The Brown Note Movie Review

UK Drill is the most zeitgeist rap genre in the world right now and originator Digga D's third 'album' the current epicenter of it, despite the best efforts of the 1984 like London Metropolitan police. It's an album that had to be given to them to vet, shockingly on every level. It's also an album of two halves, a consistently good, if slightly staid ordinary album offset by the seven incendiary extra tracks of the extended version.

The ex War on Drugs Alumni is undoubtedly one of my favorite artists but this Covid-distanced production is his least consequential or compelling album. Something got lost in translation as the band traded parts back and forth in the process of making it. Still lovely chilled out background music but with none of the zest of detail of almost any other album of his.

I've never rated thespian icon Kenneth Branagh as either an actor or a director - the only time I have really liked anything he's done was in a Harry Potter movie. So after his turgid Murder on the Orient Express hit every bum note I expected from him, and completely ignored the electric Agatha Christie rebirth of Knives Out, I nearly avoided this one entirely, bad reviews and all. I'm glad I didn't, after a first hour that resembles the previous film as well as other vacuous, overly glossy work like The Great Gatsby, the film and characters became far more compelling - leading to a fairly thrilling second half. There it became far more alive and even injected some much needed grit - the same goes for Branagh's performance of Hercule Poirot.

Commanding work on debut from writer director Graham Moore and writer John McClain (seriously John McClain) and an expectedly brilliant lead from Mark Rylance (where was that Oscar nom for Don't Look Up?) playing a tailor tangled up with the Chicago mob post WW2. A one room film (doesn't feel it) shot on a low budget (doesn't look it) and apart from its sumptuously visual and sound presentation, reliant solely on a cracking scrip and set of performances. The low key gem of the year so far for me. One for fans of Millers Crossing, The Usual Suspects and the work of David Mamet. Sequel is required please guys - The Outfit London.

All this talk of how age has wearied them, made me expect a far more circumspect offering from the boys, but in reality it's far closer to the original films than I imagined it would be. Like those three, you are rarely more than two minutes away from a belly laugh - of which they remain the most consistent provider of, of any film series this century. A perfectly executed groin shot will never not be funny, it's art, look it up.

Being the kind of hardcore fan that dips into acts like of Deafheaven every year or so an act crosses over, I'm not the most trusted voice here. However, I can tell when a great and rising band is firing at their peak - as here with one of the debut albums of the year. The politicized Philadelphia collective posit themselves in a logical trajectory from the MC5, through At The Drive In, landing somewhere near Death Grips.

This London based collective have the level of cultural and ethnic pull to drive critics wild, but sadly little of the music that makes seemingly fellow band Sault one of the most important acts in the world. Too often the wildly potent offering of the opening track makes way for far blander and more middle of the road material, and too little in the song writing department.

As I suspect, being a fairly common fair weather Chili Peppers fan - who revolves almost solely around John Frusciante and Rick Rubin albums - this is a time to dip back in and see how this now almost peerless dinosaur navigates a world bereft of stadium rock acts. Mostly very well, with a consistently strong album that makes a political point of playing it very straight (no musical experimentation here) and resting on the bands best strengths - low key melodic rock with intricate and talented instrumentalists.

Exactly what it says on the tin. My yearly round-up of the Oscars is nearly Will Smith free - a look at actually the poorest selection of awards contenders from the poorest pool of talent for any year in Oscar's history.

Director Sean Ellis seems to have taken a long meander to his first (I think) big English language film - but it's time very well spent, as he arrives with seemingly full mastery of the medium. The direction, pacing, screenplay, casting and luxurious, thickly atmospheric sound and visual design are all perfectly realised and denote a far more expensive film. This underappreciated gem takes its fairly standard premise and turns in a near A24 adjacent horror.