Top Films

Opinions, Reviews, Top Films

My Top 10 Films of 2022


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Twenty-Twenty Two was the first year I truly observed my viewing habits changing. Reluctantly, I’ve found myself negotiating my heinie to the movie theaters; more I find myself kicking back and relaxing at home to watch films on streamers. But the streamers, leave barely a mark on my brain. What I’ve seen in theaters, I do remember. I experience them differently. But alas, such is the way of the world these days – less cinema, more streaming. I begrudgingly admit to it but wish it wasn’t so.

This year, I saw no superhero movies. There were loads of them I’m sure, but with none did I decide to spend time and watch. Their cultural relevance is shifting, maybe shrinking. Might be the right time for it.

But this list is, traditionally, an incomplete list of films from 2022 that I end up liking because the Oscar season begins so late, and much of the Oscar pics I watch only start mid-January and end on the day of the gala. Some films this year found their way on my list through festivals; I did quite a many, either in the jury or the audience. After really going through the list of films I saw last year, it wasn’t very hard to come up with the list. So, here we go – my top 10 films of 2022!

1. MOONAGE DAYDREAM

Without a question, this hazy, dream-like documentary of my all-time favorite artist really grasped what it feels like to be a Bowie fan. It bypassed the tropes of meticulous retelling of Bowie’s story – it’s not relevant when you dive right into the wonderful, mind-bending, inebriating world of Bowie’s music. The documentary manages to celebrate the music of David Bowie better than any music documentary I’ve seen before. Truly a cinematic experience.

2. AVATAR: THE WAY OF THE WATER

After so many years of waiting, James Cameron once again shows that he’s not to be ridiculed, ignored, or in any way belittled – he is one of the great masters of cinema, and a driving force in pushing the limits of what can be brought on screen time and again. Avatar: The Way of the Water is a film that transports you again to somewhere else, a wonderful world that just sucks you in. It’s a great film, an experience, and a showcase of what’s next to come in the world of film.

3. VESPER

Proud to say I’m friends with the directors of Vesper. I’ve walked with them through their years of struggling to put a film together, and then, seeing the genuine, beautiful, and atmospheric Vesper, I nearly cried. I’ve known Kristina and Bruno and believed they were great filmmakers, but really seeing them at it on the big screen, it’s a treat. I wish all the best for them for their next films and hope Vesper finds as many viewers over its long and internationally successful launch.

4. LA PIEDAD

Holy shit. Sometimes just going to a film festival, picking a film at random without knowing anything about it, and letting it smack you in the face is the best thing there is. La Piedad came exactly like that, from far left field, and sucker-punched me right in the kisser like a motherfucker. There’s no real need to go and describe what the film is about – a tricky relationship between a mother and her son – but the sole visual representation, the piety it’s made and the braveness of the director, La Piedad deserves a lot more attention.

5. BARBARIAN

Ahh, a film that opens up perfectly, really managing to creep me out! Barbarian is a really strong-directed horror film that’s as modern and artistic as nowadays changing horror audiences is requiring. It’s a great, visual fun with superb cast and some real powerhouse of a director at helm!

6. SPEAK NO EVIL

Well, the Danes sure know how to make things awkward. A friendly family visit turns into a night of absolute, awkward terror. Speak No Evil is a really powerful film that lingers on long afterward, although, I still can’t understand why she didn’t shoot them when she got the shotgun.

7. HOLY SPIDER

Bleak serial killer story of an Iranian serial killer case and it’s incredible aftermath really unearths what’s wrong with religiously supercharged, women-hating side of some cultures out there. Mind you, it’s easy to stand in shock and shake your head at Iranian culture, but truth be told, this could happen just as easily in USA, where religious fundamentalism is just as prevalent.

8. TROLL

I gotta say, I had loads of fun with this one. One of those that you stumble upon on Netflix when they promote something for 5 seconds and then never again, but I’m glad I pressed “play” and watched this silly bit of CG fun. A troll awakens in the mountains of Norway to wreak havoc and get missiled down by Norwegian army, it’s a solid actioner with nice heart and visuals.

9. LYNCH/OZ

Another film by a friend of mine, Alexander O. Philippe, also from the film festival circuit, Lynch/Oz rams itself down a rabbit hole of Lynch’s fascination to Wizard of Oz and starts burrowing. Funky documentary which opens the world of Lynch even for a die-hard fan like me quite a bit.

10. A TREE OF LIFE: THE PITTSBURGH SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING

Ultra right wing ideologies rear their ugly head nowadays in US, leading to mindless killings like the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting, which was this one shit rag’s response to immigration caravans that were helped by Jewish community. Readily available guns, unchecked mental health patients roaming around and slowly growing and accepted and even lauded racist, anti-semitic and what not ideologies dot the cultural and ideological landscape of US, and tend to always echo down to Europe later on as well. The documentary explores the events leading to the shooting, bringing forward the victims much more than the perpetrator.

DISCLAIMER: Nope, there’s a load of films from 2022 I didn’t get to watch, some that would likely find their way into this end-of-the-year list, and as I’m now jumping into the Oscar films, undoubtedly many of these here would end up changing. But this is a pretty good look into what I thought was cool that came out last year, without too much of the Oscar buzz mudding the pool.

Opinions, Reviews, Top Films

My Top-10 Movies of 2021


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Another year of Covid-19 ravaging the world and closing, and opening, and closing the theatres again has made the year a pretty complicated to follow, as films keep on dropping to theatres, or streamers, or delayed, or something in between. These are my top ten choices for 2021!

1. THE POWER OF THE DOG

A slow-burner of a western, but one with big, rotten, beating heart. Benedict Cumberbatch shows his chops in a much more toned-down version of himself compared to what he’s been playing lately, and it works brilliantly. Jesse Plemons is grounded, doesn’t try to steal the thunder but stands firmly as an essential building block of the film, and Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee both fill the screen perfectly. Sprinkled with magical cinematography, a brooding soundtrack and a sturdy story, it’s definitely the best film of 2021, one that doesn’t make too much noise about itself, and might get swept away by big and loud ones like the Spider-Mans and Matrixes of the year.

2. SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

When superhero movies get their shit right, it’s a beauty to watch – and the new Spidey truly hits all the right notes. It’s not so much the story, which, honestly, makes quite a little actual sense, but the fact that some kids in the 60’s scribbled these crazy characters into comics, and steadily they’ve made their mark in cultural history over so many generations. And to see one era of those heroes being wrapped up in a billion-dollar-hit movie that brings together characters from all the previous movies, it’s a marvel to witness. Pure popcorn fun!

3. WHITE TIGER

I’ve grown to like the modern Indian movie industry more and more in recent years, so it was nice to see an Indian-American film making its’ way into Oscars in 2021 (for the best-adapted screenplay). The film tells a story of a cunning kid who finds a way to escape poverty by becoming a driver for a rich family. Things go wrong and the film becomes a commentary on the huge gulf separating the servant class and the rich in contemporary India and does it in a lush, Indian filmmaking way (no, no musical sequences, though). The story flows on like Ganges and production from acting to the camera and directing is strong.

4. SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF TEN RINGS

Wenwu (Tony Leung) and Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) in Marvel Studios’ SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021.

Damn it, I feel a bit dumb having two Marvel movies in my top-5, but it’s undeniable: they had a very good year this year, and Shang-Chi was only a few inches less impressive than Spider-Man. I failed to really understand the meaning of the ten rings, but it didn’t matter – it felt like a proper Chinese epic dozed with American sensibilities and modern visuals, and had some of the most amazing action sequences in recent history (the bus fight… oh my god!), it was more popcorn fun, a great way to forget we’re fighting against a devastating pandemic for few hours. In these times, it’s a respectable achievement on its’ own.

5. DON’T LOOK UP

I wish I could’ve pushed Don’t Look Up a bit higher on the list, but unfortunately, it’s a very flawed satire, but an enjoyable one. Many have been saying it’s a commentary on the climate crisis, but I disagree: climate crisis films talk about a man-made crisis people refuse to fix since they are too dependant on their own lifestyle – an asteroid approaching Earth doesn’t really fit that scheme. Instead, Don’t Look Up is a film that discusses the ridiculousness of the two-party political system in the US, the over-politicization of each and every aspect of modern life, and the rampant science denialism, sprinkled with the tragedy that is the handling of the Covid-19 -crisis. The multitude of issues the film unfortunately somewhat collapses under include some very sketchy visual effects, annoyingly bad editorial and music score decisions, and a ridiculously expensive cast that serves no apparent purpose in the grand scheme of things (I’m sure Netflix will disagree with me on this). Still, the film leaves you feeling bad, maybe more so than having a good laugh, but points a big fat finger at the world we live in and the future we’re headed for. I can’t help to mention I did hear some, maybe unintentional and unrelated, echoes from Iron Sky in the film, but maybe that’s just me.

6. THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES

Dysfunctional families in a nice and kind way are great comedy fodder for family animations, and often produce a serviceable but not very intriguing results. The Mitchells vs. The Machines manages to spark some light into the rather worn-out genre by bringing in a robot apocalypse with loads of cultural references from Tik Tok -videos to films and more. I’m sure this year there’s been even better animations that came out, but I mostly missed them, but did enjoy The Mitchells – fast-paced, loaded with fun action sequences and a nice voice cast.

7. NO TIME TO DIE

NO TIME TO DIE, from left: Lashana Lynch, Daniel Craig, 2020. ph: Nicola Dove / © MGM / Courtesy Everett Collection

Daniel Craig wrapped his duty as Agent 007 in No Time To Die, a humongously long but strangely emotional Bond film that entertained a host of fun new ideas, biggest one of them of course being Bond’s death (which, for the record, I don’t believe in any way; we didn’t see his dead body, so likely he made some kind of a weird escape and we’ll see him back in action in few years, different actor for sure but unharmed). Weirdly, the action sequences weren’t very remarkable, some nice chases and badass characters, but mostly, it was a film that finished one episode in our popular culture and made way for the next episodes. Despite the long runtime, I was entertained, but rarely really moved.

8. GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE

Being one of the few who didn’t hate the 2016 Ghostbusters, I went into the theatre expecting a fun brains-off entertainment in the extended universe of Ghostbusters – and was served with one. Mashup of Stranger Things and a mixed bag of Ghostbusters lore, Afterlife focused more on introducing a new set of characters than playing with the oldies goldies. I wasn’t remarkably enthusiastic about the new cast of characters, they felt like weak shadows of what the original ones were, with too much studio flavoring to make them last beyond this one film, but it was nice to see the three remaining ones still kicking some ghost ass in the end, and a weird revisitation of Harold Ramis‘ ghost which I think worked OK in the mix. Having said that, the third act was a carbon copy of the first film’s third act, which felt really sloppy writing for the most part.

9. THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS

Hated by many, the latest (and quite possibly the last) entry in the Matrix universe, Resurrections tried (and many times, failed) to do something different, and to that, I’ll have my hat off. It’s really hard to do a proper Matrix sequel, and both number 2 and 3 failed at it, trying to meticulously explain what was left unsaid in the first part of the series. None of the three sequels were needed, but Resurrections wanted to be a sequel of the 2020’s, self-aware and meta. Where it succeeded was grounding the story – something that both part 2 and 3 just decided not to worry about: it started off in what appeared to be in “real life”, like part 1 did, and stayed there long enough to be intriguing, but started to falter again when it fell too much in love with itself and wanted to explain everything, making the experience feel like being stuck in the matrix.

10. BO BURNHAM: INSIDE

I guess this one doesn’t really count as movie, rather a standup special, but one worthy of mention here, as it so well encapsuled the 2020-2021 lockdown depression cycle every artist had to go through. Taking a stab at every conceivable modern popular culture phenomenon from reaction videos to TikTok fame, Instagram emptiness to video games, comedian Bo Burnham crafted this meta-special in what appeared to be his home during lockdown, discussing the mind-numbing experience of being stuck inside, with nothing but depression and Internet to entertain you.

Opinions, Reviews, Top Films

Best Films of 2019


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1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

irishmanThe Irishman is Martin Scorsese closing books on his mob quadrology, which started with Mean Streets (1973), followed by Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995) and the 2013 spinoff The Wolf of Wall Street  (2013), which stuns with its’ tranquil pacing, subtle acting and a sad undertone of watching an old criminal rotting away in a retirement home, reminiscing his past life and crimes to nobody in particular. If this turns out to be also Scorsese’s last film, it’s a fine way to leave the field, saying: try topping this. We’ll never have stars like Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Robert DeNiro again, and we’ll never get another Scorsese.

 

2. Joker (Todd Philllips)

Joker-Movie-Poster-2019-1

DC understood that in order to compete against Marvel, one has to come up with a bit of a different angle. They did it already with Christopher Nolan’s Batman, bringing a darker, grittier and harder-hitting version of their favorite superhero, and now they decided to do the same with a villain. Not to say they hadn’t tried, but Suicide Squad didn’t really work. And even more so, they tried two impossible things at the same time: to do a superhero film about mental illness and to challenge the greatness of Heath Ledger, who still is the best Joker out there. Somehow, they managed to do both, and while Joaquin Phoenix may not be better than Heath as Joker, he’s just as good.

 

3. Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker  (JJ Abrams)

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What a way to end the saga! The film, which was plagued by production problems with directors and writers going in an out of it, delivered a perfect ending for the Skywalkers! JJ Abrams managed to run the story with such precision, pacing and scale that it felt constantly fresh and new, while never forgetting its’ roots. Daisy Ridley’s Rey grows from a pretty bland character into a proper hero, and Adam Driver’s sheer charisma makes the connection between the two characters feel natural and organic. It’s a huge film and knows its’ duty: to end the 40+ years of film history with dignity.

 

 

4. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)

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Apollo 11 is a gripping documentary that keeps you on the edge of your seat, crunching the armrests, knuckles white, breathing short, shallow gasps as in to make sure your presence would in no way alter the course of the tender wheels of human history unfolding in front of your eyes. Every school should include Apollo 11 into their curriculum, for it is not only an accurate documentary of events that changed the history of our race forever but also a hugely inspiring film, too, one that pushes you to reach beyond the limits of possibility in order to achieve something great.

 

 

5. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

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In its’ core, Booksmart is very simply Superbad but with girls. It’s also every other teen comedy ever made; two girls who’ve spent their days getting straight As and missed all the high school parties decide to have one night of fun, for the first time, before moving away to different colleges across the country. The story has been told a thousand times, and we all can imagine what happens: they get drunk for the first time, they fall in love, they go crazy. It’s not really the story that works so well, but the whole execution of the film, the unhinged love which director Olivia Wilde, an actress herself, has managed to pull out of the shining duo Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Felster, both bound to hit big stardom in the ’20s.

6. Mestari Cheng (Mika Kaurismäki)

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A charming story of a Chinese cook who comes to rural, northern Finland with his son to find a long-lost friend and ends up setting up a restaurant serving rare Chinese delicacies to the grumpy Finns who probably never even seen a foreigner in their lives, but on TV maybe. Master Cheng, as the English title is, charms with its’ beautiful cinematography, cinematic scale and awesome, strange Finnish characters, whom Cheng interacts with his own, bull-headed style. Kaurismäki manages to make the story more than its’ parts and the feel-good nature of the film makes it a lovely watch.

 

7. The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (Alex Gibney)

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2019 was all about fake news, and the order our world was established on – that if anything, the news are true – was shaken. This happened also in the unbeatable field of business, and The Inventor is a great dive into the world where wealth and money is everything. We have grown to believe that the business decisions made by the multi-billionaires have been established on their genial understanding of the business and the products they build, but with clear, sharp slashes, Alex Gibney’s documentary goes to destroy that belief. The Inventor both an uncovering of a fraud and a documentary of the person behind the fraud, a self-proclaimed Silicon Valley med tech goddess who sets on a mission to change the world.

 

8. Leaving Neverland (Dan Reed)

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Unearthing the old claims of Michael Jackson’s pedophilia relationships with kids who stayed at his mansion and toured with him wasn’t anything we hadn’t heard of. In Finland, we’ve had our own Michael Jackson -jokes (“väärä nappula”), as probably everywhere in the world and the fact that Wacko-Jacko, a revered musician, had this dark side was accepted as part of his myth, rather than the actual, life-destroying crime spree it actually was. While Leaving Neverland isn’t a tremendously built documentary, it fails to really build the characters of its’ subjects and tends to be scandalous and sometimes not that believable, but what it does it gives faces and history to the victims and shows the extent Jackson’s actions, and, interestingly, also challenges the families of the victims: why didn’t you do anything? We know the answer: they liked basking in Jackson’s starlight way too much to really stop what they for sure suspected was going on.

9. Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher)

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Now this is the right way to do a rock biopic! Pushing the envelope much further than Rocketman’s predecessor Bohemian Rhapsody did, the film goes to town with sex and drugs and rocks and rolls. Taron Egerton crashes the Oscar party with an impeccable show of force as an actor and Dexter Fletcher manages to keep the film that keeps on bouncing all over the room in some kind of leash to deliver a story that actually tells a story of Elton John‘s crazy years. Drawing connections between BoRap and Rocketman is easy, as the films are essentially the same. Where BoRap is simply better rock film because of Queen’s amazing music, Rocketman is probably a better film.

 

10. Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

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The star-studded cast and crazy intriguing premise delivered Tarantino a huge hit with Once Upon A Time, and rightly so. The beautifully crafted film takes one of the big Hollywood tragedies and re-writes the history, but does so with childish dream to crush the bullies, and while we know the events didn’t go that way, it’s an alternative history take, done mostly with respect (yes, Bruce Lee‘s depiction was not fair, but hey, it’s a fantasy movie). It’s fun and powerful film that leaves you gasping for air by the time you roll out of the theatre. Might not be Tarantino’s best, but is definitely on the top five.

 

Top Films

Top 20 of the 10’s – My Favorite Movies of the Decade


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What a crazy decade it has been indeed. We’ve seen a nearly complete overhaul of a whole business in the last ten years. There’s been ups and downs, but the film as a way of storytelling has survived: the rise of mobile hasn’t killed it. Videogames haven’t killed it. Netflix hasn’t killed it – actually, it only made it stronger. The only thing that’s gotten close was the ever-strengthening TV industry, but even that is still but a shadow in comparison to the best films out there.

Below, I’ve tried listing my top films of the last 20 years. Not too easy, and many films I’ve loved were left out of the list, unfortunately, but if anything, this list serves as a cross-cut through the film industry, all of these being films that one way or another have left a mark at least in me as a filmmaker from the last decade.

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What Killer Joe did to me was it re-introduced me to Matthew McConaughey, an actor who I had thought did a handful of romcoms back in the 90’s and then disappeared (not true at all, but memory works in a funny way). With Killer Joe, William Friedkin, at 75 when the film was released, managed to pull off a snarky, snappy and vibrant little movie full of violent and sexual tensions. Killer Joe which might very well be his last fiction film, a nice little reminder of the momentous career the director has had.

 

whiplash_a-G-13085724-019.  Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)

“Not quite my tempo”, says Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the abusive drum teacher to his young pupil, at the doorsteps of the greatest events in film history that were to take place: the #metoo movement. Whiplash tells a strong, relentless story about power abuse. Yeah, not sexual, but the abuse of a position where one gets and is willing to push others to the brink of insanity by using the powers vested upon themselves to elevate their own excellency. I’ve been a student of such a person a long time ago, and I could feel old traumas creep back in.

 

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The Holiday season is a great time to stop and look around the family you have and appreciate it in its’ full strange, complicated weirdness. Toni Erdmann manages to capture the disconnection and the complexity of families in this strange but awesome German comedy. Toni Erdmann follows a pretty eccentric father trying to reconnect with his daughter, a  go-getter who’s trying to run away from herself in order to become something better. During the course of the story, she learns that an apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

Call_Me_by_Your_Name17. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017)

Oh, the blissful boredom of having nothing to do on a beautiful summer day, under a scorching sun. Our kids will never experience that again: they can always dig out their cellphones and drift away in the always-connected world of the Internet, but hopefully one day they’ll accidentally click on Call Me By Your Name on Netflix or whatever the streaming giant on their phones will be and watch this peek into the times before every minute of your potentially free brain-time was sold in micro-moments to companies trying to get you to consume more of their products.

81r7i4oSmXL._SY679_16. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller, 2019)

Apollo 11 is a gripping documentary that keeps you on the edge of your seat, crunching the armrests, knuckles white, breathing short, shallow gasps as in to make sure your presence would in no way alter the course of the tender wheels of human history unfolding in front of your eyes. Every school should include Apollo 11 into their curriculum, for it is not only an accurate documentary of events that changed the history of our race forever but also a hugely inspiring film, too, one that pushes you to reach beyond the limits of possibility in order to achieve something great.

MV5BMTgxOTY4Mjc0MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTA4MDQyMw@@._V1_15. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)

The best in the Toy Story quadrology, Toy Story 3 talks to kids about things that really matter – about friendship and about losing your loved ones – in such a way I as a father could only hope to achieve. The clarity of the language is important, and yes, it’s wrapped in the clothes of an action-comedy, but unlike others in the business, Pixar never forgets the big, important and heartfelt story that’s needed to make a movie into something more than just a bunch of beautifully animated scenes. Toy Story 3 is Pixar at its’ best, most touching and also, most fun.

 

MV5BMTk4NjM0MjI3MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjcxMDYzNg@@._V1_14. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier, 2011)

In yet another outburst of Lars Von Trier’s self-loathing depression depiction, Melancholia manages to be simultaneously hauntingly beautiful, extremely funny and sharp and clear in its’ description of what I imagine depression actually being like, feeling like, looking like. It may not be Lars Von Trier’s greatest work – one can argue whether that would be either Dancer in the DarkDogville or Europa (of which I haven’t seen the last one) – it’s still a great and honest film.

 

MV5BMTYxNDA3MDQwNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTU4Mzc1Nw@@._V1_13. Intouchables (Olivie Nakache, Eric Toledano, 2011)

A feel-good film of the decade, Intouchables, a French film about a paraplegic multi-millionaire and his streetwise personal assistant became a huge hit, and was even remade into an American picture The Upside (2017) with Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston (which I haven’t seen). No idea whether or not the remake made any sense, but I can tell that Intouchables is pretty close to a perfect movie: the writing is impeccable, the film runs on full steam right from the start and the stars – Francois Cluzet and Omar Sy – and their chemistry together – make the film a pure bliss to enjoy.

FiveBrokenCameras_DVD.indd12. Five Broken Cameras (Emad Burant and Guy Davidi, 2011)

A conflict of the century, the Palestinian struggle of independence, is a narrative that’s easily shifted depending on the point of view of the teller. Five Broken Cameras brings the argument on a new level, telling the story from the point of view of a person right in the middle of it all, a Palestinian observing the Israeli settlers making their way into their small strip of land. Not only is the strength of the film in the circumstances and unique vantage point of the filmmakers Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, it’s also an excellent work of art.

6109c945116999.560794192255c11. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

Things we know about Iranian culture: fuck all. A Separation is both a slap in the faces of western film audience, showing that shit, it’s not just people walking around in burqas and bomb vests, but actually a highly complex culture which has its’ own pitfalls and bureaucracies and that yes, religion is important part of that culture, but so it is in ours. We are actually pretty much the same. But that aside, it’s a terrifically acted and directed film about a very complicated breakup, a film that A Marriage Story should’ve been.

The-Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey-Poster10. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Peter Jackson, 2012)

After the success of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit attempted to repeat the impossible, turning J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic into films that can proudly stand next to their literary versions. The Lord of the Rings were a slam dunk; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was just as great. Unfortunately, the following two movies fell off the tracks and ruined the second trilogy but nevertheless, An Unexpected Journey is a beautiful, perfect fantasy movie.

 

b9c7f0d5-eb0e-497c-ba28-a070011a7a12_COVERM_019. Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012)

Huge, sweeping landscapes, a story that runs back in history millions of years with religious thematics and aliens that gave birth to mankind but realized they had created a beast too dangerous to exist and created an antidote, but failed to deliver it. It’s a big story, one which does have some holes in it, I bet, but I never understood the Reddit backlash the film suffered from. To me, it’s one of the best SciFi films ever, and a great inspiration of how to take a franchise to a completely new level.

 

MV5BNmZjMDgyMDgtYWI4OS00YjZkLWEyODktNzE0MmViOTFjMDA4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTA4NzY1MzY@._V1_8. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn, 2012)

A documentary about Indonesian mass killings in the mid-’60s, or actually, the people behind those killings goes off the rails quite quickly. The film sets the actual killers to recount the murders on-camera, turning them into films made in style of their favorite film genres – western, crime, musical. It’s quite a mind-bender, to see the real people recounting their actual crimes and not really understanding how fucked-up it has been – until someone actually does. It’s one of the most jaw-dropping documentaries ever made and leaves you disgusted and in disbelief for a long time.

TheWolfOfWallStreet7. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

The sheer energy and unhinged power of The Wolf of Wall Street alone make it hard to believe it’s directed by a 70-something-years old. The film moves on like a coke-snorting Wall Street dealer, playing the Scorsese top hits, power-crazy men and their just-crazy women, big-spending, mob-flirting assholes shouldering their way on the top while waving the big middle finger to the law enforcement, finally stumbling and spending the rest of their lives in comfortable obscurity, outside of the limelight, reminiscing their past lives with affection.

61PMvIeivaL._SY679_6. Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015)

Crafting a documentary is storytelling at its’ most complicated level since you are forced to stick with the truth at least in some capacity. Asking a documentarian to do a story about you – or your daughter, as it was the case with Amy – is like Russian roulette: one of you will die. In this case, it was Amy’s father (and immediate family) who got the bullet, who turned out to be a nasty hog riding on his daughter’s money and fame, pushing her deeper into her alcohol-fueled life. She died a sad, skeletal shadow of her former self, but most importantly, she died so that her father could fulfill his dreams of living large and important. Sad shit, great doc.

91aUSvV+4qL._RI_5. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)

What must’ve been one of the shitties productions to pull off, given all the delays, the almost-starting-but-calling-it-off-two-weeks-before-the-first-shooting-day -things and all, Mad Max: Fury Road managed to pull out of the development hell stronger, grittier, nastier and dirtier than ever. Crazy star-studded cast with Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy riding the carriage, and post-apocalypse veteran George Miller running the whole show, it’s a perfect action film: simple-enough plot, high production values and a killer soundtrack to go with it.

MV5BMTA2NDc3Njg5NDVeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU4MDc1NDcxNTUz._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,674,1000_AL_4. Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018)

Talking about a tricky production, director getting fired weeks before finishing the shoot must be pretty high on the list of hardships a production has to endure. Still, Bohemian Rhapsody pulled it off and did that with style. The film became one of the highest-grossing films of the year, rivaling even the superhero flicks. Now, it’s not a flawless movie – not by a long shot – but neither are some of my favorite films of all time. What it is, is a pure joy: a film that’s so full of great moments and scenes that even if it does come off a bit shaky as a whole in the end, it’s such a pleasure to watch. And yeah, I’ve been a huge Queen fan all my life, so there’s that, too.

Joker-Movie-Poster-2019-13. Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

DC understood that in order to compete against Marvel, one has to come up with a bit of a different angle. They did it already with Nolan’s Batman, bringing a darker, grittier and harder-hitting version of their favorite superhero, and now they decided to do the same with a villain. Not to say they hadn’t tried, but Suicide Squad didn’t really work. And even more so, they tried two impossible things at the same time: to do a superhero film about mental illness and to challenge the greatness of Heath Ledger, who still is the best Joker out there. Somehow, they managed to do both, and while Joaquin Phoenix may not be better than Heath Ledger’s Joker, he’s just as good.

irishman2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

The Irishman is Martin Scorsese closing books on his mob quadrology, which started with Mean Streets (1973), followed by Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995) and the 2013 spinoff The Wolf of Wall Street  (2013), which stuns with its’ tranquil pacing, subtle acting and a sad undertone of watching an old criminal rotting away in a retirement home, reminiscing his past life and crimes to nobody in particular. If this turns out to be also Scorsese’s last film, it’s a fine way to leave the field, saying: try topping this. We’ll never have stars like Pacino, Pesci, and DeNiro again, and we’ll never get another Scorsese.

MV5BZjdkOTU3MDktN2IxOS00OGEyLWFmMjktY2FiMmZkNWIyODZiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTMxODk2OTU@._V1_SY1000_SX675_AL_1. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

Funny thing, when Interstellar came out in 2014, I wasn’t that smitten by it. It took me another viewing to really start appreciating it, but it needed a full IMAX experience to truly fall in love with it. A film that captures what movies are supposed to be, at least in my mind, Interstellar is defining science fiction film of the decade. Stepping into the hall of fame, populated by the likes of 2001: A Space OdysseyTerminator 2Moon and maybe a handful of others, Interstellar brings what only a science fiction greatness can: a cinematic masterpiece, a visual behemoth of a story that simply doesn’t fit into the screen of any size, really, and a soundtrack and soundscapes that truly take you to a different vantage point to observe our current reality.

 

Opinions, Top Films

Best Films Of 2018


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The year has skipped past faster than I could even register. Wasn’t it just January, when I flew back from China and prepped to finish the shoot of The Ark in Finland? And then February, which I spent in Berlin and China, followed by March which I spent in the courthouse in Finland defending my life’s work for a malicious asshole who tried to claim it his own? And now it’s already May, I’m in LA shooting additional footage for Iron Sky The Coming Race… Oh, I mean August, and I’m back in China doing post production for The Ark… September, October finishing The Coming Race, which is going to get released in just few weeks.

Where did the year go, indeed?

But amidst all the chaos, I did have a chance to enjoy a bunch of films. I started patching my IMDB Top-250 list, watching loads of Indian movies, Korean movies and oldies goldies. At hotel rooms, on planes and airports, and some at home. But film theatres, I didn’t get to go as much as I would have wanted to.

I simply didn’t have time to sit in movie theatres, to see the brand new ones – but I did catch a set of great films –  so, without further ado, here’s my list of the top 10 films released in 2018!

bestfilms

MV5BMjMxNjY2MDU1OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzY1MTUwNTM@._V1_.jpg1. AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR 

Alright, I admit it – Avengers gets the first place half because I’m so absolutely stunned a Marvel film even made my list, and half because it’s just a brilliant film. I’ve not been into superheroes after Raimi’s first Spider-Man, but Avengers manages to mend the damage done by the billion other films I never cared too much about – be it Hulk or Thor or whatever-Man, by rationing all of these characters precisely the amount I can stand them in a movie, and putting it together in a way that just plain works for me.

MV5BNTJmNzExOGItZTQyMi00YzBlLTk0ZTQtNzAxYmUwZDQwZjU4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODE1MjMyNzI@._V1_UY1200_CR90,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg2. COLD WAR

Ahh, what’s better than a black-and-white Polish drama set in the late 40’s through mid-60’s? Well, thanks to director Pawel Pawilowski, pretty much nothing, not this year at least. Like watching a 40’s beautiful black and white photo coming alive, the film tells a tragic, tragic jazz and lust filled story that takes us through the years of Communist oppression, as seen by the most cinematic couple played by Joanna Kulik and Tomasz Kot. Close to a masterpiece, this one!

 

 

MV5BMjUyOTE1NjI0OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTM4ODQ5NTM@._V1_.jpg3. BLACKKKLANSMAN 

A Spike Lee joint is always a bit of a guessing game – sometimes, they hit hard and exactly the right way, sometimes they go way off. Well, at least that’s what I’ve heard, but truth be told, I’ve only seen good Spike Lee films, and Blackkklansman is definitely one of them. It’s not as game-changing as Clockers or Do The Right Thing, but it tells a great story with some stellar performances – Jasperi Pääkkönen’s as the one we Finns love, and with a good reason.

 

MV5BOTU5MDg3OGItZWQ1Ny00ZGVmLTg2YTUtMzBkYzQ1YWIwZjlhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTAzMTY4MDA@._V1_.jpg4. HEREDITARY

I don’t watch horror movies as much as I should, since I usually like the genre if it’s well made – like Hereditary is – and has some truly creepy shit – as Hereditary does have. Being truly scared shitless from time to time is a novel experience and thanks to our jaded we’ve-seen-it-all entertainment industry harder and harder to come by, but unlike many think, one doesn’t need no crazy bells and whistles to get there, but a good story, slow, creeping cameras and scary-face little kid and voilá, I’m jumping in the ceiling.

MV5BNjRlZmM0ODktY2RjNS00ZDdjLWJhZGYtNDljNWZkMGM5MTg0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjAwMjI5MDk@._V1_5. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT

Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible seem to be an infallible combo, and Fallout really drives the point to home. My hands were sweating the whole time I was crushing the edges of the seat at the theatre, and while the plot is really nonsensical and thoroughly confusing if you try to understand it even the least bit, as an action film it’s a great friggin’ thrill ride!

 

 

borap6. BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

As a life-long Queen aficionado, I came in for the music, and didn’t leave disappointed. That said, the film might have been a bit clumsy, and definitely not the Oscar-hoarding megabiopic everyone was hoping it to be, but although looking like an unholy mix of a Deep One and Freddie Mercury, Rami Malek does a terrific job. The grand finale at Live Aid – a concert I’ve watched at least a thousand times as a kid – is impeccably staged and played, and brings home what might have been slightly jarring softball of a biopic in the second act.

MV5BMDBhOTMxN2UtYjllYS00NWNiLWE1MzAtZjg3NmExODliMDQ0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjMxOTE0ODA@._V1_7. FIRST MAN

Subject matter matters, and it’s more true with First Man and me than any other film this year, save maybe BoRap. It’s interesting, the poster promises kind of Apollo-13 -kind of a thriller with cool CGI and explosions and whatnot – but instead, the film delivers a slow, ponderous and muted-colour period piece – and that’s just fine! It’s like a very detailed history lesson which makes us to appreciate the effort and dangers humans had to endure to get us on the Moon, in rickety tin cans. When descending on the Moon, lights blinking and the whole film theatre rattling around us, the viewer really feels like he’s in there with the guys, barely letting us breathe. Ryan Gosling is playing stronger than I’ve seen him play in a while, with an ocean roaring inside, and nothing showing outside. Not sure how accurate his performance of Neil Armstrong is, or maybe he’s just playing himself, but he does it very well nevertheless.

26340328. ROMA

Another black-and-whiter, Roma stuns you with the amount of people in every scene, the extras are abundant and all feel really, really well placed and their actions feel really well designer. This wouldn’t normally be a topic, but with Roma it is an instrumental element to completely sink you into the story – you don’t feel alone, but smothered by people everywhere, and the main actor Yalitza Aparicio’s terrific performance amidst it all is unforgettable.

 

uxzzxijgPIY7slzFvMotPv8wjKA.jpg9. BLACK PANTHER

Shit, another Marvel pic in my Best Of -list. Last year I would’ve never guessed this, I tell you… But Black Panther is good. It’s really pulling you in to the story – the production design, the accents, the costumes, the music, the main cast acting, it all feels very fresh and enjoyable popcorn entertainment. The CGI is sometimes a bit lackluster, but in the big picture it all goes down really well.

 

Tyhjio_108010. TYHJIÖ

This year, the only Finnish film I went to see and loved so much it made my top-10 -list was Aleksi Salmenperä’s tragic yet damn funny and close-to-home -hitting black comedy Tyhjiö (“The Vacuum”), which tells a story of an artist couple struggling with their lives and art. Poignant and snappy with its’ humour, and the third black-and-whiter (mostly) on my list this year, the film was bound to leave the small but devoted audience laughing and talking about the film for quite a long time after.

 

 

1fcadbb8433bcf5d0dc834cd99719ca2RUNNER-UP: A STAR IS BORN 

Argh, I wanted to love this film but I couldn’t get past the fact that it becomes quite a molasses-laden Hollywood-by-the-book -pic of the old days by the third act. It’s really great to see the cast doing wonderful job, and music being so beautiful, I just wish it had been … Ahh, who cares. I enjoyed it. It felt good. I just needed a very salty snack afterwards.

 

 

PS. This list consists of films that were released in 2018 and which I saw. I saw quite a load of other films that were either released in Finland in 2018 which I loved (Death Of Stalin, A Prayer Before Dawn, Lucky to name a few) but they are out of the scope of this list.

Top Films

Top 10 Films of 2017


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Two thousand and seventeen was quite a lackluster year for movies for me at least. I missed most of the ones said to be great ones, and ended up watching quite a disappointing collection of movies, thus the list doesn’t really look amazing at the end of the year.

Ridley Scott made it to my list twice, as it seems to be the trend every year, but this year it seems the only action films populating the top choices. The reason isn’t really because there wasn’t any, I just didn’t see them. I’ve been traveling the big part of the year in festivals and since August, I’ve been in China quite busy working on Iron Sky: The Ark, so I just didn’t have an access to the theatres that much.

But enough talking, here’s my top-10 movies of 2017!

AlienCovenantAlien: Covenant 

To be honest, the story of the film is a bit of a blur to me, but I can’t help but love Ridley Scott’s pull when he’s doing a film. Alien: Covenant is doing the wrong thing in theory, explaining in detail the origins of the Monster – the more mysterious it remains, the more interesting it is – but he does it through pulling in mythologies and bringing it all together in a big, epic scale that just works for me.

★★★★

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The Fate of the Furious

The biggest, dumbest action film of the year is definitely The Fate of the Furious, which floats freely away from the origins of the series, going closer to the action franchises like Mission: Impossible, but does it bravely enough that you never have time to stop to think too much about what’s really going on. It’s The Rock derailing missiles with his bare hands, Vin Diesel yapping about family values and a lot of car crashes. It makes no sense, but it’s a fun ride. There’s value in that, too.

★★★★

d90a1a3fe173e96e786dffda9cc50301-dbfa97aDunkirk

While a spectacular visually, Dunkirk really lacks interesting characters that would pop out amidst all the war stuff going on around them. Somehow Christopher Nolan has always had this problem for me: although the writing is good, the characters remain always distant and cold in his films, and especially in a war movie, you need the humanity to balance the rest.

★★★

War-for-the-Planet-of-the-Apes-2017-movie-posterWar of the Planet of the Apes

A promising start of the movie in its’ post-apocalyptic coldness starts to fade out as the film progresses and shows that it lacks an interesting script. The world is nicely fleshed out, and probably for the first time ever I can say that the visual effects have reached a state where I’m really fooled by them, but in the end the film is just two major set pieces – the beginning and the end, but the journey in between isn’t really an interesting one.

★★★

PCC_BabyDriver_REG_Stroke_1024x1024Baby Driver

Baby Driver is a film that sucks you right in and keeps a tight grip, until halfway through, when the movie just runs out of ideas, or the production out of budget or something. Then we keep on repeating the same locations and characters, and stumble into the fact that the backstory of the main character is not as interesting as the beginning would have promised.

★★★

 

RP15402-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-Dead-Men-Tell-No-Tales-CollagePirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

…Or Salazar Revenge, or whatever it is they wanted to localize the movie with, it’s an atttempt to kickstart a fading franchise, and does it perfectly acceptably. Whatever the story is about I have no clue, I mean yeah there’s a bad guy and Guybrush Threepwood or whatever Bloom’s character is called, and Johnny Depp on autopilot, but it’s not really the point. You get the big ships crashing into big ships and sinking, you get some mystery stuff going on and big visual effect set pieces and then it’s the end.

★★★

blade-runner-2049-posterBlade Runner 2049

Somehow, the first thing that came to my mind watching Blade Runner 2049 was that I was watching a lengthy episode of Netflix TV series based on Blade Runner. So strongly stylized, but suffering from some kind of a TV-series -style scale issue: massive matte painting exteriors, but when you cut inside, you’re in a relatively small sets, so the world feels very artificial. Nothing, actually, feels very alive in the movie, it’s like reading a concept art book – beautiful pictures but the story is nowhere to be found.

★★★

timthumbLogan

Superhero movies rarely make my list, but Logan was a rare one which didn’t make me want to leave the theatre during the first ten minutes. Well, technically I was watching the film in an airplane, so that would’ve been a tragic mistake anyways. Logan’s promise was that it’s a superhero movie for the grownups. Well, I’m not sure if that’s the case, I mean it still has all the problems a regular superhero film has

★★★

p12009522_p_v8_agDespicable Me 3

Despicable series has never really moved me, but I must admit they get to be clever sometimes in writing. It’s always good to present a hero to the kids that isn’t the most standard white handsome young under 30’s idol and the little yellow shits (whatever they are called) can be occasionally entertaining. Extra points for some great tracks in the film.

★★★

 

lego_batman_whv_keyartThe Lego Batman Movie

The Lego Movie was a promising start for the new franchise, and Batman was definitely the funniest character in it, so when the trailers started to pop up, I was really looking forward for something really great. The film itself, though, is a one-trick pony which stops being inventive in the first act and then keeps kicking the dead horse through the last two acts. Still, something new and fun to go watch with your kids.

★★★

Top Films

Top 10 Films of 2016


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movies

The year 2016 was a terrible year, one that won’t be easily forgotten. We lost so many important figures – from Lemmy to David Bowie, Prince to Leonard Cohen, Alan Rickman to Carrie Fisher and so many others. Not only that, but the people, events and movements that gained power and notoriety made it even worse: Trump, Brexit and multiple terrorist attacks across the globe. Personally, it was a devastation as well – my brother Ville sadly passed away suddenly in December.

All this put together, it’s not a surprise the year wasn’t great in film, either. I actually had trouble picking 10 films I thoroughly enjoyed, but here it is nevertheless. Note, I haven’t seen films like La La Land and Manchester By The Sea yet, so it might turn out a bit different in the end.

1: I, DANIEL BLAKE

i-daniel-blake-3

The story of two society’s outcasts teaming up together to fight the world has never been this bleak, sad or frustrating. Rarely do I stop to really think the challenges the modern world poses on those not signed up for the digital revolution, but Ken Loach rubs it in our faces so hard it’s hard to miss. Terrific performances from Dave Johns and Hayley Squires, both relatively unknown faces, brought the gritty world of UK bureaucratic wasteland alive.

2: CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

captain_fantastic_viggo_mortensen_header_image_1980

Another us-versus-the-world film, but with much brighter and positive, Captain Fantastic brought Arago… I mean, Viggo Mortensen to herd a hippie family who just lost their mother. Basically, it’s a road trip movie to the funeral, to be arranged by a stiff upper-class family of the deceased. Lively, sparkling and fun, yet guaranteed to squeeze bucketful of tears, Captain Fantastic left me happily smiling.

3: TONI ERDMANN

toni-erdmann-5-rcm0x1920u1

The world has truly gone mad: Trump is the president of USA, UK is no more in EU and the Germans make the best comedy of the year. Disconnect with his daughter leads Winfried to a desperate offensive into her personal life and to the invention of a fake persona with fake teeth, Toni Erdmann. The extremely long film, Toni Erdmann takes advantage of the time available and spends it with the main characters and the crazy events that take place in the world, and carefully convinces us that it’s OK to like, even to laugh at a German comedy.

4: SNOWDEN

A supplementary film to the 2014 Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour is a dramatised account on events that took place, peppered with fictitious characters and scenes, but Oliver Stone‘s tough directing and  Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s eerily Snowden-like performance make up for them. A solid techno thriller about one of the most important people alive today.

5: HACKSAW RIDGE

Looking for an absolution of the Hollywood, Mel Gibson makes an American war hero movie, but finds a twist never seen before: about a man who never shoots a bullet. Based on true story of Desmond Doss who wanted badly to become a medic but refused to carry a weapon is a cruel, rough WWII portrayal the next film, but with a bit bigger heart and message to carry around.

6: THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI

Olli Mäki is a legend I never heard of before the movie got made, but fell in love with quickly as portrayal of his personality, brought alive by Jarkko Lahti, made its’ way in the big screen. The under-stated boxing film is an exact antonym of American boxing films like Rocky, but the twist is brilliant: a boxer who falls in love. Shot in black and white, the film has been appraised for its’ humane qualities.

7: 13TH

Selma director Ava DuVernay continues her work on the black history, this time digging into the big, gaping hole in the US legal system that is the prison system, a legalised form of slavery. While made in a very American style with all the bells and whistles clanking and tooting to keep the the attention of the kids, the film reminds us that while US is so concentrated on fighting the racism by condemning the “N”-word, it’s actually not doing anything to the very problem itself.

8: GHOSTBUSTERS

ghostbusters-2016-cast-proton-packs-images

While Ghostbusters is definitely not worthy of its’ predecessor in 1984, it’s a really fun and quite original, but definitely not without flaws. It remains to be seen whether the film makes enough dough to deliver a sequel, it’s not really looking like that, but there is much gas in the ladies still left. What resonates the most in the film is that it’s being made with loads of love and fun, real trust in the end result. It’d be shame if they weren’t given another chance just because Internet trolls did what they do best, bash women, and marketing team failed to swing the hatred to their advantage.

9: STAR TREK BEYOND

Star Trek (2009) was a great start new start for the beloved Star Trek franchise, but stumbled with the second part Into Darkness. Picking up the pieces left by Abrams as he jumped the ship to the Star Wars world, director Justin Lin managed to pull off a completely decent Star Trek movie, not a masterpiece but not among the worst ones out there. The “every second Star Trek movie works” -rule still applies.

10: BODOM

Happy to be able to bring in a two mentions of a Finnish movie this year, Bodom managed to surpass all the expectations by being just a very well made teen slasher film with a script that actually worked. Fresh faces on the screen (Nelly Hirst-Gee is going to be a star!) and fresh energy behind the camera, Bodom was a good, original and damn beautiful horrorish, mildly slashery piece of entertainment.

 

 

 

Top Films

Best Films Of 2015


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…And what a year in film it has been! Global box office records have been shattered twice (Jurassic World, followed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens), triumphant return of the beloved franchises – this time done right (mainly, Mad Max: Fury Road and Star Wars: The Force Awakens) – and also, not so right (SpectreTerminator: Genisys) – also Tarantino returns with yet another western. Not that much anything new on the big screens, but much of the old stuff re-heated, sometimes with great success, sometimes, not so great.

Here are the best films of 2015. Disclaimer, I haven’t seen some of the important ones (The Revenant, The Hateful Eight) yet, because they hadn’t come out in Finland yet.

1. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (George Miller)

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CHARLIZE THERON Character(s): Imperator Furiosa Film ‘MAD MAX: FURY ROAD’ (2015) Directed By GEORGE MILLER 13 May 2015 SAM51136 Allstar/WARNER BROS.

Staggering out of the theatre after the intense experience that was the new Mad Max, the film that had been in the making for over 20 years, having so many times almost getting made but then getting cancelled the last minute, I felt strangely numb and even a bit sad. Numb, because all my sensory inputs had been blasted with so much pure awesome for the last two hours, and sad because I knew I’ll never do a film better than Mad Max: Fury Road in my life. I came out having watched – no, witnessed – something that 20-30 years later would be an action classic, an experience I can brag to my son and his friends later on, just like our parents were able to brag about having watched Indiana Jones or Star Wars in theatres, or having seen Beatles live.

Mad Max: Fury Road was so extremely good because of these three factors:

  1. Sheer energy was tangible in the way I haven’t seen in action films in years. Computer generated visual effects, stunt choreography, action vehicles and all the special effects – cars wrecks, explosions and weapons – worked seamlessly together, fooling even the more experienced viewer that they were actually watching a film that was analog in the same way films were in the 80’s (which, of course wasn’t true, but just to be able to grasp the same effect, look and feel is a directorial triumph of its’ own).
  2. Simple plot is the very key to a successful action film. Mad Max‘s plot was: go there, kick ass and come back. Instead of focusing on pushing the viewer through the marshes of self-indulgent scribes trying to find their way around their life-long writer’s block, it focused on the drama and the characters which made the simple plot interesting and epic.
  3. Characters were treated in an interesting manner for an action film. Main guy Mad Max (Tom Hardy) was actually an observer, and it was Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who slammed the pedal to the metal and led the way. This slight shift in power made it feel fresh and modern.

2. LOVE (GASPAR NOÉ)

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Love isn’t the film which features all this real, direct penis-in-vagina -sex. It isn’t the movie which brought threesome in the big theatre screen near you. It’s the film which investigated the most interesting – and most familiar, and most believable – relationship issues and dialogues of the year. It was the best film about love this year.

Love introduced us a man who mixes love with dependancy in the wrong way, a man who believes his actions are above other people actions, a childish kid who experiences feelings related to love, but has no idea or concept of what love is supposed to be. There’s the woman who knows very well what love is, but burns her love with such a heated flame it leaves only ashes behind. They end up searching ways to explore their sexuality, bump into jealousness, ex-es and sheer stupidity around intoxicants and ruining what could’ve turned into something good.

Gaspar Noé manages to find real intimacy between the characters, and the cheesy relationship dialogue which sounds way too stupid to be written in a film is actually exactly the same pillow talk we all are so familiar with in real life.

3. SICARIO (DENIS VILLENEUVE)

Sicario-Emily-Blunt-Blood-Shower

Honestly, I don’t understand why Sicario isn’t spoken more about. It’s a serious, shocking bad-ass thriller about the futile, already-lost war on drugs, topical and modern in storytelling. The grit and scale and the element of constant, harrowing danger all around makes it definitely one of the strongest experiences in cinema this year, one where you feel you as an audience member are being spoken to directly, looking right into your eyes, about something that’s going on right now. Jóhann Jóhansson‘s music paints even darker clouds in the distance.

4. AMY (ASIF KAPADIA)

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Director Asif Kapadia made one of the strongest documentaries of the recent years, Senna (2010), few years back, and now returns with a brilliant and uncomfortably closeup documentary about the drug- and alcohol addicted singer Amy Winehouse, and one of the biggest losses of music industry since the death of Kurt Cobain. The film starts off with seemingly random collection of bad-quality home video clips from Amy’s years, and the more prominent and popular she becomes, the more the produced interviews and TV-footage starts to wipe out the person she was and presents herself as the person the media wanted to see. In the end, we’re witnessing mostly flashing lights of the paparazzi and Amy running into black cars, herself being completely consumed by the ever-hungry shit media and her gift becoming secondary to her troubles. More than the story of Amy Winehouse, it’s actually the story of how the Yellow Press and media in general, friends, parents, managers, lovers and bodyguards abuse the center of all attention, all tearing her apart in their own way. Left is nothing but a shell, talented shell, but the person is gone before she’s pronounced officially dead. There’s no need for talking heads of the people around her – we only hear their voices – because these are the people who, in the end, pushed her to the edge and beyond.

5. GOODNIGHT MOMMY (ICH SEH, ICH SEH – SEVERIN FIALA & VERONICA FRANZ)

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Although the film is far less popular than the rest on this list, it’s just as effective and gripping. A Swiss filmmaker’s harrowing story about two (or, spoilers ahead, is it only one?) kids who decide their mother is actually not their mother, and start torturing her in her own home in the most gruesome manners. It follows the home invasion / torture horror schematics and definitely isn’t the first time it’s done, but Goodnight Mommy does it the right way. More than anything, it’s in the end a story of loneliness, growth of identity, blame and guilt, all woven into a simple story shot in a simple location, in a chilling manner. The film deserves all the love it’s getting from genre festivals around the world, and there was even a slight chance of it ending up competing for Oscars (it didn’t, in the end), but it’s bound to be re-made in America, probably turning it into a crappy DVD-horror fiction, unless they hire the directors and let them have their way with it.

6. BRIDGE OF SPIES (STEVEN SPIELBERG)

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I love Steve Spielberg, and if you’re like me, Bridge Of Spies is a perfectly rationed Spielbergian drama. Good script, stellar cast and beautiful cinematography are all the elements that a good film needs for a very enjoyable 2 hours in cinema. It gets a bit too overtly American, but then again, that’s also Spielbergian trait, so the film is best when taken in with a grain of salt.

7. THE MARTIAN (RIDLEY SCOTT)

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Agricultural science fiction is unfortunately an ailing treat in cinema nowadays, but bravely as ever, Ridley Scott takes a potato and makes a full-fletched billion-dollar scifi classic out of farming on Mars. Matt Damon is best when he’s left alone doing his Matt Damon -thing, without any actors buzzing around and bothering. Clearly based on a good source material – book by Andy Weir – it’s a very good, although not a genre-changing as Ridley’s earlier works sometimes have been, comedic-element-loaded scifi story.

8. THE LOOK OF SILENCE (JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER)

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The feelbad movie of 2015 comes – again – from Joshua Oppenheimer, whose The Look of Silence is just pure brilliant documentary filmmaking. Although based on some of the same elements as 2012 film Act of Killing, it’s a completely different, and way more personal account on the atrocities of Indonesia, following one man’s journey into confronting the murderers of his brothers, who nowadays live large and as respected members of the community. The lack of remorse in the film is only strengthened when a daughter of one of the murderers tries, feebly, to ask forgiveness for her sick father. The darkness in The Look Of Silence is so intense you’ll carry it with you a long time.

9. EX MACHINA (ALEX GARLAND)

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Born from the brain of brilliant novelist and ambitious scriptwriter Alex Garland, this year’s smaller scifi classic Ex Machina works its’ magic on robots and emotions. Not the first time this topic is on, nor will it be the last time, but the subtle approach entertains the brain and gives a nice breather among the explosions and starships of typical scifi visions.

10. INSIDE OUT (PETER DOCTER, RONNIE DEL CARMEN)

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Pixar’s films have been going downhill since Cars 2, but Inside Out brings a nice change to the sequel-stuffed roster. As a concept, it’s original and that’s quite a lot to say nowadays. The film itself suffers a little bit when trying to be the brainy, kid-friendly, adult-loving all-around family film, when it apparently wanted to be a film for a little bit more mature audience to begin with. Nevertheless, it’s very clever and intelligent and most of the time quite funny, and just like all the best Pixar films, also touching, although the main characters are not that well developed that they’d become instant legends the same way Toy Story’s or WALL-E‘s characters did.