The Brown Note Movie Review

Noah Lennox - aka Panda Bear - has long established himself as the most prominent offshoot of the erstwhile Animal Collective band. I have found recently albums - even with the (godlike) Sonic Boom co-album Reset - to be too simplistic and over acclaimed. That's half true here, where songwriting, melody and sequencing get it over the line. I do miss the wild abandon and inspiration of Person Pitch...

One of the most fascinating aberrations ive ever reviewed. Will Oldham (aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy) has an impeccable thirty year discography, with some of his best and most interesting work in recent years. He is undoubtedly one of the finest songwriters and lyricists in modern American history. So for some reason he has decided to release a generic modern mainstream country album. The lyrics are...

One of the buzziest internet-rap stars of the last couple of years, makes distinctive wall-of-sound melodic rap, that is very post Chief Keef, even more Playboi Carti and a little Salem. It's pleasant stoner music/head music but could do with a wider variety of attack.

It's a set up and environment worthy of a computer game, with two high class leads and being beautifully shot and produced. However the tonal shifts and a world that doesn't seem explored enough, along with a lot of plot conveniences to facilitate the story, it's only just worth it.

I'm a huge fan of Gerard Butler tilting towards being a B movie action titan in mold of Liam Neeson or Jason Statham and loved the grimy, flawed Heat via Training Day via Bad Lieutenant charms of the original. Happily this seems to now have morphed into a franchise, though shifting in tone to a near buddy comedy, it still does enough.

In an immortal era for British indie guitar music, out of the holy trinity of BCNR, Black Midi and Squid - they are now the only ones with either their original lead singer or who haven't split entirely. Their excellent third album is every bit as good as their first and a tiny bit less so than their classic second. Another cohesive, oblique look at the absolute state of society and the world arou...

Abel Tesfaye's last outing as The Weeknd, allegedly, caps a magnificent modern pop trilogy. It may be a little more diluted than After Hours, or Dawn FM due to its incredible length but it still showcases a the most thematically fascinating modern pop star and his peerless voice, melody and production.

Another of the big Oscar contenders and one of the most unexpected. What I thought would be some dour indie love drama, is actually the funniest screw-ball comedy in years. It's laugh out loud hysterical throughout with a mega-watt powerhouse lead. Though if you've a low tolerance for hardcore sex/nudity/drug taking and swearing, you might want to give it a wide berth.

Writer-Director Brady Corbet enters the big league of hugely ambitious auteurs, with this intermission requiring epic, chronicling the post WW2 life of a holocaust surviving Jewish architect. A near masterpiece and understandable front runner at this years Oscars, though if the astonishing acting masterclass given by Adrien Brody gets beaten by nepo baby Timothy Chamalet's Bob Dylan impersonation...

Thoughts on the most tepid Oscars in modern history. What's been missed - from a stellar year in horror to high profile performances by veteran actresses (Pamela Anderson, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst) that were all ignored. The issue of category fraud (I'm looking at you best supporting) finally gets talked about and why the only thing I really care about is nepo baby Timothy Mid-strength Chamalet...

This immaculately made drama about anointing a new Pope, is far from dry or austere, but exciting and entertaining. More like House of Cards in its evocation of the behind the scenes political machinations and deal making involved in the process. Sadly a couple of very distracting and misguided story elements arrive right at the end, in an almost ruinous manner. SPOILER ALERT as I discuss that end...

Scottish Post-rock titans, Mogwai, have been on a fine run of pretty decent new albums in recent years. However, though they sound very much alive, one of their only genuine peers, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, have been making relevant and vital music that rivals the best they've ever done. Here is a godlike band, dipping their toes into very inconsequential and unambitious music that in no way is...

The current heavyweight champion of Latin Pop, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, completes a victory lap with his seventh - and most political - album. And it's a fine effort with welcome Salsa and Puerto Rican musical influences. It also repeats my complaint about his previous release, like a Drake album, it appears stuffed with too many mediocre tracks to try and game the streaming...

Director Robert Eggers is right at the top of arguments for the MVP of film making right now. His four films have near been impeccable. This remake of the original 1920's classic is very different from what I'd been led to believe - it's by far the most fun and actually funny (at times) of his often challenging filmography. If it doesn't have the substance of previous works, the cinematography, pr...

David Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 15, 2025) never made a blockbuster movie in his life, yet is as famous a director as Steven Spielberg. This a show celebrating his unique artistic vision, one that puts in on a par with Kubrick or Hitchcock. He is also a director with a stronger connection to the music in his projects than almost anyone in history. A trawl through every major project of Lync...

Following last years UNIVERSALLY LOVED piece, Oasis Are Shite, an imaginative followup - were they ever any good to start with? So I have done what no sane adult should do, and what I haven't done in 25 years, actually listened to Oasis. Obviously Be Here Now and on are complete garbage, but were those first three great albums, Definitely Maybe, What's the Story.. and The Masterplan ever great? an...

My irregular series on artists, albums or movies that were either denied classic status at the time or who have been forgotten from the conversation since. Here a look a 60s UK folk music genius who branched out into astonishing music in the 1970s (see also Nick Drake, John Fay, Vashti Bunyan...). A walk through his life and career through the lens of four totemic albums from that period, includin...

Perhaps the embodiment of Hollywood's incessant, remake-reboot era, given it's one of the wildest takes on needing a sequel ever. But given director Ridley Scott is himself one of the wildest properties in film this century - you have zero idea what you are going to get with this man lately, maybe it could work? No, no, it does not. Following the original screenplay so slavishly it continually inv...

Nothing is more redundant most best films lists, as any critics top ten will include five films the public wont even see until next year. So my most and least favorite films actually widely released in 2024. Note - I really did mean to say Abigail at number 15, but looking at the thumbnail, decided to describe the film Megan instead. The perils of live radio.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Tis the season of lists, and in a banner year for albums, particularly alt-rock and rap, my top twenty favorite albums of 2024. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26A8L15kpvZtRl3gRhddG5?si=jZKf4draTgqcWC8cjiXiKw

Perhaps rounding off a banner year for Horror movies, writer-director, J.T. Mollner's twisted take on Horror movie tropes and serial killer films. Spit ingeniously into six non-chronological chapters, each upending the previous, this challenging and provocative film is beautifully made, and anchored by awards-worthy leads, Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner.

The original Smile was a top tier "ordinary" horror, as opposed the more art-house/A24 world. It's sequel bridges that gap, whilst outpacing its predecessor in nearly every way. Once again the female lead (Naomi Scott) is outstanding, but now the focus on interior mental breakdown - this time for a pop star put under too much stress - is so good, it almost outweighs the need for a horror film at a...

Francis Ford Coppola's decades long passion project is deeply, unforgivably flawed, in so many ways. It's also amazing and brilliant in so many others. In a world where billionaires send themselves into space and all they come back with if tales of flaccid penises, that someone could spend so much on such a piece of art, designed, unconsciously, to defend the very notion of its own existence, is a...

It takes an awful lot to get me back into new material from a classic band I've loved to remember at their peak and pretty much since the career capping classic, Disintegration, in 1989, that had been the case with The Cure. However, the first new material in 16 years had garnered such raves, I couldn't resist and I'm glad I didn't. Despite some of the worst production and mixing I've ever heard f...

The second album in 2024 from the Radiohead offshoot, The Smile, is nowhere near as great or coherent as Wall of Eyes. It's perfectly fine, just very undeveloped songwriting wise - as befitting its title - and even Thom Yorke seems to be half involved in many tracks.