I'm just listening to this for the first time and thinking how wonderful it sounds. It was his first release after Chris Blackwell signed him to Island and already he's found the perfect band to wow everyone with his trademark sound. Many of his greatest hits came later but track B1 must be familiar to everyone in the world, Stir It Up. "Kinky Reggae" is track two on the same side. Just a perfect Reggae album, deep thumping bass, soaring keyboards, sympathetic drums, great backing vocals and the spiritual sound of Bob at his young best.

I think I'm going to be playing this on repeat all evening.

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Aisling Bea lights this up and Nick Frost is... Nick Frost but I just couldn't get into this film. :sad:

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The only CG animated movie that I've seen that actually lives up to the standard of those early Pixar movies.

...And the soundtrack is stunning!

Absolute joy.

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Portrait Of The Artist As A Young, Unhinged Serial Killer.

I actually quite enjoyed this!

>without meaning to go against the flow or general consensus of opinion<

This was one of those original "video nasties" that persons of a certain age, such as myself, would in younger school days, only hear of in whispers and by the infamous reputation it acquired due to having been designated as such.

(It was one of those that your mate at school was said to have seen the cover of a copy that his uncle's workmate's sister's boyfriend owned...Wow! - naturally enough, that's enough to make every kid in school want to hunt it down and see it.)

...But I never got to see it back in the day, and so had something of a wry smile to myself when I found the DVD in The charity shop the other day, as yet another legendary movie of my youth would now be mine to see at last!

I can see why most would not like this, as it is, oddly enough, and against all expectation, not quite the horror / slasher movie it's rep would suggest, or the very title would declare... well, certainly not in the same way that others who made this were, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Cannibal Holocaust, or even the gory, yet hilarious Evil Dead are, let alone the formulaic slashers that followed.

...No, this is actually more of a portrayal of a poor, down on his luck artist gradually losing his grip due to impoverishment, a snobby, indifferent art dealer, a the punk band who live downstairs keeping him awake all night with their one tune, played over and over again, not to mention the poverty and destitution of New York of the time, with lots of homeless desperate individuals all over the place.

In fact, it has more of a kind of Warhol / sixties, hallucinatory art movie feel about it, or even a movie student's ultra-low budget artistic rendering of a "horror" movie...

(wait!... there's a "budget"!?!)

In fact, it takes a good half a hour or more before the first "drill kill" happens, which, in movie of only hour and a half, doesn't really make it an archetypal "slasher" flick... granted there's a flurry of kills a little later as he goes on a spree, but really, the kill count is actual minimal compared to what you might expect... And all done, in a not completely gory way really... I mean, there's "blood", but no need for practical effects, as his drill, he seems only to poke at people and the drilling is more suggested than anything, and other instances are done through clothing etc.

...Which is good thing, in way, as I'd always wondered, when pondering this movie, just how effective a hand-drill would be in this regard... after all, people would just throw the damn thing out of his hand surely, and not simply present themselves as static targets while he does his thing. No, the drilling killing is actually the weakest element in this, totally unbelievable, and actually quite comedically bad in fact... I think an egg-whisk would probably do as much damage!

So very much what I found with Hell's Angels On Wheels... a vastly different movie than you're given to believe, which may certainly disappoint those going in with expectations of a certain nature, but taken for what it really is, actually quite good.

So think of it more as being to horror / slasher movies what Dark Star is to sci-fi - not the greatest example you'll ever see, but not without it's charms.

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Apocalypse... Then?

Evidently based on the real diary of a soldier who served under Major Dundee at the time, which relates the story of this, effectively "passed over" Major, sent to the arse-end of nowhere to be a kind of prison warden, as nobody really has any faith in him as a soldier or a leader, but when a marauding Apache group take prisoners from a town they have destroyed, Dundee sees his chance to prove himself, by hunting down, capturing or killing the semi-legendary leader of the Apaches, rescuing the captives, and generally saving the day.

...And that's where the trouble starts.

As, while the pieces of narration taken from the diary to frame the story, as well as the essential plot point of renegade leader in forgotten part of the world gives a very strong reminder of Apocalypse Now, with Heston's Dundee being a kind of Anti-Kurtz...

(He's not crackers, but neither is he entirely brilliant as a leader - deeply flawed)

... this also has a prototype Dirty Dozen element to the story, as Dundee must round up a troupe to help him in his possibly foolish enterprise from among the waifs, strays, vagabonds and prisoners under his supervision, including a squad of captured Confederate soldiers, who naturally enough, don't like him very much (or the black soldier under Dundee's command, for that matter).

So there's enough tension and contention from within his own ranks with which to contend, let alone finding the Apache, rescuing the captives... oh, and dealing with the French army too!

Only the fact that Dundee is also a kind of Captain Ahab figure really drives him through the obstacles in his way against all better advice, as he must hunt down his own personal "White Whale".

Super stuff.

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This is quite a charming, evocative little movie about a somewhat lost Hollywood movie producer who is in Paris with his Fiancé and her gruff, snobbish parents, none of whom share his enchantment with the city, and leave him to go wandering the streets at night, where as the clock strikes midnight, sends him back in time to 1920s Paris, where he meets F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, Picasso, and others, and begins to fall for a lovely socialite form that time, who herself, dreams of a bygone era, not her own.

There are some pretty broad depictions of literary and artistic figures form history, but I think that's the point, in portraying them as more modern mythologising of them has bequeathed them to us as merely ideas, and icons, and the whole movie is about romanticising the past and dealing with the nostalgia for a time you never personally knew, in order to escape the realities of a less than satisfactory present.

Quite magical, charming, and warm, and is quite easy on the "Woody Allen-ness", which gives it a nice light wit.

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In the nut-house again.

(It gives me pause to reflect on how many movies I like deal with mental illness: The Fisher King, Benny And Joon, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, As Good As It Gets....etc. Purely coincidental, I'm sure! (twitch twitch :)


When I watched it first time round, all those years ago, I remember feeling it was a bit of a vanity project... indulgence, and vehicle / excuse to shoehorn Kevin Spacey onto our screens, off the back of a plethora of memorable performances elsewhere, and I remember it feeling a very...slight movie - a little too economical, sparse, and cold feeling. I think the production design has a lot to do with, as it looks a little less than cinematic, and more like TV... like an episode of NCIS or something, with that kind of aesthetic.

Watching again now, a lot of that hasn't changed for me, but I do find I've warmed to the story a characters a little more, and the cool look and feel is appreciated in how it conveys a sense of the ethereal, and otherworldly, consistent with the theme of a man (Spacey) who apparently arrives from out of thin air, declares himself to be from another planet, and is immediately taken to a psychiatric ward of the hospital, to be investigated and assessed by Jeff Bridges' psychiatrist.

Prot(e) (Spacey) begins to rub off on, and have an effect on, not only the other patients, but the doctors, and Bridges himself, due to the enduring enigma the movie works off of:

Is he actually nuts, or is he really from another planet?!?

>Your Kevin Spacey joke here<

(...er, or perhaps... best not!)

It is, despite it's economy, and fragile surface beauty, actually quite a touching, tragic, yet warm and engaging movie nevertheless, and still worth watching.

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Neon-Noir.

This neon-drenched, quasi-serial killer, semi-skin-flick feels like a bleed over from the seventies, as in both look and feel, if you didn't know the date of release, you'd swear it was a seventies movie.

Although, more accurately, this feels like a 30s to 50's film-noir packed inside the clothes of the seventies, an presented in the eighties.

(The only thing that gave it away is a scene in the street with a telephone box, where a cinema in the background is showing: Blue Thunder, An Officer And a Gentleman, and Flashdance!)

It reeks of a kind of pulp noir novel that might have been bought back in the day from a cigarette stand: Lonesome ex-boxer, haunted by his last fight, in which he killed his opponent, now runs an agency for strip club dancers, who suddenly start getting serially attacked in the street by pre-Se7en style nut job, and the boxer's mob connections, as well as the hard-bitten, no-nonsense (and slightly shady) Detective who is always getting his face are all over him to try and bring the nutter to book.

It's great as just that... A piece of pulpy schlock, but there are a couple of gripes for me:

Firstly, it seems there is precisely zero detective work going on in the entire movie regarding catching this guy, which, although the movie's centre is about the effect on the people it's happening to, rather than who is doing it, the "serial killer" is essentially a tacked on plot device, and is only wrapped up conveniently at the end.

Then there is the odd choice of having the serial killer be a puritanical Martial arts obsessive, which in real world situations seems a little bit whacky, and goofy... but I put this down to the attempt to make the movie appeal to the popularity of martial arts movies of the time.

And finally, it's the fact that the only people who seem to be in the titular "fear" are the characters in the movie, as opposed to laying a palpable blanket of fear over an entire city,in the manner of, say: Summer of Sam, or Zodiac killers... so a bit of misnomer.

But otherwise pretty groovy, with a strong performance by Tom Berenger, and plenty of scenes of a nude Melanie Griffith

(See, I knew that'd get your attention! :) .... and so did the film-makers, I suspect.)

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This was my final GBH record, they were not the same good punk band anymore with catchy mid tempo songs, and great vocals, This was typical for the age, i guess Cockney Rejects were the first in 1982 then Discharge in 1985, and now it was GBH's turn to become a metal band, toghether with Exploited. The signs were already evident on "A Fridge Too Far". Eventually GBH came back to punk in 2002.

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Wow, this is a short movie!

1hr, 24mins.

And after the opening scene, which seems to just drop you straight into the action from the off, it threatens to slow down to a crawl, and I wondered how it was going to pack a whole movie into the time remaining... but in the end, it does pretty good job.

It's one of those that is generally not well regarded, and I think it's because of this absence of character establishment / exposition form the off, which is a little bemusing, and made me wonder for a few more minutes than I'd liked: What the hell is going on!

...But that's because it's also one of those that just drops little bits of key info and back-story as it goes, rather than swamp you with story from the outset.

Basic plot:

Cop kills cirme boss' son, so crime boss wants hired killer to kill cop's son... he can't so now hired killer needs to get the FO.O.D in order to escape crime boss coming after him, which he attempts to do with the help of passport forger, who then gets embroiled in the whole thing.

This has more than a whiff of Leon about it, especially in the score, and reminded me a lot of the later Kiss Of The Dragon (which I like a lot)... And while this has has some truly stunning photography / cinematography, which is beautifully lit, and shot, I can see where the criticism of it over the years as being more style than substance. But given how enjoyable it is, and how short, I think this can be forgiven.

A couple of other facts which may serve to both explain it, and perhaps recommend it:

Produced by (among others): John Woo.

Mira Sorvino does a pretty damn impressive job as not only turning out to be pretty bad ass, but fairly hard ass when she wants to be, and on the strength of this, makes me wonder why she didn't do more of this kind of thing in her career - she seems to have an untapped talent for it!

It has Michael Rooker.

...........It has Danny Trejo.

Legends both.

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Wasn't sure if I'd seen this one, or one of the others...

(That isn't Enter The Dragon... as I know that one by heart, having seen it over and over since I was a small weeble)

...Turns out, I'd not.

But it's pretty darn good, albeit a bit shonky in places, and what with the very strong anti-Japanese theme throughout, a blacked-up Chinese actor as an Indian (with turban), and the generally broad depictions of anyone who isn't heroic, yet victimised Chinese... But hey, everyone did this kind of thing at sometime or other didn't they?

>"It was a different time then!!!"<

(chuckle)

...Nevertheless, although it's a pretty stock revenge movie, whereby "hero" has to and wade through stacks of minions to kick bog boss' ass, it does a great job in telling that story, and does some subtlety and nuance to the plot, in that it seems to proceed from the principle that s%&t gets out of hand very quickly when you pursue this kind of revenge thing, and in the end, nobody really wins.

But let's park our brains for a moment here... It's a Bruce Lee kung-fu movie, and that's all you want it to be, and it is.

Opening title cards and music very suggestive of Sergio Leone Scetti westerns, and the finale is in the pantheon of ultimate iconic kung-fu scenes, and includes the beyond iconic shot of Bruce's slow-mo mutli-exposure, hypnotising mutli-trance-arms.

Only real gripe is that at least half the people in the fight scenes don't really seem to have much of a clue about kung-fu (about as much as I do!) I can only imagine what Bruce himself thought of some of them gently waving their arms about aimlessly, which is only highlighted by the other half, who clearly do know something! The problem here is that a lot of main bad guys fall into this fist category - being somewhat portly middle aged chaps which I'm fairly sure even I could take.

Bruce looks like another species of human entirely in the face of these guys... which doesn't help to sell the idea that he'd have any problem whatsoever with them.

There is also a great sort of James Bond theme going, where Bruce has to go to ground, and by means of disguises and such, infiltrate the bad guys, which added something to the movie.

Enter The Dragon, it ain't, but certainly heading in that direction impressively.

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If your discs have No-Noised needle-drops of this material in stereo, this is the source of it. It was fine at the time, but this seriously needs an upgrade, as with today's technology, this sounds rather poor

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The best place to find his hits in their original mono versions. No noise-reduction and little futzing with.

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The best disc of his hits in True Stereo from tape without Noise reduction. Sound is fantastic.

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I first saw the Original Japanese version then the Hollywood remake. The original is far better even with the subtitles to contend with. Perhaps it was because it was more creepy the first time, but overall I felt the Japanese actors did it in a less “dramatic frills” way which made it easier to relate to the characters.

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A strange parody of the Twilight saga. Very weird. Farts galore, and i really don’t know why jack sparrow is in it. Still more interesting than Breaking Dawn tho.

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Something and nothing.

This is an odd movie, which now I see why it has all the mixed reviews.

The reason being, essentially, that what with all the day-glo / neon / fluorescence going on, and the premise, of a a load of assassins on the titular bullet train, you go into this expecting something along the lines of a whacky, coked up, high octane John Wick style movie, but it's actually more dialogue driven... for the first hour at least.

..."Witty" banter and lightly comedic dialogue, only punctuated by the odd smidge of "action".

This presents itself, and indeed, tries to be a kind of ultra-neon, modernist Guy Ritchie / Lock Stock etc. affair, set against a Keyser Söze (ripped off!) style unseen devil mythology, where someone is pulling the strings in the background.

These plot devices are pretty clunky and contrived, and the whole movie is basically absurd, whacky, and cartoonish... perhaps trying a little too hard to be cool, and too clever for it's own good (and too clever for it's own ability).

So if you expect an adrenalin rush straight out of the gate, you will be disappointed on that score, and see all the visual aspects as mere window dressing to cover up that fact.

(Half a dozen gratuitous cameos don't rescue it either, and don't really add anything, seeing as they have precisely no bearing on the plot whatsoever - just twenty second jobs for acting chums!)

That said, if you don't mind it not being what you thought it was, it is quite fun, goofy nonsense, albeit a wasted opportunity, I feel... a bit like those Shane Black movies I've seen recently: Nice Guys and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.

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Wow, just wow!

What a feast for the eyes and ears, this totally blew me away and the three-hour run-time passed in minutes. From the incredible opening scene to the heart-wrenching denouement, this had me enthralled.

The above could have been written for this or the original but it applies equally. However, it turned out I am not as familiar with the 50s version as I thought. The set pieces in this one were great but I couldn't mentally compare them with the other. The acting and singing, by all combatants (as that is what they are), are amazing.

Anyway, they stand alone, as far as I am concerned, as terrific moments in cinema. I hope it is as revered by people in the future as the first version is now!

10/10 :happy:

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An old favourite that still keeps on rollin'!

Not seen this since I was about 12, when pretty much every year before that it seemed to be on tv, and I used to watch it every time... I thought it was great back then, but in the intervening years, if you'd asked me what the point of the whole movie was - the plot - I'd struggle to say anything more than a bunch of truckers decide to make a, well, convoy, and the cops don't like it.

(And that, upon rewatch, is still basically the plot :)

...However, since then, I now know who Sam Peckinpah is, and what he is known for as a director, including the overly highlighted violent scenes (occasional ultra slow-motion shots of a punch, or a shot, or other dramatic moment), and I get the whole metaphorical subtext etc.

But it still is fun, and very enjoyable, and sits alongside those kind of movies of the time like Any Which Way But Loose and Cannonball Run, being a kind of working class rebel outlaw movie in the style of a western set in a modern world.

It's sits tonally between Smokey And The Bandit, though not as goofy, and consistently light-hearted... And Vanishing Point, though not as serious and straight faced.

Not bad for a movie based on a song!

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this is the edition yr hmbl srppnt. first read - in 1967 - it kept the teenage me up all night reading it in one go - and yes, it was written to be a work of propaganda°, and an educational work†, as well as a thunderingly fine, truly gripping novel. i have read it again since - a couple of times, over the decades.

yr hmbl srppnt. does not like leon uris' altering some parts of known & fully-documented historical events, such as the children & crew of the blockade-running ship were in fact returned by the british authorities to a/ displaced persons' camp/s in europe: i can appreciate he did this to improve the novel as a work of fiction, "but..."; however, his portrayal of racist characters and the language these characters use does not make this a work advocating racism nor racist behaviour: such criticism is ill-founded, no matter how sincere.

"exodus" remains a major novel, a gripping "must-read" - and one that does not excuse nor justify violence & murder by anyone at all - including by modern israelis possessed of racist opinions & beliefs. - not that all by any means are (clarifying to forestall charges...).

° - promoting several causes, not simply zionism (in the sense of arguing for both the movement to further creation of a modern jewish state, historically, and supporting its continued existence in the form of the country of israel)
† - detailing much of the history of jewish people, and of judaism, through snapshots and more extended chapters in characters' lives, as well as enlightening people about the existence of the holocaust that the nazi regime had inflicted upon so many millions including many of the peoples of eastern europe, and upon homosexual men, and upon others - but so overwhelmingly against the jewish population of europe (and anyone "tainted" with "jewish blood") - about which many people - and most people in the usa - were totally ignorant.

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One of the best Stephen King adaptations, and again, it probably has something to do with the director: Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile).

A pretty creepy and haunting analogy for human behaviour as a result of despair in the face of unknowable terror... Although the story was written some years back, the movie was doubtlessly produced to be timely in the wake of 911.

...Still, perhaps even more applicable than ever.

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Aaaarrghhh...Puberty!!!!!

Not anywhere near as good as the first, but that's because, I think, that one will have a broader appeal age wise, in evoking a lot of "stuff" for older audiences about their youngest years... In a more poetic, and heart-breaking way, whereas this will probably mean more to an audience specifically contemporary to the age of the lead character Riley.

This moves a lot quicker, and is more busy.

Very good though.

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This is really rather brilliant.

It's a short movie, running at only an hour and a half...

(A full two minutes of which, are occupied at the start by the seemingly endless production company idents... seriously, I think there's at least eight!)

...And it's a pastiche / homage to both the kind of late night seventies talk shows that felt a bit ropey, and a bit dodgy and dangerous, as well as the several attempts at live TV broadcasting of "spooky" goings on at Halloween over the years, where they pretend that it's all actually happening, but much to the consternation of those making the show, it actually is.

So it's a desperate gambit of a show gone wrong, framed as a kind of "found footage" horror, where we are supposedly witnessing the original master-tape of the original live broadcast...

...Except I think this has actually exceeded the now traditional, and perhaps worn trope of the found footage thing, and is perhaps better thought of as a kind of stage play.

In fact, my abiding thoughts at the end were exactly that: "This would make truly brilliant stage show!" - Broadway or West End adaptation anyone?!?

So fading talk show host invites a supposedly intermittently possessed girl on as a guest, with her rescuer / carer, in order to try and coax the devil out for the benefit of live TV (and therefore, good ratings), along with a now professional sceptic / debunker, and a psychic medium, all infront of a live television audience... what could go wrong? :)

It feels very stagey throughout the first half, but I think, done with a wry smile, albeit, played brilliantly deadpan... and I do think it might have been more effective without the "special" effects, later on, which feel a bit too "Ghostbusters" CGI, and does kill the immersion a little, but the finale really redeems it, with the "In The Mouth Of Madness" surreal, horrific mind bending sequence, which takes it up to another level of weird.

All cast are excellent, primarily David Dastmalchian, of course, who, finally given a chance at a lead role, knocks t clean out of the park, as we always knew he could, and it's nice to see Ian Bliss (Bane in: Matrix Reloaded) again - need to see more of this dude! - as the debunker, and especially praise goes to Ingrid Torelli as a truly creepy kid!

A great, short, late night horror watch, and as I said, an absolute potential gold mine for a possible stage play adaptation!

(Has anyone ever done a genuine horror movie on the stage before)

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Fun, un-pc modern Cheech and Chong-esque stoner comedy that eventually turns into a kind of slapstick Die Hard / videogame shooter style bonkers shoot-em up.

Really quite good actually.

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Flórez sounds as handsome as he looks, and has star status in Peru. Here he sings some operatic favourites, beautifully recorded with the excellent orchestra under Paulo Vero. As an example, the popular solo from Handel's Messiah:

[YouTube Video]

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Watched this last again night, it was set in 1845 and you'd swear it was made shortly after that.
It is tense, with a sense of menace as father, mother and son argue in the family apartment. Patricia Neal's character Nettie is deeply unlikeable, which I take as a sign of a superb performance. She looks deeply haggard, as she would in real life following her recovery from stroke. Martin Sheen (Timmy) is a good facial match for his 'mother', and he and Jack Albertson (John), were also difficult to like.

The instrumental music, used sparingly, was scored by Lee Pockriss, and there are two songs, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" written by Sandy Denny, and "Albatross", another Denny favourite, were sung by Judy Collins.

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This set shows us Tavener at his most intense, and, yes, Thunderous. My copy has just arrived in the post, so I have been listening to it, one track at a time because it is not something you can have on in the background. The dynamics of the title track, for instance, take the organ and choir from pp to fff.

By complete coincidence, I opened YouTube to look for this track and was greeted with a tribute upon the death of tenor William Kendall a week ago. Let this track also serve as a tribute to Kendall.

[YouTube Video]

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"Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories..."

Yup, it's that one... heavily, not only influencing, but in many ways informing, if not actively helping create Sleepless In Seattle - The whole: Empire State Building scenario and so forth.

But it's a pretty odd movie, as much as it is a classic romance movie, in that the first half is pretty tedious, and dull, not only due to the limited expressive capabilities of Cary Grant (better at the comic stuff than the dramatic I feel), but also the rather empty "banter" and back and forth between him and Deborah Kerr, who has quite a stiff, school-matronly thing going on here, which mostly feels flat, and not quite as crackling as they were perhaps aiming for... Not good in a dialogue driven, two person focused movie; Especially when the lack of musical score for much of this makes it seem like you're on set, without all the production added, so it seems odd. In addition, many of these individual shots go on way too long, making it feel all the more awkward, like they should have cut to something else several seconds previous.

(There'a one scene in a small chapel where they are both praying silently to themselves, where I'm not entirely sure if she's reciting a prayer to herself, or the whole bloody bible!).

All of this is not a good mix, and as well as highlighting the dull clunky feel of it all, is apt to make you nod off.

And from this alone, I would have scored this a 5 out of 10 (5 being my baseline score of: "meh" - less than this represents a negative score in my book)

...Oh, and their respective "others", whom they are in relationships with, seem to be taking they news that they each love another in an altogether nonchalant, bordering on indifferent manner, which does lessen the dramatic stakes considerably .

But...

...Then, something remarkable happens, as the last half hour picks it up a couple of points for me, and makes the whole thing more worthy of it's "Classic" status... And better than this, the final five minutes (literally the last five minutes) are truly exceptional, even brilliant.

That final scene is probably one of the most inspired, and brilliant pieces of screenwriting in any romance movie, using the genius device of having him apologise to her for something she (apparently) has done to him, until she gets the point and the subtext is apparent to all of us in the audience. Masterfully done.

So this last scene is probably a 9 out of 10 (pushing towards a 10) and redeems the whole thing somewhat, and is worth watching for that alone.

One odd little thing that stuck in my head after the movie was over, was that it occurred to me that they meet on a boat when kerr's character finds his lost cigarette case....I'm pretty sure he doesn't smoke a single cigarette in the whole movie!

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For Tom Brennan's review (dated 27 October 2013) of this two-CD reissue, see here.

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