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West Side Story by Stephen Sondheim
West Side Story by Stephen Sondheim
2012 | Compilation, Pop, Soundtrack
6.9 (10 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Westside Story was probably the biggest thing in my life as teenager walking along the streets of London, me and my friends were always trying to imitate the Jets’ dancing! My favourite songs? There were so many, but Leonard Bernstein was a genius and I just thought if I could be anybody, I would be a composer like Bernstein because his music was just so powerful and it also has a jazz tilt. He was doing things with music that I discovered much later. a lot of it was inspired by The Planets by Holst, with this jagged, staccato, kicking in the music with songs like ‘America’. And I thought, yeah I wanted to be in America, although I wanted to avoid all the gang fights! There were so many messages in that film and my all-time favourite song would probably be ‘Somewhere’. That reflects that ultimate aim in life to find a place away from the turmoil, pain and suffering to a place of peace, happiness"

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This Unruly Mess I've Made by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
This Unruly Mess I've Made by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
2016 | Rhythm And Blues
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"My favourite video of all time is actually for James Blake’s A Case Of You, the one that has Rebecca Hall in it – I can’t watch it without my entire body shaking. But, for what a video really, really should be, for pure Thriller-like entertainment value, you can’t get much better than the video by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis for Downtown. The dancing! The marching! The mopeds! The chariots! You have to give in to that video – how ridiculous it is. It played a lot with hip-hop culture – and I love hip-hop culture, I love the bigness, the grandness, the showing-off-ness of it, I appreciate it and I revel in it. But there’s something about these guys mocking the extravagance of it that I really responded to. It really made me laugh – I was in tears watching it. And actually I think you can see Macklemore pissing himself laughing at the end… Ryan Lewis, who produces the records, produced and directed the video. Epic."

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Tom Jones recommended Talking Book by Stevie Wonder in Music (curated)

 
Talking Book by Stevie Wonder
Talking Book by Stevie Wonder
1972 | Jazz, Rock
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"""Great songs. I had it on 8-track in my car. I heard 'Fingertips' first, and I thought ""Shit! Who's playing harmonica on that for a start off?"" So those Motown records were happy records, great for dancing and parties and things. But then it got deeper, more personal, which is why I picked that record. I think people should try things and if you have something to say, something in you, then do it. That can happen in different times of your life, and I think for him, he had that to prove - you know he had done the jolly records, and wanted to get deep. And he did. Favourite song would be 'Blame It On The Sun'. It was different, ""but my heart blames it on me"" - blame it on this, blame it on that, but at the end of that day, my heart blames it on me. I love clever lyrics... and its a simple story but the way he put it together was very clever."

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John Cho recommended Pulp Fiction (1994) in Movies (curated)

 
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
1994 | Crime

"It was such an important part of my youth. I think more than any other movie, it changed my idea of what movies were. I wasn’t an actor then, but Pulp Fiction sort of…How do I put it? It was what, as a young actor, [showed me] this is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to be this vital. We’re trying to be this fun. We’re trying to break the rules this much. I think it changed American independent filmmaking. For me, it was Travolta [who stood out]. I don’t know why. When I think of Pulp Fiction, the image I think about most is him getting blown away while reading Modesty Blaise on the can. Of all the images in Pulp Fiction, that’s the one that sticks in my head the most. We spent this whole movie falling in love with him, dancing with Uma Thurman, and accidentally blowing a guy’s head off. There’s so much going on, and then he meets his demise while reading a book while taking a shit, and there’s so much pathos in that image."

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The Producers (1967)
The Producers (1967)
1967 | Classics, Comedy
Relentless knockabout bad-taste farce from Mel Brooks. A corrupt theatrical producer and his accountant embark upon a scheme to fraudulently make a fortune by mounting the worst play in history. Promising idea, and the brilliantly-staged opening number from Springtime for Hitler (all dancing SS officers and goose-stepping showgirls) is inspired, but the rest of the film struggles to meet the same standards.

The movie feels like a frenetic mixture of old-fashioned vaudeville and scatter-gun satire; there was probably something curiously dated about it even fifty-odd years ago. While it does acknowledge the counter-culture of the 60s (there's a hippy beatnik character, amongst other things), it doesn't feel like it was made by or for a young audience. Viewers nowadays may not be troubled by deliberately provocative jokes about Hitler or over-sexed pensioners, but jokes about dumb blondes in bikinis and camp transvestites feel a bit uncomfortable. Passes the time amiably, and worth watching just to see Springtime for Hitler in context, but I'd struggle to call it an actual classic.
  
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
2008 | Comedy, Musical, Romance
6
7.9 (35 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The story of a bride-to-be trying to find her real father told using hit songs by the popular 1970s group ABBA.

My name is Emma, and this is the first time I've seen Mamma Mia.

I did wonder if I was going a bit too far by seeing it in a singalong version, but then... this is me, and I love musicals so I thought, nah.

What can I say about it though? It's a passable film. Entertaining definitely. But let's face it, everyone is really there for the songs and the dancing, not the story. It definitely delivers on that.

I needed to see this one so that I can go see the new one... one of the perils of attempting to see every new films that comes on at my cinema! I'll be taking ear plugs with me to Mamma Mia 2 for every time Pierce Brosnan sings. I have loved that man ever since Goldeneye, but he was making it very difficult to keep those feelings.
  
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David McK (3425 KP) rated Big (1988) in Movies

Aug 26, 2020  
Big (1988)
Big (1988)
1988 | Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi
Tom Hanks dancing in the floor piano.

The general outline of the plot, of a 12 year old boy who wished he was older and had that wish granted.

That's about all I could remember of this film: it must have been at least a decade since I last saw it.

So, yes, 12 year old Josh makes a wish on a (scary looking) funfair machine, and wakes up the next morning to find himself aged. With nobody except his best friend believing him, he heads to New York where he gets a low paid data input job while he tries to track down said funfair machine, until a chance encounter leads to him getting a new job testing and okaying with toys. All the while his mum believes he is missing.

Josh then starts to get distracted by his new life and by his colleague Susan, finally deciding he misses his old life and making another (granted) wish once he tracks down the funfair machine.

I feel sorry for Susan at the end.
  
Isn't It Romantic (2019)
Isn't It Romantic (2019)
2019 | Comedy, Romance
A romcom that isn't a romcom
Contains spoilers, click to show
Natalie is an architect at a business where nobody respects her, and is looked down on except for a male colleague who unbeknown to her has a big crush on her. One day Natalie is mugged and hits her head causing her to wake up in an alternate universe. In this universe every male is being nice to her which makes her feel uncomfortable, however she thinks the way to get back to reality is to make a guy fall in love with her. This movie is definitely a big middle finger to romcom, it has every cliche you can think of from a spontaneous singing and dancing scene to kissing a gorgeous bloke (and boy is he gorgeous) in the rain to which as a romcom hater, Natalie comments on every time. Just like I am pretty, the movie has a strong message to women to love yourself for who you are. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would definitely watch it again.