that this is a comedy, and start wondering who is the murderer and what the hell is going on. Plus, you can see Finland's best actors play almost all the important male roles. A masterpiece.