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Johnny Marr recommended Bert Jansch by Bert Jansch in Music (curated)

 
Bert Jansch by Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch by Bert Jansch
1965 | Folk, Singer-Songwriter
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Well, speaking of authenticity, if you are going to be authentic then you really have to do it right. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, what Bert Jansch was doing as a young man was deeply authentic and was genuinely very weird. Bert was a young person very much of his time but was making music that almost sounded ancient. From the guitar-playing point of view, he was innovating on an acoustic guitar in a way that was as powerful as Pete Townshend with electricity in The Who and as intricate as what Jimi Hendrix was doing with his space rock-blues. Vocally, Bert was almost punky and in the way he and his peers went about their lives, he was one of the very first lo-fi musicians - and that was 40 or 50 years ago. Bert was one of my few real heroes. I got to be friends with him for about ten years before he died. He was an amazing person and because we were friends I got to find out that the lifestyle choice of the folkies in Soho in the 60s was a very deliberate and radical. They made certain choices and the fact their music was not in the charts was no accident. In Bert's case, he was the king of the UK beats as a result of the beat poet influence on his generation. Also, he was tuned into the political climate of the time and things like the CND movement and the radical student scene. Bert was a lot more than an earnest folky with an acoustic guitar. I particularly like his second record. The album before it [1965's Bert Jansch] is more revered and held up by most journalists as being the seminal one, but I think the songs are better on It Don't Bother Me, particularly the title track. The fact that they were both recorded in a kitchen at his mate's house is another reason why it has never dated."

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Lainie Kazan recommended The Graduate (1967) in Movies (curated)

 
The Graduate (1967)
The Graduate (1967)
1967 | Classics, Comedy, Drama

"The story, the acting was sublime. [Director] Mike Nichols did an incredible job. He just did such an amazing job. The story of the old woman and the young student was so new — we had never seen that onscreen, a depiction of that. Once again, I thought this was just a brilliant character study of these people. The story was extraordinary. I loved the relationship with Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. I just thought that was staggering. And Dustin Hoffman’s performance was so sweet, and he was so insecure and a mumbling fool in so many ways. And she was so seductive. You know, she was a counselor at my camp? She was a drama counselor. When I was nine, she was 17 or 18, and she came to the camp and I was the only one who really took to her of all my camp friends. She would have me lie on the ground and we’d be in this bunk — like in a rehearsal hall or something — she would have us lie on the floor and picture the sky and picture all the different things that could come from the sky [laughing]. She just inspired me. Then I watched her on The Goldbergs — not the new Goldbergs — but The Goldbergs with Molly Goldberg, the brilliant, brilliant television show in the 1950s. Then I saw her in The Graduate — I was a young woman — and I was just — oh my God, she was so beautiful. And I couldn’t believe I had known her. She inspired me to act, she really did. As did Francis Coppola. I went to college with him — Hofstra University. He was the person who wrote all the plays. He wrote the shows — all the original shows that I was the star of. I’d be hired to do all the shows that he had written and his uncle would write the music, so it was kind of great."

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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated When Will I Be Loved (2004) in Movies

Jul 4, 2021 (Updated Jul 4, 2021)  
When Will I Be Loved (2004)
When Will I Be Loved (2004)
2004 | Drama
"𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘺'𝘴 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨? 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘰𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴!"

A deeply, *deeply* misogynistic, artsy-fartsy disaster of stratospheric proportions where every slimebag man has some idiotic 'philosophical' defense as to why they need to manipulate this woman into letting them fuck her - made by a known serial sexual predator. I felt complicit for even entertaining the idea to watch such dogshit, like I needed a military-grade chemical shower after seeing it. Or to at least bleach my eyes. Might be the worst movie I've ever seen, if not then certainly somewhere down in the bottom 5 or 10. Written, edited, and shot like a bad high school student project with this unbearable non-story which rips off - of all movies - 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘭 (by name, in fact)? Neve Campbell has sex with another women (without showing any skin of course) behind a transparent mesh curtain scored to a shitty Bach cover - imagine if that episode from "South Park" where the people smelled their own farts was real and you'd get this depth-free piece of shit. As cynical, uninvolved, and up-its-own-ass as 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘴 is, at least that one actually went through with its promise of provocation. 𝘍𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘺 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘺 is unironically more provocative than this. Effectively just a series of bullshit conversations that go nowhere and shit-tier sex scenes more poorly thrown together than that one from Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I. And then it also features horrible ass songs on the soundtrack because of course it does. One of the rare movies to bag Roger Ebert's highest rating... which was also 'earned' by fellow turds 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴 and 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 (which - awful as they are - are masterpieces compared to this) so it shows how much that distinction is worth lmao. Shoot me now.
  
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BookInspector (124 KP) rated Mine in Books

Sep 24, 2020  
Mine
Mine
Clare Empson | 2020 | Crime, Philosophy, Psychology & Social Sciences, Thriller
6
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
There are two protagonists in this story, Alice and Luke, and the story is told from their perspectives. Alice is Luke’s biological mother, and Luke only recently found her. Alice integrates into this family really quickly, until Luke realises that something is not right. Alice is sharing her story with the reader, her life in the seventies, when she was a young art student, that had a beautifully heartbreaking relationship, that caused her to give up Luke for adoption. I really liked Alice’s parts of this story, it was very absorbing and romantic. Luke’s parts were less interesting to me, even though that was were the mysterious events were happening, I found it a little slower paced. I think the author allowed me to connect with the protagonists through their thoughts and all the challenges the characters had to endure.

The narrative has a nice contrast between the past and the present, and this combination made this read more intriguing and absorbing. As I mentioned before, this novel breaks the barrier between genres, we have a romantic story and a domestic thriller mixed together, and I really enjoyed this way of storytelling. The plot had tendencies of kind of plodding along sometimes, and I would have liked a little more pace and twists added to it. It is a really emotional read, filled with depression, wishes to belong, secrets, abusive parenting and many more.

I liked the author’s writing style in this novel, it was creatively written and well delivered. I enjoyed the research done for this book in the music and arts industries, it was intriguing to read about the music bands lifestyle. The setting of this book constantly changes between seventies London and present day, and I really liked the ability to learn more about the past. The chapters had a decent length and didn’t drag to me. I really loved the ending, it left me shocked and nearly in tears, I really wasn’t expecting it.