Smashbomb

"Would Betty Davis have been famous if she hadn't married Miles Davis? Well, is Betty Davis famous? Because it didn't really work; at the time, it put people off, because she was married to Miles Davis - "Oh, she's his missus, she's just bloody flaunting it. I'm not buying a bloody record by her". You can dress it up how you like, be raunchy and using sex to sell it and everything, but it didn't really work. So I think she may have been more successful if she wasn't married to Miles Davis, because it isn't anything like him. Some of her other records are a bit crap, a bit hit and miss in places, but this one reminds me of Grace Jones: it's got a lot of soul, and it gets a really good groove going, and she just does her thing over the top of it. A lot of funk used to give me a headache, but this has a few parallels with Captain Beefheart; it reminds me of Clear Spot-era Beefheart. I knew of Betty Davis at the time, in the 70s, and I completely dismissed her because it gave me a headache, but now I've rediscovered her. And she's brilliant."

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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Richard Jewell (2019) in Movies

Sep 21, 2020 (Updated Nov 26, 2020)

There were long stretches of this movie where I liked it a lot... right until I remembered who made it and why (a story about a 'good ole boy' famously + very publicly under investigation by the government where both the FBI and the media are both portrayed as parasitic losers with nothing better to do - yeah I'm sure this has absolutely no parallels to anything going on in the present day whatsoever...……..). Other than that it's like your regular late-period Eastwood: mostly just fine with assorted confirmation biases, too much fat, drippy over-fabrications, unabashed factual inaccuracies (the addition of the sex-for-news bit is just ew let alone stupidly unoriginal), a general oversimplification of the events, and a dated view of women - though not without a fair amount of awesome scenes to keep it (for the most part) watchable. I think even this movie's supporters underplayed how fortifyingly *amazing* Paul Walter Hauser is in this - he's not only uncannily casted but straight-up riveting, I recommend this movie simply to see him alone tbh. He's behind only Phoenix and Sandler for the best actor of 2019 imo - nothing else in this film even matters. The last ten or so minutes are horrendous.

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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1970) in Movies

Dec 9, 2020

'It'll make you think of Dr No!' promises the poster for this almost indescribable comedy-thriller written and directed by Burgess Meredith. It didn't make me think of Dr No: it made me think of what it must be like to take hallucinogenic drugs while suffering from a bad case of the flu. The details of the plot are almost enough to defeat the English language - suffice to say that the key turning point in the story comes when the Buddha (who also narrates the story) uses his mystic powers to turn villainous Chinese-Mexican Mr Go (James Mason - yes, it's James Mason trying to play a Chinese-Mexican) into a benevolent philanthropist.

It's not just that the film is bizarre and incoherent, with plenty of gratuitous nudity, and European actors cheerfully playing Asian characters: it's also that the production values are incredibly primitive. It's almost like watching pornography without the sex (or so I would imagine). Not one element of this film is robust enough to elevate it into 'so bad it's funny' territory. It's just bad. That said, Jeff Bridges made his film debut in it, which presumably goes to show that even the least promising starts can lead to a distinguished career. But even so - for masochists and the troubled only.

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Leanne Crabtree (480 KP) rated In His Command (Don't Tell, #1) in Books

Sep 6, 2019

**I received this copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

I read books for the romance and I'll tell you now, this was full of it, which is why I liked it so much. Normally when I read a MM book, it's more concentrating on the sex, whereas this one concentrated on the relationship and how it grew from mistrust into love. It was so sweet in places and I was bawling for a while near the end.

I liked both of the main characters and how they acted around each other. They were both great guys who'd had to put up with a lot of crap in the past and when they finally got it together I was almost cheering.

Liz, Caspar's best friend and one of his Lieutenants, was also a cool character and though I thought we'd never see her again after they left Alpha, she makes another appearance near the end, which also had me smiling.

I should probably point out that it does concentrate more on the romance and it's progression that the dystopian world but it's still a good tale if you don't mind that minor detail.

If you like MM Romances that actually focus on the romance, then this shouldn't be missed. I recommend it.