SoundsXP Message Boards - Indie, Indiepop, Nu-Folk and Alt-Country Forums

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Definitely isn't inbred...has the GCSEs to prove it!

REVOLUTION PURITY LOVE SUICIDE ACCURACY

http://www.thesoundofconfusion.com

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Definitely isn't inbred...has the GCSEs to prove it!

REVOLUTION PURITY LOVE SUICIDE ACCURACY

http://www.thesoundofconfusion.com

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

_________________
Definitely isn't inbred...has the GCSEs to prove it!

REVOLUTION PURITY LOVE SUICIDE ACCURACY

http://www.thesoundofconfusion.com

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Knowing M.E, Knowing You.. Ah Ha!

David Silva loves Bakewell Tarts the best
He'll eat a box and leave none for the rest
De Gea's doughnuts never look the part
next to Silva's Bakewell Tart!

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

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Knowing M.E, Knowing You.. Ah Ha!

David Silva loves Bakewell Tarts the best
He'll eat a box and leave none for the rest
De Gea's doughnuts never look the part
next to Silva's Bakewell Tart!

~Watched Tin Tin last night. NEver read the books as a kid so can't comment on whether it captured them well or not but I was a tad bored by the movie version tbh.

Sounds like it might be truer to the books than has been claimed then.

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Pukka Pie pest

Embrace the margin
Always Changing at Retford http://sptxx.tumblr.com/
Not Changing at Retford http://sptxx2.tumblr.com/

I watched the animated series a bit when I was a kid. Think I enjoyed it but then you're generally not that fussy when you're a kid (when it comes to kids' TV anyway - except Bagpuss. Never liked that)

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Definitely isn't inbred...has the GCSEs to prove it!

REVOLUTION PURITY LOVE SUICIDE ACCURACY

http://www.thesoundofconfusion.com

Snowtown
Genuinely chilling film, based on real life Australian serial killer John Bunting. The film focuses on a teenage boy drawn into Bunting's world as much as on Bunting himself. It is brilliantly acted throughout and has an almost palpable mileu of an impoverished Adelaide suburb. The film's unsettling atmosphere is more due to it's psychological impact, than the actual violence, which is often off screen; although the violence that is shown is brutal.
This film is like the antithesis of all those rotten serial killer movie's in which a calculating weirdo plays cat and mouse games with intellectually inferior detectives, until one intrepid maverick pieces together the psychological profile of the killer and eventually outwits them.
Disturbing and not an easy watch, but highly recommended.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

The Awakening
Good old fashioned English ghost story. The director has the courage to play his cards sparingly rather than pile on the effects in the modern manner and allows the tension to alternately rise and fall. The story is well enough told and visually it's strong. There are anachronisms between the era and the central character, but this seems to have been done quite knowingly and I was happy to go with the flow. A few plot ideas are somewhat familiar from other films, one plot twist in particular was outrageously derivative , but I found it quite an enjoyable piece of hokum.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

The Deep Blue Sea
Terrence Davies's film adaptation of a play by Terrence Rattigan.
Apparently Rattigan fans have been pretty scornful of this as it drops characters from the play and adds new ones. I'm not familiar with the source material, but thought this was a well made and well acted film, with Rachael Weisz, Tom Hiddeston and Simon Russell Beale all giving strong performances. Whatever changes Davies has made to play, he has thankfully not tried to update it. Very much a period drama, but, for me, a pretty good one.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Surviving Life

Saw this at a one off screening a few months back. It goes on general release today.
More playful than most of Jan Švankmajer's output. It starts with a stop frame animated Švankmajer telling the audience that he's using this method because he couldn't afford to pay actors. The story involves an office worker pursuing the literal girl of his dreams at the expense of his job and marriage, though of course there's a lot more to it than that. Full of the bizarre imagery and scurrilous humour you'd expect from Švankmajer, but less substantial than his best work, this is still, as with all Švankmajer films, well worth seeing.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Another Earth

Take Shelter

Two films that could be considered genre pictures, but generally avoid the traditions of their respective genres.

Another Earth is a film about guilt and redemption, framed in a sci-fi story. It starts with a planet, seemingly identical to our own appearing in the sky. The film doesn't go deeply into this idea scientifically, favouring instead a more philosophical and metaphorical approach. It focusses on one person, a young woman trying to restart her life after serving time for a drunken road accident that resulted in the death of a pregnant woman and a small child and her reaction to the new planet.

Take Shelter is a film about mental illness told with a nod towards the disaster movie genre. A man has apocalyptic nightmares about an impending storm, not knowing if these dreams are prescient or the first signs of mental breakdown. Like Another Earth, the film focusses less on the central event and more on a single person's reaction to it.

Take Shelter has been very well reviewed and received several festival awards. Another Earth has also received a few awards, but reviews have been rather more mixed. I rated the two films fairly equally. Both had good starting premises, but in both cases the potential of these premises was less than fully realised. Both were worth seeing, but neither will come close to my films of the year list.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Mysteries Of Lisbon

Final film of veteran Chilean director Raoul Ruiz, based on a sprawling, picaresque 19th century Portuguese novel.
I had high hopes for this one, but ended up finding it's four and a half hour running time a bit of a labour. I think my reservations probably reside in the source novel, rather than the adaptation. It's one of those stories that relies a lot on coincidence, with lots of hidden connections between the characters and their respective narratives being revealed as the film progresses. I suspect that for fans of both the book and the film it's the intertwining of the different stories that are at the root of their appreciation, but, for me, these sort of schematic contrivances often fail to satisfy.
The film is well enough made and acted, though Ruiz does seem to intermittently resort to ostentatious camera angles and movement, which frequently only serve to draw attention to themselves.
Probably a very good film for those who like this sort of labyrinthine plotting, but despite the dexterity of the story telling and the film's overall grandeur, I was frankly a little underwhelmed.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Moneyball

Brad Pitt plays Oakland Athletics' (a team whose financial status in relation to the New York Yankees is akin to that of Wigan's in relation to Manchester City) general manager Billy Beane whose adoption of 'sabermetric' principals to run his team cost effectively, lead them to a record breaking winning run. The film takes a fair amount of dramatic licence, but this is not at the expense of the films integrity. It's made very much as a drama, not a documentary, but is very successful in it's dramatisation. Not sure how much someone with no interest in baseball would get out of it, but I liked it a lot.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Dreams Of a Life

Somewhat insubstantial documentary about Joyce Carol Vincent, who lay dead in her Wood Green flat for three years. Consists mostly of talking head interviews and heavy handed dramatic reconstruction. Her life is well chronicled, but, inevitably, there is little insight into her death and the reasons for her body laying undiscovered. As this is the reason a film was made in the first place, the film is a little unfulfilling.
Not unengaging, but maybe would have worked better as a one hour TV doc, rather than a feature length film.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...