The Brown Note Movie Review

After the middling episode 7 the series roars back into life, with one of the most powerhouse and satisfying episodes (perhaps alongside Ep 5) and also the darkest and most brutal. Bella Ramsey has her finest hour as Ellie and an excellent Scott Shepherd as preacher David, is the lowest humanity has sunk so far. Great stuff.

The Velvet Underground legend's fine seventeenth solo album makes the unexpected detour into Yacht-rock/pop and electronica with a raft of contemporary artists. I wouldn't mind a bit of trimming over its occasionally duller first half but it's and album that grows through its duration and also repeated listens.

Gradually getting back into newer album releases, with this surprise-around-christmas victory-lap release from the recent Mercury Music Prize winner and correct speller of little. Another consistent and solid album from the UK rap star and her in house producer, the already legendary Sault alumni, Inflo - if the least impressive of her golden run.

Oh dear, after the hugely successful Ep3 pulled the same stunt, stopping the forward momentum built up from Ep's 4-6 dead for another (gay) love story (a really tiny bit) falls a bit flatter this time. We get the necessary back story of Ellie (Bella Ramsey), her past at the military academy and her relationship with her room-mate and love, Riley. It's good but the weakest episode, quite repetitive, a slog, feels like low stakes filler and curiously like an episode of Stranger Things. Ellie only spends minutes with Joel this time but those minutes are more compelling than all the time spent with Riley. A victim of its excellent policy of only showing one episode a week, leading viewers to need a massive episode each time.

The English Trainspotting. I've decided to include movies in "Gone But Forgotten" where I focus on something either denied classic status on release or ignored today or both in the case of this Nick Love adaption of epic writer, John Kings novel about football hooliganism. It's impeccably cast, moves like a rocket, has surprisingly great cinematography, awesome dialogue and a soundtrack that aces even Trainspotting itself. It also tells a few unknowable truths about working-class Britain.

Old M. Night Shyamalan has been on one wild ride these last fifteen years, a run of some of the worst films this century, followed by a couple of the worst films of all time - the ship seems to be righting though. Mainly his last few Unbreakable films and this book adaption have fared far better. He is still his own films worst enemy though, going PG or Spielberg when he should be going R-rated or confrontational, even reversing two major elements from the award winning novel to make them happier!?!? Still these are intriguing themes, reasonably well explored and with a soulful, committed turn from David Bautista - and the blandest gay couple in history - it just gets over the line.

Even Scottish band, Simple Minds, rote story is all but forgotten - that they were purveyors of bombastic stadium rock alongside the peers U2, throughout the mid eighties, draping themselves in worthy social issues. This completely misses the even more hidden truth - in the four years between 1979 and 1982, the band released six albums in what was one of the most progressive and brilliant runs by any band, including The Beatles and Can. A look through that period - so deserving of reappraisal - and how the rest of the decade played out for them. It started as a review of the masterpiece (10/10) album New Gold Dream but I felt the wider story needed addressing.

Released as UK Punk raged, for me the greatest album by David Bowie artistically. A near remake of the also 10/10 Low from not even a year before - Low may get more plaudits for being first, but, that minimalist album is just shaded by its maximalist followup as far as outright satisfaction goes.

After watching director, Ti West's first Pearl movie "X", which alongside Pearl was regarded as 2022's high points in horror, I didn't really get it, but I wasn't prepared for the gulf in class between that good-but-rote standard horror and the masterpiece that is Pearl. Mia Goth is, I think, alongside Anya Taylor Joy, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, one of the four hottest properties in acting right now. Here she gives a performance for the ages in one of the most complete portrayals of a psychopath since Psycho itself. Hyperbolically I give it a 9.5/10 - same as The Northman and Everything, Everywhere All At Once - my top two films of last year.

As a double PHD in both Liam Neeson action movies post Taken, and pre-Fast Jason Statham action movies, I feel Gerard Butler may well send me back to university. I'm really liking where he's at now and after the fabulous Greenland, we get this almost puritan throw back to 80s Jean Claude Van Dam era actioners, just with way better acting and directing. But please stop under-using the wonderful Daniella Pineda. Utilitarian film-making at its finest.