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Andy Bell recommended Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth in Music (curated)

 
Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth
Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth
1988 | Experimental
8.8 (9 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"That came out in 1988 when Ride was starting to happen. Mark and I had gone to art school, we’d met Steve, met Loz and - as a band - we got into a lot of American stuff like Dinosaur Jr., Screaming Trees and Sonic Youth. “Sonic Youth were on a real run of great albums there with EVOL and Sister but Daydream Nation was their peak and their sort of White Album for me. It changed my life and my playing with the open tunings, theguitar abuse with screwdrivers and slides, the long jams, the headspace and just the whole sprawl of it. It was like the Pete Townshend thing but taken a few steps further.”"

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Framed/Next by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band Rock
Framed/Next by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band Rock
2002 | Pop
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"They were a fantastic live band and I saw them loads of times. Watching the way Alex was onstage taught me to let things flow and not be so tight-arsed. He improvised a lot. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band had a sense of threat – this feeling that he was a gangster, a bit of a hard guy, a bit shifty. There was a sense of menace in their stage performance, with Zal Cleminson dressed as this wacky clown, which was unnerving. We went through a phase like that – Paul used to get made up, half his face white and half black – when we did a lot of theatrics and a lot of that comes from Alex Harvey. I used to nail Steve Dawson’s DMs to the stage and he’d lean forward because he was nailed to the floor at the back."

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12 Years a Slave (2013)
12 Years a Slave (2013)
2013 | Biography, Drama, History
Cast and acting is spectacular (1 more)
Fantastic direction by Steve McQueen
Harrowing, disturbing beyond belief
It's taken me four years to watch this film out of fear I'd be seriously disturbed by the end of it. And no doubt it is disturbing.

The story of Solomon Northrup entails a free black man in America being kidnapped and then sold into slavery. He is gifted and educated, on top of having led a free life with his wife and children, hence in many ways it can be seen as even more traumatic knowing what is already out there.

What's interesting is the complicity of others involved, including other African Americans who have had to turn the other cheek in order to survive. The white men are despicable in this film, the brutality is truly horrifying.

It goes without saying Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic as Solomon, he's understated which makes his acting all the more moving. Michael Fassbender is particularly gratuitous in his role as a slave owner. Lupita Nyong'o is absolutely outstanding, playing a woman brutalized by the master for his own disgusting needs. The women go through a particular hell in this horrid period of history. You'll need a strong countenance to watch this.
  
Show all 5 comments.
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Suswatibasu (1701 KP) Sep 7, 2017

This is quite different as one it's based on a true story and two, slavery is a horrific time in history. So it's brutal.

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Lindsay (1717 KP) Sep 7, 2017

I believe that.

The Demon Next Door
The Demon Next Door
Bryan Burrough | 2019 | Crime
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Narrator too upbeat (0 more)
Informative but no depth
When audible originals offered this book up as part of their two free originals a month program, I just had to snag it. One of the weird quirks I have is that I hate mysteries, but I LOVE true crime. This 2 hour and 45-minute novella was right up my alley. When I was looking for something short to listen to, I decided that this something different than the romance books that I'm currently reading.

The information in this novella was interesting and well researched but still lacked depth. Most of the information that was presented in this book felt glossed over. One of the things I thought Bryan Burrough was exceptional at was not being too graphic about the crimes. Unfortunately, it seems that that lack of detail was present throughout the entire book. I would have loved to see more information about the background of the individuals and the town itself.

Something else that felt off in this audiobook was the narration. Steve White is an excellent narrator, but I don't feel that he was the right choice for this book. His intonations seemed to be too upbeat for a true crime novel about rape and murder. I would have preferred a more somber tone & his voice did not do this book justice.

All in all, this was an okay book. The details were interesting, but I wish that there would have been more depth to it.
  
Sons And Fascination by Simple Minds
Sons And Fascination by Simple Minds
1981 | Pop, Punk, Rock
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I don't want to sound like a broken fucking record but I've gotta go Simple Minds and Sons And Fascination. I've always picked Empires And Dance, but I keep switching to Sons And Fascination. If I remember rightly it was produced by Steve Hillage, so you could see the direction they were going in: he'd been and gone and was a real mainstay of the 70s prog scene, and it just shows the ambition of this band at that point in time. They'd been Johnny & The Self-Abusers, the quintessential proto-punk band, and then they'd done their first album which is kind of still punk-ish or punk-inspired. And then you realise there's a sea change, where they realise it's not the language they wanna speak. Sons And Fascinations comes after Empires And Dance, and working with Steve Hillage was symbolic of them wanting to explore something in themselves. I think if a posh lad reinvents himself and explores avenues he gets a plaudit for it, but rock & roll history is littered with lots of working class lads that have really reinvented the wheel and reinvented themselves and they've searched for things which should have been out of their reach. And they never get the credit for it. Simple Minds are another band that happened to. This album is full of pure, post-abstract expressionism. 'In Trance As Mission', 'Sweat In Bullet', '70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall', 'Boys From Brazil, 'Love Song'. 'Love Song!' Amongst all that! A fucking amazing white Scottish pop-dance record with an industrial backbone. Not many people achieve that kind of mash-up or fusion in their lives. They were concurrently making Sister Feelings Call at the same time. Another band who got pilloried for being pretentious. But they were working class boys who were just reaching for pretension and saying, "No, we will not be fucking defined by you. This is what we're doing. Go fuck yourselves." I've been listening to Sons And Fascination again, and it's just a crowning, towering achievement for a bunch of working class boys from Glasgow, because they weren't allowed to do it; they weren't supposed to do it. People told them to fuck off and they said, "No, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna do it better than anybody else."

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146 of 230
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The White Magic Five and Dime ( Tarot Mystery book 1)
By Steve Hockensmith and Lisa Falco
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When Alanis McLachlan learns that her mother's been murdered, she's completely unsurprised. Not that Alanis had been given a glimpse into the future. That would be crazy, right? It's just that her con-woman mom, Barbra, was bound to cross the wrong people sooner or later. It's why Alanis was lucky to get out of her childhood alive - and why she hadn't spoken to her mother in decades.

But there is a surprise in store for Alanis. Barbra left her something in her will: a New Age shop in the tiny tourist trap town of Berdache, Arizona. The White Magic Five & Dime.

After going to Berdache to claim her inheritance, Alanis is drawn into the mystery around her mother's death. Did one of Barbra's customers finally get wise to her con-artist ways and take revenge? Alanis thinks she knows how to find out: She'll make those customers her own until she can find the killer. Alanis McLachlan, cynic and unbeliever, is about to become a tarot card reader.

With a little help from her mother's teenage apprentice and a snarky tarot how-to book called Infinite Roads to Knowing, Alanis begins bluffing her way through phony readings. But the more she gets to know the cards, the more she sees real meaning in them...and the closer the murderer comes to making her the next victim.

Omg I had issues with this book so many issues!
This is going to be a strange little review. I absolutely didn’t like the main character at all, she was written to be witty and sarcastic and it just did not work at all. She was irritating and so not funny it was just trying to hard!

So you may ask why a 4⭐️ and my answer is simply because I really enjoyed the book she was the only thing I disliked. I didn’t see the murderer coming till the last minute and it was a fun book to read it made me smile and I’m very much an emotional reviewer.

So yes the main character drove me crazy but the story was really good!
  
Welcome to Marwen (2018)
Welcome to Marwen (2018)
2018 | Biography, Drama
Cap’t Hogie (Steve Carell) is saved from of Nazi’s, after his plane crashed in a swamp in Belgium, by a squad women. They are able to take the beaten and battered Hogie back to their town of Marwen. Or at least that the story Mark Hogancamp (also Steve Carell) has conjured in his art installation outside his trailer home. Mark himself was found by a bartender, Wendy (Stefanie von Pfetten), after he was beaten with an inch of his life by a group of white supremacist. Hogancamp was a successful sketch artist and now can hardly write his own name. He also has little to no memory of the life before the beating. But he is still and artist and now his art lives in the dolls he uses to create a fantasy story that mirrors his real life.

The group of women dolls that seem to always save his Hogie character are all based on the women his life. There is G.I. Julie, aka Julie (Janelle Monae), his rehab partner after his accident and Roberta (Merritt Wever), the friendly neighborhood hobby story clerk. Plus there is Anna (Gwendoline Christie) nurse who brings Hogie his mail and supplies in real life and Carlala (Eiza Gonzalez) his coworker in real life. These make up the majority of his bad ass Nazi killing crew in Marwen. The newest addition is his neighbor Nicole (Leslie Mann) who he think might help him defeat the Nazi’s in Marwen for good and be a special new friend in real life. He will need both his Marwen crew and his real life friends as the sentencing for his real life attackers gets closer and his fragile mental health is pushed to a stressful breaking point.

This unique story is based on the real life of world famous photographic artist Mark Hogancamp. Mark was brutally beaten because he made a smart comment about liking to wear women’s shoes. It’s also a story of overcoming addiction and mental health issues. He turned the disaster into a passion for creating art and using fantasy to cope with tragedy.

This was a really interesting way of telling a one of a kind true story. I thought that director, Robert Zemeckis (Forest Gump, Flight) used both real life and the fantasy world of Marwen to create one story. There were times when the story really didn’t flow great between the two worlds but overall was really original filmmaking. The pace and flow were a little off with the transitions. I thought the animation was exceptionally done. The story also had a bunch of topics it tackled, from mental health and memory loss to addiction but also had a good mix of humor. Carell dual performances were really well done and the supporting cast was also good. Films that are original and try new and interesting things are always worth a view in my opinion. I could see the content not really being for everyone but I thought the overall story left me feeling good.
  
Lake Placid (1999)
Lake Placid (1999)
1999 | Action, Comedy, Horror
Brendan Gleeson excels as a sarcastic and jaded local policeman, And Betty White is glorious as the batty old foulmouth. Stan Winston's physical special effects are great as ever. (0 more)
The script is just terrible, and most of the film is a painful and slow experience, with little action. CGI scenes can tend from ok to just terrible. (0 more)
The Toothless Croc Adventure that bit off more than it could chew
If you are big horror fan, like I am, then you will no doubt have seen and loved Jaws at some point.

The spectacular fear of something huge and unseen in the water, a perfectly evolved marine predator capable of tremendous power and speed, with a jaw size capable of cutting you in half.

Jaws hit on a very primal fear, that there is an unreasoning, prehistoric simplicity to the shark, that reminds us that until the last few thousand years, we were just another form of food for many creatures on this planet, and that we could be again, in the right circumstances.

It is this fear that also informs our love of Zombie movies, our disgust at cannibals and keeps us watching endless episodes of dirty, tired-looking people arguing in 'The Walking Dead'.

Where Jaws created a whole genre of horror in 'Killer Shark' movies, their reptilian counterparts have had to make do with a somewhat less successful series of outings, with Alligator, Croc etc

They just haven't quite hit our imagination in the same way, whether that be because of their comical waddle on land, or having watched an excited Australian man jumping all over them on TV (RIP Steve Irwin)...

Regardless, Lake Placid is the one that most remember from recent history, and having listened to a 'Horrow Show' Podcast on the film recently, I mentioned to my better half I wouldn't mind seeing it again, to see if it is as bad as it sounded.

Well last night, said better half suggested we watch it and boy oh boy...

So first off, Brendan Gleeson was by far the best thing about this movie, his one liners and grumpy demeanor were, for long periods, the best thing about this movie, shortly followed by the hilarious Betty White.

Stan Winstone, legendary physical creature effects maestro turns in some great stuff, and when they are dealing withe the physical creature, it is very effective but all too often they resort to CGI, which is passable but still tends to take you out of the moment..

Oliver Platt's casting as a crocodile expert playboy is amusing at first, then confusing and eventually just...well not laughable exactly as it isnt very funny, but strange certainly.

The movie languishes for long periods, focusing on the incredibly inert chemistry between leading lady Fonda, and wooden cardboard cut out Pullman, giving you poorly written rom com scripts where we signed up to see a giant Croc eat people.

Long story short, this movie is light on tension and action, heavy on clumsy exposition and strange casting choices, and it a poor relation to Jaws, which is more worthy of your time.
  
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
Michael Wolff | 2018 | History & Politics
6
5.8 (6 Ratings)
Book Rating
You actually couldn't make this shit up...
By now you will have read a number of (probably contradictory) reviews for this book, which will probably have given you quite a lot of detailed (and probably contradictory) information about the book.

So here’s a very brief answer and overview to help you if you are still wrestling with the question “Should I buy this book, should I read this book, will I be left wishing for those hours of my life back ?”

Well, it’s a doddle to read. It’s actually quite interesting to read. It’s not going to tell you any more outrageous stories about Trump than you have already heard. But it will confirm them, and it will add texture to some. He really didn’t expect to win, he really was just on another self-promo binge.

All of that doesn’t mean the book doesn’t hold surprises. I had no idea Ivanka and Jared are DEMOCRATS (!!??). Oops! I guess I just gave that surprise away…but it’s worth reading about the chaos that’s causing in a White House voted in to place by hard core Republicans. Steve Bannon really is the sad little, alt-right man-child you always thought he was, and not the towering power-house of a political tactician that he accidentally appeared as for a moment or two.

And childishness. So much childishness from so many purportedly adult people. Most of my sticky-notes mark points where the degree of infantile behaviour was so bad that it actually stood out from the day-to-day sulking and tantrums. It quite simply has to be the most insane government a western democracy has ever hosted. Then there’s Trump’s clear belief that the role of POTUS is actually that of an El Presidente-style, junta-leading, banana republic tyrant whose sole purpose is his own aggrandisement and pocket-lining. Like I said at the start – you actually couldn’t make this shit up.

 

But none of this is revelatory or extraordinary enough to warrant the hardback price, so my ultimate advice – wait until it’s in paperback.
  
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Natasha Khan recommended Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki in Music (curated)

 
Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki
Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"There are certain records that I know a lot about and others that I don't, and I think this one, for me, purely on a symphonic, musical level, it just is one of my favourite classical pieces. I think it's especially about the first movement, where the double-basses come in barely audibly, and it builds and they're just repeating their pattern. There's something about pattern in classical music, and that's why I've chosen Steve Reich as well: phrases and themes that get repeated and then get others on top that repeat, it's a cyclical thing that starts to happen with this harmony and rhythm, and it fascinates me. I also love double basses being bowed, there's just something about that that really pleases me. It builds into this huge thing and there's this moment where there's just one piano note, like a summoning, and the woman's voice comes in. I just think it's really soulful. I could've chosen Ravel's Bolero, which is also a really popular piece of music, but it's another one of my absolute favourites because again it's repetitive, it's almost like dance music, it's a repetitive theme that builds and builds. When I was going to see Underworld, off my face, in a tent - I think there's something similar, when instrumental music just builds and builds and builds. [Górecki] is really interesting technically as well as emotionally, which is the theme of this whole discussion almost: my greatest love is of people that have managed to walk that line between technical, competent songwriting or structure or understanding the art form and understanding the craftsmanship and at the same time imbuing that with reality and grit and fucking true connection to soulfulness and the universe. You can make a person cry because of what you're doing. That combination is just dynamite, isn't it? There's nothing better. You can sit in a room making a lot of avant-garde white noise and wanking over yourself, that's fine, or you can make amazing, soulful pop songs. Surely the artist's job is to be a consummate craftsman but within that be a complete child, innocent of expression and tapped in."

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