The Brown Note Movie Review

Perhaps no-one deserves the moniker of post Kubrick auteur than Canadian director, David Cronenberg, who has plowed his own singular vision, without bending to any outside will, for decades. His entire body of work is surprisingly vast and full and his latest plays like a greatest hits riff on it all - as denoted by reusing a film title and re-writing a story he never completed, including his first return to the body horror that made him this century. Though not quite the equal of the films I recognized here - the surgery = sex of Dead Ringers, the body mangling of Crash, the dystopian underground secret world of Videodrome, even Eastern Promises gets a nod - it's still among the best and most interesting films this year. Long time compatriot Viggo Mortensen cuts a bizarrely compelling Hunchback of Notre Dame via Aragorn character and two actresses I've often criticised shine. Lea Seydoux has never been better and it what universe is it even possible that Kristen Stewart 'lights up' the screen?!

In one of the most prolific archival releases from any artist in history, a genuine previously canned Neil Young and Crazy Horse album would appear to be one of the top tier items to have come out. This is tempered by the fact the album was virtually re-recorded with Booker T and the MG's as Are You Passionate, never an album I particularly liked. But the low key stakes are perhaps the album's greatest strength, nothing is a dud and tracks like Going Home and Boom Boom Boom are long form burn barner's worthy of Crazy Horse cannon.

Just clearing a couple of minor releases before a run on big albums. For me the Buffalo NY State Griselda records crew of Westside Gunn, Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine and (sort of) Mach Hommy is the most interesting thing happening in American rap in some fairly tepid recent years. This low stakes, 2 day recorded mixtape is entirely amiable in no bad way.

After trashing this franchise as one of the worst in film history, where every subsequent cash in release was dire, it was no surprise to see this "middle trilogy (probably)" get the worst reviews of all, and even called one of the worst blockbusters of recent years, HOWEVER. Last time out I gave a near respectable pass to Fallen Kingdom - liking everything up to the volcano exploding, before it, yet again, descended into a predictable Velociraptor/T-Rex love in. But this, shockingly I actually liked. I appreciated its wider international scope of locations, the bigger human and dinosaur cast, including winning returns for the original team and some timely themes, even some profound ones. Am I the only one who enjoyed this one?!

The Marvel Universe-Tree of Life-Cloud Atlas-Ingmar Bergman-Being John Malkovich-Brazil crossover you never knew you needed, by the A24/Russo brothers collab the world needed. Second time directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert have created one of the century's most imaginative and wild films, that pretends to be a comedic superhero film but is a film about existential crisis - how to deal with the suicidal depressing realisation that life, no life, has any meaning at all. This is everything Dr. Strange 2 was not and even expands what is cinema is capable of. In this multiverse, even two inanimate rocks made be both laugh and cry. Everything is stupendous all of the time. The three leads are outstanding - 59 year old legend Michelle Yeoh, joins the women over 40 action hero club but so much more. Her career best needs to win best actress Oscar or it's a farce. I say in the review no action/fantasy/superhero actor has ever won an acting Oscar in the post LOTR era before, but forgot about the Joker's! It also needs to be nominated for best director, picture, screenplay, soundtrack and cinematography. After The Northman got 9.5/10 and my film of the year last time out, this joins it - but I nearly went full 10.

For fans of utterly generic CIA/Terror B-flicks, this is a far better movie than its paltry 29% on Rotten Tomatoes would suggest. I'm a huge fan of the incredible amount of "women over 40" being pushed as action hero's in recent years (there must've been four or five female ex-assassin films last year alone) and it's great to see Michelle Monaghan - so often used as the perfect wife or girlfriend for a male lead in similar flicks - take the lead role herself. Stand out though is undoubtedly Jason Clarke as a living, breathing terminator - back in the torture rooms of Zero Dark Thirty but on the opposite side of the fence. It's well made fare and a pass for fans of such.

The much heralded Irish "Shoe-gazers" second album proves it's the genre that will never die and after Black Country, New Road probably my second favorite "Indie" album of the year. Built on a nightmarish fever dream sound-stage of squalling guitars, Suicide/Joy Division throbbing bass, break-beat drumming and the dead eyed, wide mouthed realm of terror that is Katie Bell, one of the most exciting indie singers in years.

With already one of the most impeccable discographies over the last decade, Mike Hadreas' latest is a wild left turn into the avant-garde. Originally music for a modern dance piece, here assembled as an album, gone are the front and center vocals and melodies, replaced by in turns ambient, left field and industrial passages - that fair better on a compelling second half.

Already established as one of the modern era's great singer song writers, Olsen goes pretty much full (alt-ish) country on her sixth album, responding to a wild few years of coming out as queer and her parents passing. Another fine record but perhaps a little blander and a little less interesting on the musicality and universality of the first half, which snaps far more into focus on the more painful and personal later tracks.

A look back at esteemed film critic and director Alex Cox's most famous hour (after Repo Man perhaps) reveals a first half so camply wild and cartoonish it could be from Baz Luhrmann himself. A second half that leaves the Sex Pistols behind and focuses on punk's own Romeo and Juliet, is a more thoughtful, sad and tragic affair - that goes a long way to humanising a potentially obnoxious couple. Both an early Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb are outstanding in the titular roles. The cinematography of a mid eighties New York hellscape was so good I looked up who did it and was fairly shocked to find the one and only Roger Deakins!