Ladies and gentlemen!

The first round of the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs has been one of the most surprising ones ever. 

The current champions have been eliminated and the sympathetic bunch of jerks from Carolina advances to the next round. Funny enough, Barry Trotz, last season's head coach of the Washington Capitals, has advanced to the next round with the New York Islanders.

The best team of the regular season and huge candidate for a Stanley Cup victory, the Tampa Bay Lightning, has been swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The Calgary Flames, the best team in the Western Conference, got eliminated in five games by the surprising Colorado Avalanche.

As if that weren't enough, the terrible Leafs got eliminated once more by the Bruins to keep traditions going in style. Funny enough, John Tavares former team, the New York Islanders, have advanced to the next round. It's impossible to predict which team is going to win the Stanley Cup at this point and that's what's so great about it! I like it!

Here are my predictions for the second round:

Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Boston Bruins: Columbus in five

Boston has a lot of experience but Columbus has only played four playoff games so far, has incredible momentum and has the confidence of heaving beaten the regular season champions. I predict Columbus will continue to surprise and beat Boston in five games.

Carolina Hurricanes vs. New York Islanders: New York in six

The Hurricanes have grown stronger as a team and the fan base seems to be back to support them frenetically but the Islanders have a little bit more depth and the league's best coach. New York is going to win this series in six games.

Dallas Stars vs. St. Louis Blues: Dallas in seven

This series is the most difficult to predict because I think that these two teams are nearly on the same level. Dallas relies less on the performance of individual players and seems to be the stronger collective which is why I picked them in seven games.

Colorado Hurricanes vs. San Jose Sharks: Colorado in six

San Jose had a huge comeback against the Vegas Golden Knights but that effort was also extremely exhausting. Colorado's team is fresher and younger and this will pay off in the long run. The Avalanche is going to win in six games.

Written and director by Leigh Whannell who was involved in successful horror franchises like Saw and Insidious, Upgrade can be described as a Black Mirror episode with feature film length. This dystopian science-fiction movie convinces with bleak settings, a mysterious plot and a strong lead character. It's one of the greatest dystopian science-fiction movies of the decade.

The movie tells the story of Grey Trace, a rare mechanic in a futuristic world of self-driving cars who repairs classic cars for rich collectors and entrepreneurs. His wife is quite the opposite and works for an enterprise that develops human-computer augmentations. One day, their self-driving car crashes and the couple gets ambushed by a mysterious group of strangers. Grey Trace gets severely injured while his wife is brutally assassinated. Months later, police investigations are stalled and Grey Trace is confined to a wheelchair, sinks into depression and even attempts to commit suicide. A former client then convinces him to participate in an illegal experiment that enables Grey Trace to walk again with the help of an intelligent implant that has its very own identity. The former mechanic must pretend to be still paralyzed in public while secretly trying to find out who is responsible for the ambush.

Upgrade convinces on many levels. The film's gloomy atmosphere is established right from the introduction and upheld until the dramatic conclusion. The settings of the futuristic world are quite realistic which only makes them more haunting. The diversified action scenes are skillful, intense and brutal. The resilient lead character is easy to empathize with. The story has a few interesting twists and turns that aren't too hard to predict but still developed quite efficiently. The conclusion truly is the climax of the movie and worth the wait.

If you like dystopian science-fiction movies, you should definitely watch Upgrade. Leigh Whannell delivers the goods again and shows that his science-fiction stories are as intriguing as his successful horror concepts. Upgrade stimulates your guts, heart and mind and is one of the best genre movies in recent memory along with Ex Machina.

Radius is a gloomy science-fiction drama that convinces with solid acting performances and an intriguing story.

The Canadian movie tells the story of a man who wakes up after a car accident without remembering what happened to him, who he is or where he belongs. He soon realizes that any living being that comes too close to him dies almost instantly. The man manages to find his house and wants to put the pieces of the puzzle together while local media suspect terrorism behind the strange deaths. Before he can fully understand what happened to him, he is visited by a woman who seems to be the only person who can approach him without dying. Their fates seem to be intertwined and they try to understand what happened to them while local media and police officers try to track them down.

On the positive side, the film's sinister atmosphere is established with the very first scene and lasts until the shocking conclusion. The story is quite creative and has a few sinister and supernatural turns that make you wonder how you would react under similar circumstances. The two lead characters are profound and their relationship constantly shifts and changes. It's easy to empathize with them at one or another moment in the movie.

On the negative side, the film's pace is somewhat dragging at times, especially in the first twenty minutes or so before the two lead characters meet on screen for the first time. The side characters can be somewhat annoying as they are often closed-minded, constantly ignore warnings and take many questionable decisions.

In the end, Radius is a gloomy science-fiction drama that convinces with profound atmosphere, great lead characters and creative twists and turns in the story. Especially the film's radical conclusion is memorable. The movie's strong points pardon for a few lengths and annoying secondary characters. If you like atmospheric science-fiction films with a grounded interpersonal touch, you can't go wrong with Radius. Even though that movie was despised by critics, Radius reminds me positively of Shyamalan's The Happening.

Boiling Point, originally titled 3 to 4x October in reference to a baseball game shown in the movie, is the first film where Takeshi Kitano was in full charge as writer, director and actor. The movie is quite experimental as it is a mixture of a gangster film, drama and black comedy. Its style foreshadows Takeshi Kitano's later successful movies like Fireworks.

The movie tells the story of Masahiko Ono, a young man with an unspectacular life who is considered the worst player of his terrible baseball team, has a boring job as gas station attendant and has never got on a date with a woman. One day, he confronts a rude yakuza who intimidates him at the gas station. The young man's life goes through dramatic changes from then on. With growing self-confidence, he starts dating a charming waitress of a local restaurant, becomes a better baseball player and gets in touch with members of the underworld. However, the confrontation with the criminal also has drastic consequences as Masahiko Ono's friend and mentor gets beaten up when he tries to solve the conflict between the gas station attendant and the organization. Masahiko Ono decides to take revenge and travels to Okinawa with a friend where they get in touch with a pitiless criminal and his associates to purchase weapons.

On the negative side, the movie has a dragging pace and especially the long baseball sequences are quite unspectacular. The first ten minutes of the movie actually show an amateur baseball game. Other directors would have shown a few scenes consisting of one or two minutes in total but Takeshi Kitano takes his time to plunge us into the protagonist's boring life. The movie is also confusedly meandering between its numerous genres. Some scenes have a gloomily dramatic tone but suddenly turn into gritty violence only to switch to black humour dealing with debatable taboo topics like sexual abuse. It doesn't help that it's hard to empathize with the protagonist who is often shown as being quiet, emotionless an dim-witted. Takeshi Kitano himself only appears halfway through the movie and leaves before the final showdown as he only portrays a side character.

On the positive side, the film had a consistent gloomy mood from start to finish, even in its more humorus parts because they always had somewhat tough undertones. Some of the characters are quite memorable such as the rude and tough barman, former yakuza and protaginist's friend played by Taka Guadalcanal. Takeshi Kitano portrays a pitiless gangster with unpredictable fits of anger who regularly hits his girlfriend and even rapes his best friend. The entire movie is filled with anti-heroes who have failed to find their way in life. The film has quite a few iconic scenes. The movie's showdown is unexpectedly radical. There is an awkward brawl in a bar when people fight each other while dancing, singing and having dinner. My favourite scene is when the tough barman insults a female customer who complains about the smelly restrooms and invites her to go pee outside and take her friends with her.

In the end, Boiling Point is an odd movie with almost as many weaknesses as strengths. It's an acquired taste and certainly unlike any movie you have ever watched. Even by Takeshi Kitano's eclectic standards, Boiling Point stands out as a particularly experimental film. Perhaps this film will grow on me but its weirdness makes it hard to digest. Beyond its awkwardness, the movie still has some depth as the intriguing conclusion leaves room for interpretation. If you like experimental Japanese cinema and don't mind swear words, brutal fights and abusive behaviour, you should give this film a try.