Cat Stevens made some very good pop singles in the mid to late 1960's. He also released two very good albums during this period. He was a prolific song writer and some of his material became hits for other artists. In 1969 he contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalised for a few months while recuperating. During this time his outlook on life changed and he wrote many more songs some of which appeared on this LP and on subsequent LPs.
When this was released it was like a breath of fresh air and it was at the time when singer songwriters were becoming prominent in the album charts. There are some excellently crafted songs on this LP and it remains my favourite Cat Stevens album. I played it to death, learning to play all the songs on guitar and still give the CD a regular spin (occasionally I get my guitar out and play along).

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This one was kind of a victim of it's own success at the time, I remember...

...With a lot of people - who initially appreciated, and acknowledged how good it was - growing rapidly tired of it, and eventually dismissing it, and to a large extent, Travis themselves.

Another case, perhaps, of being oversold, and getting too much airplay, until people found it annoying... Rather like Alanis Morrisette's: Jagged Little Pill album, or Moby's: Play.

Which is a shame, because this has a lot more going on it than simply being a great collection of consistently strong pop tunes. These fantastic tunes you can 'um, actually only serve to deliver a rather melancholic tone, and subject matter, which is a contrast that actually works really well when writers of pop song do it.

Indeed... music for me at least, is best when recognising that actually, everything ain't awesome (something that seems to have escaped most writers of late), and as well as the big, anthemic: Turn (perhaps a little overdone), the brilliant: Driftwood, and the marvellous, miserable-ist pub sing-along: Why Does It Always Rain On Me?, the opening track: Writing To Reach You, and the Glacial: The Fear, make a brilliant album for those of a natural melancholic disposition to spend an hour or so with.

This, for me, is what indie pop music ought to be.

...Time to dig it out again and give it another listen.

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This album has shot to No. 1 in the UK (11/12/16) and is widely being heralded as the best thing the Stones have done since God knows when, but is it? Well, in some ways it is. It's certainly the most consistently good album they've made for a very long time but that can be put down to the fact the none of the songs were written by Jagger/Richard(s). The Stones' songwriting team have been off form for many years. So on Blue and Lonesome there are no original songs but the blues covers selected are all classics and excellent choices.
That said the songs chosen also reflect artists that had a big influence on the Stones sound particularly in their early years. Many reviews are making a link from this album their eponymous debut The Rolling Stones and touting it as a return to their roots as a band. So how does it compare to their debut which incidentally currently has an average rating of between 5 and 6 on this site. Well on Blue And Lonesome the playing is tighter and the production is better but is it a better album? I'd say no for several reasons.
My main beef is that the album contains a highly predictable set of covers that are pretty much faithful reproductions of the original songs. The band still sound good but not much has been done to put their own mark on these old blues classics. John Lee Hooker's "The Healer" and "Mr. Lucky" are much better examples of how to update or tweak the blues for a modern audience.
Now, don't get me wrong, I like the Stones and listened to them a lot in my childhood because my Dad was a huge fan. The first live band I saw was the Stones in 1973 and I still have 15 or so of their albums in my collection so I do like the band. Songs the Stones covered on earlier albums are probably the main reason I started collecting and hunting down blues music in general. So I have the Stones to thank for this but I also have the original versions of every song on this album and quite frankly I prefer them to versions offered up here on Blue and Lonesome.
The album is a good introduction to Chicago blues and is well played by seasoned musicians but if you want the real thing search out The Chess Box or the original albums.
All in all Blue and Lonesome is a good Stones album of classic blues tracks but it lacks any real spark or identity of its own. A great album if you love the Stones so much hearing them run through some blues standards is enough to get you off. Average otherwise 5/10.


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Genius film, back when he was still funny!
The use of old film (noir) stock was brilliantly innovative for the time although it's been done to death since (even in adverts).
Martin's deadpan deliver of corny old film lines showed his true comic timing.
Probably not as rewarding as The Jerk but still worth catching!
:happy:

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It's hard to review this without spoiling it for a first time viewer but let's just say that it's an engaging short film which deals with the anxiety of change and ultimately the refusal to deal with it.

The film is based around true events and what is even more remarkable is that the filmmakers were able to use the actual location and actual physical 'props' from the time.

Often short films feel too short to really delve into the characters involved but I think in this case that it's such a simple tale that it makes sense. The ending is suitably abrupt too. Worth 27 minutes of any film buff's time.

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Now this is better!

Having been disappointed by The Maltese Falcon, I started watching this with some trepidation but was pleasantly surprised!

Howard Hawk's direction seemed less... stilted than that of John Huston: is it me?

Also, there was a (hell of a) lot more chemistry between Bogey and Bacall (natch) than he and Mary Astor!

Also, the standard of everything just seemed higher, from the acting to the support cast (Hoagy Carmichael for God's sake!!!) to the settings...

Walter Brennan! Superb!

:happy:

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When this excellent Capitol Collectors Series CD was issued in 1992, there was reportedly a dispute between the members of the group, and most copies of the CD's were released without the original 16 page booklet. I bought my copy on the day of release, and I got a rare copy with the booklet. I was not aware of this when I added this CD to 45 Worlds, and I omitted most of the booklet artwork at that time. I have now added all 16 pages of the booklet to this item.

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A charity shop find which turned out to be a little gem. In the same way as Ein Choralbuch Für Johann Sebastian, this compilation alternates between choral settings and organ solos for most of the titles. The Pilz Vienna Master Series is a budget line, without a booklet or any notes, but the recording quality is particularly good; the mastering has a slight bass roll-off which tends to hide the organ pedal stops.

Ppint has added helpful notes about the Pilz label and its distribution through 'remaindered' bookshops: this Pilz series, with CD *** catalogue numbers, may well be specifically for the UK, so the nationality may have to be changed if any further information comes to light.

I would like to know what 1990 release this was licenced from: playback in Win 10 Media Player shows a plain illustration of the famous portrait of JSB, while a search on YouTube or Amazon finds a couple of the dual tracks on a compilation called Die Weihnachtsgeschichte; unfortunately no label is credited, but the video does allow us to hear one very fine Chorale, and the noisy organ mechanism in the unnamed Church.

[YouTube Video]

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It’s like West Side Story meets Jason and the Argonauts on crack!

...And with a heavy feel of Escape From New York and idea or two borrowed from Vanishing Point (The DJ).

I watched this by mistake the other day when it was on telly late night...

...The programme I was watching had ended and this started, while I was playing with my phone; when the deep seventies Carpenter-esque vibe of the music and visuals came on I looked up and thought: “WTF is this!?!”

Very atmospheric, but absolutely mental!

It drew me in, and I was mesmerised by it right through to the end.

Preposterous and absurd plot and premise, with identikit gangs from someone's surreal nightmare punctuated with some of the worst acting you've ever seen...

All the reasons I loved it! :)

I mean, there's even a gang on roller skates!!!

As they battle to journey through the city to get back to their turf after being accused of assassinating the “Big Cheese” of the gang world, and the word gets out to the other gangs to get them, I wondered if the people who made it were totally or stoned, or I was!

...And the amount of early / first time actors in this that you recognize from later fame is incredible (even saw Mercedes Ruehl in this)... and it took me a while to figure if the lead actor (Mr. Beck, of course) may or may not have been Jon Bon Jovi or not.

Nuts... Wonderfully bonkers and nuts!

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Difficult one for me to review because I really wanted to enjoy it, but there's too much about it that annoyed me. I'm not a horror film snob and this year I enjoyed My Bloody Valentine (1981) and Happy Death Day 2U. I think Us fails to live up to the hype. On one hand it wants to be gory home invasion movie on the other some sort of intelligent neo-slasher, to me it is an over long messily plotted borefest.

The main source of annoyance was the ham-fisted horror film references. The son is called Jason, I'm guessing Freddy and Issac were also in the running. Then you have a bad patchwork quilt of 90s pop culture. One of the brats says "what's Home Alone?", "what's Micro Machine?" Then there's the soundtrack: NWA, Luniz "I Got 5 On It" - both overused and not really obscure or interesting enough to make anyone over the age of 30 to take notice. You can clearly see when love and care has gone into a soundtrack if it is personal: The Sopranos TV series being the obvious example.

It's tries so hard to be clever and funny, but it just fell flat for me. Hearing the Ice Cube on the soundtrack say "bloodbath" to gory scissor stabbings. Please spare me. That said, the name of the Yacht was funny, I will give them that.

Maybe it's ennui on my part, but I don't know were Us fits. If you want an intelligent Home Invasion movie: Funny Games (1997) while not quite brilliant is still the business, de-constructed horror post-80s Wes Craven, for a solid gory horror French film, Inside.

Two hours of people being stabbed with scissors, obvious pop culture references to the 80s and 90s by people with a PhD in reading Wikipedia and a bunch of bad gurning guys who sound like they have strep throat. Not my idea of fun.

I know a film isn't great when I check the runtime and I want it to end and there's nearly an hour left. Even worse I was thinking "what I could be watching instead?" Martin, The Exorcist, American Werewolf.

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excessively hagialogical - especially as very sparse, withal - even fawning account of the franco-welsh dynasty put on the throne of england by a combination of mostly french force of arms, the tiny rump of the die-hard lancastrian unreconciled with richard III, and the treachery of one turncoat, a man who owed his survival and that of the noblewoman he married to richard's clemency -

- a dynasty of men - and a woman - so voraciously power- and money-grabbing, and so paranoid, they wiped out all of their remaining near, and even distant relatives, overthrew roman (vatican) control of the church in england, grabbing it - and all the churches accumulated wealth, land, patronage and power for themselves, and were so virulently and rabidly ''christian fundamentalist'' they encouraged and even promoted the slaying of thousands for the religious crime of not being sufficiently narrow-mindedly protestant, or of not being sufficiently narrow-mindedly roman catholic, and whose abuse of their powers was so egregious -

- that it seems a major miracle that they eventually produced a ruling queen who was head of the english church -

- yet refused to condemn loyal catholics without evidence of treason°; who was so skilled a political operator her most serious critics in parliament insisted, or tried to insist, that she marry for the good of the realm, managed to keep the two major european powers so greatly in competition with one another, they were ultimately prepared to tolerate her and england's independence, and outright piracy - philip of spain, admittedly, only after the failure of his grand armada - and all this upon a shoestring budget grudgingly voted her by parliament, and whilst - mostly - making good her declaration of tolerance, accepting the official minimum outward conformity with anglicanism (the compromise english church which could accept forms of worship ranging from ''high church'', with some incense, through ''low church'', with fire and brimstone sermons, and lacking most hymns) with the declaration that she would not seek to make a window into men's souls.

- but instead of following, even in a simplified outline, the story of the three or four power struggles that were running throughout tudor times - and occasionally, running wild - this book gives little more than a clichéed and honeyed - or rather, sickly sugared - synopsis of the official tudor apologists' and outright proselytists' propaganda machine pr releases:

- and worse, it's boring.

- avoid.


° - save once; and the undoubtedly loyal englishman in question insisted on standing up to be counted an enemy by elizabeth's parliament

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I'm a big fan of Brit Crime and I've seen some crackers this year: The Squeeze and Clash By Night being two barely anyone talks about. The Offence is another one hardly anybody mentions. It's not quite up there with Get Carter, Brighton Rock and The Long Good Friday, but it is excellent in its own way.

Sean Connery plays Johnson a police Sergeant investigating a child murder and rape case. When the film started I thought he was playing a typical nasty bastard. What he manages to do is bring humanity and believability to a role which could easily end up being camp. Vivien Merchant is also brilliant as his long suffering wife, a role which could easily end up being one dimensional. Fellow Scot, Ian Bannen also brilliant as the criminal held in custody who manages to be creepy, but also smart. And of course veteran actor, Trevor Howard is intense as Johnson's superior.

Sidney Lumet always gets superb performances from his actors and can make two people talking in a room incredibly immersive. Sadly these are now rare skills from directors who are overly reliant on special effects and shock tactics to mask paper-thin plots and weak characterisation.

Despite being made in the early 1970s the film is still shocking now. There's been many films dealing with child sexual abuse since. Silly and laughable vigilante films like "Hard Candy", misguided humanising films like "The Woodsman" or sensationalised victim films "No Child Of Mine". What is lacking in modern films like "Blitz" and "Harry Brown" is they are perfectly fine films but don't have any depth. There's a real lack of existential films dealing with Sartrean suffering and pathos.Sean Connery plays a broken man who can't be fixed and conveys more in 20 minutes than it takes some two television series to do. The script is also sharp: "It's funny the more I drink, the more sober I get." Indeed. This film wasn't the success people thought it would be with the star power of Sean Connery, it was too dark and too beguiling, but it's all the better for it.

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The Freakmaker is about a crazy scientist (Donald Pleasence) who creates half-human, half-plant hybrids for his circus freakshow. Eventually the "freaks" turn on him.

The film is directed by Jack Cardiff who is best known as a cinematographer creating a stunning body of work with films like: The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. His directioral films have not been as critically acclaimed; they came out at a time when the British film industry was heading towards ruin. The Girl On A Motorcycle is a very good existential biker film with some stunning photography. The Freakmaker has some excellent time lapse photography of plants and some great performances from Donald Pleasence who hams it up, but still manages to be creepy and insidious. A young Tom Baker who has good screen presence and is physically imposing as he is over six feet tall. Julie Ege is a cult film actress who is an underrated actress and this film gives her something to do other than take her clothes off.

I consider it to be an above average B-Movie horror with some genuinely disturbing moments and it manages to be a bit more than a campy homage to Tod Browning's "Freaks". The Blu-Ray from Diabolik has great colour bringing out the garish palette and features clear Mono sound.

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Well this one surprised me, at how well it's actually aged...

...At least, it wasn't anywhere near as disastrous as I'd expected to have done so!

Having not seen it since the nineties, when things like this, and it's brilliant predecessor Clerks were my thing, I was happy to stumble across the DVD again at a boot fair.

Basically, an ultimate slacker movie centred around the relationship between the grossly immature and overly geeky and intense Brodie (Jason Lee), and his girlfriend Rene (Shanen Doherty), who he is ingrave danger of losing as she wants him to grow up, and stop being such a complete tool, he sets off on an everyday oddysy / adventure / quest to win her back in the local shopping mall, with the aid of his friends, including the stallwarts Jay and Silent Bob.

And with Ben Affleck continuing his mean jock promoted to local store manager in a sharp suit asshole role with aplomb stealing Rene away to the approval of her dad played by Michael Rooker,.. who together, play the Darth Vader and Emperor to Brodie's low rent Luke Skywalker in what is basically a low rent, everyday Star Wars episode in a shopping mall death star.

Of course, Kevin Smith was well into comic books, comic lore, Sci-Fi and cultural references long before Marvel had even conceived of it's global cinematic dominion, so this was pretty obscure at the time of release, and has actually grown in relevance as the rest of the world has caught up with it, in it's cultural preferences.

This even has Stan Lee in it!!!

So while it has actually done the reverse thing of the more common thing of ageing badly, the other surprise is how actually (relatively) enlightened it's attitudes to men and women's relationships are...

(for the time, and it still has the odd wobbly moment, but nothing that can't be forgiven :)

...But actually quite funny still and with quite a sharp wit all round.... lot's of fun.

A great way to spend a couple of hours, hanging out in the mall with flaky friends, while plotting the downfall of the evil empire :)

7 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

It was poorly made, badly acted, and pure exploitation of the lamest music genre ever. But dammit, it was fun. Sure, Jeff Goldblum's early performance is an embarrassment, but teenage Terri Nunn is a total hoot. The late disco diva, Paul Jabara, is also a campy treat. Then there's Donna Summer, the Commodores, and a truckload of Casablanca Records disco music. The dopiest scene is perhaps the roadie for the Commodores trying to prove to a cop that he's with the band, completely stupid. Or the dancing Hispanic, Marv the Leatherman, who proclaims, "I love to dance...everything else is boolshit!" Still, I liked the movie, all of it.

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The vocals are fine, and they did specially good recordings of Little Darlin and Stroll.
The tape is chrome, normal play, with no Dolby.

7 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Port-Au-Prince is an absolutely cracking tune by Winifred. I know pop Piano Instrumental Soloists are completely unfashionable now but maybe it's time for a revival.
The B side is ok but nothing on the A side.

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A bit of a disappointment for various reasons, this one. I noted at the time that The Permanents were "worse than dire, impossible to describe" and The Slits were "just bad". Unfortunately, the Buzzcocks' set was ruined by a fight after just a few numbers. This was pretty rare for Lancaster Uni gigs, but punk/New Wave acts did tend to attract yobs, especially from Blackpool. Buzzcocks were obliged to play the rest of the gig with the house lights up which rather killed the atmosphere.

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Dwight, a homeless and mentally scarred vagrant, is informed that the man who killed both his parents is about to be released from prison. Springing into action he sets off on a quest for revenge without fully appreciating the consequences of his actions.
This is a very enjoyable thriller quite unlike other vengeance films in that the protagonist really doesn’t have a plan other than to kill the man he believes killed his parents. Guaranteed that things will turn out horribly wrong, Dwight then he has to deal with the wrath of the vicious clan who in turn decide not to involve the police in this family matter.
As a morality tale it works fine being that you can believe this kind of situation could occur, and thankfully the story doesn’t fall into the usual preachy territory of vengeance films and instead sustains an edgy and tense atmosphere right through to the end.

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A lot of people don't care for this film and dismiss it on points which are largely misunderstood. It's not a horror film that lacks logic, believability and sufficient tension. It's another of Tobe Hooper's satirical dissections of the family unit cloaked in outrageous horror tropes. Mind you, "Mortuary" has its share of flaws (notably some poor CGI during the film's climax) , but it's also entertaining in a manner not unlike Hooper's "Eaten Alive", "Poltergeist" and even "The Funhouse", just ramped up a bit more on its own absurdist terms.

If you watch "Mortuary" from this perspective, you will appreciate the sometimes laugh-out-loud humor rather than abolish the whimsical direction which is misconstrued as serious horror. Lighten up, horror fans. Even "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" frequently snickered at its own fearful premise.

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Interesting character study that seems to promote the misguided notion that if a wife screws around and has sex with another guy, the husband should get over it. The wife's reason? "Because I wanted to." The screenplay repeats the mantra that the man who walks away from such a situation is the asshole.

Solid cast and all the technical aspects are bulletproof, but the crazy free love heart of the film is so hippy dippy and unrealistic that it sabotages what should have been a deep and introspective piece of work. It's worth watching, in spite of the foolish concepts.

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Was recommended this film, but my advice is don't bother. It's stupid, not very funny, rotten script written by half-wits, and the beavers are not convincing. Naturally I did not explore the special features on the Blu-ray, which include things about the beavers - as if that's something they feel proud of.
Scratch it off your CV guys.

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Entertaining, albeit absurd depiction of a newsroom. I've been around newspaper offices off and on most of my life from spelling bee tours as a youth (before achievement was considered politically incorrect), composing advertisements in my teens, and years of slogging through work in layout and camera rooms. Maybe things were different in the 50's, but I never saw a bunch of characters strutting around making endless speeches about the newspaper game with tongues-in-cheek so deep they must have pulled muscles. No, this is closer to the style of drama Jack Webb is best known for on his TV series, Dragnet. Corny but mildly entertaining.

There's a whole bunch of familiar faces in the cast, the lot of them chewing so much scenery that dentists would shudder. William Conrad, in particular, is so animated that his hard-boiled city desk editor is played for comedic relief. Fact is, only the subplot about the missing girl attempts any real drama, but ends up as melodrama. Add gobs of sentiment to the other subplot about Webb's character not wanting to adopt a child.

If nothing else, the production values are clean as a whistle and the polished black and white lens work is lean and efficient. So nuke up some popcorn and queue up the pseudo noir stylings Mark VII Ltd. was best known for.

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Sci-Fi Romantic tragi-comedy.

Given this was written by the baffling genius that is Charlie Kaufman, and directed by the quite singular Michel Gondry, this was always going to be a double bonkers brain scrambler...

...And so it is...

...In fact, that's the plot too!

Jim Carey's grim and miserable Joel is suffering, for reasons he can't quite put his finger on, until he meets Kate Winslet's super-flake Clementine at a train station... and the two feel drawn together, almost like they've met before.

And that's because they have.

Turns out, they had a doomed, and fractious relationship, that made both so miserable, that Clementine had Joel erased from her memory, causing double despair to Joel, so he decides he can't live with that, and resolves to have her erased from his memory too.

Until, of course, he changes his mind... unfortunately, while the procedure is taking place.

The movie follows Joel being chased through his own mind and memories by this erasing procedure as he tries to preserve the memory of Clementine in the most obscure corners of his brain.

It is, of course (consistent with the subject matter) quite a confusing film from the outset, using an almost Christopher Nolan-esque chopped and re-sorted time structure, but gradually, it pulls together and makes sense.

It's all very clever, and seems a very writer-ly piece of zany philosophical, meditative madness, but what emerges at the end is sense of real warmth, and heart... and there's plenty of laughs along the way.

This was one of my pre-lockdown charity shop DVD purchases, which I've watched a couple of times since, and it is growing on me more and more.

One for the 21st century romantics.

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Brilliant series, but seemed to divide people. I saw it first time around and I think it passed a lot of people by or they didn't get it. Ironically, I think its format and sketches have been like a prototype for many series that started as a web series such as Limmy's Show and Consolevania.

For those that haven't seen it has Adam and Joe playing characters and doing silly hidden camera stunts like eating the 10% free portion of a box of cereals, Vinyl Justice where they looked at people's record collections such as Frank Black and said if they were crap or good while dressed as policemen, Adam's Dad reviewing pop music, silly observations of things to try spoofing the format of Why Don't You?, the most famous bit spoofs films and TV using toys such as: Toy-tanic, Furends (Friends), Stuff This Life etc.

IMHO it wouldn't get commissioned today due to Channel 4 focusing on what is middle-class safe reality TV or pseudo-game shows such as The Circle, Four in a Bed or really patronising shows featuring an excuse to show excessive full frontal nudity. Back in the late 90s they out-shined BBC in terms of comedy content (Brass Eye, Father Ted, buying big American comedies like Frasier and treating them with respect by showing them at a time when people are awake - Seinfeld at 2am come on BBC 2!). It would probably have been a successful Youtube channel instead if it was invented a decade later.

The Adam Buxton podcast is well worth checking out for more of the same with high school chums Joe Cornish and Louis Theroux as recurring interviewees, as is their now defunct BBC 6 Music and comedy show.

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I purchased this CD for only one reason. To get "Second Avenue", perhaps my all-time favorite Garfunkel track on CD. You see, this tune had only been available as a 45 since 1974 and I needed to hear it again desperately. Okay, so here we get an abbreviated version which is extremely annoying. Even on this collection there is a certain amount of wallpaper like "When A Man Loves A Woman". Yes it is a fine song but, my gawd, why has everybody and his brother recorded it? Truthfully I am sick of it. The best tracks are stunning, "All I Know", "Bright Eyes", "99 Miles From L.A." and "A Heart In New York" to go along with the previous mentioned "Second Avenue". Other tracks I didn't really need or want are the syrupy "So Much In Love" and the redundant "What A Wonderful World". One of Garfunkel's problems is that he doesn't write his own music so in that regard he is at the mercy of others. In the past, though he nearly always had impeccable taste in choosing his material like Stephen Bishop's "Looking For The Right One" or Van Morrison's "I Shall Sing", neither of which is included here unfortunately. In short, this might be a good starting place for you to enjoy Art Garfunkel and his glorious voice but after you digest this, and it won't take long, you need to dig deeper.

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Unlike its two predecessors, it sounds like it was thrown together very quickly. Most of it is disposable. "Some People Never Know" and "Dear Friend" are decent ballads but “Mumbo” “Love Is Strange” and “Bip Bop” are absolute time wasters. The title tune "Wild Life" sounds like a plagiarism of CSNY's "Almost Cut My Hair". Of his first three LP's, it is by far the least enjoyable.

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A car is pulled from Strangford Lough, the owner kidnapped. DCI Tom Brannick recognises the calling card of a legendary assassin known as Goliath. The legend goes he was a serving police officer who vanished without trace 20 years ago and among his original victims was Tom’s wife.

Against opposition from old friend DCS Jackie Twomey, Brannick and his partner, DS Niamh McGovern, break open the Goliath case in the hope that it will help them solve the kidnapping. As they dig deeper, they find gaps in the original Goliath investigation. Someone tried to suppress the truth.

When a vital clue leads them out to an island on Strangford Lough, a discovery is made that changes everything.

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Filmed during lockdown, this investigative documentary made by Academy Award-winning film-maker Alex Gibney, with co-directors Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger, includes revealing testimonies from public health officials and senior White House staff, exposing a system-wide collapse.

With the US election just around the corner, the film scrutinises the US response compared with South Korea, and how they handled the virus. On 20 January 2020, both countries discovered their first cases of Covid-19. Since then, however, the novel coronavirus has claimed the lives of over 220,000* Americans, while only claiming 447* lives in South Korea

(*at the time of publication).

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John Z DeLorean’s extraordinary and doomed attempt to build the sports car of the future in 1980s Northern Ireland is the stuff of legend. A buccaneering American entrepreneur, DeLorean had film star looks, a famous fashion model as a wife and an enormous ego that drove him to rival the giants of the US car industry.

Millions of pounds of British tax-payers money later, an unprecedented social experiment where Catholics and Protestants worked side by side in relative harmony in West Belfast ends in a trail of corporate waste, greed, fraud and, incredibly, an FBI cocaine-trafficking sting.

Using rare and unseen footage filmed by Oscar winning directors DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, and through colourful news archive documenting his life and career, this is the first in-depth psychological profile of DeLorean, a man who rose from the ghettos of Detroit to build his American dream in war-torn Belfast. A dream that quickly went up in smoke...

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The Crest of the Britpop wave...

... And as such, should probably be a staple in any 90s collection.

However, for me, I only ever tuned into the singles from this album at the time (Impossible to get away from them back then!), and only recently have found the album in a charity shop and thought I should the whole thing a long overdue listen...

...And it's good. Very good in fact...

-In those aforementioned singles which are: Sale Of The Century, What Do I Do Now?, Statuesque, and Nice Guy Eddie (more remembered the names than the tunes of these last two)-

...But not great.

On it's own terms the rest of the album has couple of indie (sounding) Britpop guitary highs like Good Luck Mr Gorsky, but largely, although containing a lot of the swagger of the age, it's very affected, stylised, and "posed" - an artifice.

Louise wener has since gone on to a literary career...

(although a recent reunion happened I believe)

... but early signs of that are here throughout, in very dense, unconventional "story" songs, which do satisfy on that level, but I'm not sure they work great as hummable tunes exactly.

So at the time of the "Ladette", I think Louise Wener was more of an "Anti-Ladette", smart, self assured, and taking herself way too seriously...

(Really, try and find photos of her smiling from this time!)

...which all comes through in the music, in a way that seems a little too "constructed", deliberately oblique and "better than thou".

A more honest expression of feeling is found in the two headline singles here: Sale Of The Century, and What Do I Do Now?, which, if the whole album was this way would have made for a brilliant album, but it isn't, and while the rest is OK, I don't think I've missed too much in the meantime.

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Celebrate the visual games history of the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron with this case bound book, contained within a beautiful slip case. Spread over 476 pages, with a foreword by Richard Hanson (Superior Software) and Life of an Acorn Gamer by TV's Iain Lee, it features over 150 classic games, with exclusive interviews with key figures in the industry at the time - from the likes of David Braben and Ian Bell (Elite); Geoff Crammond (Revs/Aviator); Peter Irvin (Exile); Tim Tyler (Repton); Nick Pelling (Frak!); Peter Scott (Sim City/The Last Ninja); Gary Partis (Psycastria/Dr Who); Chris Roberts (Stryker's Run); Steve Furber (Acorn) and many, many more - and features on subjects such as key publishers, cover art and classic magazines. The book showcases the computers' inimitable graphic style and is packed full with memories and anecdotes from programmers, artists, publishers, reviewers and enthusiasts. Remember Elite, Chuckie Egg, Repton, Exile, Starship Command, Thrust, Citadel, Revs, Imogen, Codename:Droid, Firetrack, Arcadians, Mr Ee!, Zalaga, Castle Quest, Galaforce, Snapper and many more. An unmissable publication for anyone who grew up with an Acorn 8-bit machine.

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Dragon's Forever reunited the Peking Opera Brothers Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung. All incredible performers. This film also has a young Fruit Chan (Made In Hong Kong, Three Extremes) co-directing some scenes.

Jackie Chan plays a sort of sleazy playboy type, cast against his usual type of the hapless goofball boy next door, Sammo Hung plays a goofier role than usual almost like Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun where he gets caught up in situations despite having good intentions and Yuen Biao plays a charismatic madman criminal.

I think the main appeal of his film is for HK action cinema fans, unlike films like Police Story and The Killer it has less universal appeal. The joy for me is watching each actor trying to outdo each. There's some incredibly hard falls taken as well as stuntmen being thrown through sugar glass windows. The fights with all three leads show how good their timing and athleticism is. Credit also goes to hardkicking Benny Urquidez and excellent stuntman Yuen Wah who uses a cigar as a prop.

The Blu-Ray from 88 Films feature an incredible looking print with 5.1 sound and director's commentary.

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Not a great film, but a nice soundtrack by the main man. Serge Gainsbourg looks incredibly cool to the point that he could rival Alain Delon. His performance is a bit flat, possibly because he wasn't directing. Jane Birkin also not really given much to do apart from being naked.

The DVD has poor picture quality, it's almost like an upscaled VHS tape and only 2.0 sound.

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Almost half a truly great Tori Amos album...

...Trapped inside too much of a mediocre one.

To borrow the old expression: "Too many notes!", which here is better rendered as: "Too many songs!"

Of course, it's very inventive device to use the "posse" idea to justify cramming the total fruits of an obviously very prolific period all onto one album...

(And justify the sporadic "All over the map" themes and styles)

... But this could seriously have benefitted from the judicious application of the editor's scissors, and the leaving thereby, half (maybe more) of these songs for other projects, B-sides, or further development. As these tend to swamp, and dilute the impact of the truly brilliant top Tori tunes on this album.

Cut down to an album of perhaps eight of the best, this would be considered one of Tori Amos' best albums....

... It's still great, but take away the need for the "skip" button, and it's greater still.

Less is more.

[YouTube Video]

[YouTube Video]

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This record has had several good reviews. "Choir & Organ" writes
"Merton’s new choral foundation aimed to combine tradition with bold innovation and they pull that off here with some daring. The programme alternates post- minimalist work by David Lang with more familiarly Anglican material by another contemporary Nico Muhly, including the wonderful The Revd Mustard His Installation Prelude, written for a London friend. The Merton singers are in great voice and Merton Brass could dep for the angels"

The youth of the Choir, Brass, and in particular the junior Choristers is evident in the photos, but the accomplishment of all under the direction of Benjamin Nicholas is exemplary, as can be seen from this live recording of one of the David Lang compositions

[YouTube Video]

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This collection of titles is centred around the theme of tranquility, and includes the work of many women composers. The adult choir sings to a very high standard, but the Girl's Choir under Anna Lapwood is quite remarkable for the standard it achieves.

[YouTube Video]

"Grandmother Moon" is a setting of a mystical Miꞌkmaq poem from Northeast Canada: the text describes the beauty and tranquility of a full moon on a clear night.

[YouTube Video]

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Ineffably sweet, but also incredibly sad. The anchor of the film is young Hodder's unyielding optimism even when faced with cruelty and melancholy. The main cast is perfect, and none of the characters are reduced to easy, one-dimensional caricatures. Finally, the music soundtrack cannot be ignored. For a family film, it's quite profound and moving.

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This is a weird one. I first heard about from the TV Series OutTHERE which featured clips from weird, cult films like Even Hitler Had A Girlfriend, Baby Cart at River Styx and The Toxic Avenger. As a connection later episodes were presented by Emily Booth.

It's a really obscure high-camp comedy possibly inspired by films like Russ Meyer's Fanny Hill (?) more so than historical films. To be honest the only late 90s\00s film I rate which is a campy homage to 60s\70s films is Pervert! which is a nod to Russ Meyer and great fun, but not a great film. Ken Russel's pastiche of his own Tommy and Rocky Horror, Fall of the Louse of Usher is particularly poor.

Emily Booth is always nice to look at and there is a stellar cast of well know film and TV personalities including Jonathan Ross, stand up comedian Mark Lamarr and musician\poet\artist Sexton Ming. Unfortunately these aren't necessarily great actors, but it's a bit like Who Killed Bambi? where the weirdness sort of pulls it through. Also be warned like a lot of British sex comedies; it's not pant wettingly funny and it's about as sexy as shaving a hairy back.

TBH the plot is incomprehensible. The good quality sets and costumes hide the low budget. I would recommend this only for curiosity sake. Alex Chandon is a talented director and writer, who is best known for producing music videos for British Neo-Goth Metal band Cradle of Filth. Much like directors such as Richard Stanley it makes you wonder what they could do with 8-figure Hollywood budgets.

The DVD from Screen Edge is hen's teeth and expensive (£25+) given the quality of the film and scant extras it's not really worth it, I rented it back in the day. Picture quality is mediocre and sound is a lowly 2.0.

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Most pornography doesn't really belong in a film database, since it's just a collection of sex acts on film, the idea being to stimulate, not entertain. At some point in the 60s, several hardcore films decided to experiment with actual plots and characters. Mixed reactions, depending on whether one wanted interferences with one's...erm, stimulation. Personally, non-stop sex + extreme close-ups are too much. In the 70s, filmmakers stepped it up with a variety of subjects, which continued through to the latter part of the 80s. Once the video medium became the standard delivery mechanism, the renaissance ended.

One of the beacons of the era was 1974's Flesh Gordon, an erotic send-up of the 1936 Buster Crabbe serial, Flash Gordon. Director Howard Ziehm already had a fistful of adult films under his belt using the pseudonym Harry Hopper, but Flesh Gordon put him on the map. He continued making adult films under various names, ending his career with his final film in 1990, Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders. One of his fake names was Linus Gator, which he used for Naughty Network, a send up of television featuring segments such as "Genital Hospital" (General Hospital), "T*R*A*S*H" (M*A*S*H), and "The Young and the Horny" (The Young and the Restless). The TV station airing these shows is WHAC. Considering the genre, it's well shot, funny, and yes, erotic. Particularly the "Wild & Crazy Kingdom" segment.

Obviously if you don't like adult films, you'll want to steer clear. But if you like your blue movies with an ornamental edge, you could do a lot worse than Naughty Network.

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Really difficult to rate this one as I am in two minds; it is dull, but it is gorgeous to look at. A 90s technostyle retelling of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. That is an achievement in itself. Titus is known as a tragedy. A fictional Roman army general Titus undergoes a long bloody war with Tamora, the queen of Goths. The theatre play is sometimes controversial when it is performed due to its violence and the rape of Lavina scene.

Anthony Hopkins does a fine job as Titus. Alan Cumming is good as Saturnius, the Roman leader; a thinly veiled attempt to make him look like a fascist dictator; is he Mussolini or Hitler though? We also have the lovely looking Laura Fraser as Lavina. The acting is good across the board and intentionally camp. The over the top acting doesn't match what little action there is. The stabbings have most of the violence off screen. There's surprisingly little blood given the stageplay's reputation and even the rape of Lavina is subtle. Don't get me wrong I wasn't expecting Straw Dogs, but I was hoping for something to justify the 18 certificate.

The film has Grade A production values with incredible set design and costumes. A throwback orgy scene to Barbarella, black Italian(?) motorbikes and bad guys who dress like extras from The Warriors albeit with bondage-style leathers. Shakespeare Purists will hate this, but it is its best feature for me. Really good original score as well. What ruins it for for me is it is way too long. At 162 minutes, it is an hour too long. I know it uses the original stage script for dialogue, but please cut it down.

The 90s\early 00s saw similar updated versions of Shakespeare with the hugely successful Romeo + Juliet which filters the tragic romance through a club culture lens, Hamlet with Ethan Hawke which I've not seen, BBC series ShakespeaRe-Told which in my opinion and probably nobody else's was largely unfunny and not very clever and worst of all although not based on a specific play: Shakespeare In Love - dreck.

This is with worth watching if you have the patience. As much as I like watching Anthony Hopkins in anything or Alan Cumming ham it up you need two cans of Red Bull to get through this one.

Twilight Time's Blu-Ray feature a superb print free of damage and clean 5.1 sound as well as commentaries. Shame about the cost due to it being OOP, although I think it is the definitive version at present.

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The world's first (and possibly only) all midget Western. It's as tacky as it sounds. Poor script, acting and badly sung songs make for a dreary experience.

I had high hopes after seeing the introduction where a well-dressed man speaks in front of a microphone and introduces the hero and villain. The plot involves some cattle rustling and the good guy must figure out whose behind it. There's a tacked on romantic subplot as well. Little people walking under saloon doors and riding miniature stallions sounds amusing on paper, but this is at best gimmicky and at worst pure exploitation. Cheap production values and bad acting make this fall way short. To add insult to injury the version I saw was out of sync.

This film has gone onto achieve cult status, more so for the absurdity of the premise and schlocky filmmaking style than it being a good film. As far as I know the film is public domain.

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Gerry Rafferty, who died in January 2011, was one of Scotland's best loved singer/songwriters, famous around the world for hits such as Baker Street and Stuck in the Middle With You.

This ArtWorks Scotland film, narrated by David Tennant, tells the story of Rafferty's life through his often autobiographical songs and includes contributions from Gerry's daughter Martha and brother Jim, friends and colleagues including Billy Connolly, John Byrne and Joe Egan, admirers such as Tom Robinson and La Roux, and words and music from Rafferty himself.

This documentary was first broadcast at 9pm, 29 Aug 2011. Well worth catching if you are in any way a fan of the man and his music.

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One of the most outrageously funny satires ever, despite its total obscurity. A This Is Spinal Tap for the film industry, if you will, although on a shoe-string indie budget with little star power. Two thoroughly incompetent hack wannabe filmmakers decide to make a new religious epic along the lines of The Ten Commandments, an unfashionable task in itself in the 90's. Nice cameos from the Brady Bunch's Eve Plumb as herself (even though the director and producer continue to mistakenly call her Jan) and Soupy Sales, who is cast to play Moses in one of the film's best bits which I won't give away. Some friends of mine who work in the film industry were genuinely offended by this film, which I don't understand. The only way you could be bothered by this film's depiction of the filmmaking process is if it hits too close to home.

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Simple, old-school (ish) little horror/sci-fi TV movie (from HBO's Creature Features series) that claims to be a remake of the cheesy 1955 Roger Corman flick -- which was also co-produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff -- but it's not really a remake, just an allusion. Critics of the film have whimpered about the cheap fx, but it's better than the lousy CG in most every budget genre film these days, so for me it was actually an upgrade. I docked the film a star simply because I found Nastassja Kinski's character so annoying and presumptious.

If you're a fussy eater when it comes to this genre or of b-movies in general, then you'll surely be disappointed. Me, I like the whole small town breeds scary secrets formula and as long as that is delivered competently, I win.

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This is good listening for the type of music. Nothing else on it is the caliber of Raunchy.
There are errors in the compilation due to the new owner not identifying the master tapes properly.
The Stranger is incorrect, it should say The Stinger. The Stranger was a soft vocal on the flip of College Man.
College Man is far from being the single master tape. It omits the intro vocal of "We hate college ....". The volume levels are faulty - it starts off too low and halfway the engineer raises it.
Raunchy is the correct single recording but not the single master. The volume has a wide range and the guitar does not have a strong impact. The single sounds better.
Many reissues now duplicate these errors and Raunchy does not have as good a reputation as it should.

I have posted a volume graph of Raunchy and College Man.

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An example of how musical tastes change in a relatively short space of time. On it's original release in December '86 it was a number 1. Barely much more than 10 years later it was the lowest new entry to the top 40 at number 36 which was also it's peak position. Mainly considered 'cheesy' and a feeling of cashing in on the 'millennium thing', it suffered badly chart wise. Unfair? I think so, since there were a few other songs at the time without a number one pedigree that did exactly the same but fared better in the charts.

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Ooooh I HATE this film!!!

It fills me with a wretched pulsing fury of loathing and detestation for it's crass, moronic script writing, "characters", and mostly for the fact that a couple of the story threads could have been made into potentially great films by themselves, but are swamped in the rest of this s*&t..

A steaming fetid turd of a perverted, over-sugared quasi -Hallmark card sentimentality that makes my eyes bleed, my ears clench and my anus twitch with rage so much I nearly lose a sofa cushion to the unknown!

...but as it happens, I find that that's quite cathartic, and I feel clean afterwards...

....And so I watch it every year :)

(I shall be hating it doubly hard this year... I may even pop something!)

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wartime story of a journalist whose air corps photographer husband was killed flying, returning to new york unable to settle back into work, but unable to settle without her work, either, chatted up by a bomber pilot who's received his new posting to the pacific on the train returning again to new york, finding a shared apartment with other young women who're enjoying the social whirl, being found again by jim, the bomber pilot, and liking him, but not falling in love with him.
when she's witness to his saving the life of an old woman who falls on the subway tracks, she writes it up for her paper, recovers a lot of her former energy, and they start going out on dates together.
then he's ordered to get his cholera vaccination and given details of his imminent his flight out...

so; a novel of a wartime romance, but not a category romance; historically-set, if only just, at the time it was written, but not a category historical romance - which translates more-or-less as ''bodice-ripper'' category, which this decidedly is not; and equally, though set during world war two, definitely not war fiction.

made into a film of the same title starring jane russell and louis hayward, produced by hunt stromberg, directed by edwin l. marin; jane russell's second film, the first to go on general release.

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Unlike most Troma films this one features decent acting and production values. It drifts into the realm of B-Movie campness with a penis monster and prosthetic limbs being pulled off. It's pretty much what I imagine the punk rock version of Romeo and Juliet being. I wonder if it was a response to Baz Luhrmann's version. Lloyd Kaufman has said in his book that he considers this to be the second best adaptation after Zefferelli's film. Honestly I would rather watch this than Romeo + Juliet, but we are comparing apples to oranges. However, if you want to watch a Romeo and Juliet film avoid the BBC Version it's indescribably dull, but authentic to its source material. Unlike most Troma films the soundtrack is also decent on this one with the use of some licensed music (Unsane, Motörhead, Ass Ponys).

Be warned though, the UK VHS and DVD is rated 18 and the US uncut version is unrated, This features some gore and a lot of sexual content, albeit played for laughs. The US DVD features a great print as did the UK VHS tape (and clean stereo sound) I used to own.

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