scaryblog

Finishing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2022 #1 :    Aftersun Father-daughter bonding drama starring Paul Mescal and nine-year-old Francesca Corio, attempting to navigate post-divorce family life in a Turkish beach resort. A brilliant debut feature from Charlotte Wells. So we reach the top of the list and I've heard nothing but praise for this, but it's really gonna have to go some to be better than the last film we saw - here's hoping it is! As The Guardian says, we're following Calum (Paul Mescal) and Sophie (Francesca Corio, who is eleven both in the film and real life, so quite where they get nine-year-old is beyond me) as they spend some quality holiday time in Turkey.   It's all done as a nice mixture of "real time" filmed footage and "play back" camcorder footage filmed - does that make sense?  It's also interspersed with some very cryptic shots (which do finally make sense, but they take their time).  The scenes are ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts. 13/05/90 : Alannah Myles :  Alannah Myles I don't think I can fault "Black Velvet" as a track, but I'd be hard pushed to name anything else she did - I'm expecting this to be listenable but not exactly top drawer.  And no, we never owned it - 7/34. Yup - listenable but not exactly top drawer is a fair enough comment, with the notable exception of "Black Velvet" which was a lot better than I remembered.  On the rest of it, she has a better voice than I was expecting but it doesn't feel like anyone spent any more than about five minutes writing the rest of the songs - they'd be fun enough if she was belting them out live in a dive bar somewhere but, on first listen at least, it didn't really do anything for me. We're at #6 on her fourth week of a 21 week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its debut week - all of which must be entirely down to "Black Velvet".  The top five thi...

Continuing my trip across the output of Athens' finest... Around The Sun (2004) And so we get to the point that I gave up on them - I remember this as being a very not good album, but maybe it will undergo a critical re-evaluation (the critical comments I've read recently suggest there's little danger of that though).  It's also the first R.E.M. album not to have "sides" - boooo. 1.  Leaving New York Not a terrible track - it starts a bit slow, but picks up well enough as we get to the chorus.  It's not quite sure what to do after that - but I can forgive them, particularly in the light of what is to come. 2. Electron Blue This isn’t too bad either actually. 3. The Outsiders But this is boring with a rubbish rap bit to boot. 4. Make It All Okay This too is boring. 5. Final Straw I actually quite liked this - it's picked up the pace a bit but it's still quite broody. 6. I Wanted To Be Wrong I actually didn't mind this one either, but it's ju...

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts. 20/05/90 : Forever Your Girl : Paula Abdul Assuming this is the album that has her half-decent tracks on it, then I'm imagining some of it will be half-decent but the rest of it will be bang average.  And if it's not got the half-decent tracks on it, then why on earth am I being made to listen to it?  And no, we never owned it (7/33). Yup, it's got "Opposites Attract" (which a re-listen downgrades to be quarter-decent) and "Straight Up" (which probably gets up an upgrade to at least 60%-decent) on it, so some of it was bearable.  But the rest of it struggles to make the grade of bang average if I'm being honest.  It's all very sub-par Madonna-be - someone must have really pushed this one hard to make it as successful as it was. We're at #5 in the charts this week on her third week of an eighteen week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its first week.  All of which feels very generous to ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts. 27/05/90 : Passion And Warfare : Steve Vai I know that Steve Vai is a highly respected guitarist, but I've got no more clue about him than that.  I also don't have a great history with albums from highly respected guitarists, so I'd have to say my confidence isn't sky high going in to this one (and nothing would have convinced me to buy it - 7/32). Ohmigod, this is rubbish.  The guitar playing is indeed of a very high quality, but man cannot live on guitar playing alone and everything else about it is just pretentious bombast.  "The Audience Is Listening" deserves a specific mention for being particularly rubbish, with a teacher introducing "young Steve Vai" to the class to play a lovely tune and then providing an increasingly histrionic running commentary on how much she doesn't like it.  I can imagine he's very impressive live, but such virtuosity often doesn't translate onto an alb...

Venturing in to London on a Sunday night?!?  It's gotta be a work freebie, surely... Yup - and it's an interesting one.  David Arnold is best known for his film score composition work (he's done five James Bond films) but he first came to my attention with Bjork's "Play Dead" (a great track from a mere 30 years ago) which was co-written by him, Bjork and Jah Wobble which is quite  the mix of personnel.  Given that he's primarily a composer, touring isn't really something he does - but for the coming week, that's exactly what he's doing, so I'm intrigued to see what it was going to involve.  And yes, it was a freebie and it was in a new venue for me, which I always enjoy checking out. The venue in question was Lafayette which is, for me, extremely conveniently located at the back of Kings Cross (£6.70 return with a railcard on a Sunday - which is surprisingly good value for a train in this country).  I went in a bit early to have a wander ar...

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts. 03/06/90 : Cosmic Thing : The B-52s I like The B-52s' general vibe and I also like "Love Shack" and the title track of this album, but I have a quiet dread that a whole album of them is just going to be TOO MUCH (so no, we've never owned it - 7/31). I started off by thinking how I'd forgotten about "Dry County" and "Roam" and it was nice to be reminded of them but as the album continued, I was surprised because I recognised quite a lot of this album including non-single tracks, which makes me think someone I know must have had a copy of it - and, let's face it, it could have been me, but generally I remember these things!  This was the summer I did my uni finals so there was quite a lot of sitting around afterwards listening to music and I probably just picked it up there - but I guess we'll never know.  All in all, this was a surprising and enjoyable re-listen and not TOO MUCH at a...