Tag: review

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The Last Duel

I went to the cinema to watch The Last Duel. It wasn’t on at a suitable time at my local cinema so I went to Ashford – even then I couldn’t book online and I had to just turn up and pay there because the Ashford cinema is in a different “booking category” to Rochester and the online website won’t let you pay the difference, you have to do it in person. So, I have no idea what the tide looked like as I drove to the cinema. I can tell you the M20 to junction 9 is as boring as ever and it feels like it takes ages but I think it’s only fifteen miles.

After I saw this film I rated it on the IMDB website. If, while watching a film, I’m starting to think what score I would give it, then the film isn’t holding my attention. It didn’t take long for me to wonder where on my scale of film scoring this film stood. I then shared this score in Twitter because it gives me something nice to embed right now:

This film was as boring as shit. I really didn’t enjoy it and I did consider leaving, but there was a person at the end of my row and I had driven more than normal to get here. Most of the characters were assholes and the only nice character was the lead female who, because of when the film is set, has all her rights fucked over.

So, this is a film in FOUR chapters. We get to see the same scenes over and over and I really didn’t like this aspect. No doubt someone will tell me how clever it was and how the mood really changed from one chapter to the next, but mostly, it was boring and while the differences were there they were over emphasised and could have been more subtle. Three times we got this whole story. Then the final chapter concerned the start of the film because, tension or something.

The first chapter seemed to be all castles and horses and battles and there were dates up on the screen but who is able to follow those and really piece together a time line? I don’t think a film should have dates, you should be able to make the film understandable without those things. Maybe just one at the beginning so we know what era of misogyny we are dealing with. Now, there might be a stroke of genius in the overall “feel” of each chapter but it wasn’t stark enough for me. The first chapter was horses and battles and boring as fuck. The second chapter was wine and fucking and the third was oppression of women. If the film was design with clear artistic differences between those three then they failed as I felt only the first chapter had a different taste.

I did wonder how many times can you have horses galloping up to castles and I got bored. Were we meant to recognise the different castles and the local politics of the time? I hated some aspects of this film. It’s also hard to recognise French named places when the cast constantly talk in American English but switch to French accents when pronouncing names, I could be being generous there, but I wasn’t “ready” for the French and it took me ages to finally get what they were saying.

How long would it take to bleed out from a femoral artery wound?? Not long and that’s what the final scene had for me. Do they not do first aid?

This film could have been so easily made to actually say something. It could have pushed the parallels between the legal system then and what happens now. It could have highlighted the plight of rape victims in modern times and it could have made so much more for women’s rights of the past and today, but it didn’t.

I just read something about Jean De Carrouges life and it turns out that he went to Scotland to garner support from the Scots to attack the North Of England. The film does not make this clear in the slightest and I left the film under the impression that he was fighting the Scots from the north of England. A small point, but actually quite a difference.

Anyway, all those irritations aside, the main character in this resided at Carrouges in France and this excited me as, when I finally understood the name, was somewhere I had been. I went on holiday near there in around August 2008 or so. I had a look around the chateaux in the village. The chateaux was built by Jean De Carrouges, the main chappy in this film. I don’t think I was aware of that side of the story when I visited it. Why would I be. It doesn’t seem that a duel from 700 years ago would interest the locals. I hope they get a reasonable source of income from the fame produced by this film.

Carrouges Chateaux
Carrouges Chateaux

There was an art exhibition on in the Chateaux while I visited and I remember liking it a lot. I can also remember that the day was chuffing hot.

Art in the Carrouges Chateaux
Art in the Carrouges Chateaux

This is Comms#1974 [+- 1] and so here are some things that happened in that year of the mostly common calendar used in business and governments around the world:

  • 174 die in a fire in Sao Paolo.
  • The F-16 Viper flies for first time.
  • India becomes the sixth nation to have and operate nuclear weapons.
  • The IRA bomb Westminster Hall.
  • Ceefax is started.
  • The Arecibo message is sent towards Messier 13.
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Ultra Payloaded – Satellite Party

I think I got to hear about this album from a television show I watched in Australia, something like that. It’s a side project of the singer for Jane’s Addiction and as such, this is an OK album. I enjoy the songs when they pop up on a shuffle but I don’t think it’s an album I would normally reach for unless it’s summer time and maybe I’m outside in the garden, it’s got that kind of feel to it.

This is the first of the “U” albums and it’s a quite exclusive club. Definitely not as many as “T”, thank goodness. We’ll be at the end of the list soon I guess unless the “W”s have a surprise for us.

This should be communication number 1973 because all the other communications before this one have been building up to number 2000. That’s why I started added year-information-stuff. But now there’s a controversy. WordPress thinks this is number 1972 and not 1973 and I really am unsure why.

I get a “posts” count at the top of my WordPress page and have been using that to figure out the particular comms# but systems have gone wrong somehow. Now I don’t want to repeat a load of information and maybe I should make the content dynamic somehow but I’m going to stick with the system I have been using and hope WordPress catches up with me soon. Maybe this is my “millennium bug”.

Here are some things that happened in 1973:

  • The UK joins the EEC, fore-runner of the EU.
  • US dollar is devalued by 10%.
  • Dark Side Of The Moon is released.
  • Tu-144 crashes.
  • Sydney Opera house is formally opened.
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Tummy – Wat Tyler

Gosh, it has taken a while to get to this point but this is the last of the “T” albums. Once I complete all the albums alphabetically it’ll be time to go back to the beginning and start reviewing all the EBM, aggrotech, albums that I have. Sorry about that but I don’t think there is an end to this portion of this site. If you think these are boring just wait for my list of airports I have used in the Round The World Trip in X-Plane!!

I saw Wat Tyler at a gig in the Square in Harlow way back when I had more hair than now. They were funny and I bought this CD at the merch table. This album is the perfect mix of well written songs and joke songs which make me laugh. I love it.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • Justify Your Book – is it just me or is the singer’s voice remarkably sexy here?
  • It Makes Me Belch – heavy riff and shouty vocals with a great hook into the chorus.
  • Hops And Barley – such an amazing wholesome song.
  • Coming Home – a lovely sea shanty from before sea shanties being popular.
  • Perry Groves – apparently a song about soccer.
  • The Definitive Love Song – a bit of a Freebird rip off with spoken lyrics to make you laugh.
  • Dodgepotterydo – a song with the lyrics of Rolf Harris songs sung to the tune of “Stairway To Heaven”.
  • James Whale – sung to the tune of “I just called to say I love you” but with a chorus of “James Whale you’re a fucking cunt, you’re a fucking cunt”. If you aren’t sure who James Whale is then think Piers Morgan but slightly less offensive.
  • Ruder Girl – If I can find the lyrics I will put them at the end of this communication.
  • God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – you will love this.
  • Wet Wet Wet (The Fucking Bed) – hilarious.
  • The Little People Make Lurve – a classic operatic story of elves and dwarves and shit.

Gosh, we’ve reached the 1970s in terms of communications and here are some things that happened that year:

  • Unix time epoch.
  • The USA invades Cambodia.
  • Tu-144 exceeds Mach 2.
  • Stonewall Riot.
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No Time To Die

Well, I did it, I went to see what is hoped to be a massive film at the cinema. I booked a midday viewing because that way I still get the rest of my day to do what I want – if that makes sense. I don’t really like getting home from the cinema too late and then going straight to bed, I like having a couple of hours before I have to end the day. I guess there’s a certain routine built in there.

The weather wasn’t that great as I drove to the cinema. It had been raining for an hour or so and it continued to do this for most of the day. I didn’t really mind, rain is a good thing, you just need to be dressed in the right gear. The tide was somewhere around two thirds, a little of the mud bank was visible at the higher parts but nothing else.

After the film I rated it on IMDB and then tweeted the result because I like embedding the tweets on this site. The history of tweets is one reason I haven’t deleted my twitter account. Anyway, there’s a communication written years ago about the rating system. This film trouble me a little because I didn’t think it was worth a six out of ten but I also didn’t think about leaving, I was just bored with some of the scenes.

Well, what did I think of this film? Did I enjoy it? Did it do what I want a Bond film to do? All these are very good questions, but I’m not sure if I’m going to answer them in here. So, shall we start at the beginning? Britannia crumbling to dust in the opening credits made me chuckle a little I suppose, I wonder if that’s what the world thinks of the UK, I mean they aren’t wrong. So, I guess I should do some general bits before I go into spoilers.

I think I liked the film. I don’t want to see it again and there are plenty of problematic aspects to it. I have found Bond films hard to follow for the last six years and I think that’s because I try to think too much about the plot and the what/where/whys of characters and vehicles. There is a lot in this film that I genuinely think doesn’t make sense once you get more than one layer down.

I don’t know why all the baddies have to have facial scarring of some kind. It has always been so. The chap with the scar is the killer. It’s bullshit. I also didn’t understand any of the motivations in the film, why was the bad chap doing what he does? It was really weird. Oh, and the ultimate plot being to kill most of the world with a plague amused me massively.

I wonder if I’m old and decrepit because at times I couldn’t understand what was being said. I would have liked some subtitles I think. It was the odd sentence here and there and while they ultimately don’t matter I wonder if the audio mix was a little off at times?

There be SPOILERS from now on.

How many concussions can you get before you are no good. I quite liked the fact that we saw Bond get hurt but the recovery was short as ever and there were no lasting effects. The film borrowed sound detailing from games when a grenade explodes we get the muffled ringing sounds as though we are hearing things from Bond’s point of view.

God damn they killed Felix. I liked Felix.

I really liked the glider/submarine that drops from the C17. Mind you, Q only puts on his oxygen mask after the doors are open and I think that’s a little late, he would have passed out. Oh, it takes more than a few hours to get a C17 around the world to near Japan.

I hated this film for making me feels when they played “All The Time In The World”, but that’s not a Bond thing, it’s the fact that the chosen music is fucking excellent.

I liked the ending.

I did not like that “James Bond Will Return”.

“M” would be arrested and put on trial for treason. MI6 only do as they are told by the politicians. It’s why the whole thing is fucked as the forces and spy agencies do what they are told to do. Hate the decision makers and not the doers.

I think Bond should have punched, shot, killed M.

I was bothered about the size of the ammunition holders in the DB5. I think they would unbalance the car a shit-load.

Spectre had a bomb waiting for all time at Vesper’s grave?? What?

This film seemed slightly too long, but I think that’s what the fans want. I am not a fan. I think I agree with Jase when he says he likes the really shitty Bond movies of the late 70s and early 80s when it was all so silly.

This is comms#1969 and so here are some things that happened in that year:

  • First flight of 747.
  • Concorde first flies.
  • The Harrier enters service with the RAF.
  • Humans land on the moon for the first time.
  • Probes are sent to Venus.
  • My Lai massacre.
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Troublegum – Therapy?

Opening lines:

“I’m gonna get drunk, Come round and fuck you up
I’m gonna get drunk, Come round and fuck you up”

This album has the speed and power of a classic punk album but with a little more subtlety. The melodies are great and I do enjoy playing this. While I might not know what the songs are called when they are played I definitely know the songs and this album gets played or at least not-skipped when it comes up in a shuffle. Heavy riffs with disturbing lyrics, you can’t get better than that I guess. This is well worth getting.

The song Nowhere is super single material, very well crafted.

This is communication number 1967 and curating events that happened in certain years seemed a good idea at the time but I do find it irritating now. But, I want to get to the point where I am making up shit for the future, that’s my dream, that’s my nightmare. These shitty few pages are going to make me the Nostradamus of the future, I best get good at being vague as shit.

  • Apollo 1 fire.
  • North Sea Gas starts pumping.
  • China tests its first H-Bomb.
  • First cash machine in world.
  • Race Riots in USA.
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TRON: Legacy – Daft Punk

I got this because I quite liked the music in the film Tron: Legacy. Also because I’m aware of Daft Punk and don’t really mind their stuff. I haven’t played it that often and so pretty much I have no views on this album.

This is communication number 1966 and here are some things that happened that year:

  • SR-71 goes into service.
  • Plenty of racism in USA. Also evident in UK but less noticed.
  • A B-52 crashes and drops three hydrogen bombs on Spain. They don’t go off.
  • Hovercraft service starts across the Channel.
  • An XB-70 crashes.
  • Aberfan disaster where 144 are killed.
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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Well, I went to the cinema. It had been a while and I was starting to miss it. More importantly I was panicking because I thought I might miss Dune and the local cinema is showing it once a day, but it turns out they are only showing the David Lynch version so I haven’t missed the extravaganza. I went to see Ten Rings. On the way I noted that the tide was pretty low and discussed this with one of the children. I think they get mildly embarrassed or something when I explain what I’m doing noticing silly stuff.

After the film I tweeted my rating of the film, giving away what I thought of it. Although actually I think my position on the film is a little more nuanced.

I couldn’t leave the cinema as my children were with me, and if they weren’t I would probably have stuck it out. But, it wasn’t a good film. It was another Marvel film and mostly dull. We were the only people in the theatre and so spent our time checking out the view from different seats and generally having fun in the boring bits.

I will say this: this film is the biggest waste of Ben Fucking Kingsley I’ve ever seen. I hope he either fan-boy his way into the film or got fucktons of money.

Comms#1965, here’s what happened in that year:

  • The Gambia becomes independent from the UK.
  • 400+ killed in Chile after an earthquake causes dam failures.
  • What the fuck -the US launch a test nuclear reactor into low earth orbit.
  • 274 killed in a mining accident in India.
  • A 70mph speed limit is imposed on British roads.
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Trial By Fire: Live In Leningrad – Yngwie Malmsteen

I bought this album on music cassette form in Saffron Walden in the run up to some Christmas sometime. I knew of Yngwie Malmsteen as he was kind of infamous in my sixth form. A number of people had seen him in concert and so I got this. I think he was the first super-speedy, how does he do that, kind of guitarists I had heard about. There are plenty more but there’s a certain melody to his playing. I have and continue to listen to this album regularly.

Now, here’s the thing. When I played this album a while ago I was trying to come up with ways to describe the differences in the songs. You, know , to be able to do a track listing and description of each. Now, the rub is, they all sound quite similar. Same pace, beat, style. I don’t mean to diminish how good this album is because I really do enjoy it. I like every song. If I had to choose a favourite then I would go for “Heaven Tonight”, it’s a lovely romantic song.

All I can say is that Yngwie can play very well. I enjoy this stuff. He was pretty good when I saw him in Shepherds Bush however many years ago.

Comms#1963 so here are some things that happened that year as curated by me:

  • George Wallace becomes Alabama Governor, what a cunt.
  • Valentina Tereshkova is first woman in space.
  • Kenya gains independence from the UK.
  • Sam Cooke and his band are arrested after trying to register at a “whites only” motel in Louisiana.
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Tres Hombres – ZZ Top

I have played this album precisely three times in its entity. I was given this by Shredder as a recommended thing to listen to. He was not wrong. I have played this album when I drove some pupils to Canterbury for a school visit – you want something you think most people will appreciate when driving others around. I have so much obnoxious music that it’s hard sometimes to find something suitable. I played this album over my Sonos system when building a climbing frame for the kids and then finally I played it the other day in preparation for this communication.

This is a brilliant album full of dirty, gritty, blues inspired songs that all sound great. It has a real down low feel to it whilst not being obnoxious. I do like it. I think it’s an album I will go for more often when I need something decent in the background.

This album is not anything like you would expect if all you know about ZZ Top is their songs from the eighties. It’s actually way better and I even like their rock stuff.

This is communication number 1957 so here are some things that happened then in the year of our lord:

  • The first frisbee
  • A hydrogen bomb accidentally falls from a bomber near Albuquerque.
  • A hurricane killed 400 people in Louisiana.
  • The Wolfenden Report was published in the UK recommending the legalisation of gay sex between consenting adults.
  • Gordon Gould invents the LASER.
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Trebuchet – George Hrab

I like this album. I don’t really like the production of the album and I know that’s a personal thing and Hrab is the person who is in charge of the whole thing. George Hrab has a podcast, or used to, called Geologic which I have spent some time listening to. He’s a science communicator and skeptic along with being a talented musician and song writer.

All the songs on this album are extremely well written. They cover lots of ideas from the skeptical community and make me smile whenever I listen to this album. Some ideas of the titles on this record:

  • God Is Not Great
  • Everything Alive Will Die Someday
  • When I Was Your Age
  • Death From The Skies – highly recommended
  • Small Comfort

This album has a lovely style and a great message to push to the listeners. I enjoy it. It’s not metal and that’s fine.

This is communication number 1954 and so here are some things that happened that year:

  • Eisenhower warns against his country’s intervention in Vietnam.
  • The first subway line in Toronto.
  • The Boeing 707 is released.
  • Food rationing ends in the UK.
  • Lord Of The Flies is published by a writer who worked previously as a teacher at MGS.
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