The Brown Note Movie Review

Finally! a review of one of the biggest movies of all time and also one of the most inexplicable successes. Once I watched it, I realized why - it's solely aimed at 12 year old boys, and no one is talking about how sexualised the blue girls are. It's basically a $400 million dollar blue alien fantasy for 12 year old boys. It also is visually like a gaudy Saturday morning CGI kids tv show, with 90'...

A slightly odd story about being TV shamed, has led me to the world of giant 4K TV's and subsequently, re-watching widescreen classics. Here Ridley Scott's genre re-birthing sword and sandals epic stands up well for it's great, dynamic, propulsive screenplay and a superb central cast of characters and performances. It's also probably more relevant to modern politics and populism than ever.

The two beloved stalwarts of underground weird rap are a logical combination - and a possible next level Run The Jewels (which is literally a track name here). It's wild, imaginative fun, swerving minute to minute - but the mixing on the vocals can be off. Still probably the best rap album so far this year and a blast.

Their fifth album has a great sound stage and strong moments but a lot of the songs are under developed and it can get sonically quite repetitive. Not as flat out brilliant as the last two.

Our lady saint Lana del Rey returns with her massive ninth album, and after the seismic breakthrough of NFR! was followed by two slightly lesser works, a record that stands nearly as high. Her most personal and confident description of who she is garners my highest score for a while.

The 73 year old outsider artist has pivoted towards music in later life, with the opening of his bio on Wikipedia reading, "He was born the 7th of 27 children during the Jim Crow era and claims to have been traded for a bottle of whiskey when he was four". This though is highly accessible and in no way off-puting music, that at its best draws a link from 1800's slavery to modern variants.

This fabulous little film has double what it needs to get over the line story wise. Completely undemanding, quite thrilling and for older people, deeply distressing - kids don't even clean up after parties anymore, they just google it!

Brandon Cronenberg's psych/body horror sadly lacks the X factor and substance his esteemed father brings to the table, but is still well worth it for fans of depraved, explicit, transgressive JG Ballard-esque societal horror. But none of that matters. We are but peasants for the goddess Mia Goth, the new Bridget Bardot - and a far better actor.

It's a bear. On Cocaine. Can you believe this hype machine cost near twice as much to make as Everything, Everywhere all at Once?!?!? It looks like it was shot on a 90s cam-corder. As with any film like this, you will ask yourself if it had enough to justify sitting through it, the answer is not quite.

The music of 100 Gecs is not a crime against humanity, but against all living species on earth. I was fooled into believing this new album was a development in their sound - that, was a lie. I advise only professional music critics with support networks, subject themselves to hearing this. You may develop some form of cancer from hearing it.

The still anonymous, South Korean shoe-gaze/emo independent artist expands on their breakout, To See the Next Part of the Dream album, in every way - for a massive and intensely melodic slow burn and of the best albums of the year.

Guy Ritchie's latest still isn't doubling down on the career high of The Gentlemen, but whilst the luminescent Aubrey Plaza or an irascible Hugh Grant are on screen, this appallingly rote spy-flick is elevated.

One of this years major Oscar contenders is a total tour de force, with an already well celebrated lead actor. It is also an unexpected foray into the world of post #MeToo and cancel culture.

Sweden's The Knife alumni turns in by far their most compelling solo album (out of three) and the best new album I've heard this year.

Probably this years most acclaimed album so far, is, for me decidedly mid, lackluster, dated and often boring, oh dear.

Perhaps an ironic title for this crushingly bleak finale to probably the TV event of the year - and a fitting strong episode that is centered on a massive moral question - would you sacrifice the person you love the most to save everyone else in the world.

I suspect that Ukraine played a big part in the awards success of this German anti-war film, which even the Germans called "Shallow, cynical and horny for Oscars", because other than the awards-worthy cinematography, sound and score - everything else is decidedly mid-tier. Almost as basic and trite as a modern war film could be without being directed by Steven Spielberg.

Exactly what it says on the tin, my yearly round-up of the Oscars.

After a righteous victory lap with last years 30 Something celebrations, where would one of the all time greatest and most important electronic music acts go? For me they've successfully welded their past and modern electronic music into a highly political album that hits a surprisingly sweet spot.

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...

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...

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...