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"I didn’t want to have a theme in the records I picked. It’s a record I’ve listened to a lot lately. One of my children is 7 years old and he’s been learning a lot about Greek history recently and picking up tidbits of information. He was saying to me that he really wanted to hear some Greek music. This is not what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear some folk music, not some weird shit. He wanted: ‘Ops la! Da da da da!’ Some cheery Greek dance music. I stumbled onto this. I asked him if he wanted Greek or ancient Greek and he said ‘ancient’ because it sounded cool. But this is incredibly trippy. It feels like a play. You don’t know where the down beat is for most of the songs. I have never figured out what about it is actually Greek. It was recorded by Spaniards in the 70s. Whether it's real or impressionistic, I don’t care. I just really like it. There’s a lot of haunting stuff in it. I’ll have the record on late at night when everyone else has gone to bed. It’ll be playing and you’ll hear the voice speaking Greek and squeals. I’ve really grown to love it and know certain pieces. I know they have made other records and I want to get them"

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Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
2001 | Horror, Mystery
Subhuman dumpsterscum Victor Salva adds absolutely nothing to this as an auteur let alone as a basic director: he shoots it mostly in the most unengaging, dated way possible and the writing - which can at best be described as semi-coherent - feels like a Quibi's worth of material thinly stretched into feature length. Overall a very haphazard, spotty experience that doesn't deliver nearly as much of the goods as it should... but definitely still weird, gross, and funny enough to suffice. That Sistine Chapel-esque lair of mutilated bodies, cobwebs, dirt, and vials of various mysterious liquids is almost worth the price of admission alone (in fact just in general the production is A-class when Salva can actually shoot it right), and Justin Long's one continuous panic attack of a performance is so tremendous. And come on, JC is one *hell* of a killer - running on moving cars, foully scarfing down innards, pulling 180s with his swiss army knife collection of bodily contortions, and whistling jazz tunes like some sort of crowd-pleasing merger of Predator and Freddy Krueger. Shame there isn't enough of him, but I just have to admire how that ending takes zero prisoners. It's fun, nowhere near the classic it should have been though even if there are hints of what it could have been sprinkled throughout.
  
Night Moves (2014)
Night Moves (2014)
2014 | Drama
For all intents and purposes, this is a fatally flawed movie - I mean it practically dumps all its would-be themes right after the first half, drags hard, deliberately leaves a ton of stuff unresolved, and turns into a rather conventional thriller that leaves a lot to be desired in the end. Yet I was completely enthralled by it almost every second - breathless - because this is a near-perfectly built product. Firstly this is undoubtedly in my top ten movie scores of all time, I just adore this stuff - it elevates where the writing needed a boost and it's the exact type of moody digital backdrop I crave out of movies. And that color palette? Fucking sublime. This weaponizes Eisenberg's meek neuroticism, Fanning's niceness, Sarsgaard's "What the fuck did you just say?" demeanor, and Reichardt's caution into a product that's always one step away from the abyss - a product constantly on edge. Every pedestrian is a threat, every set of headlights in the distance a threat, every trivial but still less-than-perfectly-normal action incriminating. Composed within an inch of its life in almost every regard. And this is all not even to mention how impeccably it captures how weird and unable to function with regular society these types of delusional misanthropic environmentalists are - even down to the homely appearance and always seemingly agitated demeanor.
  
The Stranger Times
The Stranger Times
C. K. McDonnell | 2020 | Horror, Humor & Comedy, Science Fiction/Fantasy
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This book was just what I needed - in fact I think it’s what we all need at the moment! It’s hilarious, the laughs come thick and fast, but it’s not a series of puns with no storyline. Far from it. We get to really know these characters: their faults, their goodness and willingness to help one another. Vincent Bancroft, the editor, is a particularly prickly character. He seems to have no redeeming qualities: he’s verbally abusive, a drunk - and he smells. But when the chips are down, he comes up trumps. The reporters Ox and Reggie are long-suffering employees, and travel the length and breadth of the country to get a story; Grace the receptionist (and at times, ring master!) keeps everyone in line; the runaway, Stella, who is working at The Stranger Times instead of serving time for breaking and entering. And then there’s Hannah. It’s her first week on the job, and she’s having to deal with the death of a wannabe reporter - his murder, in fact. And the weird and wonderful is pretty much non-stop!

I really hope that this is the start of a series - I will be listening to The Stranger TImes podcasts, without a doubt!
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this and to Caimh McDonnell for reading along.
  
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Danny Boyle recommended Apocalypse Now (1979) in Movies (curated)

 
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
1979 | Action, Drama, War

"Always, and always number one for me in every list is Apocalypse Now. There are lots of reasons. It’s imperfect; which every film should be. I love action movies. I believe in motion, in the motion picture industry. And Apocalypse Now is the ultimate action movie. Firstly, it’s the only period film you’ll ever watch where nobody ever says it still ‘stands up after 30 years.’ Every other film — like Alien, and I’m a huge fan of Alien, I even did some promotion for it when they re-released it — the main thing you say are phrases like “Even after 25 years it still stands up.” You never have to use that (phrase) for Apocalypse Now. Everyone always just says: “Wow.” The second reason it’s the ultimate action movie is every time it stops moving it’s weird and unnatural and disturbing. Everytime it stops moving: they stop to collect mushrooms, they get attacked by a tiger; they stop and watch the playboy bunnies arriving; the boat stops and they end up shooting these people over a puppy in a little boat. And it stops, of course, with the ultimate stop: When he (Martin Sheen) meets Marlon Brando, Colonel Kurtz at the end. You can tell by how unnatural the stops are, how natural an action movie it is."

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Darren Fisher (2454 KP) rated Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) by Brian Eno in Music

Dec 18, 2020 (Updated Jan 15, 2021)  
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) by Brian Eno
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) by Brian Eno
1974 | Rock
9
9.5 (2 Ratings)
Album Rating
Eno On Peak
In the 80's I got into Brian Eno via Talking Heads (with the excellent Remain in Light alvum) and David Bowie (Low, Heroes and Lodger), rather than through early Roxy Music.
My first introduction to Eno's solo work was the compilation More Blank Than Frank in 1986, which after listening to, was enough to convince me that I really needed to check out more of his work. I found Taking Tiger Mountain on cassette in the bargain bins at Our Price (I think). No inlay card but it was going cheap. Taking a punt I got it home and was instantly blown away. Musically upbeat for most of its duration, the lyrics told dark, humorous and downright weird tales about espionage, Limbourg Asylum and the rape of a woman by a crazed machine. There's also a lot of references to China (as the album title suggests).
So obssessed by this album I once recycled my smashed up electric guitar body in to a 'skinning up' table (with coaster bed legs so you could push it from person to person). The main centrepiece of this 'table' was a big mound of wax which I attempted to mould into my own Tiger Mountain... Damn the drugs were good back then hahaha 😎✌

Album Highlights:
Burning Airlines Give You So Much More
Third Uncle
The True Wheel
  
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LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated American Horror Story - Season 1 in TV

Aug 29, 2019 (Updated Sep 17, 2019)  
American Horror Story  - Season 1
American Horror Story - Season 1
2011 | Horror
The start of something weird and (sometimes) wonderful
I recently convinced my partner to watch Game of Thrones (she loved it in case you were worried) and the deal was, when we were done with GoT, we would watch one of her favourite shows - American Horror Story.

As we sat down to watch the first season (often referred to as Murder House) of this anthology style series, I wasn't too sure what to expect, but I ended up really enjoying our time with the Harmons.

The season has a suitably creepy tone throughout, and a plot line that keeps you in the dark with what happens throughout, and a pretty impressive amount of violence and horror effects.

The huge positive about this show though is obviously the ensemble cast.
Evan Peters, Taissa Farmiga, Frances Conroy, and Jessica Lange in particular all carve in some really memorable parts to the overall series.
Sarah Paulson doesn't star too much in season 1, but her short time is a nice taster for the important roles she will play moving forwards.

The overall tone can be campy and hammy at times, but that balance throughout Murder House is pretty good.
We ended up watching the whole season in a couple of nights, and I'm glad that I let AHS into my viewing life 👍
  
    Dungeon Survivor

    Dungeon Survivor

    Games and Entertainment

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    *** ULTIMATE DUNGEONS, ENDLESS ADVENTURE! *** The experience of Dungeon Survivor is like a...

Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
2019 | Comedy, Drama, War
Jojo Rabbit- alot of people told me that their liked this movie. From the trailer it looked reallly good. So when i watched it yesterday, i didnt love it, i liked it kinda. Let me explain...

The subject of Nazis and Hitler is a touchy one to say the least, but it's also a subject that is ripe for satire, and one of the many aspects that stands out here, is how Taika Waititi has managed to craft a film that is absolutely hilarious, but never undermines how horrible this part of history was. So the fact that Taika made Hitler funny was kinda weird, strange and also didnt feel right. But at the same time Taika did a excellent job playing Hitler. Its just strange and out of chacter to see hitler funny. Other than that the movie is good.

The plot: Jojo is a lonely German boy who discovers that his single mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic. Aided only by his imaginary friend -- Adolf Hitler -- Jojo must confront his blind nationalism as World War II continues to rage on.

The cast is good, the plot is good, like i said its just strange, wired, out of charcter to see hitler funny. The film never shows the darkside of WWII. So thats good. Jojo Rabbit is a good dark comedy film.