| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7459 Registered: 05-2005 |
Stephen Merchant's Hello Ladies TV show on DVD. Excruciating, but at times hilarious. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 291 Registered: 08-2005 |
England vs Switzerland at soccerball! So-so so far. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1011 Registered: 04-2005 |
An outtake from the "Big Gold Dream" documentary. https://vimeo.com/138001806 Alan Rankine describes the Associates' revenge on a gobbing Banshees audience. My favourite Billy MacKenzie story is when, on being dropped by Warner Brothers in London, he asked if it could just charge one last taxi to the company account. That taxi took him and his whippets back to Dundee. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3560 Registered: 03-2005 |
Yann Tiersen's Black Sessions on youtube. I'm on part 4 right now and here's the link but start with Part 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd0bEiCH MCI Sigh. I will never see a show like this at the Hollywood Bowl. Andrew I love that story about the cab ride back to Scotland. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7477 Registered: 05-2005 |
That's a great Billy MacKenzie story. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3561 Registered: 03-2005 |
I finally watched the vimeo segment. Awesome hilarious story. What a useful talent to be able to barf on demand! | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 294 Registered: 08-2005 |
A so-so England rugby performance, but I still think England fans are 'panicking' too much. It was always going to be a tense affair. I see England doing well overall, before NZ or SA win the World Cup. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1019 Registered: 04-2005 |
New Apartments video for "Please, Don't Say Remember". Peter Milton Walsh without sun glasses pop pickers ! If that is the current band line-up looks like he has recruited the duo Grisbi (who are on "Black Ribbons"). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGJt10KP exE It is black and white. And filmed in France. Their French tour starts tonight, but unfortunately all the dates are in the north and I've not the time or energy to drive 8 hours to a gig at the moment. Shame. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1021 Registered: 04-2005 |
Jacques Audiard's 2009 film "Un Prophète" I'm off to see his new film ("Dheepan") this week, but had never seen this one before despite hearing practically only positive comments. Very powerful, great performances and some extremely nasty violence. Interestingly large parts of the dialogue are in Arabic or Corsican without sub-titles! I read an article recently that argued that Hollywood was now incapable of making proper adult films. "Un Prophète" is an adult film. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7495 Registered: 05-2005 |
In The Line Of Duty. Great series. Powerful, actually. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1171 Registered: 08-2004 |
Robocop 3 Escape From Alcatraz | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 296 Registered: 08-2005 |
England 13, Australia 33 Not pretty, got what we deserved because of negative and unimaginative management, against Wales and Australia. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1207 Registered: 10-2006 |
Italian X-Factor Italian TV has the belief that live music simply doesn’t work in this medium, unless it’s incorporated into some kind of song contest, so even as basic a format as Later with Jools has never been given a chance here, despite the wealth of talent available. So for live music on the box we have to wait for X-factor to start up again, making Thursday night my highlight of the week, even though my favourite judge, the wildly articulate Baudelaire-after–a-bad-night Morgan has decided – or, perhaps, given his shambolic treatment of his musicians – been politely invited, not to participate this time round. So we have Skunk Anansie’s Skin, throwing herself into the circus with huge ebullience and hilariously horrendous Italian, giving us a jury with two non-native speakers and, for the first time, four professional musicians. The quality of contestant is even higher than previous seasons, and while I’ve picked the last three winners straight of the bat during the auditions, this year I’m stumped. Which is great. A whole evening’s prime time devoted to music, whatever the excuse, with songs covered ranging from Skip James to Portishead, is fine by me. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1033 Registered: 04-2005 |
The Apartments - Black Ribbons - acoustic version surrounded by medieval tapestries in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Saint-Lô. Beautiful setting! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD1d7ZeW gG8 The Apartments - Looking for Another Town "...played for the first time in the world on the night of September 19, 2015—Théâtre de Saint-Lô, the town that Beckett called The Capital of Ruins." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOJIsNO9 AWM | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1220 Registered: 10-2006 |
Out of the corner of my eye, my wife on the sofa as two young guys with guitars on X-factor nervously attack Rape me. Her mouth opens. She edges forward on her cushion. As they get into it and hit the electric riff with gusto, she starts pounding the sofa arm. The song roars to an end and she glares at me accusingly. “You NEVER let me hear that!” I shrug. “All my Nirvana stuff was on cassette. All long gone.” “But that’s a GREAT song!” “It’s good, yeah.” “I want their albums and I want them NOW.” On the way. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7536 Registered: 05-2005 |
Loving the new season of Fargo. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1175 Registered: 08-2004 |
Fargo season 2 of course. Also: Music For Misfits. Another nerd friendly documentary from BBC 4. This time about independent music. Purely from a British perspective. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7553 Registered: 05-2005 |
Just watched The Princess Bride with my daughter. Must be about 20 years since I last saw it. What a great film. I'd completely forgotten Robin Wright was in it. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1177 Registered: 08-2004 |
Toast Of London series 3 | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7585 Registered: 05-2005 |
Joy. Two out of five at best. I suspected it wouldn't be much good, given the mixed reviews, but it was even worse than I'd expected. I only went because my daughter wanted to see it. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7602 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Detectorists, series one and two. It was superb. I often like gentle comedies and this was very gentle. Series two of The Fall. Despite a few "no way would that happen" moments, it's really good. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1236 Registered: 10-2006 |
Gotham It’s Robin Lord Taylor’s delicious performance as the young Penguin that really gives Gotham its bite – both delighted and terrified by the world around him, his fear infuriates him, his fury makes him vow vengeance on everything and everybody. From an immigrant family, desperate to blend in, he uses language carefully and well: so the writers enjoy writing for him and give him the best lines. “Such brutality out there, mother, such savagery! I almost died!” as he reports on a visit home. But there’s other good stuff going on around him: Jada Pinkett Smith as a ferociously pantheresque ganglady, Sean Pertwee as a decidedly more thuggish than usual Alfred, David Mazouz intense and troubled as young Bruce Wayne. I’d have preferred a wilder, skinnier and tougher FrankMillerstyle Jim Gorden, but you can’t have everything, and so far it’s managing to avoid many of the soapier clichés that ruined Smallville and hamstrung Arrow (though they seem to fit in quite well with the flashy fun of Flash). An excellent surprise. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7652 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Bridge, season three. As good as the first two, and that's saying something. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7658 Registered: 05-2005 |
Went to see Room today. It's extraordinary. Despite its great reviews I was somehow not expecting it to be so brilliant. But brilliant it is. It's made in America, but the writer, director and producer are all Irish. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7659 Registered: 05-2005 |
A Welsh cop show called Hinterland. So far, so great. The DVD I have is partly in the Welsh language. There is also a version which is entirely in Welsh. I thought there would be an option to switch it to Welsh with English subtitles, but there wasn't. I think this is probably because it was actually filmed twice, rather than one language being dubbed over filming recorded in another. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7668 Registered: 05-2005 |
Peep Show, series nine. I watched the entire six episodes in one sitting last night. Brilliant. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1179 Registered: 08-2004 |
The Fly II Another lost classic on Syfy/Horror. This stars Eric Stoltz as Martin Brundle, son of Seth Brundle and apparently more than a quarter bluebottle. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7683 Registered: 05-2005 |
Spotlight. Powerful film. As a journalist and ex-Boston resident, I was delighted to see they got both newspapers and Boston right. I was particularly pleased to see a San Tarpio's pizza (a great, if slightly scary, restaurant), and how the grandmother of the reporter who lived in South Boston offered a cup of tea, not coffee. Southie is still very Irish American and a lot of people there do drink tea rather than coffee. Of course, the little touches would not matter if the story didn't stand up, but it does. It accurately conveys the sometimes very frustrating, but also exciting, process of getting a story together. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1181 Registered: 08-2004 |
The Big Short Star-studded but still a very good dissection of the real reasons behind the banking crisis. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 323 Registered: 08-2005 |
Just watched France v Ireland at ruby union - a poor indictment of the state of the game in the northern hemisphere, even if the weather was a factor. Now watching the much more entertaining Wales v Scotland. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7693 Registered: 05-2005 |
Simon, I was asleep when the France v Ireland game was on, but I've seen it reported as a "war of attrition", which is a euphemism for a poor match. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 325 Registered: 08-2005 |
Just noticed my typo - ruby union; well, it was no jewel. England looked okay even without their forwards playing as a unit. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1058 Registered: 04-2005 |
"Be Here To Love Me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXTvGi69 LMU The documentary about Townes Van Zandt. A very well made, honest and moving piece of work. He was such a great songwriter. I think my introduction to his work was via Tinderstick's cover of "Kathleen". And possibly RF's "Dear Black Dream" "My love and I sit in bed in the dark Wondering who sings better in the dark is it Townes Van Zandt, or is it Guy Clark?" | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1183 Registered: 08-2004 |
This: http://www.vice.com/read/peggy-blumquist -female-tv-characters-unhinged-glamour-3 24 Careful though, it contains spoilers. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7700 Registered: 05-2005 |
Jon Oliver lays waste to Donald Trump. https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight /videos/851020811693596/ Awesome. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7701 Registered: 05-2005 |
John Oliver. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1060 Registered: 04-2005 |
Cheers Pádraig. It's good to laugh, but still scary as hell that he is doing as well as he is. Politicians almost everywhere seem to be hitting an all time low. The idea of actually having beliefs and principles has gone out the window to be replaced by...what do I have to do and say to get elected ? Actually the fact is that they have so much less power than before, but no-one seems to be willing to acknowledge that yet. The power lies in the financial sector and multi-nationals...to coin a phrase, democracy may not be dead but it smells pretty bad. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3618 Registered: 03-2005 |
Andrew, it is possible that your description of the multinationals having all the power is the one thing that can make me feel minimally okay about the seeming Donald Trump juggernaut. I'm vacationing in Rome right now and everytime I visit one of the news sites I just start to get depressed. I've never seen the people of my country be so nihilistic. Stupid, boorish yes, but not this "oh fuck it" attitude. We've always at least accepted a baseline level of proficiency and qualification for a Presidential candidate. Say what you will about GWB but he was a two term governor of a major state here. Trump is something we've never had before. Since childhood I had this notion that the U.S. is just following the path of the U.K. with a 50 year time delay. Sometimes I think it's an 80 year time delay but you get the drift. I think there's some serious neglect going on in the center of this country something like I perceive happened in the industrial north of England and also Glasgow. I always want to ask you folks what I should prepare myself for. The multinational thing is a real phenomenon. So is the international money laundering for rich people, whether it's in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or real estate in London, NYC or LA. But even that I'd rather have than Donald Trump. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7704 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, your first sentence scared me. I thought, 'Randy's a Trump voter now? Gees.' And then I reread it and breathed a sigh of relief. Still, building a 2000 mile wall across deserts and four states is going to create an awful lot of construction jobs. Might have to get some workers in from Mexico. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1184 Registered: 08-2004 |
The new Alan Partdge Mid Morning Matters. Episode 1 clunked badly, 2 & 3 are superb. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3619 Registered: 03-2005 |
Sorry Pádraig, I am too long-worded. The day will never arrive when I am in favor of someone like Trump. I went on too long and circuitous a route to saying that the prospect of Trump is so horrifying that I have to find comfort in Andrew's very true comment about who really holds the power in the world today. I have never forgotten Andrew's story about the struggles of the French flooring company. I think the US version of that experience is lending an important component of support to the likes of Trump. I hope Ms. Clinton takes that to heart and rethinks her neoliberal economic positions. If she does not rethink her positions, but she does win the 2016 election, we will be looking at something even worse than Trump in 2020. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7707 Registered: 05-2005 |
I have just listened to Donald Trump make a reference to getting oral sex from Mitt Romney and then start talking about the size of his penis (big, apparently). America, have you gone stark, raving insane? I want Sanders to win, but he won't be the nominee, so I want Clinton to win, and she will. When Marco Rubio is the moderate face of your party, your party is in deep, uncharted waters. One good thing about Trump is it shows up evangelicals as the utter fakes they are. If you think a racist, sexist, serial liar represents your supposed Christian values, then your values are not worth representing. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1265 Registered: 10-2006 |
I think you might not be getting the best weather Randy, though Rome looks great even in the rain. The problem is that Italians seem to have given up on trying to solve the run-off problem (ie, cleaning the drains now and then) so that huge puddles - well, small lakes really - tend to develop in the streets and make strolling a messy business. But the Caravaggio round the corner or next steaming plate of pasta with a view on a small fountained square can make it all worthwhile. Hope you're having a fine time! | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1783 Registered: 08-2006 |
Padraig, as usual you're spot on. Sanders won't win, but I sincerely hope the Dems come together and provide an organized, coordinated alternative to the WWF match that seems to be the GOP circa 2016. I love Bernie's populism and Hillary's experience. I think, together, they reflect the best of the party. But to combat Trump in the general , they need to do something a little different than run a by-the-numbers presidential campaign. I'm not lobbying for Bernie for VP, but as an advisor he'd be a huge help to Hillary in straddling a balance between populism and pragmatism, which in my mind is the alchemy of good politics. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7708 Registered: 05-2005 |
Rob, I like your idea of "the alchemy of good politics". (I may steal that line sometime.) I suspect Bloomberg will run. I hope he does, because that will mean Trump won't win. If Bloomberg doesn't run, Trump really could win, which would make for a difficult four years. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3620 Registered: 03-2005 |
Bloomberg would take at least as many votes from Clinton as from Trump. Bloomberg and Clinton have a huge overlap in terms of who likes them. Then no one would win a majority and the Tea Party addled House of Representatives would select the President. Disaster. You do NOT want Bloomberg to run. We are not going to escape this being a scary election. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7710 Registered: 05-2005 |
I mostly agree with what you said, Randy. I do think Bloomberg would take a lot of votes from both sides. I think I just assumed a candidate had to win a plurality of electoral college votes to win, but from what you say it sounds like they have to win more that 50%, otherwise the House of Representatives gets to choose. Has that happened before? Yes, that's scary. But hopefully there will be an anti-Trump backlash and the Democrats will win back a lot of House and Senate seats. Wishful thinking, I suppose. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3621 Registered: 03-2005 |
Padraig, the President must receive a majority of the electoral college votes. If he does not, the House of Representatives votes. These will NOT be the new Representatives; they won't take office until AFTER the President has been chosen. The current anti-Obama right wing Paul Ryan-led House will choose the next President. That's how we got John Quincy Adams instead of the highest vote-getter Andrew Jackson in 1824/25. However, this question did force me to go read up on this subject. Apparently the House can only choose among the top three vote-getters in the general election. So the current House membership would choose among Clinton (presumably), Trump and Bloomberg. It would probably take them quite a while to come up with a majority choice but at least it wouldn't be Paul Ryan! Bloomberg would have a real chance in this scenario. He doesn't fill me with enthusiasm--neither does Hillary if truth be told--but he's not a world-wrecking fool. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3622 Registered: 03-2005 |
Stuart, I'm back in LA now. My stay was for a week. We Americans have woefully short vacation times. (In fairness I am scheduled to go off on a ten day Spring 2016 vacation in four weeks when I get to see Dominique A perform!) We had rain on half the days I was there and, yes, Rome was beautiful regardless. Puddles were easy to avoid; LA's no better with managing its drainage so I've had lots of practice. Hopefully Rob will be checking in on this thread. Here is my current favorite fantasy for the U.S. Presidential election (so that I can avoid the scary reality): Hillary squeaks in by a thin margin. She takes the background economic concerns of the Sanders and Trump supporters seriously and applies her legendary work ethic to pushing through a slate of important economic rebalancing initiatives trimming the wings of the multinationals, eliminating the preferred tax rates for non-wage income, moving us toward single-payer medical care and spreading the jobs in our automating economy among the populace (possibly by reducing the work week). Perhaps she also does that thing some of us worry about with her--gets us bogged down in another self-defeating war. She gets no love from anyone and cannot win a second term, but she puts in place the necessary pieces for stabilizing the U.S. for the next generation. She proves to be the 21st Century's LBJ. For the time being I'm hanging onto this pipe dream. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7711 Registered: 05-2005 |
I like your wishful dreaming, Randy. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1784 Registered: 08-2006 |
Randy, I agree. I like Sanders and he's a needed voice in this campaign, but Hillary is the best-prepared presidential candidate in a long time. I expect she'll get the nomination and I genuinely believe she'd beat Trump, possibly by a lot. It's important to remember that primaries aren't a great reflection of the wide voting public - they overly weight the voice of the far edges of the parties. There are many, many people - many of them Republican - who are mortified by Trump. They may not vote for Hillary but they may choose simply to stay away fro the polls. Add to that the fact that Trump's record as a businessman, a candidate and a person is a fetid swamp of bad behavior, the Dems are going to make hash of him (I'm surprised more Republicans haven't). I am pretty firmly convinced Hillary will be our next president, as she should be. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1786 Registered: 08-2006 |
By the way, Randy, I'm jealous of your Rome trip. I went for a week a few years ago and I could have stayed for another two. And still not have seen everything I'd wanted to. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1267 Registered: 10-2006 |
You could spend two years in Rome, Rob, and still not see everything worth seeing - especially given Italian opening times. But there is a revolution underway in the country's artistic bastions, with many famous sites and galleries given over (to great nationalistic lamenting) into the hands of young foreign directors, who are attempting to drag them fighting & kicking into the 21st century. One gloriously enormous chateau in the south, left to fall apart for many years, has been revitalised by a dynamic new (Italian) manager, but angry unions have been swift to denounce him for "working too hard." I meanwhile am jealous of Randy getting to see DomA... hope he's on form! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7712 Registered: 05-2005 |
Bloomberg won't run because it would help Trump or Cruz get elected. You called it, Randy. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2 016/03/07/michael_bloomberg_will_not_run _for_president.html?sid=5388d195dd52b858 1b001459&wpsrc=newsletter_slatest | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3623 Registered: 03-2005 |
The Bloomberg story is a huge relief. It's also the most astonishing expression of dismay with the Republican candidates: a very wealthy--and by all accounts capable--man gives up a personal dream after spending huge sums in preparation for it because he's convinced the chance of its failure will also spell destruction for the country. Surely some people with "R" by their names must be dazzled by the shafts of light breaking into their heretofore hermetically-sealed intellectual chambers. Stuart, I love the story about the manager "working too hard." I hope that's not an apocryphal story from some Murdoch tabloid. What I observed in my hotel was a crew of very hard-working and efficient professionals. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1787 Registered: 08-2006 |
Leftover news coverage of Chicago's epic "no, thank you" to Trump at his inexplicably ill-conceived rally at University of Illinois-Chicago, one of the most diverse educational institutions in the country smack-dab in the middle of one of the most Democratic-leaning cities in the country. This is the guy who's gonna take down ISIS and he's chased out of town by a group of liberal arts majors? I'd have been at the rally but I was going to see Wussy that night. Which is wonderfully ironic. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7718 Registered: 05-2005 |
Rob, I just laughed out loud at your description of Trump being chased out of town. I was editing stories of what was happening in Chicago from an office in Sydney (such is the way of the work) and it was all quite extraordinary, in a way that major stories often aren't. As you would know yourself, if you're working on a story, the process of doing so, of getting things right, often negates the wow factor. Not from Chicago v Trump, it didn't. More importantly, how was Wussy? | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1788 Registered: 08-2006 |
Wussy were terrific, Padraig. Kinda cool to see them two nights in a row. And weird that, with six proper albums under their belt, old favorites just don't show up in the set list as much anymore. I realized this weekend they're a mature, grown-up band, even though a lot of people are just discovering them. That's funny you were working on Chicago news items. We'll be sure to send you more work if The Donald is stupid enough to come back to town. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 336 Registered: 08-2005 |
About to watch England go for the Grand Slam. England should be big favourites, but as a long-time sports fan I know to count on.... nothing. Especially England at sport. |