En duva satt på en gren och funderade över tilvaron (2014)

	Also Known As: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Eine Taube sitzt auf einem Zweig und denkt über das Leben nach
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Roy Andersson
	Actors: Nils Westblom (Sam), Holger Andersson (Jonathan), Per Bergqvist u. Solveig Andersson (Paar im Museum), Viktor Gyllenberg (Karl XII)
	Country: S
	Genre: Black comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 31.10.2014, CineStar3, NFDL2014, OV Swedish with German subtitles
Synopsis: As salesmen of novelty articles, Sam (Westblom) and Jonathan (Andersson) mean to spread a bit of joy among the people. The two take on their task without much success and with a tinge of melancholy, for it's a struggle to dispel gray loneliness from the world. With vampire teeth, canned laughter and monster masks in their luggage, Sam and Jonathan try to raise their fellow humans' spirits. But sales aren't really their thing, and often enough they're left holding the goods. Permanently broke, they argue about the best strategy for presenting their products.
Review: The movie is built with many episodes, some of them with the salesmen. Some others and actually for me the best ones are in a bar. Each episode is shot as a sequence-shot. Especially difficult for one scene with plenty of horses.  The colour and the picture (pale yellow, monotone, studio) reminds me strongly the previous movies by Andersson Songs from the second floor and You, the living and the humour (absurd things) looks a bit like the excellent Kitchen stories. This time I had even the impression that the faces were white painted to enhance this pale photography. Actually the producer explained after the movie that it has been shot exactly at the same location as the two above-mentioned movies by Andersson. The faces were painted also in the previous movies, but I did not notice at that time, or I just do not remember. The problem with the humour is that unlike Kitchen stories, it comes very seldom so that some it is hard to pay attention to the movie for long time but you have to, not to miss the few humourous peaks.
Rating: 4 /10

Pojken med guldbyxorna (2014)

	Also Known As: The Boy with the Golden Pants, Der Junge mit den Goldhosen
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Ella Lemhagen
	Actors: Lukas Holgersson, Olle Krantz, Nina Sand, Jimmy Lindström, Kurt Ravn
	Country: S
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 31.10.2014, CineStar2, NFDL2014, OV Swedish with German tone as well
Synopsis: Mats (Holgersson) finds a pair of trousers with pockets that are always filled with money. Together with his friend David (Krantz), he buys the whole toy department and lives it up without a care. But soon the trousers become an affliction. Large sums of money are disappearing from Sweden’s bank vaults without a trace, and the police are on the lookout for the financial terrorists. An evil weapon businessman William Otto (Ravn) kidnaps Mats’ father in an attempt to get the trousers. Mats, David and their new friend Livli (Sand) must face the danger and set things right.
Review: The story is based on a Swedish classical bestseller in 1967 by Max Lundgren. It feels like The goonies as the three friends have to make fun of the adults (police and bandits) also with the help of an adult, the homeless Zeke (Lindström). It mixes fun, picture of an absurd society ruled by money on one side (William Otto role) and totally independent from money on the other side (Zeke role and at some time the children). This aspect is interesting for a movie having children and youth as aimed public. The rythm is there. There is no directing mistake but it is not original. Maybe due to the aimed public.
Rating: 6 /10

Kapitalisms Skersiela (2013)

	Also Known As: Capitalism at Crossroad Street, Kapitalismus an der Crossroad Street
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Ivars Seleckis
	Actors: -
	Country: LV
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 31.10.2014, CineStar6, NFDL2014, Latvian with English subtitles
Synopsis: Crossroad Street is like a small village in the middle of Riga. People know each other and they stick together. In this film, director Ivars Seleckis drops in on the odd residents for the third time. He has documented the lives of these simple people twice before; first at the end of the 1980s after the dissolution of the USSR and then at the end of the 1990s, after Latvia regained its independence, both times of change. The changes visible on Crossroad Street this time are a consequence of the financial crisis. We visit single mother Daiga, who barely makes ends meet, and mortician Aldis, who believes the apocalypse is coming and lost his Jacuzzi in the wake of bankruptcy. Seleckis lets a bit of irony shine through with his Crossroaders, as they reflect on their lives in uncertain times in short sequences combined with sequences from the past, which highlight the changes, but also much that has remained constant.
Review: The movie has been shot over three years in order to get enough peaks that are shown starting in Spring and ending in Winter. This is the daily life of the street inhabitants. Seleckis did already a similar documentary about the same street in the 80s and in the 90s. There is a birthday, the holidays of the son living in England, supper with a couple of homeless, a party. We see also how the people try to get enough income for those, the most, who do not have much. Collecting metals, selling the family belongings on the market. One has almost been married to an Italian but the egalitarian culture inherited from the Soviet times clashed against the traditional patriarchal Italian culture. This is an important point as I discussed afterwards with people from East Germany. They told me that it is the same in Eastern Germany, where women went to work. Since the reunification, they see that in Western Germany, the society is much more patriarchal. It is chocking and they are right! There is actually no point of view on the capitalism as the title could suggest. It is a picture of this microsociety. With indeed consequences of the capitalism or better said of the globalisation like having low salary, be forced to move far away from the family, know foreign people.
Rating: 5 /10

He ovat paenneet (2014)

	Also Known As: They Have Escaped, Auf der Flucht
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: J-P Valkeapää
	Actors: Teppo Manner, Roosa Söderholm
	Country: FIN
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 30.10.2014, CineStar3, NFDL2014, OV Finnish with English subtitles
Synopsis: Shy Joni (Manner) has to perform alternate military service at a home for problem youths in the country. There he befriends the unmanageable punk Raisa (Söderholm), who wants nothing more than to escape. One day the two of them take a car belonging to the facility and embark on a seemingly endless journey across the country. Joni hardly says a word, since he stutters. Still, the fire which extroverted Raisa wears on the outside burns inside him as well and she keeps urging him on. Free from any authority, they live every day to its fullest, though the emotional and physical shadows of their past catch up with them.
Review: The story merges a teenager/young adult drama in which both know each other and find a balance of their own behaviour and feelings; and a thriller part in which I was bluffed by the downhill of nihilism against both characters. There are not many dialogues but the communication to the viewer is done via other means, sounds, music and close-ups on the faces of the two main characters.  The directing is original with many good ideas in the story for events in the story or how to use the scenery (e.g. milk packs, masks, animals).
Rating: 6 /10

Kahdeksan Surmanluotia (1972)

	Also Known As: Eight deadly shots, Acht tödliche Schüsse
	Year of first release: 1972
	Director: Mikko Niskanen
	Actors: Mikko Niskanen, Tarja-Tuulikki Tarsala, Paavo Pentikäinen (Reiska)
	Country: FIN
	Genre: Melodrama, Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 30.10.2014, CineStar4, NFDL2014, OV Finnish with English subtitles
Synopsis: In the winter of 1969, Tauno Pasanen shot four policemen in a small Finnish village. This real event was the rationale for Mikko Niskanen’s work on an epic about the difficult lives of simple people in the countryside. At the beginning of Niskanen’s version, shots are fired by the farmer Pasi (Niskanen). The rest of the four episodes show in flashbacks what led up to this bloody deed. Niskanen doesn’t judge his protagonists, but rather portrays their situation in detail. Taxes and land reforms threaten the farmer’s existence so that he can no longer pay his bills, seeking refuge in the alcohol that will destroy his family life.
Review: The movie is not supposed to be really a documentary. But the way it is shot is so real. The real daily life on the countryside. That I claim the movie as a documentary. Pasi has a small farm with four cows, one old horse and a bit of land. With his best friend Reiska (Pentikäinen) and some others he used to make vodka in the fields or the woods while they are working. This brings difficulties with the police everytime he gets drunk in public, especially because home-made alcohol is prohibited in Finland. His wife Vaimo (Tarsala) does not support him that much because she is afraid of his violence when he is drunk and has four children to deal with. The difficulties of small farmers compared to large farms is well known everywhere now in the news, especially since the European policy supports more the large ones. This brings difficulties to Pasi with the tax administration that is forcing him to sell his horse. An initial version of the film ran twelve hours; this version, the remaining 300 minutes are considered by Aki Kaurismäki to be the best Finnish films of all time.
Rating: 7 /10

Sons of Anarchy - Season 6 (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Creator: Kurt Sutter
	Actors: Charlie Hunnam (Children of Men, Pacific Rim), Katey Sagal (Married with Children TV-series), Ron Perlman (Blade 2, Hellboy 1-2), Mark Boone Junior (Memento), Kim Coates (Black Hawk Down), Tommy Flanagan (Gladiator), Peter Weller (Robocop, Star Trek Into Darkness). CCH Pounder (Avatar, E.R. TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: October 2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: With his new position, Jax (Hunnam) is finally able to lead the Sons of Anarchy in the direction he has always believed to be the best.
Review: This season (the one before the last) is really starting to bring everything together, in particular Jax's (and his father's) vision for the gang that we have been hearing since the very first episodes. The whole season is going in that direction, but with the load of hurdles and sub-stories you can imagine, heritage from the stormy "business" relationships developed during the previous seasons. The last major character to have been introduced in the series is the excellent Nero Padilla (played by Jimmy Smits) in season 5. In this season we have some new famous guests in the persons of CCH Pounder as District Attorney, and more importantly Peter Weller as crooked ex-cop. They don't have a major roles (as Smits) but it is nice to see new characters played by experienced actors. Note that Weller directed many episodes in the last four seasons. Some of them in this season are particularly strong and are shot and edited in a slightly original way within the constrains imposed by the format. It is a pity that the story, coming to an end, doesn't leave time to dig more into the past of our favorite characters, or even show them more in their day-to-day life outside the club (what of Tig's sexual extravagance?). It is nonetheless still very addictive and contains a couple of unexpected and satisfying twists, without mentioning the ending that will leave you speechless, and rather than impatient to watch the next season, more depressed by the fate of our 'heroes'. Still, I won't be able to wait one more year to watch it, and will find a way to get it before.
Rating: 7 /10

Spy Kids (2001)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2001
	Director: Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City)
	Actors: Alexa PenaVega, Daryl Sabara, Antonio Banderas (The 13th Warrior), Carla Gugino (Watchmen), Robert Patrick (Terminator 2), Cheech Martin (Machete), Danny Trejo (Machete), Teri Hatcher
	Country: USA
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 03.11.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Carmen and Juni Cortez (PenaVega & Sabara) don't know that their parents (Banderas & Gugino) used to be super-spies. When they disappear, the kids go after them with all their wits and gadgets.
Review: This looks like a movie Robert Rodriguez shot for his kids, and from what I read it was indeed his intention. The story is minimalistic, the actors a bunch of known faces that may be the only interest for adults to watch Spy Kids, and the worst are the special effects, made with no intent of looking realistic. I like the design and idea of the all-thumbs robots, but they look as cheap as the rest. Many visual concepts remind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, although that one dates from four years later... When I think that three sequels were produced...
Rating: 2 /10

Ekskursante (2013)

	Also Known As: The Excursionist, Die Streunerin
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Audrius Juzenas
	Actors: Anastasija Marcenkaite, Raisa Ryazanova, Igor Savochkin
	Country: LT
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 30.10.2014, CinStar5, NFDL2014, OV Lithuanina/Russian with English subtitles
Synopsis: Following World War II and the establishment of Soviet power, there were mass deportations of residents of Baltic States to remote regions of the Soviet Union. The goal was to solidify Stalinist control and to prepare for a long-term population transfer. More than a hundred thousand Lithuanians were deported to Siberia. This fate also threatens 10-year-old Marija (Marcenkaite). Penned up in a crowded freight car with her heavily pregnant mother and other women, she finds herself on her way to the gulag. When her mother dies en route, Marija manages to escape.
Review: The story is based on the true story of a Lithuanian girl who managed to come back to Lithuania crossing 6000km (in the movie the girl makes about 900km). For the director, who answered some questions after the movie, the movie deals with the second world war, which stopped in 1968 with the death of the last deported soldier (i.e. resistant) chased by the Soviet Union, a long time after 1945. It is "a story on belief and power". It is the first time I see a movie from Lithuania working out their Second World War. Sociologically it is necessary to turn the page for the country to move on by catharsis. This is thus a road movie using car, train, plane, feet and meeting first Russian support with a grandma (Ryazanova) and her son (Savochkin) but also the soldiers. The atrocities that are shown or suggested are real. I saw the same in the Museum of the occupation of Latvia (other Baltic county) in Riga. The acting is right and has been for sure motivated by the story and the directing. The directing is indeed very good without being arty, for the camera, the natural lights, the scenery. Time to time the colours look like in the Technicolor of the 50s, especially when there is the coming back to Lithuania.  The Lithuanians have been chased because they were considered as Nazis by the Russians. The movie shows good and bad Russians (helping Marija or not) and almost only good Lithuanians, apart from the family who stoled one house. I do not know the History of Lithuania good enough and my quick search did not find any Nazi issues. But I guess, as any occupied country the y must have had people working for the Nazis and resistants.  The director Audrius Juzenas presented his movie in Moscow and in Lithuania. He explains that iIn both sites, "the reactions have been very polarised" and contradictory. Saying that it was both pro- and anti- Russian. In a time of tension between European Union and Russia, this political polarisation is easy. The movie was not polarised in one or the other direction and fulfills its cathartic job, normally for the best, that both countries can start again to work together.
Rating: 8 /10

Hallåhallå (2013)

	Also Known As: Hallohallo
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Maria Blom
	Actors: Maria Sid, Johan Holmberg, Carl Jacobson
	Country: S
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 29.10.2014, Kolloseum, NFDL2014, OV Swedish with German subtitles
Synopsis: Disa (Sid) and Laban (Jacobson) were a happy couple with two children. But now Laban seems to have found not only a new love but also a new life. He looks good; his new style suits him. Disa, on the other hand, is still the same old Disa, stuck in their old apartment, always helpful and self-sacrificing, ordered around by her boss at the hospital and by her mother. But then one day, when she’s handing over the kids to her ex in the library, she meets unconventional Kent (Holmberg).
Review: Maria Blom comes back nine years after the good Masjävlar (aka Zurück nach Dalarna). Actually she did two other movies in the meanwhile (Nina Frisk and Fishy). I liked a lot Masjävlar at its release and therefore I had to watch this movie. The poster of both movies are similar. Same blue background, similar flowers and the main character face.  The story is authentic and also interesting as turning points for people in their 30's. The message in most of the stories told in the movies, the main one and secondary stories, is that it is good to see what is wrong in one's life, then to make something to change it is actually even better!  The directing is well done, with the movements of camera at the right time and place to generate a comical effect. There are a lot of daily objects and situations but the way to react on these situations makes the comedy in this movie. I do not know whether I was in a special good mood nine zears ago but this new movie does not let the same impression on me.
Rating: 5 /10

Miss Julie (2014)

	Also Known As: Fräulein Julie
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Liv Ullmann
	Actors: Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
	Country: N
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 29.10.2014, CineStar5, NFDL2014, OV English without subtitles
Synopsis: On Midsummer’s Eve of 1890, the young aristocrat Julie (Chastain) dances with her father’s house servant John (Farrell). In the estate kitchen, Julie meets John, a valet. She invites him to another dance and, despite their class difference, perseveres in seeking out this educated, experienced man. The servant’s formal reticence soon gives way to the couple’s mutual attraction. During the course of the night, Julie and John circle around.
Review: The story has been written for the theater and this becomes clear as we mostly see one room, the kitchen  and seldomly the bedroom of Kathleen (Morton) or the stairs close to the kitchen and at the beginning and the end the beautiful park around the castle. The story is quite simple even if the evolution of the characters is not simple. The dialogues are very good and bring a lot of drama that Chastain manages to communicate subtly covering herewith many feelings along the movie. Colin Farrell's gestures are sometimes well mastered as well, but for several scenes completely and very exaggeratedly shaky when he should show an inner dilemma.  The light was well mastered but the focus not at all. Or I misunderstood something. For instance, during a dialogue between Julie and John the focus is done on a cup on the table and the rest is slightly blurred. And this happened often, that the focus is done on something during the whole scene and not on the one or the other character.
Rating: 4 /10