BiggieTembo - 45worlds - All Comments

BiggieTembo - 45worlds - All Comments

« Member Page

Page 3 of 12 : Previous : Next :

Member	Item		Review/Comment
BiggieTembo 1st Jun 2015		DVD Kenny Everett : The Complete Naughty Bits - Fremantle Media	I think I'll leave this well alone, and preserve the recollections of laughing my ass off when I was a kid. I'm frightened that I'll destroy the memories forever. Like when I went to Amsterdam first time at 18. I went again when I was 38. Shouldn't have done that :-/
BiggieTembo 1st Jun 2015		DVD The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959] - MGM	It's just that Hammer thing. Like a genre all by itself. So many good films came out of that production entity. Glad that they re-vamped it with the freakin' scary Woman In Black recently x-o
BiggieTembo 1st Jun 2015		DVD The Italian Job - Paramount	Yeah, me too. My first experience with an open ending. Did they get out? Could they sort of organise themselves with balance and jump out, all at the same time, but that would mean letting the gold and the bus plummet down the cliff? Mum! All kinds of physical conundrums went through my head as a kid. It was a real issue for my young, enquiring mind :-s
BiggieTembo 1st Jun 2015		DVD The Hound Of The Baskervilles [1959] - MGM	Yeah, this is the Hammer version. Good movie too ;-)
BiggieTembo 1st Jun 2015		DVD The Glenn Miller Story - Universal	Great film - great soundtrack LP too (by the Universal Studios Orchestra - not the Glenn Miller Orchestra). Don't get the re-processed for stereo versions though - sounds like you're listening to it underwater!
BiggieTembo 1st Jun 2015		DVD The Damned United - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment	- Who the bloody 'ell d'ye think you are? - Brian Clough!
BiggieTembo 1st Jun 2015		Vinyl Album The Yardbirds - The Yardbirds	Yeah maybe you're right biffbam. I've began to notice a kind of loose standard way of presenting mono and stereo versions on mid-60s records. It involves echo. The Beatles US and Capitol LPs were plastered with it, especially the earlier ones. To emulate the Phil Spector Wall Of Splodge technique, perchance? On the two versions of "Roger The Engineer", the mono is direct and more punky. You can hear the instrumentation and really can make out how jammy the songs are constructed - the riffs are clearer, and you can hear a kind of demo-quality to the mix; little guitar-string clicks where Beck catches a string with his big-mid-60s-guitar-player finger rings (stay with me on this, folks). There's real aggression on the playing and you can hear how tight a band they were. The stereo version of "Roger" is more spaced out over the two channels, and misses the directness of the mono mix. Also, there's been added echo across many of the tracks. It sounds a bit washed-out and weak. Alternately, The Kinks' stereo records are round-about clear to listen to, but they added echo on the mono versions - which to all intents and purposes doesn't help, because they sound like they've been mastered in a bucket of mud. How they got reissued in that format is incredible. The Who's My Generation was remixed into stereo in a very careful way, when they finally gave Shel Talmy the dosh he required - even though it missed some of the original vinyl's overdubbing and guitar parts, it was still done very respectfully and faithfully tight to the original mono version (and I'll state that NOTHING can beat an original mono My Generation - even the UK Virgin 80s reissue kicks butt ;-)) The Stones' Decca output: Ears filled with rice pudding or what? Total splodge. I think the most clear versions are on The Story Of The Stones K-Tel double LP, with crisp mono versions presented. Nice. However, the Rolled Gold double sounds like it has been dipped in a bucket of fudge. Don't know about the 2003 versions though - heard they're much better - got Beggar's and Bleed on the way, so I'll let ye know ;-)
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		TV Follyfoot (1971 - 1973)	Great Suzi Quatro hairstyle she had. I saw it a bit later in the early 90s, via re-runs. Brit-pop was in its nascent infancy and The Stone Roses were still just an Indie band then, with everything getting baggy - so there were characters coming into the pubs with haircuts like Ron.
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Vinyl Album The Yardbirds - The Yardbirds	This was picked up in the UK and released in both mono (blue background sleeve) and stereo (yellow background sleeve) versions by Edsel in '83 too. The mono though, had the Happenings Ten Years Time Ago A and B-sides placed as per this track order, and the stereo had the regular track listing (i.e. minus the Happenings A & B). The mono sounds better than the stereo, and has mixing differences, similar to The Who's Sell Out mono & stereo versions. Funny that this version compiles a mixed bag of mono, stereo and fake stereo masters...
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		12" Single A.R. Kane - Up Home!	Probably one of the best pre-Trip Hop Trip Hop records ever (notwithstanding Gong's material). I'd heard nothing like it before, and the 12" is mastered very nicely - a great bass, with a wide sonic landscape. This, and Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden... like going to heaven, aye ;-)
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Music Memorabilia The Beatles - The Day George Said:- I've Got A Letter From Paul.. He's Going To Quit The Beatles	Lads... this is The Mail On Sunday... purveyors of the finest quality journalism since 1982. I'm surprised that even Hunter Davies bothered to analyse this weak story.
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		CD Album The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour	True, Magic. But it always has been like this. In the 60s, the Beatles' LPs for Denmark had sleeve and inners printed in England and the records pressed in Denmark. The Stones also had a similar set-up, where alot of their records were pressed in the UK and exported to other territories. All very confusing, or fascinating, for the collector.
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Music Memorabilia Elvis Presley - "From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee" Bubble Gum	You could also get the US Beatles LPs and The Rolling Stones' 70s LPs too, with a pink record-shaped piece of bubblegum inside. Not sure whether they were made by the same manufacturer though. The bubblegum tasted bloody awful. And there was no inner sleeves. And the Pepper inserts weren't included. And the Pepper bubblegum record didn't have the Dog Tone on it. I mean, really.
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Blu-ray Walkabout - Universal	I know I'm going to start an iconoclastic internet sh*t-storm here, but I cannot see anything special about Felicity Kendall. The roles she played were mediocre and boring, her voice was whiny and she reminded me of a helpless/manipulative little girl who always wrapped her Daddy round her little finger, got away with it, and therefore did the same to all her character-husbands after that (I'm of course talking about her roles, and not her personally). You might as well vote Penelope Keith as the sexiest star of the 70s and 80s. Or Mary Whitehouse. Or Mrs Thatcher.
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Blu-ray Walkabout - Universal	She contributed to mine too, in Logan's Run
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		TV The Incredible Hulk (1978 - 1982)	You wouldn't like me when I'm angry
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		TV Wonder Woman (1976 - 1979)	Alright - who's deleting me and Monolith's comments then? I was only commenting upon that fact that Lynda Carter's figure was aesthetically pleasing to those with the artist's eye. Is romance dead?
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Cinema The Jazz Singer	I sang when I heard him faint
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Cinema Withnail & I (1987)	Withnail: You can stick it up your arse, and fk off while you're doing it! Uncle Monty: I mean to have you, boy, even if it means burglary! Farmer: Shut that gate! That bull's randy! Withnail: I demand to have some booze! Withnail (beginning to sob): Please, Sir... My wife... she's having a baby I (Marwood). I've got the fear!
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Cinema The Doors (1991)	Leonardo Di Caprio still can't even manage a proper beard, and he's 40-odd now. Gimme a good old Brian Blessed anyday. Or Kurt Russell in The Thing. Or Di Niro in Angel Heart. Or Tom Hanks in Castaway (Wilson! Mnablahblubblubhehhehhehgeep! - and he had blonde dreadlocks too!)
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Cinema The Doors (1991)	Saw this when it came out. Not bad. Had a bit of a problem with fake beards in films at the time. Why don't actors just grow real beards? Maybe the beards they grow don't look like the characters they are supposed to represent: For example, if they made a film of Grizzly Adams and the actor could only manage a wispy German-80s-top-lip-fluff, then I guess that would be a problem too. Mmm. Anyway, another glitch I had with this film was Kilmer's protrayal of Morrison. I can't imagine anyone in reality hanging around with a guy who was so loose, sublime and spaced out - all the fricken time. I'd just think, f**k this guy, he's a self-obsessed tripping loser! Morrison must have been coherent at least some of the time, else they wouldn't have been able to make the great records they made. Never even got to see Meg Ryan naked either. Not that I'm that bothered, to tell the truth.
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Cinema A Canterbury Tale (1944)	I like the idea of The Glue Man, going around dolloping glue in ladies' hair! But the rest of the film is very dated, if we just go by the dialogue. Some of the characters are also very "Gee! You think so?" innocent naive types, which thankfully we've come away from since the 50s, generally speaking. This make the "yokels" seem more realistic than the main characters and they themselves are total stereotypes! But there is a charming scene between a local carpenter and the American Soldier character. The soldier is all "Golly! Gee!" 1930s type speaking and talks to the old carpenter like he's a baby or something (in fact, everybody talks to everybody else like they are babies, except the great and sinister Eric Portman. Even Dennis Price turns up as a Bren Gun Carrier driver, Tommy helmet and all, and talks in a Sadler's Wells theatre accent!) The Carpenter guy seems like some local Kent guy Powell and Pressburger found, and liked, and put him in the movie. In the scene they talk about various types of wood, and how it is dried out, because the American Soldier's Dad was also a carpenter. It's a nice, as-authentic-as-we're-going-to-get scene from a film made during WW2, trying to avoid being too over-propagandistic (is that a real word?) There's some nice cinematic visuals too - interesting framings and use of lighting, black-and-white, etc, which is always a great feature of Powell/Pressburger films. Lovely locations also - old mill buildings and farms and rolling hills down Kent way, which have probably long since gone (can't find a melancholy smiley but if I could I would insert it here), and interesting to see the bomb-clearance sites in Canturbury as they were, so we get a bit of social history as well ;-)
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Cinema The Tall Target (1951)	Ahh a great twisty exciting thriller, set for the most part aboard a train, and involving a plot against Abraham Lincoln, and a lone "cop" who is trying to prevent it. Another saw-this-one-afternoon-when-I-was-on-a-sickie-from-school, and it blew me away. A kind-of Film Noir Train Detective Western, if you gotta find a genre for that!
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		Cinema The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1939)	Basil Fricken Rathbone! There was an actor! They used to show these in the weekeday afternoons in the UK when I was a kid (the afternoon matinee slot), and I used to see 'em whenever I was on a sickie from school, sitting there on the sofa, all alone in the house while everyone else was at school/work, experiencing all these creepy Victorian characters. This is probably the creepiest one of the lot.
BiggieTembo 31st May 2015		TV The Flumps (1977)	It did occur to me the other day that with all this Brit TV on the site that we grew up with, anyone born and raised in another country must be wondering what the hell was going on with us... no wonder we're so grumpy and strange! It's not the TV programs that've done that - that's 30+ years of Thatcherism, aye
BiggieTembo 30th May 2015		Vinyl Album The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main St.	Very nice reissue, improving on the original's flimsy "envelope" gatefold design, opting here for a "standard" two-opening double lp type format. Vinyl is nice and heavy. Inner sleeves a bit on the flimsy side, but I've seen worse. One thing though (and this has been noted in reviews), you can't get the bloody inner sleeves out! They must have bollocksed the measurements at the printers, because the inner sleeves sit way too tight in the outer sleeve. Not a life-or-death problem, I agree, but over time all the pulling and shoving will inevitably scuff or bend the sleeves, so it'll end up looking like those knackered, flimsy originals they're asking 30+ quid for these days anyway :-/
BiggieTembo 30th May 2015		DVD Diff'rent Strokes: The Complete First Season - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment	Of course it was patronising drivel - like most American TV is! There was talk of a "curse" on this show - all the characters ended up in very unfortunate circumstances/illnesses/brushes with the law/spending time at Her Majesty's pleasure sort of things later in life.
BiggieTembo 30th May 2015		Cinema Flash Gordon	Oh yeah this was a good 'un. Loads of fun - like a Glam Rock Space Movie. Peter Duncan from Blue Peter even gets killed in it (hand got spiked in the tree-monster bravery-test thing).
BiggieTembo 30th May 2015		DVD Diff'rent Strokes: The Complete First Season - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment	What you talkin' 'bout Willis!
BiggieTembo 30th May 2015		TV The Wombles (1973 - 1975)	Ahh the Wombles with Bernard Cribbins' lovely narration. What freaked me out when I was a kid was that the Wombles avoided all human contact - and sometimes a huge human pair of legs came walking by when they hid. The human leg had light brown suede desert boots on. Just something I remember. I don't know why.

Page 3 of 12 : Previous : Next :