The Brown Note Movie Review

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...

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 rig...

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 Dan...

Although I rarely watch new TV series, I have been swept up in the hype of this acclaimed video game adaption, and was presented with a very classy yet not mind-blowing show. It has, however grown to become enthralling and undoubtedly the TV event of the year. Ironically I have reviewed EVERY series of Narcos, so am one of the people viewing Pedro Pascal's assent to God status with a "yes, we told...

I cannot get a line on writer-director Damien Chazelle at all. His films Whiplash and First Man were brilliant but in totally different ways. His films La La Land and Babylon are terrible but in totally different ways. I definitely didn't expect this to be this bad and I sat through three-hours and ten-minutes of it so you don't have to. I thought I'd get a wildly flawed, art-house triumph, instea...

"Gone but forgotten" is an album (sometimes an artist) that was either denied classic status on release or has fallen completely out of the conversation. Alongside The Pixies and Sonic Youth, Bob Mould's 80's act, Hüsker Dü were one of the holy trinity that formed American alternative rock music and especially grunge - his follow up three piece, Sugar, had a fair crack of making some of Grunge's b...

This Mia Goth led slasher has a lot to recommend it, mainly it's cast and direction - but the least interesting thing about it is probably the horror movie it becomes.

A new feature on this channel - on the radio show I have "Gone but forgotten" which is an album (sometimes an artist) that was either denied classic status on release or has fallen completely out of the conversation.  

Being an enormous fan of the underrated outing by this films director (Scott Cooper) and star (Christian Bale), Out of the Furnace - which also received tepid reviews - I was sure this Edgar Allan Poe featuring murder mystery was a lock. I was wrong, I've no idea what went wrong here but this is actually atrocious and some great actors give their worst ever performances (not Bale btw)

Has eating the rich ever been more literal? Yes as they aren't actually eaten (unlike The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover) but this class/foodie warfare tale is even better than I'd been led to believe and slightly superior to the analogous Glass Onion.

An unexpectedly timely rumination on male relationships and depression, as well the most welcome cinematic reuniting of a director and cast since Another Year. Probably Oscar winning writer/director, Martin McDonagh's most complete film, as well as star, Colin Farrell's most complete performance. With its focus on existential crisis, despair, depression and suicidal idealisation, the oddest compan...

No matter the critics consensus, the sequel to the breakout modernist take on Agatha Christie, Knives Out, isn't quite the film its predecessor was. This time both the characters (a rogues gallery of internet famous people) and the murder mystery itself, are both less interesting. This is still top quality entertainment though, and feels like a million dollars, even when it's slapping itself on th...

Bizarrely, in the same year another, very different Australian director thought it was time for a biopic of Elvis, auteur Andrew Dominik finally realised a decade long goal of bringing another icon back to the silver screen, Marilyn Monroe. Dominik has only released four films this century and this is his most art-house and dangerous project. Sadly, despite the luminous and brilliant Ana de Armas,...

The sequel The Woman King apparently. But seriously not good.

Not, apparently, Black Panther 2 Electric Boogalaoo but a different film entirely. And a lot more fun.

The Rock makes The Eternals but funnier and faster, at times, which is something I guess.

Which indeed it is, featuring underappreciated efforts from Suns Signature, Indio Sparke, Chief Keef, Spiritualised, Tomu DJ, Just Mustard and The Afghan Whigs.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Plus lambasting ever redundant critics year end lists of films no one has seen.

Ahhh, Neil, my old friend - you get the last album review of the year and what an intriguing one it is, amongst the EIGHT Neil Young albums to come out in 2022. Compared to the good if not outstanding, Barn, released at the start of the year (also with Crazy Horse) what stands this out most from a serviceable recent run of new albums, is a ton of personality. It's all done with such wild abandon,...

The second album, after the spectral wonder of her first, Echo, has been damned with faint praise but for me is continually elevated by the sheer number of immediate choruses and melodies, outweighing it not being experimental or varied enough. Here the astonishing voice, married to a raft of really big tunes makes it one of the albums of the year for me.

The most misunderstood film of the year. David O. Russell certainly had a massive critical comedown - after the likes of Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle - with this star studded, borderline historical farce. Everything about this film is slightly off kilter and I can appreciate why it bombed, but after a while of thinking it was indeed terrible, kinda adjusting to its hyper-weird langu...

The Colombia-via-Berlin artists latest certain recalls NIcholas Jaar's Space Is Only Noise period and unsurprisingly as they've released on his label - but more so of a connection with Rosalia. It's like the alpha to Rosalia's much more art-house, MOTOMAI, omega.

Canada's Dan Snaith hits his most prominent album that isn't under the name Caribou, with this DJ mixtape in fell, collection of more up tempo, club-oriented tracks, akin to Nicholas Jaar doing his AAL project. Catnip (for me) references, early 90s techno, Orbital, UK garage, Four Tet, filter disco, and on... for a nearly (but not 100%) perfectly curated set.

Jamie Foxx is good value in a colorful but only intermittently entertaining or funny vampire romp, that feels more like a zombie flick and is very surface level, but just about gets over the line.