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Wayne Coyne recommended Wizard of Oz by Judy Garland in Music (curated)

 
Wizard of Oz by Judy Garland
Wizard of Oz by Judy Garland
1939 | Pop, Soundtrack
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Last summer we were playing some versions of Dark Side of the Moon that were more like our versions, that we did with my nephew [Star Death and White Dwarves] and Henry Rollins and Peaches. This summer we're playing another version that has some of the Wizard of Oz themes and ideas running through it, so that'll be a lot of fun. It's just great emotional music. Judy Garland, when they picked her to be the singer, and the embodiment of that longing... she's so perfect for that Dorothy character. There are bits on the Wizard of Oz soundtrack CD that I have - and it's an old CD, maybe 15, 20 years old - when you take the movie away and just hear her singing, and there's a song where she cries. I've put it on to a room full of people and they tear up, it's so real. There's not many pieces of music that can do that. She's so perfect, but it's not just the singing - she's an actor. She's on camera at the same time, she's wearing this ridiculous costume, there's fake backdrops behind her, there's a lot of elements that have gone into this thing, and so for her to be so pure, so potent: it's uncanny. That's why that movie is so good. There's a lot of fantastical, ridiculous, musical movies out there that, to me, are nauseating. Wizard of Oz should be one of those - out-dated, overdone, with horrible music – but it rises above what it's made of. It's unbelievable."

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Gaz Coombes recommended track Copenhagen by Scott Walker in Scott 3 by Scott Walker in Music (curated)

 
Scott 3 by Scott Walker
Scott 3 by Scott Walker
1969 | Pop, Singer-Songwriter
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Copenhagen by Scott Walker

(0 Ratings)

Track

"I was playing Scott 3 quite a lot at Christmas and there’s something about this song that’s more Christmassy than Christmas songs. It’s just kind of magical, that’s how I’d describe ‘Copenhagen’, it’s magical. “I think this song is my highlight from Scott 3, there’s something about ‘Copenhagen’ for me. I think it’s the instrumentation and the orchestration on it, it’s utterly gorgeous, the sound of it is really, really beautiful and then there’s his voice over the top, the lyrics and his delivery. I guess it’s rooted in that crooner area but there’s a tenderness to it. ‘Copenhagen’ has a delicacy to it and I’ve always loved the vulnerability of it as well, like there’s crack in his voice. I’m just in love with this song. “I think a lot of people like Scott Walker songs because they touch on stylistic elements that could be seen as more commercial or just normal or standard in some way, but they’re not. When you hear how he delivers this there’s an off-kilter feel to it, an oddness to it. It’s got a beauty but it’s not really an obvious beauty and he manages to walk that line really well, between darkness and beauty. “That’s another thing that I love about the whole album Scott 3, it is quite dark, but it’s dark and beautiful and those two things are something that I’m really in tune with, a sort of dark beauty and that’s what Scott Walker does really well."

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Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin
Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin
1973 | Rock
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I could have chosen I, II, III, IV, Houses Of The Holy or Physical Graffiti. Not totally sure why I chose this one, but it starts with ‘The Song Remains The Same’ and ends with ‘The Ocean’, so it almost doesn’t matter what’s in the middle! With those bookends, it was always going to be a classic. But of course there are things I like in the middle, or else it would be a shit sandwich. Every time I get on guitar I play ‘Over The Hills And Far Away’. I’m not a fan of ‘The Crunge’. ‘Dancing Days’ is like an early version of ‘Kashmir’ and the album’s got some reggae on there. ‘No Quarter’ is a great thing to wake up in the morning to because it sort of builds and builds and builds and then sort of scares you out of bed. And ‘The Ocean’ is what I always play on the drum kit - I think if anything Led Zeppelin is defining what rock drums are supposed to be. And Jimmy is a god – a golden god! And hands down my favourite guitar player of all time. I could just turn off the sound and watch his fingers I’m that obsessed. He never seems to play the same thing twice when you’re looking at live footage. He’s always raucous and doing battle with his guitar, instead of just commanding it. I like to watch people that don’t have amps that do the work for them."

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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Pan (2015) in Movies

Sep 21, 2020  
Pan (2015)
Pan (2015)
2015 | Action, Sci-Fi
Huh? … what? H-how? Why..? I'm not even sure what like 80% of this crackpot, drug-fueled children's fever dream even was but I'm pretty sure I loved it. Everyone sings "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" to hype up a grisly-looking, scenery chewing pirate Hugh Jackman for no reason at all. You're also able to witness a severely miscast Garrett Hedlund give one of the worst performances the screen has ever seen as Rooney Mara pulls an Emma Stone in 𝘈𝘭𝘰𝘩𝘢 and the fairies savagely murder an entire ship full of people one by one. In all seriousness, perhaps my allure bias for these cockamamie box office bombs is showing but this isn't even a quarter of the disasterpiece it has been dubbed. The visuals are lush, varied, and colorful with Wright's lifeful eye hard at work - and it has a lot of fun with its setpieces, while taking fine care of its effects. My biggest complaint is that this nutty curio has to be stuck within the confines of those obnoxious kids' films where the bland protagonist (here at least acted exceptionally by Miller) who obviously has some arbitrary, special talent spends the whole movie claiming they don't have said arbitrary, special talent only to find out completely unsurprisingly that they did have the aforementioned arbitrary, special talent all along. This would make an awesome PS2 game, if I didn't know any better you could have effortlessly convinced me Luc Besson directed this. Rushed through plot but who cares, it's mostly a blast.
  
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
2017 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Dumb as fuck, sheds the vast majority of the source's intelligence - even speaking as someone with only a cursory knowledge of it - for something a lot more nonsensical, westernized, and generic. But it doesn't sacrifice even an ounce of its visual pizzazz - if we've learned anything about Rupert Sanders (non-cheating scandal related, that is) it's that he does not fuck around with his aesthetic. 110% magnetic, self-assured, and every bit as visually stupendous as 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘙𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳 2049. I found most of the ending parts to be a disingenuous swing and a miss but who cares, did you *see* the way ScarJo beat the shit out of those people to synth music while she was invisible and the water was going all slo-mo and stuff? As a piece of seductive sci-fi junk food that's nice and heavy on the portent, it's nothing less than orgasmic - though it makes sense fans of the source would detest this, this is pretty much what I expected after all so I can't say my bar was mega high to begin with. I'm in the middle with Scarlett, it isn't too demanding of a performance but the unnatural cranes and dead gawks are right up her alley and do fit quite nicely here so eh I'll take it for now even if it feels like bootleg 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘪𝘯. And it's always good to see Takeshi Kitano. Oh and also Juliette Binoche is at least twenty-five times better in this than every role she's ever been nominated for an Oscar for.
  
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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Sharp Objects in TV

Nov 26, 2020  
Sharp Objects
Sharp Objects
2018 | Crime, Drama, Mystery
"𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘥..."

Decay in all its forms, *very* HBO - right down to the opening credits sequences - in the best ways. If I have one complaint it's that I wish this were an episode longer to really settle into its final moments before the jaw-dropping rug-pull ending (and maybe I wish it was a little more physically gross when it calls for it) - but I digress, this is phenomenal television all the same. Flynn is as complex a writer as ever and Jean-Marc Vallée is at some of his most fully engrossing. As someone living in a tawdry small town just like this it does a bangup job at showing how those types of areas prey upon their little boys and girls, and bears witness to the differing ways their subsequent rage manifests between each gender. You know yourself much less than everyone else *thinks* they know you, if you aren't peering directly into their eyes you aren't safe from disparaging remarks even from your supposed closest allies - the moment in episode 5 where the camera keeps switching POVs while somebody glares at someone else, who then glares at someone else, who then glares at someone else, etc., etc. does a good job at exemplifying this. Adams, Messina, and particularly Clarkson, Scanlen, Perkins, and Czerny are sublime as these haunted enigmas of people. Gives away some of its themes a touch too on-the-nose later in the game but nonetheless a grim, fragmented, trancelike nightmare of hatred. Magnetic as hell.
  
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Hazel (2934 KP) rated The Last Resort in Books

Nov 29, 2020  
The Last Resort
The Last Resort
Susi Holliday | 2020 | Crime, Mystery
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Hmmm ... this is a really difficult book to review for me because I am in two minds as to whether I really enjoyed it or not!

The premise is excellent and it started off really well and, I thought, this is going to be good but alas it soon became a tad boring and I gradually lost interest the further on I went. I was hoping for that "wow" ending that might redeem the book a little but, for me, it didn't really happen.

The characters aren't particularly likeable but that doesn't really matter in this book and I ended up looking forward to seeing what inventive ways were going to be employed if/when they were to die but it was all rather "meh" and anti-climatic.

What I did like was the setting of the remote island, the mystery surrounding why they were all there and how the advanced technology was used but I wanted more tension and excitement ... there are times throughout the book where it ramped up a little but they didn't last long enough and there were too many down-times and periods of inactivity for me.

I think there will be many, many people out there who will love this book particularly those who prefer a more slower paced mystery so please don't take my word for it and give it a go if you like the sound of the blurb.

Many thanks to SJI Holliday and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest, unbiased and unedited review.
  
This is, for all intents and purposes, as close to identifying, or, at the very least, understanding who the Enemy is. The stories that make up the whole of this collection is as follows: Subjective

<b>"Interlock" and "The Annotated Autopsy of Agent A" Simon Bucher-Jones
"Cobweb and Ivory" Nate Bumber
"The Book of the Enemy" Andrew Hickey
T.memeticus: A Morphology" Philip Purser-Hallard
"The Short Briefing Sergeant's Tale" Simon Bucher-Jones
"A Bloody (And Public) Domaine" Jacob Black
"Life-Cycle" Grant Springford
"First Draft" Nick Wallace
"Eyes" Christian Read
"We are the Enemy" Lawrence Burton
"Timeshare" Helen Angove
"A Choice of Houses" Simon Bucher-Jones
"Houses of Cards" Lisa Sarah Good
"The Enemy - The Hole in Everything" Simon Bucher-Jones
"The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy" Jay Eales
"No Enemy But Despair" Simon Bucher-Jones
"The Map and the Spiders" Wilhelm Liebknecht</b>

I quite enjoyed the book as a whole, even though there was some weak pieces that did not really seem to fit, like Helen Angove's "Timeshare". Overall, it was a fitting collection for what it was intended to be. Of particular interest were Simon Bucher-Jones' interconnecting briefs that tie it all together. Quite brilliant, despite some of the weaker stories.

And, yes, as some people have remarked in their reviews, there were some noticeable punctuation and formatting errors. However, the stories are good enough to overlook and not focus on those shortcomings.

Recommended to all fans of Faction Paradox as a whole!!
  
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Kristina (502 KP) rated Bird Box in Books

Dec 7, 2020  
Bird Box
Bird Box
Josh Malerman | 2014 | Fiction & Poetry
7
8.3 (23 Ratings)
Book Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
3.5
This was definitely new level of apocalypse! I've read a few Dystopians (The Hunger Games and Divergent, for example) but none were quite like this. The idea is intriguing - something is causing people to turn into violent maniacs who usually murder those surrounding them before bringing themselves to death. I'm many, many ways, the fact these characters cannot see - are not allowed to look - at what's causing so much chaos is the suspense, leaving you with questions such as: what are they, why do they exist and how do they exist, what is their purpose, what do they want? I never would have thought of it without Tom's insight, but I suppose he had a point - are these creatures consciously evil of the destruction they are causing? Either way, it makes for an interesting, albeit frustrating, concept. I chose to read this before watching the movie and I can understand how this could play out better on the big screen, but I feel like Josh did an excellent job at using the absence of sight with his words. I read Bird Box in one sitting, was curious about the nature of these creatures, interested in the possibility of a relationship between Tom and Malorie. The ending felt like it could have been final: Malorie and the kids and up at their destination and live happily ever after; but I'm fully aware there is at least one more novel, which I look forward to reading so I can hopefully get more answers about these deadly creatures.
  
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Sarah Paulson recommended Opening Night (1977) in Movies (curated)

 
Opening Night (1977)
Opening Night (1977)
1977 | Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I would probably say A Woman Under the Influence [for my fifth movie], although it’s a deep, deep tie between that and the movie Opening Night. And A Woman Under the Influence was, I think, more celebrated, but Opening Night might resonate more with me. It is a story about an actress coming to terms with aging and her mortality. I think I’m also really drawn to the way those movies were made, and you can kind of feel the hammer and nail that was used to bring the whole thing together in this way that’s sort of extraordinary and that you can just almost feel the effort made by everyone involved – which is what happens when you make any movie. But sometimes [it affects you] when you know that everybody’s friends were there and they’re all making food for people to eat while they’re making this movie, to make this movie, to tell the story, not to serve any bottom line, or anything other than their creative interests. [In Opening Night, writer, director, and co-star John Cassavetes worked with Gena Rowlands, his then wife.] You don’t always have that luxury. And I just am always very moved by the way they made their movies and what a family they were and what places they could go because of it, because of that intimacy, because of that ease and that history between them. They were able to do things that I don’t know that you could achieve or accomplish in any other fashion, you know?"

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