Because I looked up and saw a bigger hill. But I couldn’t be bothered spending another two hours moving my legs. I got a semi-decent snap out of the endeavour, though. ‘Z for Zachariah’ came to mind, the only book from school I can ever remember that was about something. I don’t wish to read it again as it will probably turn out to be total shite, like much you revisit from yesteryear.
This is the best thing on YouTube and exactly what the internet is for.
I’m not here to plug the channel and I don’t know anything about the production or its team at all but the show is so well put together it needs to be shared. The depth of research is up there with your contemporary historians and, rather than a simple retelling, the makers actually dig into everything and ponder the what-ifs. I’d take this form of accessible media over a dry academic piece any day, and it’s the intro for anyone interested in the topic; back in the day, all we ever had was the same old insipid, badly researched and produced textbook material regurgitated on the BBC.
We’re up to winter 1941 now and even to this day it’s utterly shocking how close the Wehrmacht made it to Moscow despite all of the setbacks. It’s the greatest and worst event in history. The age of extremes, aye.
But they ruined him. It’s another example of writing ‘jumping the shark/sofa’. He did a terrible deed – burning your kin is not the best move – and no one believed the sincerity of it for a second. It sums up how appalling Game of Thrones got in its last two pathetic seasons. It was ghastly, infected with bizarre vignettes that went NOWHERE.
The actor Stephen Dillane is the best in the show and he nails the character – absolutely and totally miserable, consumed with hatred. Even if he sat on the Iron Throne I can imagine he’d be bored to death and questioning his life role. That’s my kind of human. His quotes are incredible.
The crème de la crème: “A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad the good.”
Fucking hell. Fancy a pint?
Saw this for the first time in decades and bloody hell is it dull. It’s just so boring, which I find rather mental because it’s about UFOs and all that, and Spielberg is a master craftsman. It’s shot here like a TV movie, its depiction of suburbia painfully tedious. Even when the weird-looking critters arrive at the end it’s underwhelming. The only curiosity to be found is the casual appearance of François Truffaut, who is eminently more interesting than those around him.
Something else bothered me about it. It’s so naive, with government agencies portrayed as even being benevolent. What a weird decision, this just after the twin calamities of Watergate and the American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Never watching it again and I do not understand why it’s lauded.
Not my generation’s star man, which was Zidane, the ‘Original’ Ronaldo, and then latterly CR7 and Messi. I will still maintain that Cristiano Ronaldo over the broad spectrum of his career is the greatest football player of all time, yet Maradona at his peak from 1984-’89 was playing the beautiful game from another planet.
I don’t think anyone has ever had an impact on a World Cup as he did in 1986. He was not just an attacking midfielder with five decisive assists and goals, which is an astonishing feat in itself; he was a talisman, a wee warrior, a leader, and was hard as fuck. If you watch the matches again he dominates every one of them, carrying an average team over the line each time.
This was back in the day when the ‘art’ of defending consisted of trying to break legs. Coaches would drill it into the centre-backs before kick-off – it was legalised GBH. How he managed to make it through games beguiles me, even more so with the artistry on display after being booted up and down the pitch for 90 mins.
One in a million, and if he were playing the modern game with today’s diet, nutrition, sports science bonanza (and protection from referees) he’d be on an iron throne with a fat cigar in his mouth.
Am I wrong?
These lads of course have every right to fiddle to their hearts’ content with pictures they’ve made, but it’s getting out of control now. I don’t even know how many different versions of Blade Runner (1982) there are (I’ve only seen one), I hear there is now another edition of Apocalypse Now (1979), and I was yesterday informed that The Godfather Part III (1990) is now being re-released this month but with a completely different structure and with an alternate title. What is going on?
For me, the art that was produced at a specific stage is what it is (for lack of a better phrase) and all it will ever be. I have no time for tweaking, chopping, changing, re-editing, and periodic revisionism. Stop trying to fix what was at that moment your best or worst effort, move on, come up with a new idea. It’s got something to do with grasping for perfection, but the problem is that the films I’ve mentioned are far from perfect. Even the films I rate as ‘transcendental’ (The Third Man, Vertigo, Lawrence of Arabia) have giant flaws but that just adds to the appeal; I hate to appropriate an Oasis song, but true perfection has to be imperfect.
Dear directors, just STOP IT.
Give us something else.
This terrible movie is just replete with so many clichés I thought it was a joke – within 10 minutes you get the failed dad who never turns up to his kid’s game because of work (I will never understand how kids think this is a ‘thing’). I think I’ve seen that leitmotif in a thousand motion pictures. And here we go again, the sudden white-collar psycho who has suddenly become unhinged!
This is like Falling Down (1993) but without the social commentary or the complexities of that protagonist who had motivation and a character arc, and who seemed to think he was doing the right thing. This is just a portrait of one-note unbridled rage. It’s a pathetic screenplay, something out of a student movie.
There is, however, a kind of life lesson here: never, ever fume at idiots you don’t know because there are A LOT of unhinged folk out there walking the streets; the Travis Bickles, the potential serial killers, the incels, the nutjobs. They don’t act and react rationally and they are capable of anything because they aren’t bound by anything.
Anyway, Crowe is brilliant in this shitter. It’s like he’s back in his Romper Stomper (1992) days before he hit the jackpot. He’s a legit fat bastard now but I guess he’s earned it. He was once on the verge of a sort of magical, era-defining pantheon of films but after Gladiator (2000) he just opted for the middling scripts and the trivial. He’s almost better as a supporting character these days.
In summary, this movie is pure garbage but desperately wants to be relevant. Which is commendable.
Somebody give Russell something to do. He needs a Brando renaissance moment.
For many reasons, but I’ll just stick to a brief summary. The Edinburgh Napier University student halls, three strip clubs, and the local job centre are lined up next to each other. The castle towers above, watching over the flock. It’s like a life lesson, evolution and all that.
22 November, 2010 and this ridiculous … thing came into the world.
For me, it’s the Greatest Album Ever Made. And I find Kanye West nauseating, an attention-seeking baby who needs muzzled. Not the tunes, though. These are simply glorious, the album track-for-track mastery without equal. It’s the production, the melodies, the bombast, the deep thinking at work. Like all art, you can appropriate the material and line it up with something personal.
The (Stranded in) Belgium Odyssey of December 2010. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, but it was all very life-changing and I’ll never forget some of the epic moments. And no one died, which is also great. This album was played quite literally 125 times in 11 days and every track I associate with an image.
Once again:
This is hilarious at times, black comedy done as it should be. And as an intro to Edinburgh it’s up there with the best of them. The Hamburg scene is off the charts in its accuracy. I’ve been on that messy adventure, believe me. However, I do feel this movie is a bit of a wasted opportunity. There’s not any kind of overarching message that elevates it into something other than a yarn, and the style is painfully nonexistent. One can only imagine what someone like Danny Boyle would have done with the script.
It’s a cracker. But it should be better.
Quality poster, though.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 