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John Hawkes recommended The Wizard of Oz (1939) in Movies (curated)

 
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
1939 | Fantasy, Musical

"I grew up in a rural area and with four channels on a black and white TV. Birdman of Alcatraz would come on TV, anything with Don Knotts, like The Incredible Mr. Limpet, but Wizard of Oz was a big deal. That movie came on a couple times a year and as a little kid, as all kids are, I was pretty skeeved out by the flying monkeys. But I got past that and just really, really loved the film. I think that I related to the fantastical story as a whole, and also to the idea of being in a rural area and wondering what else is out there — what’s on the other side of the rainbow, so to speak. It was formative. When I was 19, I moved to Austin, Texas, and I went to the Varsity theater — rest in peace, Varsity theater — and saw the movie as an adult. When they’re in Oz and it’s suddenly color, I gasped, because I only had a black and white TV, and in the back of my head I knew the movie turned to color, but I had forgotten. That was a really wonderful surprise. Also, seeing it on a big screen made the movie that much more of a great gift."

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Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
1974 | Drama, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I adore Fassbinder’s work. I’ve been living in Germany for the last ten years, and I think he’s one of the biggest reasons I moved there. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is my favorite film of all time. It’s the kind of film I’d never think of making—I’d never have thought of those two protagonists as a possible couple—but it’s the most beautiful and yet political film I’ve ever seen. When I was growing up, I never thought that I’d be able to make movies, but I began to learn by discovering films that were made in a way that was very technically simple yet powerful in terms of character, which is what you see in Ali. I come from an Algerian family that emigrated to France in the seventies, so there is something about the character of Ali in particular, and the empathy that the older woman has for him, that touched me. There’s also something about the way Fassbinder depicts sadness that I love and find refreshing. I absolutely adore In a Year of 13 Moons, Fox and His Friends, and Querelle, which made me feel the world differently. I didn’t feel so alone; I felt there were other people who were like me."

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Stuart Braithwaite recommended Pornography by The Cure in Music (curated)

 
Pornography by The Cure
Pornography by The Cure
1982 | Rock
8.0 (3 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"It was hard to pick a Cure album because they're one of my favourite bands, and one of the bands that has made brilliant albums in very different styles, perfect pop albums. Pornography is a pretty unique record that is just insanely bleak, so hopeless but also really again self-contained and perfect. It's not got a shit song on it, even some of my favourite albums have a song that you can imagine they could have done without, but Pornography is absolutely brilliant in that respect. It's just a really suffocating, druggy, bleak amazing record. I hear there was a lot of drinking… I've never really been party to any studio meltdowns, so these stories are… I mean, maybe I'll have a couple of slices of cake too many. They're always quite fascinating. I was definitely a bit of a goth, and still am at heart, I just have no hair to dye black any more. The Cure were the first band that I got properly into. The Disintegration tour was the first gig I ever saw, when I was 14 or 15 or something. We toured with the Cure, they were great to tour with. There was a party every night, they treated all the bands really well."

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Wayne Coyne recommended Maniac Meat by Tobacco in Music (curated)

 
Maniac Meat by Tobacco
Maniac Meat by Tobacco
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"We saw their show a couple of weeks back, and of course I love the Black Moth Super Rainbow stuff, and Tobacco too. But I have to say when I was at the show there was a lot of new music he played and I was like 'Fuck, that's cool'. And then he gave me the new record and I discovered that a lot of what they played is on that, so to me it's the best that they've, or he's, done. He does the same song, over and over. He's working in the same colour palette every time, and he knows it, and he knows he's trapped in it, and I know it too. And it's rejuvenating. Even though you've heard these sounds he does a lot, it still comes back at you. Very effective. It's very evocative. He uses all these reverbs and echoes and distortions and it doesn't become music to you, it becomes an atmosphere, a mood. That's what a lot of this music I've talked about does: you don't think it's about drugs, you don't think it's about guitar playing, it's about a world that's created in your mind as these sounds are playing. It's fantastic."

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Midnight Cowboy OST by John Barry
Midnight Cowboy OST by John Barry
1969 | Compilation, Pop, Rock, Soundtrack
7.0 (3 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"John Barry is probably my number one, I got him to play Meltdown when I did that. I was trying to get him to play more obscure stuff from his catalogue but he wasn't into it at that point in his life. I like this album because you've got his soundtrack stuff and then you've got songs like 'Old Man Willow' that sound like Broadcast. Soundtracks don't always work as albums because they tend to repeat the theme so much that they're not that exciting to listen to, but this one doesn't do that. I think there's one song I'm not that bothered of, 'He Quit Me' at the end of side one, but it just works as an album. There was a record shop in Sheffield called Rare & Racey that only closed down a couple of years ago, you could get pretty cheap second hand records and I picked this up there and played it to death. It probably did have an influence on Pulp, I really liked the sound of it. It's not so much on this record but he used a dulcimer on The Ipcress Files soundtrack, and that definitely influenced the Pulp song 'I Spy', there was a definite attempt to make it sound like that in the background. "

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Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy
Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy
1994 | Rock
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I had an older friend who was hugely into dance music. He was a proper teenager with decks. That was all cool to us. The Prodigy were absolutely the band of the moment, we would just listen to them so much. You always feel like you're listening to a real drummer with The Prodigy, even though you're not and you're listening to highly processed drums, they always retain a sense of reality. To this day, The Prodigy have a sense of rawness and aggression and reality, and they have always felt like a real band to me, even though it's just a guy with a laptop and a couple of idiots jumping around. They made the world shift for me, and made me feel like I didn't have to choose between a PC and Nirvana, and that's liberating, knowing I could do anything I want. The music I have in this Baker's Dozen is influential, because the albums are all about breaking rules, or don't fit into camps, and that's where my band has always been. People don't really know what to call us or describe us, and that has come from having diverse influences. The best bands don't fit."

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Mark Arm recommended Duck Stab by The Residents in Music (curated)

 
Duck Stab by The Residents
Duck Stab by The Residents
1978 | Alternative
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I guess it was originally two EPs, put together in one record. I don't have the original versions but the songs all feel like one record and it's kind of them at their catchiest. They were always a little bit creepy. Some of the other things that came out on Ralph Records like Renaldo and The Loaf were wackier but there was a creepiness to The Residents that I found very, very appealing. Do you know Long Gone John, the label boss from Sympathy For The Record Industry? I went down to visit him at his house in Long Beach. This band I was in, Bloodloss, was on tour and we all went over there because he released a couple of our records. We went to his house and he was just a massive collector of crazy rock stuff and also that kind of juxtaposed art, like Robert Williams paintings. The Residents came up and his eyes lit up. He was like, ""Come here, follow me"" and he took us to this back room, opened up a safe and pulled out a copy of Santa Dog their first record. He prized that so much he kept it in a safe!"

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The Living Daylights (1987)
The Living Daylights (1987)
1987 | Action
Fifteenth Bond movie is obviously trying to toughen the franchise up a bit after the knockabout fun of the last couple of Roger Moore films: Dalton's 007 is a hardened assassin who is repeatedly despatched on missions to execute people. Nevertheless, the producers hedge their bets by still including a few sight gags and comedy bits here and there. The plot is one of the franchise's knottiest, which isn't necessarily a bonus: possibly as a result of this, it's quite hard to work out who the evil mastermind is - Joe Don Baker gets the big confrontation and death scene, but Jeroen Krabbe has a lot more screen time.

Still, all the globetrotting, fights and chases and so on you would expect from a Bond film in the classic style, and Dalton brings enough of the literary Bond to the screen to make this satisfying for people who like the franchise in slightly grittier mode. Has a certain value as a historical oddity, given it concludes with Bond teaming up with (essentially) the Taliban to attack an airbase in Afghanistan. Dalton arguably never got a proper crack of the whip as Bond; in this film he shows enough promise to make that a real cause for regret.
  
The Reaping (2007)
The Reaping (2007)
2007 | Horror, Mystery
You'd think a movie about Hilary Swank and Idris Elba fighting the ten biblical plagues would have been somewhat more exciting, no? Can't think of many other ways they could have made this less thrilling or scary (one of those lazy farts that actively tries to make its jumpscares predictable) - but points for God-tier southern bible-belt madman David Morrissey and frightening wounded animal-esque AnnaSophia Robb, neither of whom are used nearly enough. Might possibly be one of the most tame R-ratings in cinema history, purposefully skipping out on the gore and ick like it's trying desperately to hold onto the PG-13 rating it doesn't have. Has a couple nice-looking shots, and (finally) starts getting quite creepy + fun in the back end but it still looks like shit. Seriously, I hope that when the plagues do start hitting planet Earth they at least aren't this contrived and badly-rendered. I'm also convinced that this script was still on the first draft when this empty drag was made because not only is it full of holes but none of the numerous last-minute twists were climactic and just seemed to rush themselves right out the door. Not even that awful just... not really of any value.
  
Behind Closed Doors
Behind Closed Doors
B.A. Paris | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
8
8.0 (18 Ratings)
Book Rating
It was a little difficult to get past the "proper" tone of voice, but I've noticed that books with *English?British* spelling - such as favourite and realise, instead of favorite and realize - all have that certain way of writing. This isn't the fault of the author, so much as me being used to a more informal perspective when it comes to books. Despite this, I really, truly enjoyed Behind Closed Doors. I started it around 10 o'clock at night, wanting to read something to pass a couple of hours away without getting too interested, and found myself reading until it was finished. It was a quick read, not too short, but also not as long as other novels. Not necessarily fast paced, the story kept up a steady stream of surprises. I found myself intrigued and desperate to know how Grace would escape Jack, while saving Millie in the process. Granted, I was able to predict most of what would happen by the last 3-4 chapters, I was still very interested in seeing exactly how everything would play out. Behind Closed Doors wasn't dark and mysterious, but it had me figuratively biting my nails in curiosity over what would happen next. I thoroughly enjoyed my first B A Paris experience.