Tag: review

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Pandemonium – Killing Joke

Killing Joke? They wrote “The Wait” didn’t they? That song from Garage Days Re-Revisited by Metallica. Yes they did.

I’m still not sure about Killing Joke. Some of their stuff is amazing and some of it leaves me cold. There’s something about the wishy-washy guitar sound that doesn’t always work. Perhaps they inhabit the mysterious wastelands between metal and indie?

This album though is five stars [out of five]. The guitar work is heavy and decent, possibly grungy, while the song structures along with style all make this feel like a decent album. I played this over and over when I first discovered it. The songs have a dreamy, calming feel, leading to relaxation and enjoyment.

This album comes recommended to all.

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Out Of Exile – Audioslave

This is one of three albums by Audioslave that I own. I can’t tell you specifically about this particular album but I can tell you that all three are good and were played very regularly around fourteen years ago.

I’m not sure how I discovered Audioslave, I think I have these on CD so I had to physically buy them at some point. When I started listening to the band I don’t think I was aware of their pedigree. I did notice that some of the guitar work is quite innovative and the solos seemed out of place compared to the easy rock listening of the rest of the songs.

Audioslave is:

  • Chris Cornell [Soundgarden]
  • Tom Morello [Rage Against The Machine]
  • Tim Commerford [Rage Against The Machine]
  • Brad Wilk [Rage Against The Machine]

This band is a fusion of the Seattle sound and L.A. influences and it shows. It’s well worth getting. But, here’s the rub: I haven’t listened to this album for a long time so I can’t do a list of which songs are best and which ones make me shiver but I do know that I enjoy listening to every Audioslave album. Maybe I’ll write more about the Revelations album when I get there.

This is the last “O” album in the current round of album reviews.

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The Informer

To celebrate the last weekend of freedom before another academic year’s worth of work I had arranged a pretty standard weekend. A run, cinema, food shopping, thinking about lessons, rifle-related reading, reading, and the playstation.

At about mile three my right Achilles started hurting but I soldiered on and that was probably a mistake. I hurt today while walking. It’s annoying as I wanted to run again later this early evening but instead I might go on the rowing machine for an hour. i’ve got a busy few weeks and so can’t risk being immobile. I also like exercising and so need to rest the ankle for a week or so. Maybe I’ll be able to run on Thursday.

Oh, I also ironed all the shirts in the house ready for the next couple of weeks. It was a boring task, but oddly satisfying. While ironing I was watching 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown which is a regular watch, I like the comedy. I’ve also been watching The Patriot Act on Netflix which I like and makes you think about society and how it works. I can’t write too much about that TV show or this communication will end up in calls for revolutions around the world.

As I drove along Chariot Way I checked out the river. It looked to me that the tide was low. I could see all the river mudbank and all the grasses were visible. The boats all moored in the area were down low along with the water [it would be weird if they weren’t]. I was amazed therefore as I left the cinema to see that the river was even lower [possibly as low as it goes]. The level of the water was below the mudbank by quite some distance and it was clear that this was close to lowest tide.

tides at chatham end august 2019
Tides, Chatham, 31 August 2019

The film programme started at 17:50 and I came out of the cinema around 20:00. You can see from the chart above that this corresponds with what I observed. I asked for tide data in Chatham whic is slightly further down the river towards the Thames estuary because I’m not sure the data exists for Rochester or higher up the river. The tidal range at Allington, for example, is very large and the river only has what flows down from Maidstone at that point so low tide is possibly negative there! That’s something I’ll need to investigate.

I rated this film on IMDB after I watched it and I have to remind myself of the rating system so you should do that also. It’s in this communication. I then tweet the result. If you find the earliest movie reviews in this site then you can see that I just wrote the result as text. I think I probably wrote those communications before embedding was much of a thing in websites and stuff. Here’s the result:

This film was a satisfactory movie covering the tensions between those assholes in the FBI and the wonderful police in the NYPD. The Informer is a murderer who gets screwed over by the Feds and the local drugs cop helps him out. I think those aspects of the film were rather lazy and common within the film media. It could have been different and clever.

The Informer character is a violent man, but that’s justified in this film because he’s trying to get justice? Because it’s all self-defense? Because the Feds are screwing him over? Because it’s a film and needs prison violence to show how bad things are? I’m not sure I liked that aspect of the film. The ending was all very clever and so on and The Informer had it quite well planned. I kinda wryly smile when plans include lots of, what would be in real life, random acts that are required for the plan to work. I do know that when planning for things you can’t plan for the actions of other people. They do things wrong. Anyway, the plan seems to work well for The Informer.

So, let’s discuss the character should we? The Informer is a Polish chap who emigrated to the USA and then served in the Army a lot. This means he is a good man because to “serve your country” is the “best” that any US citizen can do. This is regardless of the facts that while in the forces you are treated like shit, once out of the forces you are treated like shit and those in charge will use you to maintain their positions of power. That’s all that the forces do. They maintain the power base for the white men in charge. I know I’m really into the air force and planes but I like planes. I don’t have to like what they are used for or what they do.

The Informer, once credentials have been asserted that he’s a bad motherfucker who did four tours in Iraq, then kills someone in a bar after they verbally insulted his wife. Now, some people are assholes, but it seems strange that this is glossed over. This man killed someone else. But that’s ok in this film because he was defending his wife’s honour [whatever that means]. There had to be a reason for him to be in prison in the first place and I guess that the writers thought this was the most “justified” way this character could be there. What pricks.

Two small things really irritated me:

In the opening credits there is a company the name of which I should have written down. I think it’s Imagination. This is the second time I have seen their logo and the second time it has irritated me. The company have used the Greek letter theta instead of an O in their logo. But the theta isn’t pronounced as an O in any language and so it’s just stupid.

The Feds were driving around in a Toyota Prius, which is good. But, we watch it move away at one point and before it starts moving we hear the sound of an engine starting. That’s not how the Prius works. It starts to move and then the engine starts. There, annoyances based on hybrid technology. I bet you weren’t expecting that.

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Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans

Another warm day means another period of time spent in the cinema watching glorious films. Well, they aren’t all glorious but some are. The tide was high on the way in and lower on the way out of the cinema in Rochester, UK. It’s a thing.

I then rated this film on IMDB and there is a discussion of the method for scoring films in this communication. You should read it to see why I would rate a Tarantino film lower than this one! I then sent a tweet.

I sat watching this movie thinking how lovely it was and laughing at the jokes. I’ve got a feeling that I will watch it again just because I enjoyed it that much. I suspect there are many layers to the jokes and the more I watch it the more I’ll see. It was good fun.

Having read about Boudica on the interwebs I like the idea that we have no idea where her final battle was. It was somewhere between London and Wroxeter which is a pretty large area to cover. Also, when you read about how the Romans treated her family it makes perfect sense that she became this fearsome leader of the tribes inhabiting Great Britain at the time.

This was a good fun movie with an excellent cast and great writing. It’s a who’s who of comedy.

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Origin Of Symmetry – Muse

I have tried Muse. I’ve tried really hard. The problem is I hate it. About eight years ago I borrowed three albums from a student at work. I listened to them and I tried really hard to like it. I wanted to like it. I can hear it and appreciate the cleverness and the writing, I can see why people love them, I know they are a very technological wary band – they produced a VR music video. I’ve had it explained to me that the shows are amazing. But you know what?

I still hate it.

I think it’s his voice. It could be the melody. I don’t know. It leaves me cold. Almost sick.

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Open Up And Say Ahh! – Poison

I was in the sixth form at school when my metal and rock awakening truly happened. I saw Iron Maiden in December 1988 during that academic year. I’d spent a few years learning my stuff. Metallica played regularly in the common room and pretty much the whole sixth form liked its metal. There wasn’t really any other type of music played as far as I can remember – but this could be just confirmation bias. We had study booths and in and around them we decorated them with pictures of bands and singers.

Brett Michaels is the singer in the band Poison, his picture was up on the wall. I found this picture confusing. I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman. It amused me the idea that this hard, heavy, macho, sexist genre of music produced so many stars who were sexually dubious. When someone told me it was Brett Michaels I was very much, “Oh, ok then”. Whether a man or a woman wore make-up didn’t bother me either way. Do what you want was in my mind. I don’t think it was a rule to be explained to people as it is now but it was there in my conscious.

Brett Michaels

These days I feel I have to explain to the world that people can do what they want [within the realms of the current socially-liberal laws] that makes them happy as long as it’s consensual. Two men, two women, four men, any combination, dress how you want, wear make up, do whatever. As long as it is consensual then feel free. I reckon that poster of Brett Michaels helped me start to build my ideas of society and its rules. Another time was the first Red Nose Day when I wore make up around the school for a laugh, I liked it.

I should probably talk about the music as that what these communications are about. I have had the album playing while I’ve been working at the computer and also writing this. I’m four songs in and haven’t had a bad song yet. It’s all good natured lovely rock songs. Brilliant stuff. Now to skip the songs a little to jog my memory.

Look But Can’t Touch has an amazing opening riff and I reckon it would make an amazing thrash song or even some decent aggrotech. I wonder if I can make the other half of my art collektiv give this a working over?

  • Love On The Rocks
  • Nothin’ But A Good Time
  • Back To The Rocking Horse
  • Good Love
  • Tearin’ Down The Walls
  • Look But You Can’t Touch
  • Fallen Angel
  • Every Rose Has Its Thorn
  • Your Mama Don’t Dance
  • Livin’ For The Minute

I’m going to put my neck out and state that Your Mama Don’t Dance is the weakest song with it’s bullshit rock ‘n’ roll riff. It’s a popular song but it misses the mark as far as I am concerned. Then there’s “Every Rose”; It’s an amazing song but I think it’s been over done in my head, slightly over cooked, it’s too big, it’s so well known. “Rose” is a great song, it’s just too much now.

Every song on this album is excellent and it’s a very good BBQ summer, outdoors album where no one would dare be offended. I do love my 80s cock-rock and I love this album.

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Angel Has Fallen

It’s always my plan on a very hot day to visit the cinema. It doesn’t cost me anything other than petrol, there’s normally a film on I want to see, and I get to spend two hours in a room with air conditioning. It seemed more important this time as the field out back was being harvested and I couldn’t have the windows open for dirt and dust.

So I travelled to Rochester cinema, where I tend to go because I pay a monthly fee and go as often as I want. The last time I went to avoid the heat I had to go to the cinema at Bluewater because there was nothing suitable to see at Rochester. I observed the state of the tide as I drove along the embankment and it was high, the water was lovely and still and it would have been a good time to take photographs of the area as the reflections were gorgeous. I didn’t have time for that as I arrived at the cinema pretty much as the programme started.

Instead of watching all the adverts and trailers I tend to read a book using the Kindle application on my phone. I sit there, along, reading some sad technological book as I ponder the uselessness of the trailers in front of me. So far I have read/am reading the following:

  • X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight
  • Dressing for Altitude, U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits-Wiley Post to Space Shuttle
  • Elegance in Flight: A comprehensive History of the F-16XL Experimental Prototype and its Role in NASA Flight Research

I went to watch Angel Has Fallen and I was somewhat surprised at the number of “older” people in the cinema. I don’t know why this seemed more than normal, maybe because it’s a bank holiday weekend? After the film I rated it on the IMDB website and there is a guide to the rating system as the main thesis in this communication. In the greatest of styles, I watched the film, I didn’t stay just to see the end and I wouldn’t watch the thing again. So, like the last two films I’ve seen this ends up as a six.

This film was exactly what you expected it to be. Gerard Butler saves the President and there’s lots of killing, also there’s lots of near-dying. You know, when the hero is in a massive truck crash without a seat belt and then groans and wakes up with no problems at all. This film seemed to be co-produced by the GB vanity project, no problems there but it was obvious.

I liked the opening section where we see that GB, I don’t remember his character’s name, is struggling with headaches and pain, I assume this is from the military machine caring not for his safety and using his body hard, pushing him until he can do no more. The capitalistic society over the pond forces people to work as much as possible while wearing out their bodies, and then, when done, it cares not for helping these people. It was nice to see that the Opioid Crisis was hinted at in this film with GB popping pills through the introduction but none of the pushing by the pharma companies was mentioned and how they have created this crisis – READ A DECENT NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

When GB was talking to his old friend about the training facility it was bloody obvious who was going to be the baddie in this film. This talk was terribly scripted. It could have come from the last speech by a Bond baddie just before he thinks he’s going to kill Bond. It was shit. Also, the opening fight sequence was clearly training and meant nothing. It’s such a trope that it was boring. Whenever I see helicopters used in films where they think private companies would use them you have to think, that’s a lot of money. Helicopters are expensive.

It’s nice to see Hollywood reacting to the world around them. The earlier mentioned Opioid problem mentioned and also in this one they mentioned Russian interference in an election. It shouldn’t surprise us that the socially liberal west coast town produces films which argue for the treatment of everyone as a person and try to tell the real story of the world around them. There are plenty of films with gay people, trans people, anti-war, pro-good-guy, anti fascist themes. It’s nice to see. I guess they hope they will slowly pick away at the public to become more socially liberal and treating all humans as if they were fucking HUMANS.

Apparently GB has had too many concussions during his career and then, in this film he probably suffers another eight or so. I would imagine that he would be having massive mental problems by now. Of course, the mental issues only really show when GB isn’t doing much. When he’s in LION mode he’s clearly the “best”. It’s almost as if getting hit in the head a lot or having explosions go off around you a lot mean that you might end up with damage. At the end of the film I would have expected GB to retire and slowly degenerate into a highly disabled person with no help from the state because that’s how things work in the USA.

There’s a comedic movie review podcast I listen to, it’s theme is kinda specialist [NOT like that] and they make me laugh. In it they discuss the “force-push” problem quite a bit. The idea that Obi Wan can use the force-push to destroy a droid from a distance but sometimes he has to fight in sword combat. Why not use the force-push all the time? Why waste the time doing close combat with higher chances of being injured? Just use force-push. Always go straight to the highest setting. It’s a bit like Power Rangers individually fighting before joining together as the large machine thing [I am unsure about the correct terminology now!]. Well, this film has its force-push moments everywhere.

GB is driving a truck at some point and we see film of him keep putting his foot down and then changing gear. Why not go as fast as you can straight from the start? Just drive the fuck away. I know a truck takes a while to accelerate but we see the gear changes keep coming and the truck accelerates more. Just drive fast. If I had police chasing me and I needed to get away I think I’d drive as fast as possible straight away. You go for the max setting as soon as you can.

There is another point where the bad people are shooting at Secret Service members in a corner and there must be a few thousand rounds exchanged before the bad people use a rifle launched grenade to kill all the SS members. This seems an obvious move from the beginning, why wait? Use the force-push straight away [I’m expecting an explanation about the force-push from Pom as he cares more about Star Wars things than I do].

In the film they make a hospital blow up. They flood the hospital with oxygen and use high pressure nitrogen and then SOMEHOW remotely ignite the lot. The hospital explodes in grand style and I couldn’t help but think that it was impressive how they managed to evacuate an ENTIRE hospital in about five minutes. Impressive stuff! But, I won’t be the first to point out that nitrogen is an inert gas. It doesn’t react with anything. It doesn’t explode. Also, oxygen by itself doesn’t explode. If you remember your fuel triangle you need fuel/oxygen/heat or source of ignition. There wasn’t a fuel in this film. If nitrogen is explosive then the entire atmosphere would burn, it’s around 79% nitrogen. Maybe they used the compression of the nitrogen tanks to cause the explosion?? I don’t know but this wouldn’t have brought down the hospital.

Nearly there, I promise. [definite spoiler in the next paragraph]

There were two female characters in this film. There is the FBI agent investigating GB. There is the wife of GB who we ONLY see in a motherly caring role. We don’t see the wife as anything other than the dutiful wife. The FBI agent, who seems hard-ass, is a reasonable character but she gets shot in the stomach and then shot in the face. This bothered me. Firstly films don’t tend to shoot women in the head, execution style. Also, the only decent female character gets killed, fortunately this is just after she’s uncovered the proof needed to resolve the film. Now, I am not bemoaning the role of women as a carer for children, but within this macho bullshit the only women are treated poorly. The females could have been much stronger characters. Although in reality this film is about the macho bullshit of GB and the bad-guy mate of his.

How did the bad guys manage to track Nick Nolte’s woodland place so quick when the FBI couldn’t do it? Computer magic, it was poorly written. There could have been other ways of doing this but the film glossed over it. Then, there’s the FBI using their facial recognition software on “every camera in the US”. This made me laugh, it’s a terrible idea. It would also take more computing power than exists. I mean, my iPhone doesn’t recognise me most of the time with face ID, how would they use “all the cameras”.

What a bullshit last fight there was. Such macho mano-a-mano crap. “I’m glad it was you” says a character. What a load of fucking shit. The final battle of the movie was basically a load of bullets and testosterone. I hated it. The film had kept me going quite well but the final twenty minutes was cock. The filming technique at times was close-up blurry and I don’t think it’s a good technique. It started with the Bourne Identity and the style it introduced and all it does is mean I have no idea what is actually happening in the scene.

My final thought: Nick Nolte was AMAZING.

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Once More ‘Round The Sun – Mastodon

I got this album because I went to see Mastodon play at the Brixton Academy. I was quite impressed with the album, it’s complex and has a unique style. I don’t think I’ve really listened to it since I went to the gig though.

A strange thing popped out of this for me, I think the drummer sounds a lot like Nicko McBrain when he drums. I’m not wordy enough to be able to explain but there’s something in the complexity of the fills and rolling beats that reminds me of Iron Maiden.

This album is worth listening to. I’m not sure I’d buy any more from this band though.

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Dora and the Lost City of Gold

I went to see this film because it’s the summer holidays for me at the moment. It is slightly ridiculous that I have only worked through August in about five of my years. It’s an interesting thing that for me the summer only starts at the end of July, when teachers talk about “the summer” we don’t meant the meteorological summer. Just for giggles I think the following are my five years of working in August:

  • Post GCSE I worked on a farm driving tractors.
  • Between lower and upper sixth form I drove tractors.
  • Post A Level I worked at Cossor Electronics for a year until I went to university (two summers).
  • I was one of the student union officers and so worked the summer of 1994 in Beit Quad, Imperial.

Back to format now. The tide was on its way in and was covering most of the mudbank but the grass on the bank was still visible, it wasn’t visible on the way home. I didn’t see the seal from last time but it didn’t matter. The weather was really nice and the who vista was very pretty.

After watching this film I rated it on IMDB and there’s a communication which discusses the scoring criteria here. It is then usual for me to embed the tweet:

My web editing software doesn’t really like pure HTML being entered and for a long time it would warn me of errors, but my code was correct. I use WordPress btw.

So, the film. I really enjoyed the whole thing. It was good fun. There were many nods to the cartoon series it made it fun. It was really a more modern Goonies [which I can’t remember so will have to dig out].

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Once Upon A Time . . . . In Hollywood

I recently went to see the latest Tarantino film at the Cineworld cinema in Not-Rochester [it’s really in Strood, a bit like Sainsbury’s Larkfield is really in Aylesford]. Apparently this is the ninth film from Tarantino and I’m just going to have a look. I make it ten but only if you count Kill Bill as two films, I mean, they were released separately. Here’s the list of his films I’ve seen:

  • Reservoir Dogs
  • Pulp Fiction (I can’t really remember much about this one)
  • Kill Bills
  • Django Unchained
  • And now Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood

I’m not sure if I should go ahead and watch more of his films. I’m certainly not part of the “Tarantino’s great” movement. I like the films and see them for what they are.

As I drove along the riverside I checked to see what the tide was doing. Well, I mean it never really is doing much, it’s more slowly wandering around rather than having visible changes but I looked to see where the river was compared to the riverbank. The river was very low which means the tide was “out” or “low” depending on how you want to phrase that. There was a drone flying around over the marsh area and I’m curious about what it was doing. There was also a seal resting on the edge of the marsh area, possibly after having a big swim. Maybe the drone and the seal are connected? I don’t know.

After the movie and a little extra time to mul this film over in my head I rated the film on IMDB, as is custom. Then I tweet the thing. It looked a little something like this:

I have a feeling that a lot of this film was just showing off. It made the whole thing look amazing and Tarantino has created a faithful reproduction of Hollywood but there were some scenes where I just thought it was gratuitous money. Here I’m thinking of all the scenes with massive backgrounds and time-correct cars and posters. I mean, the effort is astounding but it is also very proud as a film of managing to look so real.

As is usual with a Tarantino film the music plays a very key part and his motif is obvious all the way through this film. Most scenes carry music over from one place to another. I found the reproduction of sound a little annoying as the soundtrack was loud and punchy when in a car the sound would have been terrible. If you go to all that effort to reproduce massive backgrounds and freeways full of period cars then maybe the sound of the car stereo should be exact?

I liked the idea of the faded actor still trying to make his mark in Hollywood. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing in this movie. He managed to convince me fully. There has been some controversy about Margot Robbie’s role having so little to say and almost being a pin-up in the movie. I’m not sure I felt that. It is true she had little of a speaking role in the movie but the film was mostly about Rick and his fight in Hollywood.

As the climax of the film approached I was actually worried that it would glorify the Manson murders. I hadn’t read anything about the film, I’d only seen the trailers, and it wouldn’t have been right for any Tarantino violence glorification. Then, it ends the way it does. It was at that point I understood what Tarantino was doing. I had thought he was trying to write an historical document to give us the facts about the case but what he did was pure Hollywood. The film ended in classic Tarantino violence but at a level that worked perfectly in the film.

I possibly underrated this film slightly. Maybe it should have been an 8. I’m still thinking about it and that’s a good thing, it means the film affected me in some way. I did go down a bit of an internet rabbit hole after this looking through the Wikipedia articles on the Manson murders and the people involved. It was during this that I realised the band Kasabian named themselves after one of the Manson family. There are lots of bands, seemingly innocuous, who are named after awful things; Rammstein, Spandau Ballet and many more.

I’ll tweet again if I decide to increase the score on this film. I’ll add that tweet below so keep an eye out. Remember to keep looking at this terribly boring website.

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