Firstly, it might be worth noting that I went food shopping before this film with the intention of popping the cold stuff in the fridge at home before heading to the cinema. The traffic was at a standstill to get home and so I ended up eating the ice cream in the car on the way directly to the cinema. Even then, there were road works that meant I was delayed on the A228. I arrived at the cinema at 17:04, the film was meant to have started at 16:45. The luck was in for me as I arrived just as the last advert was playing. The frozen stuff in the car survived as it was pretty cold outside.
I was somewhat surprised that this film was a 15. You don’t tend to get many films that are above a 12A nowadays. For each rating you rise, the overall takings drop.
So, the film was funny, slightly gory, predictable and just bloody good fun. They nearly broke through the fourth wall and I loved the self referencing. This is well worth seeing. I will likely watch this again sometime soon.
The use of Elgar in one of the final scenes was inspired.
Not much of a review or spoilers. Recently I’ve done too much of that.
This is a belated communication as I saw Selma about five days ago. I normally write up a film quickly after seeing it but this time I was pretty busy on Sunday at the AST competition and so this has had to wait.
So, I rated this a 6/10. In reality it should have been an 8 but then you have to understand my scoring system which is explained here. This was a very good film covering some of the most important issues of the 20th century. It was well acted and well filmed. I would recommend that all go and see it.
Upon reading around the film it turns out that LBJ was more for equal rights than the film makes out. The claims are that the film is not a documentary. Hmm, I’m not sure. If you take something like the civil rights movement and want to make a film about it then I think you have to make it accurately.
While watching this film I was constantly reminded of my main life rule:
Do no harm
The extended version of this is that you can do what you want but make sure you cause no others any harm. This seems a perfectly good rule. It’s essentially the same as my mum’s saying:
If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all
And also similar to the following quotation from the most excellent Tim Minchin:
Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will break my heart.
There was so much hate in this film from ignorant people who had grown up in a segregated society. The USA is still not mended from these issues. Go see it and then promise to do something good.
Firstly I think I should point that there are certain elements of this film that don’t ring true. The single person who invented the world’s most used search engine is also a stunning engineer able to create wonderful human looking androids along with inventing a new medium for the processor which also happens to be AI capable. This is not how I suspect it will be done. However, let’s get over that.
First thing: the house was lovely, a wonderful creation, I hope it’s mostly real.
Second thing: Ava looked awesome, really impressive graphics and design, very organic.
Now, the story line. This was generally good although I was reminded a lot of Blade Runner as it progressed. My mind kept going back to the voice of Gaff shouting:
It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?
The story told us to be wary of recluse like figures who are really intelligent. They will use you to fulfil their own aims. Then, towards then end there was a switcheroo which was nice. I liked the manipulation in this film. I liked the simplicity of the sets and the wonderful scenery, although there were random cuts of foliage to remind you we were in the wilderness [which creates quite a few logistical issues for me].
Overall, at times this film may have seemed slow but I think that’s a reflection on modern film making where action is the requirement rather than making people think. This is worth a watch.
I have an admission to make. I bought this album after getting the Jilted Generation album, which is stunning. This album is a bit more techno that I could handle and I’ve only played it maybe twice in the many years I have owned it. I couldn’t tell you much about it.
This is quite an odd album for me to own. I have two by the Chemical Brothers. They are both similar and will get the same type of review. This is a very good piece of art. The album is what I would call dance and a bit too happy for my liking but it does have it’s moments and occasionally it gets played.
This album is an accompaniment to Everybody Hates You. I first listened to this while having a jog and I can warn you it’s not music to run to. It’s quite quiet and probably almost trance, if I had to guess at what trance is.
It is my current belief that Andy LaPlegua messes around with composing all the time and when he has enough material he adds it to an accompanying album. There’s another darkside album out there which is a bit more upbeat.
Now, dating music this is not but it is pretty good anyway.
Right people, this is a biggy. As you may have seen here and here I love Combichrist. I’ve also had identity crises because precisely of this band. This is the first Combichrist album I have come to review and this is a good one [hint: there aren’t any bad ones]. This album was released in 2005 and is part of a series of projects by Andy LaPlegua. This album can only be described as nasty and heavy, but without guitars. The genre is either Aggrotech or Hellektro depending on your language predisposition.
Sometimes musicians go all out to offend and to move the boundaries of acceptable. This is one of those albums. You can see that this is meant to annoy the establishment. It seeks out the angry youth and goes extreme. Most metal does that and the really successful stuff is nasty and angry, that’s how you make it big. Speak to people as though you understand their pain, make it a club where only your music feels on the outside of society. Sit back and watch the money roll in. You can sing about love and shit like that but I would say that’s a harder market to break.
So, this album is up there with the greats. It’s brilliant. It’s offensive with a good beat. I would recommend everyone tries this, if only to video your reaction to it. Oh, don’t look up some of the details, it’ll make you feel unwell [such as the song God Bless]. Now, here’s the thing. When I list the song titles, you need to understand that this is not an endorsement of those things. It is a list of song titles. Just as I watch war films and yet I do not endorse war or people go to church but don’t endorse all the child sex abuse by priests I listen to music and do not endorse the messages contained within. That may be a subtle argument but you just have to get over it. I like listening to stuff that moves me.
So, after all that, here’s a list of the best songs:
I love this album. I’m not sure I can explain why though. For some reason every song makes me smile and want to jump along. There’s something about the sound and beat that gets me going. This is an odd album because I would say that the sound is a bit harsher than Poison and the songs a bit ruder and I’ve grown up out of Poison. Not this album though. I still play it. Quite a bit. There’s also some slow songs on here and they don’t bother me!
I bought this on Music Cassette back in the days when they were popular and I think I was probably working at Cossor Electronics in Harlow. There was an Our Price store next to the bus station and I used to get at least one album a week. More importantly, this album along with Blue Murder turned out to be a good buy in the days before preview and dodgy downloads.
As far as I know this band only made the one album. They are described as “sleaze metal”, whatever that is? I think they sound “southern” a bit like the Black Crows, but then I could be very wrong about that. It’s a great album, almost romantic [except for the song titles].
I like it, that is all.
Favourite songs include:
Come Along
Cat’s Got Nine
Heave Hard (She Comes Easy)
Slow Daze
You can always JFGI if you want to know more of the specifics.
It was ok. In all honesty I got bored pretty much from the beginning. I haven’t read the books and am quite unlikely to. There seems to be a lot of quite successful YAL out there. It doesn’t need my help. Anyway, dystopian futures were done better in the old days. Logan’s Run anyone?
The film livened up towards the end and actually almost became exciting at one point. This series of films have really left me cold.
Yesterday I travelled into town to see Combichrst at Koko in Camden. I took my niece and, of course, I met Andy there. We had a lovely low key dinner at Prezzo in Kings Cross station and then some cake from Patisserie Valerie. As much as dinner at a railway station sounds dull it was in the new-ish atrium and very pleasant. We walked to Camden and had a quick drink in the Lyttelton Arms before heading in to Koko. This pub and venue is just outside Mornington Crescent tube station. I suggest you look up the game “Mornington Crescent“.
First band on were DKAG. I didn’t watch them. I could hear them. They sounded quite upbeat and ok.
Second band on the bill were Naked Lunch. I wasn’t that keen. They all looked old, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, but they weren’t interesting. The music was ok but the “show” was terrible.
Naked Lunch
William Control took to the stage as the third band and were very good. The songs were well crafted with some good chorus lyrics that William got everyone to join in. They were a good support band. William’s thing seemed to be twirling the microphone around like a cheerleading baton which was quite interesting to watch. After the gig, my niece spotted William at the stage door and she went over to shake his hand and inform him that she really enjoyed his set.
William ControlWilliam Control
Now we come to the best bit.
Combichrist
Overall, Combichrist were stunning. I love their music. I Loved them live. There isn’t a great deal else to say other than: It was just awesome.
Combichrist
This band started with “We Were Made To Love You”. Played lots of other stuff.
Combichrist
Then they played more stuff including “Blut Royale”, “This Is My Rifle”, “Body Beat” and “Never Surrender”.
More songs I remember [added as and when]:
Denial
Shut Up And Swallow
Trail Of Blood (possibly)
Electrohead
Combichrist
At the end of the evening I was tired. I had danced and jumped and spent all my time in the pit. My niece had managed to grab a Combichrist drum stick and was the happiest girl alive. I settled for having an ace time at a gig that is officially rated as outstanding.
Some other things have come back to me whilst I was driving in to work. My niece lost a shoe at some point. Apparently a strap broke. She did find the shoe again and so this was a non point. We all chatted at some point to a girl who was at Download two years ago but was high on MDMA and cocaine at the time.
Koko itself is a very good venue. It looks great, has a balcony bar outside and two balconies inside for excellent viewing opportunities. I was very impressed with the sound quality, more than I was at Briton two weeks ago.
I should also mention that I saw Combichrist at Elektrowerkz a year ago and they were stunning then too. The previous gig a gave them a score of 9.9 < r < 10. I said at the time that I wasn’t sure why. I can now confirm that I was slightly too drunk at that gig. This time though I was just right. It scores a 10.
More post editing! I have found a website with the set list from a slightly previous gig.
