Off Topic The Review Thread

Just watched Pieces Of Her on Netflix. A few dodgy bits in it and the actress playing Toni Collette when she's younger looks nothing like her , but I thought all round it was rather good.

 

With you both. Incredible performance. He carried it off superbly. Deeply disturbing and yet brilliant angle to the story.

 

You need to follow this threads recommendation more closely Strolls.
We talked about Joker and it’s brilliant portrayal of someone’s decent into mental illness.
It was nothing as I expected and a truly thought provoking watch. Loved it

 

For something similar, just read Butthuber’s stuff in the Conspiracy thread.

 

Yeah, well I did admit I was late to the party.

A brilliant film and a stunning performance by Phoenix.

 

Just started watching “Outer Range” on Amazon. Intriguing so far. Very good performance by Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men) as the father of a ranch family and Imogen Poots (?) as the oddball hippy girl. Not too sure where it’s going but I’m hooked so far. Quite nice to have a weekly show, so can’t binge watch. Recommended for a look.
One critique is the scenes are rather dark, literally dark. Think the cinematographer lost the light switches.

 

Reginald D Hunter for me tonight. Lovely stuff

 

BBC Radio 4, Saturday Live. This is a show I try to avoid, it’s horrible, especially the ultra smug co host ex Communard the Rev Richard Coles, who always manages to get a reference in to himself, no matter who he is clumsily interviewing.

This morning singer Will Young (who, in my limited knowledge of these things, can sing) almost literally lecturing us on mental health and all the thousands of different therapies he has tried because ‘I deserve to be happy’. All the while a battery in his smoke alarm was beeping in the background, and apparently it has been for weeks but he doesn’t know what to do about it. Obviously he does have mental health issues, and I really want to feel some sympathy, but this helpless, needy act really doesn’t make it easy…..

I’ve had to insist on it being turned off now. Avoid at all costs.

 

Missed out on the debacle that was the Rs last night as we were watching a bit of Wedding Present at the fabulous St Lukes venue in Glasgow. The band (David Gedge is the only original member - think he's been through at least 20 band members over the years) played 1991 album Seamonsters in full, note perfect, rising thrashing guitars and heavy drums with Gedges vocals bringing it all together. He then moved on to crowd pleasers with tracks from George Best and Bizarro, including Kennedy, My Favourite Dress and Brassneck, and also some new material (they're releasing a new single c/w B side every month this year).

Absolutely rammed to the rafters, but great evening.

 

I always think the Wedding Present are like an epic and original Birthday Party tribute band.

This is meant to be a compliment.

And that was a much better way to spend Friday night than watching the game.

 

Reviews requested: anybody been to Santorini in the Greek Islands? In the process of booking a week of minimal activity in warmth. The wife has been before and loved it ……as a student in the 80s. Looking for some slightly more current perspectives…..

 

Grace on ITV, utter ****e. Barmy plotlines and ridiculous dialogue. Prime time bollocks.

On the upside though, this....

BBC Two - The Edge

A must for any cricket fan. How England went from bottom of the Test rankings to the top under Andy Flower and the mental health repercussions for some of the players. Fascinating and slightly disturbing.

 

Just watched the first part of Get Back, the Peter Jackson Beatles documentary. Fascinating to see how much in charge McCartney was by this stage and what a creative genius he was. I'm still a Lennon man, but he seems to have become a passive partner by this stage. Very long and quite slow, but utterly compelling.

 

Thanks, I’ll give it a go. I’ve recently been rediscovering The Beatles somewhat. In fact, was listening to Abbey Road just a hour ago. These days it feels less like McCartney & Lennon co-wrote and more like either a McCartney song or a Lennon song. The former’s music seems more rooted in music halls and show tunes, whilst the latter’s is more psychedelic (to me, at least). I’ve always been more a fan of the underrated Harrison, who’s music was more spiritual and more rooted in love. Just my opinion, of course.

 

Weirdly, I'm half way through reading this at the moment...





Starts back in 1957 when Lennon and McCartney first meet, and covers their history right through, jumping to snippets of 1980 and Chapmans arrival in NY and his preparations to murder Lennon.

Very interesting - John appears to have changed from the driving force that he was after the backlash of his "Bigger than Jesus" comments and discovering drugs alongside Harrison.

It's been a good read so far

 

Yes. It was nice and relaxing but not as amazing as I’d had it hyped up to be.

 

My wife has insisted on watching the Queens Jubilee thing on ITV.

Utterly bonkers.

 

It reminds me of when I went to see Rick Wakeman's Six Wives of Henry the Eighth on ice at Wembley Arena.

 

Chicago. As always, great, especially the food and bars, I always feel at home there.

However, Illinois has recently legalised recreational cannabis use, with the result that you smell it almost everywhere. Now I have no ‘moral’ stance on this, but it’s quite a strong and not especially pleasant smell for me. Particularly in enclosed spaces, and it was strong in the common spaces, including lifts, of the (decent) hotel I stayed in. I pointed this out on leaving - especially that if you can’t smoke tobacco in your room why should you be allowed to smoke dope, surely a bigger fire risk - and was given a hefty discount and lots of apologies. So try that if you are ever in the same situation.

 

Went to the new Brentford stadium last night to see the Premiership Rugby Cup Final between London Irish and Worcester. It really is an excellent little stadium and there was a really good atmosphere, despite the ground being far from full. Oh, for something similar to replace LR. The meet beforehand was The Cricketers, a lovely pub on Kew Green, about a 7 or 8 minutes walk from the ground. Of course, being rugby you could have a pint watching the game, too. Transport links are pretty poor, though - I wound up walking from Acton Town, which is about a 25 minute walk.

Irish were strong favourites, but lost on tries scored after the game finished 25-25 after extra time.