EvilPhoEniX

I've been putting off the series for maybe half a year, but thanks to the current film shortage I've gone full steam ahead and I don't regret a second of the time I spent on it. Pablo Escobar is a someone who has earned my respect and it's definitely good to know how things worked in Colombia at the time. Highlights: the detailed instructions on how to make cocaine, the presidential election, and his own prison. Very good, interesting, engaging and decently gritty. 95%

I was going to write the event of the year, but this is the event of the century, because no series or movie has ever gotten more than 97% on FilmBooster, IMDB and similar ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, and the hype is well deserved. In five episodes, HBO serves us in detail the worst man-made disaster of 1986, and the series is a clear proof that the best screenplay is reality itself. The series features plenty of chilling, atmospheric and dense scenes (divers, disposal of infected animals, decomposing bodies in a hospital and self-sacrifice for humanity). Each episode is 100% and in each episode the series focuses on something different, all culminating in a tense trial where I forgot to breathe. The duo of Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård steal the show for themselves with their performances, and I really enjoyed the political meetings where the Soviet Union is shown in its true light. A proper piece of filmmaking and probably the most chilling, depressing and uncomfortable spectacle ever. A must see for all and I would make it mandatory at schools. 100%

Movies aren't doing so well this year, but 2019 definitely belongs to series! After Chernobyl and Deadly Class, this is another affair that will fulfill fans' wet dreams. Jonathan Tropper, responsible for Banshee, now brings us to the second half of the 19th century in San Francisco's Chinatown, where the wars of three Chinese Tong gangs are going on. Inspired by Bruce Lee, the main character comes to San Francisco from China to find his sister, but is forced to join a local gang in order to survive. Perfect in almost every way, the series is very much driven by great characters. Two well-known martial arts stars, Joe Taslim from The Raid and The Night Comes for Us, and Dustin Nguyen from the Vietnamese gem The Rebel appear in the rival gang. There's also a group of Irishmen, led by Irish mobster Dean S. Jagger. The corrupt police, politicians and brothel moms are also cool. Action-wise, the series is flawless. First of all, it is very brutal and blood is not spared and the fights have dynamic and effective choreography. Episode 5 is a nice Western detour with shootout in a saloon that would be the envy of many a Western. Great period atmosphere, great soundtrack, decent plot and twists, great characters that the viewer will like and plenty of action. 100% This like a series version of The Raid!

Hats off and panties off too, this is a gem that needs to be saved, sealed and archived! In seventeen hours, the Spaniards serve up the most well thought out money heist and negotiation thriller at the same time. It will have you biting your nails, tearing your hair out, swallowing pills, drinking Red Bull, changing your sheets and forgetting to go to work. You'll witness the biggest heist in history, where the brains of the operation has been devising the plan for half his life, putting him five steps ahead of the police every time. Every variable and every step has been thought out to the millimeter. The characters are brilliantly written (the Professor, Berlin, Tokyo and the Chief Inspector steal all the scenes for themselves), and the script is so imaginative, creative and well thought out that it seems almost unbelievable that anyone could come up with this. You'll love the main gang of thieves and gradually come to hate some of them. The music is great too, and when backed up by the onslaught of twists and turns, you feel like you're watching the finale of Saw. The Spaniards have never served up so many twists and turns in seventeen hours in all the history of their cinema! Of course, there's also the Stockholm Syndrome, which leads to sex in a vault, and the countless wisecracks and quips served up by the excellent Berlin (the story about the rebellious virgins and the nuclear warheads coming out of a woman's uterus is not to be missed). So watch out! The Spaniards at their best! Recommended 10/10!

This year's series ride continues, and Carnival Row is another new favourite. The series is set in Victorian times with a detective, fantasy and horror elements and is filmed entirely in Prague. It deals with the rather topical subject of immigration, where mythical creatures (fairies, fauns) are considered migrants and inferior society, and I have to say that this interestingly imagined world caught my eye immediately. Orlando Bloom as the detective is perfect and I enjoyed Cara Delevingne as a fairy, but Jared Harris (Chernobyl), as the Chancellor of Parliament, and David Gyasi, a Faun who comes to town as the only one with great wealth, are also impressive. Apart from the superb production design and the brilliantly imagined world, the horror elements impress, especially the central monster called the Night Butcher (a creature made up of dead body parts) is one of the best ever, and there are werewolves too! Of course there is also raw gore, perfect dialogues (a joy to listen to), beautiful costumes and in the last two episodes there is such a load of twists and turns that your brain will boil. Watched with bated breath and even though the series is not exactly action packed, it is attractive and smart enough to keep my attention. There are already 4 seasons announced, so big plans. Recommended. 90%

Another excellent series this year, which will no doubt be in this year's top 3. Apple TV hits right on the mark for me, serving up an imaginative post-apocalyptic world 600 years in the future, where humanity has lost its ability to see due to an epidemic and had to adapt and learn how to survive in these conditions. There are a lot of complains that the blind people in the show do things they couldn't really do, which is debatable because unless you are blind yourself you are not entitled to judge, secondly it is a series from the future, not a documentary based on real events, and thirdly in 600 years humanity will have definitely evolved, so the other senses work very differently than they do now. So much for the haters and now for the rest of us who love cinema and like to be entertained. See is a spectacularly filmed production (visually there hasn't been anything better looking since Game of Thrones) with an excellent Jason Momoa, who rose perhaps two levels in acting during the series, but the other characters are great too: Commander Tamacti Jun is perfect, the Tyrannical Queen who gets fawned over by servants while praying, the Bow Lion or the Shadow, who has the ability to move around in silence, and of course the two newborn children who are the only ones with the gift of sight. Every episode features at least one riveting action with unorthodox choreography, and violence is not spared. The series gradually doses surprising twists and turns, with danger lurking at almost every turn (slave traders selling people on the black market or the city of worms where workers make silk maze). At times the series is so suspenseful and gripping that I found myself in bed, sweating, tearing my hair out and breathing with great difficulty. The finale is surprising with a beautiful final fight (you wouldn’t want to fight Momoa blindly) and a nice lure for a second season. A fun, addictive and engrossing series like I never dreamed of. 9/10.

Gareth Evans serves up a gangster Opus Magnum in nine hours and it's the event of the year, maybe even the century. Evans has evolved perhaps two levels as a director and has given us a powerful tale of fate with tight characters, a compelling story, amazing action where violence takes on an absolutely different and new dimension. The boss of a British mob family is shot dead and the son puts all business on hold to go to war in search of the perpetrator, aided by Sope Dirisu, an undercover cop and the protagonist. Evans has really made the best gangster drama since Scarface where every character looks like a real gangster, and a large group of families are reunited. British Gangsters, British Gypsies, Irishmen with flintlocks, Nigerians with machetes, trained Turks, Danish Special Forces and more. The fatalism splashes out in all directions and Evans entertains with interesting twists and turns. Once again, the aciton in the style of The Raid is awesome. There are fewer fights than one would expect, but when they do happen, they are among the best in the genre, and the shootouts are excellent, too, breathtaking in their realism. I'd say every single action scene already has an iconic feel to it. Apart from the classic action, there is also torture, and a lot of unpleasant ways to kill a person. The highlight for me is episode 5 with its 35-minute home invasion. It’s so awesome that I nearly blew my head off with excitement. A glorious heart attack filled nine hours where I sweated, screamed, cheered and more than once watched with my diaphragm open. I have only one criticism of the series, and that is that from episode 5 onwards Evans hands over the director's chair to Xavier Gens, who concentrates more on the story and character development. I hope this series will see a 2nd season. Story*****, Action*****, Humor>No, Violence*****, Entertainment*****, Music****, Visual****, Atmosphere*****, Suspense*****. 10/10:

The Queen’s Gambit-drama-chess, I can’t think of a more repulsive label for a movie or series, and I'm even more surprised and shocked at how great The Queen’s Gambit turned out to be, thanks to the disarming Anya Taylor-Joy, who is already the modern Scream Queen when it comes to horror movies, and now is becoming the Queen of Chess, and hopefully soon the Oscars. This 6-hour series tells a riveting zero to hero story about an ugly duckling from an orphanage who gains a liking for the royal game of chess, discovers that she is extremely talented and decides to make the most of her talents. Anya literally brings one master after another to their knees and I enjoyed it immensely. The tournaments have drive and the different formations, tactics, offense, defense and strategy are filmed as if I were watching a brutal historical battle with the Romans. I wasn't bored for a second, I lived every moment, cried with emotion most of the time and literally didn't even breathe and screamed with excitement in the ending. If someone had told me at the beginning of the year that The Queen’s Gambit would be the event of the year for me and that I would want to watch it again immediately after finishing it, I would have laughed them off. The Queen's Gambit is a wonderful story, with great acting performances, a thoughtful script, amazing music, personal demons (drugs, alcohol) and a beautiful period setting in 1960's USA. Story*****, Action>No, Humor**, Violence*, Entertainment*****, Music*****, Visual*****, Atmosphere*****, Suspense****. 10/10.