7 stars

Sisu: Road to Revenge

He will kill them, then he will eat them, as is his right

dir: Jalmari Helander

2025

Sisu was, in its way, the perfect Nazi-killing action film, so in their infinite wisdom the makers decided to make another one, this time with the Soviets as antagonists, because why not.

I mean, they have snazzy uniforms, and no regard for human rights, so they’re perfect. They are at least recognisable and easily hateable, since the Soviets we’re talking about are the Red Army that raped and pillaged its way back to the borders of the Soviet Empire after the war ended.

This is a Finnish flick, though, and considering Finland’s tortured history with the Russians, it has to involve actual history in order to angry up the blood. After numerous wars the Finns were forced to cede the Karelia region to the Commies, and of course that’s where the taciturn hero of these two movies had his home, the home he was so desperate to return to in the first flick.

But the Soviets have already murdered his family, and all Finns are being expelled from the region, so what’s a war hero to do other than go home, cry a bunch for the loss of his wife and children, and then literally deconstruct the entire house, slap it onto a truck, and then start driving for Finland?

Our hero, Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), or the Immortal, as he is nicknamed, doesn’t know it, but the Soviets really, really hate him for embarrassing them during the Winter War, and they dispatch a crusty old jerk (Stephen Lang) to capture Korpi and send him to the gulag in Siberia, as a warning to any Finns who are thinking about getting uppity.

The other supposed benefit / bonus is that the crusty old Jerk Draganov is the same person who butchered Korpi’s family. Hearing him lovingly describe killing Korpi’s son with a shovel is one of the most sick-inducing things I’ve ever heard in any film. But Korpi is completely unaware of any of this for most of the flick’s shortish running time (it’s just an eyelash under 90 minutes), so from his perspective, it’s just the story of his life. Of course random jerks want to kill him: He’s awesome, and it’s the price you pay for awesomeness.

Rating:

7 stars

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Train Dreams

chop chop, those precious ecosystems aren't going
to destroy themselves

dir: Clint Bentley

2025

It’s being called one of the films of the year, which is all well and good, but now that I’ve watched it, it’s my time to pontificate about it.

It’s okay but it’s no masterpiece. It’s a very small film, not in scope or in terms of visuals, but in terms of being like a miniature portrait of a quiet man, who didn’t do much of anything, yet felt haunted all his live long life.

Sure, Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) worked as a logger and on the laying of tracks for a railroad in the Pacific North West, but you could hardly say he built the American empire that would take over that whole continent (and reduced those great forests to the 13% of the total that remain). And his whole life, as depicted here, has him more as bystander, observer to his own experiences, rather than active participant in the eight decades that he lives through.

It would not be fair to say he’s passive in the face of his own life, which spans much of the early twentieth century, but he really doesn’t do much, and all his struggles are mostly internal, and we’re told about them at great length via ceaseless voice over. I guess it would be impossible to do otherwise. Without it the majority of the flick would be Joel Edgerton standing around looking sad and / or pensive, and not saying much of anything, for decades. A lifetime of quiet desperation, if you will.

And that would be enough for a lot of people, including me. He’s really good at it (looking pensive, though he’s good at sitting or standing around as well). It’s not so much brooding as looking haunted. He is haunted from beginning to end, and maybe it’s not entirely his fault.

Rating:

7 stars

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Frankenstein

I like how this film answers the question
"what if Frankenstein but hot?"

dir: Guillermo del Toro

2025

I was excited, I guess, when I heard about Guillermo del Toro making his version of the Frankenstein story. Now I feel a bit foolish because, ultimately, it’s just another version of a very familiar story.

And furthermore I’ve realised I don’t really need new versions of these stories. I don’t need another Dracula, don’t need more Frankensteins, don’t need more invisible people or werewolves, because I’ve seen them all, and they’re all just variations on very narrow themes.

It almost seems surprising that del Toro hadn’t already made a dozen Frankensteins up till now, because he’s made whatever else he wanted before, with all the gothic flourishes and insane costuming choices he could possibly fit into a flick even when there wasn’t enough story to justify it all (I’m looking at you, Crimson Peak, you wasted three good actors in that flick, but great costumes, eh?)

This is his dream version, his ultimate iteration, with the best cast he could get and presumably the biggest budget Netflix could give him. Maybe that means more people will see it than otherwise would have seen it on the big screen. Either way, he seems awfully pleased with himself, and people seem to be fans of it.

I thought it was okay. Okay is good enough sometimes. You go in expecting revelation or wonderment, but all you’re doing is comparing this version with the other versions you’ve seen, with the original story, with the other offshoots. You argue with yourself as to whether it’s in tune with the original, but if it hewed too closely to the original, then what’s the point. And where it varies, you wonder, “does that mean anything, to justify the change?”

Rating:

7 stars

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A House of Dynamite

should have made it out of glass instead, the better
to throw rocks from

dir: Kathryn Bigelow

2025

Fuck this film, honestly.

Sure, it’s well made, the performances are all fine, the tension is over the top, but come on.

I don’t think anyone other than the dumbest of Americans thinks nuclear war is winnable, that there’s a scenario whereby one can win a war by using nuclear weapons (now). I think most people get that having them means countries without them can’t attack you or talk too much shit about you. With the countries that have them, well, you fight through proxies, but never directly, because you don’t want to nuke each other.

We all pretty much get that if one was launched at the States, or at China, or Russia, from anywhere, we’re pretty much all fucked. It’s all over. Done. This film goes to some trouble to explain why.

In the 80s at least, though it was policy probably decades before (since Eisenhower), the president at the time, who the rest of us naively thought would be the worst president those fuckheads would come up with after Nixon, explained to the American people that Reagan’s policy with respect to what would happen if the Soviets ever launched or detonated a missile over the US would mean there would be Mutually Assured Destruction. If the States couldn’t rule the world, there was no way they were going to let the Russkies have all the cake and eat it too. If we go, we all go, was the message.

Rating:

7 stars

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Ballad of a Small Player

It's a title that doesn't hit right, feels like there's
a word or two missing

dir: Edward Berger

2025

There are no small roles, just small players, and I don’t think Colin Farrell does “small”. Oh sure, he’s had some shitty roles, but they weren’t small. And, sure, when he started out he was often drunk on set, but, still, you’d never accuse him of doing anything less than given the biggest brassiest performances you’ve ever seen.

Here, in this film, he plays a small time crim / fuck up who is down to his last roll of cash, living as he does very high up on the hog, in Macau.

Macau, like Hong Kong before it, was a Chinese town controlled by a European power, being Portugal, for a long time. That time is done, and now, other that the thousands of casinos, the influence remains in the colonial architecture (that the CCP hasn’t gotten around to getting rid of yet) and the cuisine.

So even today, as a setting, it has a kind of cosmopolitan air, or at least it gives the impression that a European scallywag pretending to be some kind of high roller or aristocrat would be cut some slack there, for whatever reason.

But really, when it’s mostly set in high-end casinos and hotel rooms, you realise this is all tourist bullshit. You could set this anywhere where there are casinos and hotels, but Vegas has been overdone, and if 'Lord Doyle' pulled this shit at the Crown casino here in Melbourne, he wouldn’t get months of leeway and third chances – the second they sniffed that he was out of cash he’d be out on his arse.

For some reason, though, they are letting him play out the last moments of his bender, but we are under no illusions that he’s not fucked.

Rating:

7 stars

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Architecton

Rocks. Ignore the poster, it's mostly about rocks

dir: Viktor Kossakovsky

2024

You won’t usually hear me praising documentaries, mostly because when they’re really good I find them so depressing I can’t even write about them, and when they’re bad I don’t want to bring any additional notice to them, however meagre it might be.

A24, also, isn’t that well known for snapping up and releasing docos, so that A24 being involved was the first thing that intrigued me about this. Plus the name. It sounds like some villain out of ages past, or a Transformers movie.

In Greek it just means “architect”, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising because it’s right there in the name, but here I think, given the subject matter, it’s meant to mean more, as in, what are we making of this world?

It’s about cement, but you’re not going to know that until way, way into the film, almost towards the end. Until you get there, you’re going to think maybe it’s about the destruction of war (specifically the destruction wrought by that pigfucker Vladimir Putin in Ukraine), or the patient destruction that comes with time, as we see so much footage of ancient structures, of places where all that remains are the arches above entrances or doorways.

And rocks, lots of rocks, how they are wrenched from the earth, how they are broken down to powder.

Rating:

7 stars

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The Damned

The Damned, or at least their last tour through Montana

(I danatti)

2024

This is not to be confused with the legendary punk band with such members as David Vanian, Captain Sensible, Rat Scabies and Brian James, or the flick from 1967 made by the great communist aristocrat director Luchino Visconti starring Dirk Bogarde; or the recent flick by an Icelandic director set in Iceland in the 1870s about a bunch of people at a fishing station trying to do some fishing and then bad things happen to them.

This is a completely different movie that came out recently called The Damned. You can see why I chose to watch and review it right now? Maximum confusion, that’s what I’m going for. How do two such completely different flicks come out in the same year, with the same title?

It’s not even that great a title, or even really that applicable here. Are all the people involved damned? Sure, but no more so than any of the rest of us. Is it a war movie, or even more importantly, is it a movie about the US Civil War? Well, kinda.

Mostly this flick is about a camera that hides behind a bunch of guys in Union army clothing wandering around doing stuff, or not doing stuff. There’s no film score to convince you that you’re watching something fictional. But it’s not a documentary. It’s kind of a re-enactment, but we usually call that “fiction”.

It’s just some guys, hanging out. When they speak the dialogue sounds pretty contemporary, as in, there’s no attempt to make it sound like dialogue from the 1800s. And what they talk about is the mundane aspects of what they’re doing, or about their lives, or about what they’re meant to do.

Rating:

7 stars

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The Damned

Damned if you don't, damned if you really don't

dir: Thordur Palsson

2025

To be clear this isn’t the flick from 1967 made by the great communist aristocrat director Luchino Visconti starring Dirk Bogarde; this is a recent flick by an Icelandic director set in Iceland in the 1870s about a bunch of people at a fishing station trying to do some fishing and then bad things happen to them.

I hadn’t heard of fishing stations either, but I guess they were a thing at some point in human history? A lot of Nordic looking people wearing black in the most forbidding environment you can imagine outside of Antarctica talking about fish and the sea like they know the sea hates them?

That must have been a thing, else there wouldn’t be a terrifying movie like this about such a scenario.

Unlike the last horror flick I saw that had some people being tormented near the sea, this flick has a well-crafted story with compelling performances from decent (mostly) character actors confronting the unknown with sheer terror and a tremendous sense of foreboding. And even involving a group of people even Ingmar Bergman would think should lighten up, anything you shoot in or near Iceland is 1000% more compelling, and makes these people seem more credible.

Eva (Australia’s Own Odessa Young) is a young widow whose husband died a year ago. She owns the fishing station where these grimy chilly souls are trying to do their thing. It’s the middle of winter, so it’s not like they can leave, and they haven’t had a good run lately. In terms of stores they only have fish left over for bait, and they’re resorting to eating that.

Rating:

7 stars

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Dangerous Animals

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into
the water... Wait, I NEVER thought it was safe?

dir: Sean Byrne

2025

There really must have been something in the water earlier this year or last year, because there are no shortage of shark films at the moment. I mean, there have been shark films bubbling around in the background, but I have to attribute the current upsurge to the 50th anniversary of the release of the first summer blockbuster Jaws.

Its success paved the way for Spielbergo to make plenty of other non-shark related films, and for the rest of us to be scared of being in open water on the ocean, which is a very sensible fear. But it also means there’s no shortage of lesser films banking on our inherent fear of these terrifying creatures.

I say that knowing full well that each year literally more people are killed by falling coconuts, cows and horses than are ever killed by the gentle sharks that have been so poorly maligned and slandered since Spielbergo catapulted his career into the stratosphere from upon their scaly backs. Very unfair, if you ask me, but no-one did, so I guess I should talk about this nasty film instead.

It has, at least from my perspective, been a long time between drinks from this horror auteur, Australia’s Own Sean Byrne. Anyone who saw The Loved Ones way back in the day knows what sheer brutal nastiness this director is capable of.

Rating:

7 stars

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11 Rebels

11 Rebels, but not one of them has a retirement plan or
any superannuation

(十一人の賊軍)

dir: Kazuya Shiraishi

2024

11 Rebels joins the illustrious ranks of Japanese period piece katana wielding action movies where a small number of wonderful people fight a much greater force and somehow come out on top but also all still mostly die by the end.

Why, yes, I am taking the piss, but am I exaggerating? Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is literally about seven guys who fight off 40 or so bandits, and win but mostly die. This flick set the template for so many action flicks for decades to come, not just in Japan, that we’re still suffering for it to this very day. Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, itself a loose remake of Kurosawa’s masterpiece, doubled the number of fighters but multiplied the enemy into the hundreds.

And of course I can’t not mention 47 Ronin, which literally has a bunch of ronin get revenge on a lord who dishonoured them, and once they’ve won their epic battle (after four hours of screen time), they all commit harakiri, which is just insane, the most insane thing that’s ever happened in the history of insane things happening. And Japanese people love that fucking story!

This flick has 11 people forced to fight against their will, or against being immediately executed, with the promise of maybe not being executed later if they survive, which they’re not meant to, and it’s all a lie because the sneaky piece of shit who’s really pulling all of the strings needs everyone to be dead anyway.

Everyone thinks they’re the main character in this flick. All of them with the exclusion of one character, being Mizoguchi (Sadao Abe) are profoundly wrong. The young lord who thinks he runs this province is wrong. The smug generals who lead two competing armies are wrong. The de facto and completely unwilling leader of the 11 rebels doesn’t want to be the main character at all, and he gets his wish. The samurai bullying the rebels into defending a key bridge and a key fortress thinks he’s the main character, because he’s a samurai, but guess what, he’s not right either.

They’re all wrong except for Mizoguchi. This is the era in Japanese history where samurai had to shave the middle bit of their heads, so many of the samurai look, to use the culturally sensitive term, fucking ridiculous. Mizoguchi definitely has that, as well as beady, froglike eyes, and is middle-aged, so he doesn’t lop off a single head or limb. But there is no doubt at all that everything that happens for the next two plus hours is because he wills it to happen.

Rating:

7 stars

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7 stars

Sisu: Road to Revenge

Train Dreams

Frankenstein

A House of Dynamite

Ballad of a Small Player

Architecton

The Damned

The Damned

Dangerous Animals

11 Rebels

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