The Brown Note Movie Review

I launched this channel with a 10/10 review for my joint album of the year (with Rosalia's Motomami) Ants From Up There, then immediately their totemic lead singer and lyricist, Isaac Wood quit then band for mental reasons. Where would this outstanding premier new wave of British indie act go from here? A near perfect answer is a live album of entirely new material, which is often fabulous and contains my song of the year so far, the aptly titled Up Song.

Surely the dumbest name for a movie ever, given this unexpectedly superb step out of his comfort zone for Mr Ritchie, can only be hamstrung by wedding itself to his signature style. Both leads Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim are excellent, but the shock is Ritchie getting the tone so right for a serious post Gulf war film, sonically and visually - it's closer to Lone Survivor than anything in his filmography. I once derided him but the last four films are his best run.

The female indie super-group of Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers is definitely one of the music stories of the year, and the outstanding performance at godforsaken Coachella made me believe more - but I feel the album, though often great, is a little weighed down by a few inconsequential tracks. Little doubt how much of a star Phoebe Bridgers is though.

God bless Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski for the greatest vanity project in modern cinema - barely a foot wrong in four films. JW 4 is arguably the pinnacle, sonically and visually it's the most beautiful action film this side of Fury Road. It also boast the best side characters in the series, a screenplay that easily handles a near three-hour run time and a performance from Keanu that is like an old man reclining into a chesterfield. A wort of art.

Another 4K retro review and a real eyeopener. Perhaps my idea of this film had been sullied by subsequent sequels but it is far less goofy or zany than I remembered, and far more thoughtful and, often beautiful. It also hews far closer to the original of these films, the classic Out of Sight. With as charismatic a cast as modern films get, an iconic soundtrack from David Holmes, a surprisingly brilliant script, and more style than is even fair, it rivals The Sting as the greatest heist movie ever made. It is also, on every level, one of the most perfectly made films put together this century.

I swear these films are getting worse. Removing anything remotely charming or funny about the first two films and with a main cast that appears tonally to be acting in different movies, this is an objectively worse film than the awful Shazam 2, but a brilliant Jonathan Majors villain, Kang, and some pretty pictures, save it from a big fat zero out of ten.

An overview of the iconic, yet somehow awful festival - including the elephant in the room (that isn't Frank Ocean). Consider this - on the biggest night of the biggest music festival in America, the four biggest acts on the biggest stage - in a row - did not feature one single musician playing an instrument. Half the acts sing over the top of backing tracks and some even mimed their entire sets. This is a disgrace and for the biggest live music festival in the USA, there's disturbingly little live music. Also reviews of the highlights, including Rosalia, Boygenius, Jai Paul and Blink 182 but also the low lights, Gorillaz, Blackpink, Calvin Harris, the mimers and of course the already notorious Frank Ocean. Lol - I said there's a 60% chance he would cancel week 2 and he already has, disgrace of a man didn't even mention the fans that spent thousands on flights, tickets and accommodation and didn't even say sorry. F*** Frank Ocean.

I swear the comic-book/super-hero movies are getting worse, in what maybe their long downward spiral. Amazingly this universe-connected film is even worse than Black Adam - by miles. Incredibly unambitious story, mid-to-bottom tier characters, barely passable acting and the most monumental air of will this do yet. Awful on every level.

The Adam Driver/Young Gomora(!!!) starring sci-fi got royally trashed by critics, but due to a great premise and some nice production design, just about limps over the line for a once through.

A perfect 10/10 for the greatest Western of the last forty years, with a special emphasis on the career best - and Breaking Bad relatable - performance from director Clint Eastwood's finest hour.