scaryblog

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2025 #19 :     The Brutalist In his attempt to make a movie monolith (itself about the making of a monolithic structure), filmmaker Brady Corbet intentionally went… well, monolithic. Captured in big, beautiful, blocky VistaVision, a three-hour behemoth with an in-built intermission and a multi-year-spanning narrative sprawl, The Brutalist is evocative of the structure whose creation it depicts. The story of Adrien Brody’s renowned architect László Tóth – fleeing the Holocaust and attempting to build a gigantic brutalist structure for a wealthy American client (Guy Pearce) – appears to be cold, imposing, sometimes inscrutable. And yet it’s also breathtaking in its construction, its concrete walls revealed to contain a major emotional punch come the final reel. Impeccably performed, laudable in its grand ambition, engrossing across its extended runtime, it’s a major work – entirely by design. I know this was critically well r...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 08/04/01 : Gorillaz -  Gorillaz Our third visit with Gorillaz and this is one where I liked the singles and was intrigued by the whole concept, so bought it (taking us to ten for the year) - I seem to recall I didn't mind it, but maybe there wasn't quite enough content for a whole album. Yeah - the singles are very much the high points with "Clint Eastwood" and "19-2000" easily being the stand-out tracks.  "Clint Eastwood" also has the distinct advantage that it doesn't overdo the Damon Albarn content - his voice is really quite annoying on a lot of this album. The other tracks are generally OK and have some quite interesting bleeps and rhythms involved, but there's not enough variety across the whole album to stop it getting repetitive -  56:56 is just too long, I'm afraid. We're at #3 in the charts this week on their second week of a surprisingly long 53 week run, with this be...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 15/04/01 : Songbird -  Eva Cassidy Yes, there's an argument this shouldn't be here because it's a compilation album but I think it counts as significant enough for us to include it and she's had three compilation albums that got to #1, so I feel we should include the original (and probably best). She opens things with "Fields Of Gold" which I think is a particularly fine cover version because, for me, it just adds something to the original - complimenting Sting on his songwriting ability, whilst also subtly drawing comment on his performing ability. Which is interesting when you compare it with her cover of "Songbird" which is possibly what she's best known for - don't get me wrong, this is still a very decent version but it doesn't really add anything to the original. The other tracks are all very much in the same vein and most of them are cover versions, but I'm not aware of the...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 22/04/01 : Popstars -  Hear'say Well, it will be interesting to see how this stood the test of time! And let's just leave it there for the time being. Actually, "Pure And Simple" isn't dreadful - it's very S Club and bounces along acceptably. And for the most part, the rest of the album tries to do the same, but falls somewhat short - it's all very forgettable in a SAW kinda way. However, the cover versions are an exception because they absolutely MURDER The Mamas & The Papas' "Monday Monday" and Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" - they're impressively bad. The only other thing I took away is that the ladies have such obviously better voices than the lads that you wonder whether this was an artistic choice - it's all quite bizarre. We're at #2 in the charts this week on their third week of a pretty undeserved 25 week run with it having spen...

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 29/04/01 : Free All Angels -  Ash I liked the singles off Ash's debut album, so quite obviously bought their second album - which was a mistake because I didn't really like any of it. So I never checked this out - here's hoping it's an improvement.  Hmmm. From what I remember, I think it is - but I can't say I loved it. I remembered "Shining Light" and "Burn Baby Burn" so they did stand out for me, but I couldn't say whether that was due to familiarity or quality. The rest of it was a bit nondescript on first listen, with the exception of noting that Tim Wheeler really can't sing particularly well on any of the tracks. This isn't one I'll be revisiting, but I can see its rough-and-readyness has its fans. We're at a somewhat surprising #1 with a new entry in the chart this week on the start of a surprisingly long 28 week run. The rest of the top five were Janet Jackson (ano...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 13/02/26 : The Fall-off - J Cole I'm aware of J Cole but this is our first meeting with the lad (despite him having had two #2 albums and two others in the top ten) - I believe he's a reasonably talented hippy-hoppy type but I suspect my days of actually enjoying such a thing are now long past me. Yeah, there is some evidence of skill and intelligence here - I can't say I loved it but I certainly didn't hate it so it's a step up from plenty of stuff I get to experience  from that genre . I do have to confess that I didn't listen to it all - 24 tracks over 101 minutes was just too much for me I'm afraid. I suspect if you like this sort of thing then you'll already have listened to it - and if you don't then I can't say there's anything particularly unusual to draw you in. It's not dreadful though, so he gets some brownie points for that.  We're at #3 in the chart with a new en...