The Brown Note Movie Review

Despite having everything on paper - including strong reviews - this amiable farce is only half the film it could be, or needs to be. A waste of the talent and budget on display. It's too slight and surface level and the story too weak to be anything more than a forgettable once through. And I'm docking it another point for that godforsakenly awful cover of The Unknown Stuntman.

The hugely surprising second act in the once terrible, now pretty great, director Guy Ritchie's career continues. Ironically Henry Cavill gets to play the guy that inspired James Bond, in this wild re-telling of a genuine WW2 story. Superficial to a fault but hugely entertaining. Someone help him with his movie titles though.

This excellent and surprisingly art-house prequel to the original (and superb) Omen movie, is also very bizarrely close to the recent Immaculate.

I was a huge fan of Tom Krell's early work How to Dress Well, though faded when it became a more ordinary RnB proposition. This wildly artistic and conceptual 6th album is criminally underrated and one of the years unsung gems.

Being very much down with my fellow kids, I am a big fan of the last decades king of outsider rap, particular in the middle of a terrible era for mainstream rap music. Keef's wildly prolific period of endless album length projects on whatever the hell he felt like, has given way to much stronger and more focused releases in recent year, culminating with the rap album I will probably play the most this year.

Damon McMahon, AKA Amen Dunes' last album, 2018's Freedom, is one of the great singer-songwriter albums of the last few years and the first to make, sounds a bit like David Gray into a compliment. However, his far more experimental follow up has nowhere near the memorable songs of its predecessor.

My irregular series on albums that are perfect 10/10s - here celebrating the 25th anniversary of the album that put the underground alt stars on the same level as Radiohead, and with Yoshimi, one of the great one-two's in alternative music. Much credit has always gone to the incredible "Indie Pet Sounds" music, but Wayne Coyne's singing and in particular, lyrics are criminally underappreciated. It's one of the greatest alternative albums thematically - and its themes of angst filled superheroes, scientists trying to save the world and existential dread and wonder, feel even more relevant today.

What should be the year's most important film, is its biggest let down. Director-writer Alex Garland, refuses point blank, to engage with anything at all happening in America today, and instead delivers yet another war correspondent film, and not a good one, that could have been filmed in any country, about any conflict in the last 50 years.

Actor Dev Patel has had a wild ride of a career so far, back to back the world conquering high of Slumdog Millionaire followed by the atomic crash of The Last Airbender. In recent years he has grown back fully into stature, peaking with his directoral debut - correctly dubbed the Indian John Wick.

Much like it's unexpectedly entertaining precessor, I enjoyed it more than most critics. Though it misses the faux-Spielberg 80s magic of Afterlife, once it clicks into gear, the second half is the superior.