scaryblog

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2025 #12 :     Hard Truths Mike Leigh's reunion with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the actor who led his 1996 Palme d'Or winning drama Secrets & Lies, was always going to be something special. What makes Hard Truths such a must-see however is how extraordinarily ordinary it actually is. Jean-Baptiste is on firebrand form as Pansy, a reclusive middle-aged woman whose world-weariness scorches all around her (to often hilarious effect — her babies-and-pockets rant is an all-timer), but whose pain and bone-deep misery is plain for all — especially sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) — to see. Not always the easiest of watches, especially as Leigh has no interest in curing Pansy's bitterness with a syrupy Hollywood ending, Hard Truths is nevertheless an essential watch. It's human, raw, real: pure Mike Leigh. I've taken quite a bit of time to get round to this one for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there's been some goo...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017 . #47 :  A Crow Looked At Me -  Mount Eerie The most recent album by Washington musician Phil Elverum is a shattering account of the death of his wife, illustrator-musician Geneviève Castrée. Devastatingly direct in its portrayal of the minutiae of loss, Elverum relays – over plainly plucked guitar – difficult conversations with their one-year-old daughter and tormented memories of discarding his wife’s clothes. It isn’t an easy listen, but Elverum conveys his grief with starkness and potency. Well, this sounds like it might be hard-going... Yeah, I think we can pretty much say that. The whole thing is basically him idly strumming his guitar (it's not a work of musical complexity) whilst he relates thoughts or activities which are in some way related to his wife's death, which happened a month before he started recording. And, whilst I've absolutely no clue what that must have been like for him, it certainly fe...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 21/04/17 : More Life - Drake Our fifth and a half visit with Drake (the half was a collaboration with 21 Savage) and I remain mystified as to his popularity - I believe this is supposed to be one of his better regarded albums, but I remain unconvinced it will win me over.  Hmmm, it's fine in places - I'd say I almost came close to liking some of the more R&B-ish numbers and the rappy numbers had the advantage of not being quite as unpleasant as some of his other stuff. I still don't understand what it is that makes everyone quite so keen on him, but I think it's probably safe to say it's not going to happen now. The other thing I'd say is that a lot of the album isn't Drake at all, with a load of guest artists involved, including a strong British representation with Jorja Smith, Skepta and Giggs all popping up. I also really didn't need EIGHTY minutes of it all - it dragged big time towards the e...

  As I come to the end of my time with 2017 album charts, I've been having a dig around various sites to see what decent albums the charts were in no danger of presenting to me - and I noticed that The Guardian did a year-end top 50 albums , which I've written up for the past five years now. So it would seem rude not to start another list - even though, in order to complete it before I get to the end of '17, I'm going to have to do three albums a day, which may prove to be a challenge.. #50 :  Ladilikan -  Trio Da Kali and Kronos Quartet The Malian group and the San Francisco-based quartet came together for this adventurous collaboration, which blends experimental western strings with African traditional sounds. Trio Da Kali specialise in west African griot-style music, but on Ladilikan they spread their wings, inspired by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson on a reworked God Shall Wipe All Tears Away. I never like African style music (and yes, I realise this is a massive ove...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 28/04/17 : Tears On The Dancefloor - Steps I can't claim to be Steps' biggest fan, but I'm actually quite pleased to see a bit of cheese this year - we've been surprisingly Stilton free. Yeah, this is pretty cheesy, but it's well done cheese. They're definitely going for an ABBA vibe and I've got absolutely no problems in saying they do a pretty decent job with it - no, none of it screams musical genius but if you just want a bit of fun with a dancefloor beat then this may hit the spot nicely for you. Or you may well hate it, but I think it's safe to say no-one is going to be surprised this. I'm obviously never going to listen to it again, but it does exactly what's expected of it and I don't have any problems understanding why people would listen to it. We're at #2 with a new entry on the start of an eleven week run, which is amusingly exactly the same as Gorillaz managed and that...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 05/05/17 : Humanz - Gorillaz Repeating the theme from the last album, we have another fifth visit to a group of whom I like their best material, but struggle to understand the overall appeal. However, Gorillaz have the added disadvantage that they absolutely bored me stupid when I saw them live at Glastonbury, whereas Kasabian were reasonably entertaining - so my expectations are not high for this. Hmmm - it's an interesting one. On a track by track basis, this easily exceeded expectations - they're all well put together with some interesting sounds (but no, Damon singing does not fall into this category). But, as an album, it's such a kitchen-sinky mish-mash (it's a technical term) that I really struggle to see who would be interested in this - and I also struggle to understand how they don't have the phrase "cultural appropriation" thrown at them. So, I liked it - but I also didn't, which feels a...