Interesting theme that we’ve seen many times before. Therefore not making it special. Therefore not catching my interest. Therefore a low score.

Clown. Hobo. Ballet Dancer. Bagpiper. And an Army Major. A collection of question marks. Five improbable entities stuck together into a pit of darkness. No logic, no reason, no explanation. Just a prolonged nightmare in which fear, loneliness, and the unexplainable walk hand in hand through the shadows. In a moment, we’ll start collecting clues as to the whys, the whats, and the wheres. We will not end the nightmare, we’ll only explain it, because this is the Twilight Zone.

That was the opening narration. What it is, is five people in a cylindrical room with no roof who doesn’t know how, why or where they are there – and tries to figure out a way to escape. I thought it was pretty obvious from the start what was going on, so it’s quite predictable when having seen other Twilight Zone episodes before. Even so, it offered some entertainment value – but it was not one of the better ones…

This is more of a fun episode than a scary one. There’s actually a dude riding a high-wheeler – only that little detail is enough for me to smile. Definitely entertaining, and feels like a fresh angle The Twilight Zone desperately needed by that time (time travelling is used too often, but in this context it at least brings something new).

A little trivia: The old-fashioned clothes wringer that Buster Keaton is using to wash his pants in the beginning is the same kind of wringer that crushed his right forefinger when he was 3 years old. A curious little boy, he got his finger caught in the rollers and a doctor had to amputate it at the first knuckle. In this short, he gets the same finger caught in the wringer for laughs.

The stuff of nightmares, this resembles much something that could have been a work by Stephen King. Beaumont’s (the writers) and King’s minds are thinking alike here. And I liked it.

A kinda mediocre episode. I liked the idea, the concept, but the ending was lame so…nahhh.

Even though one of the characters (the old lady) is extremely stupid and annoying it was still a good episode. The concept of unavoidable doom is quite nice. I liked it.

Sweaty sweaty!

There’s a lot of gay porn. The story circles around this gay couple who are drifting away from each other and then some blah blah buew-huew other bullshit and some sex therapist and then som dominatrix girl and then this brothel or swingers club or whatever which is called Shortbus.

The real plot as written by Anonymous: (don’t you love this dude? He’s everywhere!

Numerous New York City-dwellers come to the exclusive club Shortbus to work out problems in their sexual relationships. Rob and Sophia are a happily married couple, except for the fact that she has never experienced sexual climax. This irony follows her to work, because she is a couples counselor who frequently has to deal with the sexual issues other couples have. Two of her patients are Jamie and James, a gay couple who have been monogamous for five years and counting. James wants to bring other men in to the relationship, and his own history with depression may hint at an ulterior motive. Ceth (Pronounced like Seth) may be the perfect addition to their family, but Caleb, a voyeur from across the street, may have his own ideas about that. Sophia visits Severin, a dominatrix with secrets of her own to reveal.

The movie is waaay too long (too long scenes where nothing happens), it’s frankly quite boring and it’s too gayish. Hell, I’ve got nothing against gay people or whatever but gayness in movies isn’t really my cup of tea. Show me more girls and less dudes and I’ll be happy.

Shortbus fucking sucked. I expected to get softcore deluxe with a hint of hardcore but instead I got a shitload of whining, suicidal bitchin’, attention whores and sex scenes of the type I did not bargain for. And it never like ended. It went on what felt like forever and ever and ever and ever.

Carina kinda liked it though, so I guess it isn’t all out bad. If you’re a girl.

The aftermath

Near the end they all started to sing and play instruments and shit. I didn’t get jack shit of  what was going on, really.

Masturbation in the sunset. That’s the way to get you off, apparently.

It’s a pretty short documentary and it doesn’t get into all the itty bitty details, but it keeps the viewer interest up quite well and it’s really cool to see how much work that is actually put into spoiling the guests. But then I guess it isn’t exactly free to stay at that place either.

Definitely a place one have to visist some time in life.

Nice scenery though, especially if you decide to watch it in High Definition. I found it quite boring so you’d be stupid to watch it – but if you do, at least get a copy in 720p or higher. Nothing less won’t cut it.

As far as I’ve understood this was just the first episode in a series of documentaries; other parts handling other rivers (The Nile, Ganges, Mississippi, The Rhine, Yangtze, …).

Now, give me some zombie piranhas or sharktopus to watch. Then we’re talking some serious business.

You will see houses and boats…  a LOT of housess and boats.

A Dolphin with some serious skin complexion or whatever… One of the few animals we get to see

Another good thing is that Fritidsresor (as we’re travelling with) are paying for the parking fee at Skavsta airport. Kudoz!

Looking forward to a week full of sun and warmth, a lot of swimming and food and beer. Let the good times begin!

Story: Ray Keene (Cusack), widower, teacher and coach. Teenage son Chris Keene caught by cops cause he was enjoying himself with some weed (why is that a crime? It’s absurd!). To bond they go camp together (not smoking weed though – Ray doesn’t really approve of that).

Meanwhile, mercenary assassin Frank Carden (Freeman) is arrested by FBI after a car accident in the middle of a contract to kill an important target. Carden’s men try to free him, but they suck at it so his car falls down into a river and he’s drifting away. As you may have guessed, the camping father and son finds him and takes him as “hostage” while they search for some cops to take care of him. Of course Frank suggests that they should just leave him alone so they don’t get involved in some heavy duty shit. But stupid as he is, Ray insists that they should stick together and bring Frank to justice. This involves being chased and hunted by Franks men day in, day out. At the same time some federal agencies are also on the hunt for Frank Carden (but for different reasons) and soon they are all hunted by various predatory people.

The focus of the movie is on the dynamics and happenings around the father, the son and the captive Carden. Not much effort is put into the background story regarding who the mercenaries is going to kill or why.

It’s a mess and you know it, but you still watch the events unfold and you wait for that ending where everything will be solved. The action sequences are quite well done I’d say, and there are some scenes that actually are good. But overall the story is quite weak and it leaves some things to wish for. However, Morgan Freeman and John Cusack both brings the head of the movie over the surface making it at least a decent one.

The Contract is just below average.

Cusack showing his balls. Well, not literally…

Anyways.With that part of the review handled, let’s continue to the more interesting parts. [Rec] 2 is a horror movie. A spanish horror movie. A bulding is quarantined where some alleged virus has spread among its inhabitants (well yeah, I pointed out in the earlier review that Resident Evil called and wanted its story back. This time they called again) and now some special forces dudes are sent into the building to find and extract… well… something. It isn’t really clear, and it doesn’t have to be either.

As the title suggests ([Rec] for Recording, you stupid fucks), the whole movie is recorded with hand or head cameras. Some people find that hard to watch. I say those people are weak people. It’s kickass. It’s way more authentic that way (well, if you go it good so you actually see something and don’t just get nauseous). In [Rec] 2, this is really well done. Point of view is switched on command between the various special force soldiers who are in the building, getting everybody’s perspective ffrom time to time.

Our prime suspects in the buildings are – yes, you were right – zombies. But not just any zombies. Possessed zombies. Some are even possessed child zombies. That’s totally scary. For the lesser good parts we have one of the dudes in the special forces and two of the kids who sneak into the bulding. They’re all sooo god damn obnoxious you just want to smack them in the face with an anchor (heavy duty anchor) and make them shut the hell up and stop being so freakin’ stupid. I hate stupid people. Especially stupid people in horror movies making so god damn useless decisions getting themselves killed and always, ALWAYS stating the obvious and screaming their lungs out and panicking. annoying pieces of shit.

Anyways. That’s a lesser thing considering what I’m about to write in the next paragraph.

That scary spanish motherfucker Javier Botet is back once again with long arms and hands, playing the original possessed girl. Just look at the pictures below. Botet is making Marilyn Manson look like a beauty queen. He’s one scary shithead you don’t want to fuck with. The absolutely worst thing (“worst thing” as in “most awesomeness thing”) with [Rec] and [Rec] 2 is this dude and the character he plays. That fucker alone is so god damn scary I’d shit my pants five times over before the movie has ended.

Speaking of end, the ending fucking ruled. Except for the credits roll.

Do yourself a favour and get yourself a couple of nights of insomnia and rent [Rec] and [Rec] 2. Have an extra pair of underwear ready.

Little zombie possessed kids. Don’t want them around…

(s)he is the most scary part of the whole movie. Gruesome.

Yep, there’s some blood and stuff too.

Just as in the previous movie there’s this dude falling all the way down to the ground floor. SPLAFF. Sweet!

Javier Botet. Weird body. Perfect for these kind of movies.

The dude in like… normal shape, or something.

The dentist had some work to do on this little brat.

He flees, he meets with this little white girl who helps him out, and then some lame ass conspiracy unfolds and then in the end the special agent is wounded but not killed and like saves the day, brings the evidence and all shit like that and everybody is happy bla bla bla.

There are no surprises. There isn’t even decent action scenes (there are action scenes; but no good ones). Shaking the camera does not make more things happen. It doesn’t even make the impression that something is happening. Can’t believe how desperate Snipes would have been to accept this role. It’s lame. It’s sucky. It’s just… not worth spending your time on.

“Woah, hold it kid. Did you just say that I’m not getting paid for playing this role?”

The cast is quite impressive. Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno (playing Vincent, which is a badass name I will give to my coming son, whenever that will be), Stellan Skarsgård and Sean Bean plays the leading roles. They do their roles well. Impressive car chases (without some crappy shitmusic they always feel compelled to play to make it more “exciting”. Nice touch there to actually exclude that from a lot of scenes), occasionally smart twists in the plot and of course sweet explosions, shootouts and fighting scenes makes this an action movie of good quality. You can never have too much of these things.

I didn’t expect it to be so good as it was. I think I expected another kind of movie – more drama less action. Therefore my expectations were quite low. And it may be because of that the movie surprised me positively (yes, in my decade-long waiting I managed to forget why I wanted to see the movie in the first place or even what it was all about).

Ronin is an action movie everyone should see. It’s badassness from the nineties coming right at you.

Don’t fuck with the Reno.

So, the main theme is revenge. Well deserved revenge. Revenge is a theme that always work in the world of fiction, regardless if it is books, movies, whatever. Therefore this is a good episode. Not just because you see a former Nazi get what he deserves; because there’s no mercy, no pity – he was an asshole and got what he should have had several years ago.

Great story. A story with actual real world value. Everyone should see this.

Farsan är en komedi/ett drama av Josef Fares – mannen som gav oss Kopps, Jalla Jalla och Zozo. Josef är en av de få på svenska scenen som faktiskt producerar filmer som har ett underhållningsvärde. Det är ganska smalt i övrigt tycker jag. Wallander och annan deckarskit massproduceras och det är lika förjävligt varje gång. Det funkar liksom inte. Men humor, halvtaskigt skådespeleri och att våga driva med så enkla saker som etnicitet är förbannat jävla roligt. Tycker du inte det är det något fel på dig.

Jag och Carina besökte min gamla hood Hageby för att se den här filmen på Flimmer’s utebio. Jonte, min gamla vapendragare från samma hood (well, egentligen Vrinnevi men vi kan kalla det Hageby Nordöstra) var den som hetsade på att haka med – men bangade istället :’(. Next time, bro!

Storyn: Farsan Aziz står i centrum. Sonen Sami och hans fru Amanda kan inte få barn men ska adoptera. Något de försöker dölja för farsan i tron om att farsan inte kommer acceptera ett sådant beslut. Torkel, Aziz’ chef lider av hjärnspöken som ställer till det i förhållandet hemma med hans fru. Han vill bli tuff, macho – som Aziz. Juan, Aziz’ kollega som är så nära en äldre version av manwhore man kan komma (Kalle? ) tar hand om sin sjuka hund så gott han kan. Vi har alltså ett par parallella stories som mer eller mindre vävs samman.

Det är inget snack om att dialoger, skådespelarinsatser och så vidare inte är av toppklass. Det behöver det inte vara. Det är fortfarande förbannat roligt och underhållande. Många av situationerna och etnicitetsskämten är så självgående att det blir roligt. Jan Fares gör sig jättebra på bioduken.

Farsan är okomplicerad, rolig, stundtals rörande och förbannat underhållande. Gå ned från dina höga hästar och pretentiösa cineast-ambitioner och låt dig underhållas av en störtskön libanes-svensk rulle.

Carina is having her vacation in two weeks, so we get one week together. Looking to travel somewhere I think, but I don’t know where. Now when the weather is not far from shitty here in Sweden I am looking to catch some last minute trip to somewhere sunny and warm. We will see where we end up – if anywhere .

Anyways. They find some quite amazing creatures in the rivers they lay their bait in, just look at the pictures below. That is some serious cool shit. On the downside though, there are waaay to many dramatizations of past events (hired actors re-enacting whatever has happened at some certain river or whatever). It’s also quite annoying that Jeremy constantly overreacts on anything and everything (probably because the producers told him to). Like, for example, in every episode it’s always his “possibly biggest  catch ever”. And more often than never the creatures they manage to catch are no ‘monsters’ – they’re just huge.

However, for the pure sight of these strange river creatures it is definitely worth watching. But you could easily skip through the first 75% of each episode and go for the badass ending directly.

William Shatner plays the role of a veterinarian, and is accompanied by this pretty hot woman from some kind of national biological whatever-institute that comes to help with analysis (and soon more than that; fleeing for their lives and stuff).

Kingdom of Spiders starts out pretty slow. All too slow in fact. It gets better towards the end when the spiders increase in numbers and people finally start dying and the spiders really show their cojones and that they mean business. The end is also something that surprised me positively. It kinda gets to you, if you last throught the first hour of plain boredom and americanized rednecks all over the place. I just wish they would’ve cut out a lot of screaming and yelling and panicking – it’s just a bit too retarded. If I would be attacked by a legion  of spiders (yes, I hate them – I suffer from a small dose of arachnophobia) I would have stomped the shit out of every last one of those suckers. Fighting them with fire hoses and such lame ass stuff is just weak. Bring on the flame thrower and napalm and let’s burn ourselves a bunch of tarantulas! I read somewhere that like they collected 5000 real spiders for the making of this movie. That’s sick. That’s a shitload of spiders I wouldn’t want to have in my apartment.

Anyways. In total Kingdom of the Spiders was not as bad as I had feared, but it’s it’s not anything special. (Well, had you hoped for something spectacular  then you’re really stupid).

Spiderzzzz

Hey, I’ve got a bright idea. Let’s cling to this lamp! (harr harr)

So, if I give you a ride, will you sleep with me? I’m mother fucking William Shatner!

To the left: hot. To the right: not.

Lawrence Talbot’s (Benicio) childhood ended the night his mother died. His father sent him from the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor to an insane asylum, then he goes to America. When his brother’s fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (yes, a rather hot piece of ass), tracks him down to help find her missing love, Talbot returns to his father’s estate to learn that his brother’s mauled body has been found. Reunited with his estranged father, Lawrence sets out to find his brother’s killer… and discovers a horrifying destiny for himself. Someone or something with brute strength and insatiable blood lust has been killing the villagers, and a suspicious Scotland Yard inspector named Aberline (Hugo Weaving – The Matrix!!11!!1oneone!!) comes to investigate.

Then there’s this usual mumbo jumbo of fighting for justice and bla bla bla, mixed with the power of the full moon and then some werewolf transformations. It’s all good so far. But there’s one thing that bothered me throughout the whole movie.

I don’t buy the ferocity of the werewolf. They are portrayed as blind killing machines with no reason for their massacres. It can’t be true. They are transformed to beasts. That menas they become the beasts. But beasts does not kill at random, even if enraged. They have a purpose. Perhaps even so simple as an anger management issue. But even such a simple thing is missing. That makes me annoyed. There’s no reason behind the slaughter, making it meaningless (although pretty cool graphically speaking).

Although I must say that I really enjoyed the climatic ending where we get to see werewolves fight eachother (!). That’s fucking epic, and well performed.

Anyways, it wasn’t as intruiging as I had hoped for, but the special effects and the fighting scenes made up for some of that. But that hole in its credibility made me a bit disappointed I must admit. A ‘regular’ werewolf story with all prejudice and mainstream folklore about the creatures contained in its fearful, unnatural aspect.

You would also get this mad if you had just as much facial hair as this dude.

Claws of D00m

How…original…

Highly recommended if you’re into this kind of stuff. You should be.

Last weekend (July 10th & 11th) I did the final parts and passed. Now I’m just waiting for the actual license to be printed. It was great fun and I’m really looking forward to do some more diving! Maybe even continue with the advanced course.

Thank you darling for this great gift, and thanks to Magnus and my newly acquired friends who also participated. Last but absolutely not least, big thanks to the instructors at Arkö Dyk who did a great job!

Happy Diver!

Heavy Diver!

Reading Diver!

You know you’re in for some motherfuckin’ B-class brawlin’ action with probably some all too cheesy-patriotic ending. You are absolutely right.

The ’story’: Jack Conrad (Austin) is awaiting his death penalty for being a badass mofo killin’ some mean enemies of the state (but then the state of course ass rapes him and leaves him to his destiny; declining all knowledge and sending no help, bla bla bla. You know the drill).

Then comes the salvation. Some douchebag TV producer purchases him to take him to a desolate island where he must fight to the death against nine other condemned killers from all corners of the world; freedom and money going to the sole survivor.

So yes, you are absolutely right. This is an americanized version of Battle Royale. Except the participants isn’t school kids. They are killers.

The best thing with the movie is that Steve Austin is such a badass motherfucker. Trying to be a kind person at first but then gets mad fucking furious and unleashes hell upon his adversaries (well, mainly a japanese dude and Vinnie Jones, who are the “real” bad guys) is just freakin’ awesome. It couldn’t get much better than that, considering the low expectations and that already from the start (i.e. reading the title) you realize that you’re in for some serious crap.

Decent fighting scenes, nice touch of that goold ol’ revenge- and-hatred theme, a cheezy ending and then some more suppressed hatred surfacing makes it a good action/survival movie…. for being in the lower layer.

Bustin’ his ass!

The participants

He firezzzz!

Being bald is being badass. True story.

Booyah! Flying him out of here on Knuckle Airlines; Fist Class!

Look how fun they have

Anyways. A number of unexplained diappearances has happened in this Alaskan town the past 40 years, and Abbey has the privilege to have some of these would-be-abductees as her patients. They always rant about some god damn Owl (see pictures below) that has been appearing outside their house. Weird dreams, memory black outs and all other kind of weird stuff going on in their life.

I had my hopes up quite high for this movie. I liked most part of it, except I thought it ended a bit abruptly. The framing and the story is all good. The efforts of making it look authentic is also well done. Characters are believable, and you actually do start to question if there’s something outworldy going on or if Tyler is just nuts; whacked in the head; crazy.

Things are unraveled as the story proceeds, showing that things may not be as they first appeared. Or maybe they are. You don’t know. Maybe the producers themselves didn’t know. Who the hell knew? Either you will gratify this as an excellent complex story, or you will brand it as first class bullshit due to lack of knowledge how to bring it all together. Kudoz for their cutting though. Some scenes are perfectly blended together joining the “real” tapes of Tyler and her counterpart in present time (Jovovich).

Either way, you will see a lot of owls but less of slimy aliens. As some nutcase said several years ago; True horror is not the things you see; it is the things  you do not see.

Maybe he was right.

I’m the terror that flaps in the night

All your base are belong to us. The aliens, that is. Or the owls? What the fuck was the deal with the owls anyways? They’re creepy as hell as they are.

Wow.

I’ll just sit here and look hot while pretending to write some shit down. Now, talk to me about your alien sightings.

The ‘real’ Tyler. Not as hot anymore… luckliy for you her face was pixelated in this picture.

Anyways. God is actually mad fucking furious. But one of his angels, Michael, loves the human kind too much so he does everything to protect them from the Wrath Of God. How this is done? With a shitload of firepower, with a few people out in the desert and protecting an unborn child. The idea is to make a stand in that place, killing hordes of angel-infested humans until the child is born. Then the mission is complete and human kind is saved. Sort of. Did you get the logic in that part? Me neither. So just fuck that and watch some angels dust it out real good. Of course the nemesis, Gabriel, is there too to stir up some ruckus.

I was a bit disappointed I must say. I loved the old lady in the beginning who started climbing walls and jamming her demon teeth into people’s throats. I also liked the idea of angels infesting humans and using them as some kind of zombie drones to achieve their goals.

But the story was too thin. There wasn’t enough badass special effects and character depth / character badassness to make up for the lack of a good plot. I’m sorry, but how much I would love to love it, I can not. It’s not a total waste, but compared to Constantine this really sucked. Have in mind that Keanu Reeves plays the protagonist in Constantine. That should say a lot.

Legion is not so epic as you may think. Heed my warning and you will be fine.

this is the crew that fought against God’s angels. Of course they will make it… what are a whole legion of angels for 5 semi-retards with rifles?

The best god damn old lady in a movie. Ever. She’s so fantastic.

If you’re an angel you don’t just blow holes in walls. You blow holes in walls chaped as crosses.

Michael thought the view were quite pleasant.

Uh-oh…

Yeah, some half-baked fan art below. At least the first one is with a hot chick. Including these pictures is not a lame attempt to make the review look longer. Really. It isn’t.

It’s about these four dudes (well, to be honest 3 middle-aged men and one fat young kid) who are bored with their adult lives (everything has just gone terribly wrong for everyone; no one has found his happyness). So they travel to this ski resort where there’s an outdoor hot tub. They drink themselves back to the stone age with a lot of alcohol and russian energy drinks, producing a whirl of time-travelling awesomeness  in the tub, finally kicking them back to the 80’s.

And then the crazy shit starts.

Hot Tub Time Machine is full of pop cultural references (my favourite: “What color is Michael Jackson?” “Black”  ….” AAAAAAHHHH!”), cocaine usage (my other favourite: “Who are you? Hunter S. Thompson?”), stupidity, nudeness and sex hunts and of course those crazy situations that manages to still be funny without really overdoing it (like in so many other movies. Yes I’m looking at you Adam Sandler). The guys are struggling with keeping up the same thing they remembered happened when they were young (you know, “The butterfly effect” – don’t change the past, you don’t know how it will affect the future). Did they make it? Hell no!

I must say that it suprised me quite a deal that the type of comedy and jokes used actually requires some thinking capacity and public knowledge to fully understand. I appreciate that.

If you wanna see a fun comedy, and especially if you’re stoned, then Hot Tub Time Machine is the weapon of choice. No questions asked. What more, it’s quite convenient that they’re back in the 80’s, because Chevy Chase hasn’t been funny since the 80’s. In this one he is.

This is where the action is. Or was. Back in the 80’s.

“Umm… shouldn’t we take our clothes of before taking a swim?”

Chevy Chase playing perhaps the most weird (but also the funniest) character in the whole movie. Love it!

The plot focuses on a Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) who, ten years after his wife and daughter are brutally murdered, returns to extract justice from the assistant district attorney (Jamie Foxx) who prosecuted the case against their killers. His vengeance threatens not only the man who allowed mercy to supersede justice, but also the system and the city that made it so.

Revenge is always a nice theme to have in movies, to make me as a watcher engaged in the story. Law Abiding Citizen is revenge re-defined. The way Clyde finds his way to punish the guilty and have his revenge is so clever and so cruel you just sit there and hope he manages to bust more asses, regardless of whom they belong to.

It’s difficult for me to find anything I didn’t like about this one. Perhaps the ending was a bit predictable and I would have loved the movie to end in a totally other way than what it did. But even so, I’d recommend watching it. There’s plenty of vengeance, action, blood, explosions and cleverness to go around for a whole year.

This new kind of necklace is kinda cool. You should try it.

“Did you or did you not steal my candy?” “Ummm…”

Clyde about to receive a cup of whuppass in the face.