EvilPhoEniX

Robert Morgan is an expert in stop-motion animation and he showed his skills in the short Bobby Yeah, but the feature film format doesn't suit him that well, as I thought he kept things on a very short leash and there's no twisted deviousness. The film does try to bring a breath of fresh air to the horror genre, but there are few horror attractions and the slower pace doesn't even make it any proper fun. Breathing life into the puppets with meat and a dead fox was an interesting idea and the final appearance was pretty creepy, but something interesting doesn't really start happening until 15 minutes before the end and that's too late. It's somewhere right at the halfway point. Sympathy for the idea, but a lot more could have been done with it. 55%.

The 2024 series cannonade continues, and this time Apple is throwing its hand in with quite possibly the best World War II thing we'll see this year, because there probably won't be any other competition. The Zone of Interest (or rather, disinterest), of course, is just peering out the window and silently envying. The series focuses on the pilots of the 100th Bombardment Squadron and I don't think I've seen anything more cinematically close to the Air Force. The horror of the pilots and what they have to go through is almost palpable and I devoured the entire series without blinking an eye. Of the characters, the best were Austin Butler, Callum Turner and Nate Mann, who’s so cool, with angel wings on his back. Barry Keoghan was also great in a smaller role. What annoyed me a little about the series, though, was that they rotated a bunch of characters from episode to episode and I couldn't really build a proper relationship, but considering the suicide missions they were sent on I can't fault that too much. The best episodes are without a doubt 3 and 5, which have the most action packed passages, it was a decent Battlefield in the air, with Cary Joji Fukunaga surprising with some nice gore at times, and the ending is properly touching. I liked the fact that there were concentration camps as well and the riot in the finale is a decent atmospheric gem. For me a wonderful affair that presents WWII from a slightly different angle, but does it in an honest and heartfelt way. So Fukunaga has handled the subject with grace and can definitely take credit for its success. It doesn't lack much for a full score. 85%.

Guy Ritchie at his best! For me it's an even more entertaining and coherent experience than the original film, albeit without any proper stars, but it's London Gangster as it should be! The likable Theo James inherits a drug empire after his father dies, with a fortune and its problems to deal with, most of which are caused by his wayward brother Daniel Ings. Alongside Theo, Kaya Scodelario is awesome, and is not only great to watch but has a superbly written character. Ritchie could have pushed the envelope more in terms of action and violence, we get relatively little of that here, but he makes up for it with polished and witty dialogue, great twists, great pacing, cool characters (every new character on the scene is awesome) and a likeable atmosphere. I really devoured the whole series in one breath without blinking an eye, that's how much I enjoyed it. We're only in March and already there are at least five candidates for series of the year. This year is going to be very interesting. 9/10.

A two hour action romp from the ongoing war in Ukraine, where we have two teams, white and yellow, with one team defending and the other team trying to capture a nine-story tower block. There's no plot, it's shooting for two hours, but I didn't enjoy it at all. Less is sometimes more and even though I love action above all, I really don't enjoy such monotonous shooting. There are no fights, there is no proper gore (if they had spiced it up with a some proper R-rated action , it would be more interesting and realistic, but I remember only two brutal shots). Visually I found it mediocre and you don’t really learn anything about the soldiers, so there is no one to cheer for. Halfway through the film I was so confused I didn't even know what team to root for. If I were 15, I'd probably eat this two-hour mission ripped off from “Call of Duty”, but today I suffered quite a bit. I'll scrape up to three stars or so. 50%.

Matthias Schweighöfer is definitely skilled when it comes to the German comedy scene. I liked him in both Army of the Dead and Army of Thieves, and it's no different here, even if the humour is provided more by his children and Milan Peschel's nanny. Schweighöfer plays here a successful businessman who has no time for his kids and is looking for a nanny, but none of them lasts more than a day, because the children enjoy playing pranks and creating hell for the them (the scene where the children fake a murder in front of the nanny, where the brother cuts off his sister's hand with a chainsaw are great). Then a man walks into the apartment and wants revenge because Matthias wants to tear down their neighborhood, but they won't let him speak and immediately hire him as the new nanny. The first half of the film is really funny, Milan Peschel is such a right hoof and manages to entertain. The second half doesn't rely so much on humor, but I have to say it was really nice and touching. Overall a very feel good thing. 75%.

Too bad that era of quality hixploitaion and exploitation films is sadly irretrievably gone and I'm glad I caught it in my horror heyday. Butchers Book Two: Raghorn is not even a B-movie, it’s cheap C-flick, and while it tries to pay homage to better pieces with its classic proprieties, it's not enough. We have two brothers, one is a proper Hillbilly (here I have to admit the guy played the sleazy redneck perfectly and is probably the best thing about the film), and the other is a classic inbreed grunt. After running over a deer, three unlikeable protagonists (who unfortunately can't act at all) get stuck, and the have a transsexual person tied in the trunk (?!) and of course they cross paths with the rednecks. It has a pretty nice dirty look, but there's very few characters to slaughter and overall the inventiveness of the deaths and the gore are lacking. There's one nasty penis snip and one half-shot head, but that's it. There's no rape, no proper dismemberment (why is there such a nice cleaver on the poster if they don't even use it?) and the cannibalism is only skimmed over, so we're sadly deprived of the best bits. It was watchable, but when I think back to movies from 15 years ago, it's really a bummer. Is it so fucking hard to make a proper rape and revenge flick? 4/10.

Coen obviously slept through the times, because coming up with this in this day and age had no chance of succeeding from the start. We have here a lesbian crime drama where two girls borrow a rental car and drive to Florida to take a break and kiss some women along the way, but they have something in the trunk that two gangsters are looking for and want back. The contents of the suitcase are pretty good, but I thought it was stupid to base a whole movie on that. Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon only have very brief cameos, so clickbait, but Margaret Qualley's performance is excellent, the pair of gangsters are straight out of the 90's, and the black humour is occasionally good. All in all, a dud of a watch with no higher ambitions that didn't completely offend but at the same time didn't thrill. Pure average. Love Lies Bleeding will be very different 5/10.

Very good drama based on true events where a sixteen year old African American kid with a promising career in American football is falsely convicted of kidnapping and rape and gets six years hard time, another six years probation and registration as a sex offender. The story mostly focuses on the main character who is already out on parole and trying to clear his name, only it won't be easy without direct evidence. The protagonist is an incredibly likeable character who will make you keep your hands clenched in fists throughout the film, and you can't help but shake your head at yet another miscarriage of justice. An enjoyable watch for fans of similar films, this one is not well known and deserves more attention. The emotions work too, so ladies take your handkerchiefs with you. 8/10.

A nice little surprise from Netflix and from the director of 28 Weeks Later. It's a fantasy survival adventure that's unexpectedly dark, suspenseful and slightly brutal in places, and with some bits of scape room. Millie Bobby Brown goes from eleven to sexy twenty and grows into a big babe, there's also a visually very pretty to horror dragon, it's got great pacing, plenty of tension, a working soundtrack and it doesn't matter that the story is a simple "Sacrifice a princess to an evil dragon to secure a kingdom" when it all works and entertains. 75%

Not for me. I don't think Michael Haneke is my thing. It's all too grounded and mundane for my taste, filmed entirely in an apartment, and the long static shots really pissed me off because I was always afraid that I had paused the film or someone cut it by mistake. It's very slow paced, unfortunately nothing really interesting happens for the whole two hours, no suspense at all, the twist is ambiguous and the vaunted "shocking" scene seemed rather comical to me. Lots of light psychological terror where I struggled not to fall asleep. It even made remember the horror of Anatomy of a Fall, which is similarly grounded and won the same European awards, so let the nerds enjoy it. 4/10.