EvilPhoEniX

A Norwegian oddity about narcissism, or what a person is capable of doing to get attention. Again, an interesting psychological study of a girl who overdoses on certain drugs and acquires a strange disease that gets her media attention. A film with hints of body horror, but more of a morbid black drama. In the hands of David Cronenberg or Clive Barker this could have been far more interesting and intense. There were a few hallucinogenic scenes that weren't entirely bad, but I was kind of hoping it would have turned out a bit more interesting and rewarding. The inclusion of both comedy and horror is really only marginal. Stronger average. Definitely worth a watch, fans of dramas and Scandinavia can throw in a star. 65%

I caught up with this Scandinavian oddity and to my surprise it's decent and recommendable. The story focuses on Tina, who looks weird and is quite creepy, her life is not worth much and she works as a customs officer at an airport. But she has specially developed olfactory abilities and she can smell fear, guilt and other emotions from people, and thanks to that she catches some pedophiles. Her life changes, when she meets Vore, who has a similarly repulsive appearance, and they begin a sort of bizarre romance (the sex scene with them is very repulsive indeed). The film mixes multiple genres, it's interwoven with Norse mythology, it manages to shock (it gets quite intense at the end), and the whole thing is so strange, interesting and novel that I really enjoyed it. Scandinavian weirdness with all the trimmings. 7/10.

Suiqiang Huo is going really strong, but he hasn't topped Blind War for me yet. He had pretty big ambitions here, as he has two of the biggest Chinese martial arts stars in top form at the moment. Another collaboration with Andy On, who here plays a bad guy searching for drugs seized by the police, and Miu Tse, who recently excelled as a blind bounty hunter in Swordsman, here playing a police officer. It was tempting to have a clash of two big martial arts stars and it was supposed to be the event of the year. Unfortunately, I don't share the enthusiasm. It's not bad, there are some good moments (their fight is really good), but the plot is really too simple, the shootouts don't impress me much and the CGI didn't do much for me either, plus the roles are switched at the end and I didn't like what the director did with the characters in the final act. Too bad, he should have stayed more down to earth and focused only on the fights and it would have been a blast. PS: the switchblade was cool imho. 6/10.

I caught up out of boredom with this not-quite-famous psychological revenge thriller from Ireland, which has an unexpectedly decent cast: Mark Strong and Eva Green (who looks unexpectedly repulsive here). Green plays a fashion designer who suffers from a mysterious illness. A Filipino healer who uses her traditional healing methods comes to her house to help her, but everything goes wrong somehow. I liked the touch of Filipino culture, Eva Green gives a traditionally good performance, and there is a quite interesting twist at the end that escalates the situation nicely, and the hallucinations with the ticks and the mutilated dog are also interesting. Not a gem, but it's okay for one viewing. 6/10.

The gore at the end blew me into space!! That was a treat. More scenes like that. And the rest is a political-intrigue masterpiece.

A welcome change by Czech standards and mature filmmaking for a debut. The film has an attractive story about a top female athlete who, due to a spinal injury, has to switch to a different profession, the oldest trade and starts a decent career there as well. The film nicely shows the impact it has on the people around her, specifically her family, who don't take it well. I appreciate the explicitness, the fact that the film isn’t afraid to show nudity, which would be a minus if it did, but on the other hand it doesn't go to extremes, as the Swedes showed in 2021  with Pleasure, it should have shown the more perverse side behind the scenes, but it doesn’t matter, I still had a good time. 6/10

A hilarious Australian psychological slow burner with two characters with one cabin and a violent storm, all with great cinematography, great acting, well-written dialogue, great music and a paranoid mystery atmosphere. I'm the last person to praise this kind of movie without jumpscars and gore, but I have to say that the third act won me over enough that I won't hesitate to give it 4 stars. I really like the themes where a stranger knocks at your door and you don’t know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy all the time, and it's really not transparent here. Even though the first hour is just dialogue in a cabin that makes up for the knocking on the door and a nasty storm, it works and kept my attention. It picks up nicely towards the end and kicks off with a decently intense atmospheric paranoid-hallucinogenic inferno, where the sound designer again does a precise job. An Australian gem that made an impression. 7/10.

A nice action romp like in the old days. I haven't seen the original, so I'm not comparing, but I enjoyed it very much. Jake Gyllenhaal prepared really for the role, playing a big and likeable guy who comes to Florida to work as a bouncer in a famous bar with a problematic clientele. I used to work at a bar so I liked, and the setting of sunny Florida with all the Hawaiian shirts was top notch, I could totally see myself there, in fact the only thing missing was proper babes. I was surprised by the humour, some one-liners were very good (the guy with the broken arm was very cool). The film is spiced up nicely by the casting of Conor McGregor, who downright relishes his role as a psychopathic madman, and I wouldn't mind seeing him more often in similarly iconic villain roles. The fights are without editing, they're nicely gritty, and even if slightly digital, still very cool. I like this kind of movies, I had fun, I wasn't bored, this is a properly manly and light-hearted film in a nice setting. They could release genre films like this on stream more often. 7/10.

A twisted, weird, bizarre Spanish mindfuck from Eduardo Casanova (whose skin is also very bizarre). This director definitely has a specific taste that may not suit everyone, but those who like films that are a bit out of the ordinary and try to shock the viewer will definitely find it to their liking. The poster alone suggests that this is a bit different stuff. The story is a sort of allegory on human manipulation featuring a downright toxic mother-son relationship (Oedipus complex-Stockholm syndrome), with the mother playing the role of a psychological dictator and the son meanwhile being consumed by an aggressive cancer while undergoing some pretty brutal treatments that will make you feel very uncomfortable. The scene where the boy's skull is opened and pieces of his brain are taken out during surgery, and it cuts to the mother having sex is brilliant ! I like films that break boundaries, try to shock and don't shy away from violence and La Pietá doesn't shy away from anything. There's also nail ripping, suicide, ubiquitous nudity and one very twisted birth, all in a slightly more artsy way. Casanova is a Spanish gourmet and I hope someone makes subtitles because it deserves attention. 75%.

A Japanese homage to filmmaking and action movies in general, with experienced martial arts expert Tak Sakaguchi playing an action movie star dissatisfied with the way action movies are currently made. He wants to make his own movie, which will be set in a zinc factory on a deserted island, but the shooting is interrupted by a Yakuza gang with unfinished business and Sakaguchi decides to step in and try the action for real. The film has a few pop culture references and explores the essence of action films and impresses with the unconventional fighting style of the protagonist: zero close combat and assassination-Jutsu, which he masters perfectly, his speed and agility reminiscent of Bruce Lee, who is also humorously referenced. The action sequences have very elaborate and have an interesting choreography. I was intrigued by the use of a flashlight in the dark, which the protagonist uses to blind his enemies. There's not a lot of violence here though, and I missed the "hardness" a bit – those punches just didn't hurt as much, even though they looked effective. The highlight is the final long fight with the Sensei, where they really put a lot of effort into the choreography and will please many a martial arts fan. It's quite a seminal film for Japan, bringing a bit of an unconventional fresh breeze to the martial arts genre, it's got heart and Sakaguchi has incredible talent. 75%