| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8821 Registered: 05-2005 |
Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress. Riveting stuff. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4067 Registered: 03-2005 |
Green Book. This was on my list to be seen, now that I am glamorously unemployed. Pundits have been going on and on about how it does a disservice to the American black experience. What I didn't expect, and found, was a surprisingly layered depiction of the struggle for any person who doesn't fit his or her expected boxes. Don Shirley was raised in a relatively affluent and educated family. He was a great musical talent, with the emphasis on the classic European musical tradition. He was a gay man. These various elements did not compute with being black for most people, especially in 1962. I could bitch about how Green Book depicts the filmic trope of the lonely gay man but I won't, because--well--there are a lot of lonely gay men just like Don Shirley, especially those located at the extreme end of the bell curve in intellect. Just think of the Venn diagram this man fit into. Who else would he have found for companionship? Green Book at least asks the viewer to consider a person in his totality. Which none of the columnists have done. They just think it's a race film. Don Shirley was a stranger virtually everywhere. Was it best picture of the year? I'm the last person qualified to answer that. But it is a great human study and a definite step forward in the art of traditional Hollywood film. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1269 Registered: 08-2004 |
This Time With Alan Partridge, which was great. Abducted In Plain Sight, which is awful with astounding shock value. Too outrageous to not be true. The Caraboa Cup Final, two long hours of crass and pointless posing. With a far funnier twist at the death. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8823 Registered: 05-2005 |
This Time With Alan Partridge, Fleabag and Derry Girls when I was in London earlier this week, the entire first season of Killing Eve on the plane and Get Krack!n now I’m home in Sydney. Top notch television all round. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8830 Registered: 05-2005 |
A fascinating TEDX talk on internet privacy by the other one from Bill and Ted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luvthTjC 0OI | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8870 Registered: 05-2005 |
The trailer for the Chills film. I’m very much looking forward to this. https://www.madmanfilms.com.au/the-chill s-the-triumph-tragedy-of-martin-phillipp s/ | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8874 Registered: 05-2005 |
Killing Eve, series 2. I watched the entire first season on a flight recently and loved it. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8879 Registered: 05-2005 |
In 40 minutes I will be sitting down for a double episode of Killing Eve on ABC. I'm hoping there will be some Easter/Good Friday aspect to it, but there probably won't. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8886 Registered: 05-2005 |
Veep, series 7, episode 4. It’s probably the most consistently hilarious TV show I’ve ever seen. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8890 Registered: 05-2005 |
A French film called The Trouble With You. A slight, but darkly funny, comedy. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1290 Registered: 04-2005 |
Watch it now before it is pulled... "The Best of Elston Gunn in 1966" https://vimeo.com/328926267?cjevent=f3a2 4cd470fc11e9816200cf0a18050e Essentially the concert footage from “Eat the Document” with improved sound. Amazing. As with the ’65 visit of the solo Dylan to the UK, film-maker DA Pennebaker was again there for the legendary ’66 tour. The performances were in two parts; the first solo acoustic and the second electric with the Band...drummer Levon Helm had been replaced, quitting after a few concerts in the States saying that he didn’t play music to get booed. There are a few clips of the public, dominated by the folk purists who believed that Dylan was a traitor to the cause. One day we’ll maybe get to see the concert footage in its entirety, but for the moment this is as good as it gets. If 45 minutes is too much for you, skip to 39 minutes and watch just “Like A Rolling Stone”. This is the (in)famous version from Manchester (which was bootlegged as being from the Albert Hall) and starts with the cry from the audience of “Judas”. The retort was “Play it fucking loud” from the stage. This performance is absolutely magnificent and the Band are the perfect backup. Dylan is utterly captivating and quite theatrical...his face is very expressive and the vocal is so powerful. Incredible to think that there were people at the time who believed that he couldn’t sing. There is a young man who says “Dylan was a bastard in the second part” ! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8946 Registered: 05-2005 |
I just saw Yesterday. It's brilliant. Anyone who is cynical about this film doesn't understand the power and importance of music. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8950 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Loudest Voice, the new series about Roger Ailes and Fox News. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stick with it. Ailes was an odious person and his portrayal by Russell Crowe doesn’t shy away from that. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4178 Registered: 03-2005 |
Padraig, I saw the trailer for "Yesterday." My thought was "that gimmick isn't two hours long. Maybe it'll work for a half hour." Aside from that initial thought I can't avoid the notion of yet another pic in which the Boomers try to convince everyone that THEIR experience was the most important of all. In this case THEIR music was the most important of all and if you dropped it into another era it would vanquish everything else going on. Well, maybe. That's not a bet I'd want to make. Please understand, I fall smack dab in the middle of the Boomer generation. I weary of at least the American version of my generation's hubris. I saw the trailer while waiting for "Rocketman" to start. Has anybody else on here seen this? I'm not the most obvious person to see an Elton John biopic. I actually liked "Tumbleweed Connection" when it came out and I continued to like a lot of EJ's classic ballads like "Daniel," "Tiny Dancer" and "Candle in the Wind." On the other hand I loathed his conscious crowd-pleasing rock numbers like "Benny & the Jets" and "Crocodile Rock" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." I just didn't think he was at all convincing with those. And most of all I resented his rock Liberace schtick. To me that was a personal insult: don't caricature my people to make money, dammit! Moving back to the first hand again, EJ brought Kiki Dee a real musical opportunity that lifted her up from her lengthy also-ran dolly bird career. Her first album done for his label, "Loving and Free," is a genuinely fine piece of work--an overlooked gem--and there are good moments to be found on the ones that came after. He even used his label to resuscitate Lulu's career, and I'm not sure he ever got any credit for that as she immediately moved off to another label before the impact. So let's just say I have mixed emotions for Elton John. The movie itself is a bit of a music video and sometimes reminded me of Baz Luhrman's "Moulin Rouge," a film I confess I was not able to get into when I saw it. But there are nice bits of emotional truth scattered around the music video: the geeky kid rejected by his father and frankly not much loved by his mom but, god love her, encouraged by his Nan, the same geeky kid now an adult unable to participate in the sybaritic uber-heterosexual Laurel Canyon party, and the rich celebrity bogged down by a legion of parasites at the commercial peak of his career. If I didn't somehow misunderstand what I was watching it looks like he met his personal existential Waterloo in Los Angeles, much like John Lennon and David Bowie. What's missing is EJ's own part in deciding to be a rock Liberace. He can't really fob that off on somebody else. After all, "Tumbleweed Connection" was a big international success and a very influential record. For example, it inspired the Hollies' abandonment of their long flirtation with bubblegum and MOR pop and led to their recording of "Distant Light," an album that resuscitated their career in the US. It simply was not necessary for EJ to take up this gay minstrelsy act to perform the "Tumbleweed Connection" material or wear the stupid stage outfits to do later classics like "Daniel" and "Tiny Dancer" and "Candle in the Wind." I suppose he chose this as a way to give himself space to exist as a homosexual, i.e., maybe it was better to conform to a stereotype than to simply hide but that was EJ's choice, not his parents' choice nor his writing partner's choice (Taupin was opposed to the stage act) nor probably his manager's choice though I'm sure his manager agreed with whatever made money. A film done by his partner probably can't be expected to be particularly enlightening. Worth watching? 50/50. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8951 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, I’ve never bought an Elton John record and I think I’ve only ever liked two of his songs - Nikita and I’m Still Standing - so I wasn’t interested in seeing this film. Acts that are more shtick than song have never appealed to me. I did enjoy reading your review, though - informed, observant and astute. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4181 Registered: 03-2005 |
Padraig, I never bought any of his records either. My best friend got "Tumbleweed Connection" when it first came out and once Elton John became really big my little sister got all his albums which, of course, I heard through the wall more times than I wanted to. That was when I was searching backwards in time and listening to Velvet Underground and Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" and a few great 60s obscurity anthologies like "Hard Up Heroes" and "Beat Merchants." | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8954 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Chills film is coming out on DVD. https://flyingout.co.nz/products/the-chi lls-the-triumph-tragedy-of-martin-philli pps | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8961 Registered: 05-2005 |
A new streaming (in Australia anyway, it’s probably on cable elsewhere) show called The Rook. It’s a spy thriller with supernatural elements and I enjoyed the first episode. I’m glad I watched it before reading the reviews as they range from OK to bad. The reviews would have put me off watching if I’d read them first. Supernatural stuff generally doesn’t appeal to me, but so far this does. The reviews I read all compare the show unfavourably to the book it’s based on, but seeing as I’ve neither read nor even heard of the book, I won’t let that bother me. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 440 Registered: 02-2007 |
Interesting discussion on EJ, Randy. I got rid of all my EJ albums recently when I moved, except Tumbleweed Connection. Its a keeper. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 442 Registered: 02-2007 |
Binge watching "The Shield" | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4192 Registered: 03-2005 |
David, I didn't have occasion to even think about Elton John for a long time. "Tumbleweed Connection" is all I'd ever consider, unless maybe something like "Empty Sky" rates. I've never heard that. | ||
| Fred Tadrowski Member Username: Ftadrowski Post Number: 103 Registered: 03-2015 |
The Chills: The Triumph & Tragedy Of Martin Phillipps. A wonderful film which could have been called The Chills: The Triumph, Tragedy and Triumph of Martin Phillipps. I streamed the film online as my Kickstarter reward, but I would love to know if the DVD has any good extras. |