In Appreciation of Finland: We Should Probably All Go See Sauna

Finland’s a pretty cool country. It’s the home of Santa Claus (no! REALLY!) and guys like Teemu Selanne. Finland first popped up on my radar mainly because my favorite hockey team was jokingly nicknamed “Helsinki South” for the staggering amount of Finns on the team’s roster and the club, to its credit, played up the Finnish connection – the team even went so far as to play a game with fans called “Finnish or Gibberish”, where a Finnish player would be pre-recorded babbling in Finnish or…well, gibberish, and the lucky fan selected would have to guess correctly in order to win a neat, neat prize.

Needless to say, everything piped my way was fun and happy about Finns. They really are a polite bunch of people, at least in my limited interaction with them (one Finnish player actually drew me a picture and autographed it for Christmas at my friends’ request) and so when I heard there was a hardcore horror flick coming out of Finland, my first initial reaction was something of “Huh? Whaaa? No, really?”

Sauna is directed by Antti-Jussi Annila and it looks like it’s going to be as cool as hell. No way, you say? YES WAY!

I can’t think of anything that stands out as more Finnish than a sauna (Finland has something like five million people and three million saunas, so you just think about that one for a second), so it seems appropriate that Annila would direct a Finnish horror movie about … a sauna.   Twitch has a great summary of the film and a fantastic review up here, if you’re interested.

More than anything, I think this is a movie that will silently slip under the radar here in America at least, which is a shame; by all accounts and by all reviews it’s an excellent film that deserves some viewing time from folks, and it will probably slide by unnoticed not only because it’s foreign, but because it’s from a lesser-known foreign nation.

Official site is here.

IMDB page is here.

Twitch, which has infinitely awesome coverage on Sauna, has archives and archives of stuff on the movie here.

In short, the movie looks like it’s something I will really adore, and if you’re anything like me, you just might as well.

Read Full Post »

A Letter to Tarantino on Awesomeness

Mr. Tarantino – thank you.   I still have my doubts about Inglorious Bastards (or Inglourious Basterds, as you wish it to be called, apparently) but I do have to say, it takes a lot to make a grown woman nearly fall out of her seat due to the sheer power of amazing that the poster for Inglorious Bastards conveys.

Image via Cinematical.

It’s simple, yet striking.   It’s far different from all the other posters for your movies yet still conveys that certain sense of “I’m Crazy Quentin Tarantino!” that all your other posters have had.

And now I’m all atwitter for this damn movie – again.   HURRY IT UP, QUENTIN!

Read Full Post »

Movie Crack: Lethal Weapon

So, today was a blissfully serene day. I got some good sleep in; I lounged around for a while and did some nerdy things while I let my back rest a bit, since I apparently did something not nice to it this weekend. And after a while, I came to a startling realization: my day just would not be complete without a viewing of Lethal Weapon.

I love Lethal Weapon like some people love family members, you guys. Over the years, I have a steady stream of movies that I watch at Christmas and Lethal Weapon has become one of them. This year, I’m early on my viewing, but hey, whatever.

Two cops are partnered together with sometimes disastrous results, given the fact that Riggs (Gibson) is suicidal and Murtaugh (Glover) is a tightly-wound family man who’s just looking forward to retirement. They stumble upon an apparent suicide that turns out to be much more than that, and hey! Gary Busey is in this movie!

Ladies (and some gentlemen), do you remember a time when Mel Gibson was smoking hot? Ah, the days of old when Mel was cute as hell before the anti-Semitic comments and before drinking enough to classify his liver as a hazmat area and long before he looked like he was dragged over ten miles of bad road and then beat with an ugly stick.  It was a time when we could all watch Clueless and silently agree with Cher when she said, “Well, I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn’t say that. That Polonius guy did”.  The good old days, you know. You remember, right?

I do. Lethal Weapon is like…the pinnacle of Mel hotness.

Even with that skanky hair, he was still cute.

Shallowness aside, Shane Black writes a killer movie, I’ll give him that. Not that I normally pay attention to such things, but the man’s dialogue is snappy as all get out, and you gotta love the buddy-cop aspect between Riggs and Murtaugh. Witness:

Murtaugh: See how easy that was? Boom, still alive. Now we question him. You know why we question him? Because I got him in the leg. I didn’t shoot him full of holes or try to jump off a building with him.
Riggs: Hey, that’s no fair. The building guy lived.

Read Full Post »

#1474: Iron Man

First of all, ladies and gents, let’s welcome Robert Downey, Jr. to the Hot Old Man club.

Iron Man is like geek action porn.   It doesn’t get better than this movie, in my experience of awesometastic, brain exploding worthy action flicks.   It’s pretty and it’s got explosions and hot-ass Robert Downey, Jr.; it’s got a fantastic baddie in Obadiah Stane who’s played by THE Dude.     I mean, do you get better than this?   They even found a way to make Gwyneth Paltrow not completely annoying.

I could rehash the plot, but that’s unnecessary.   I could highlight the best parts, but that would spoil it for you.    Needless to say, I bought it unseen and it was worth every last penny.

In short:   GOD BLESS JON FAVREAU.

Read Full Post »

Je T’aime, Pierre Morel

That’s it, guys.   Search OVER.   (Like I was looking so hard in the first place.)   I’ve found the future Mr. Caitlin and his name is Pierre Morel.

He directed District B13, a French movie which is high on my list of Movie Crack; he just finished Taken with King of the Hot Old Men Liam Neeson, and now…now I read that you’re going to be directing Hunter-Killer:

The story follows an American submarine commander and a team of Navy SEALS who must avert all-out war, rescue the Russian President in the midst of a coup, and defeat a renegade Admiral.

I’m not ashamed to admit I danced a little.   Ohhh, no.

So, let’s recap:

• Morel made District B13, which is made of awesome.
• Morel made a movie with Liam Neeson being a badass, which wins anyone points in my book;
• Morel is signed on to do a movie about SUBMARINES, RUSSIANS and RENEGADE ADMIRALS.

If you read on a regular basis, then you know that is practically MOVIE HEAVEN for me.

Sometimes, I really love the French.

Read Full Post »

It’s Not Just Me, Right?

I’m not the only one who thinks Max Payne is going to be kickass, right?

Forget The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road, this is what I want to see. Will it have the world’s greatest plot? Of course not. Will the dialogue blow my mind? Hell no. Does it have copious amounts of guns, things blowing up and Mark Wahlberg being sulky? Oh, yes.

I’m so there. This thing is gonna be awesome! The only thing that can top it this holiday season for me is either Let The Right One In or JCVD. Now how about that?

On another note, I’ll be back to full blogging capacity tomorrow, since the past few days in Real Life have caught up to me. I’m sorry, and I’m making each and every single one of you a sparkly friendship bracelet with matching plastic lanyard keychain.

In the meantime, be excellent to one another.

SCOTT – If you’re reading this, you need to e-mail me about the blogathon because I can’t pick, so I’m making you do it for me.   I suck, I know.   But I can’t find your e-mail anywhere.   I’m going off to cry sad tears, now, Scott….

Read Full Post »