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Fonzo (Capone) (2020)
Fonzo (Capone) (2020)
2020 | Biography, Crime
What's the scariest thing to reckon with: mortality, humanity, or yourself? Tom Hardy plays a constipated bulldog with a pinch of Beetlejuice in this utterly beguiling Frankenstein's monster of a film which can only be described as 𝘎𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘪 (2018) hopped up on a bunch of prescription medication. I think the major takeaway from this is that Trank makes a tedious gangster movie - but a pretty fuckin' sweet horror/fantasy curio. Right off the bat I admire it for being so scene-to-scene fascinating based solely on how wholeheartedly unique it is; I expected no less from Trank than an auteurist stamp as big, original, and defined as this. Yes this is wonderfully experimental, yes this is very uncomfortable - seasoned with bodily fluids, a good amount of violence, and the sort of medical anguish which starts out grim and only gets more merciless as it continues... however, it also doesn't amount to too much. Hardy's grotesque turn here is memorable but 80% of the time it's reduced to staring off into the distance making various faces. It also has a similar issue to Barry Levinson's 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘦𝘴 in that the show-stealing macabre nightmare segments are just *crying* to break out more than the seemingly stock, incompetently structured narrative. However this was still super cool just on principle alone, and as someone who is sick of rote biopics it's nice to see one of them not be afraid to try something unquestionably different for a change (especially by dragging such a historic, opulent figure through the mud the whole time). Plus one of these are finally under an hour-45, go figure!
  
The Beatles (White Album) by The Beatles
The Beatles (White Album) by The Beatles
1968 | Pop, Rock
9.0 (14 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"The thing about The Beatles, whether or not you think they’re good, as an introduction into like pop music, experimental music and avant garde music, it’s literally like every album is one of those text books you had at school, Beatles 1, then Beatles 2, then you’re ready to more on to Beatles 3. There’s some of their records that with hindsight weren’t particularly interesting, but The White Album is kind of mad. Often you remember it as better than it is, but as a product of what’s possible in terms of releasing music as a hugely popular band, what you can do if you want to do it, I think it’s a really brilliant thing. Without them having done that, someone else would have had to make that idea a reality for the world of music. And it’s got some really good tracks on it! I do think it’s becoming more and more acceptable to dislike the Beatles and that’s what I’m saying – you can totally not like them, but you’ll struggle to find another band that will teach you about music in such a beautiful way. The curious thing about The Beatles, speaking as a musician, is that everything you thought was magic, isn’t magic. They had press and radio people, people to create this event when they arrived in America, it wasn’t this spontaneous thing. I remember watching the Beatles anthology when it came out and finding it incredible, then I watched it recently and it feels really horrible. And you know that they themselves weren’t necessarily nice people, I feel duped!"

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Kathleen Hanna recommended ESG by ESG in Music (curated)

 
ESG by ESG
ESG by ESG
2009 | Hip-hop, Pop, Rap
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I heard them when I was touring with Bikini Kill and had started hanging out in New York. They're from the Bronx and I was learning about the sampling of their song 'Moody', one of the most sampled songs to date. With them it's again the sound that made me go, "Wow!" The production was really interesting, that you could make this very sparse dance music; it's just a bassline and drums. I can't really remember who introduced me to ESG, probably my boyfriend at the time. It might also have been Adam Horovitz from the Beastie Boys who now I'm married to. Or maybe Tobi Vail gave me a tape before that. I saw their reunion show in NY, it was one of their first reunion shows, and two of their daughters were on stage. Then we got to tour with them. We were really nervous around them. I love how the singer's voice can sound so sweet and angry at the same time, like, "I'm just a regular woman, a regular gal." I always wanted to be just a woman in band; I just didn't know I was going to have to work so hard to make it okay for me to be that. Now in my 40s I finally don't have to make every single song about, "Go women go!" For me, one of the biggest achievements of my life has been having this experimental band from 2005 telling me, "Oh we just felt we didn't have to sing about feminism because you already did that." They just got to sing about whatever they wanted and try these really interesting melodic and dissonant things."

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Upgrade (2018)
Upgrade (2018)
2018 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Robocop meets All of Me?
I found this film in a bargain bin at my local video shop for only $1 to purchase and after reading many good reviews I thought I couldn't go wrong and I was right.

Maybe a sci-fi/horror version of "The Six Million Dollar Man" is more appropriate.

In the future, a man and his wife have a car accident. Afterwards the woman is murdered and the man is shot leaving him paralyzed. Rather than living life with a severe handicap, the man decides to undergo an experimental medical procedure which would give him augmented abilities through the implantation of a mysterious computer chip which would control his ability to walk and use his arms.

Once he is back to "normal" he feels compelled to investigate the circumstances of his wife's death and hunt down those responsible. His ability start to manifest themselves once he is interacting with his new friend STEM.

His quest for vengeance and justice leads him through some interesting twists and turns before its unexpected conclusion.

This films pulls no punches (literally) and some of the fight scenes are not only well choreographed, but downright vicious and gory. The inaction between the main character and his mind are cool and unexpected. Even though you feel like you have seen this before in other movies, this one takes a fresh spin and keeps you guessing the majority of the time.

 It appears writer/director Leigh Whannell (who also wrote the original Saw) is headed for great things probably because of this film as IMDb lists remakes of The Invisible Man and Escape From New York as his next projects.

  
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Eleanor (1463 KP) Aug 16, 2019

Keep seeing this on my Sky watch now list might give it a go. Thanks