“Across The Universe”. A Review Of The 2007 Film on BLU RAY.

Here is the link to Amazon UK to buy this BLU RAY at the best price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000YZ858A

"…Is Anyone Going To Listen To My Story…"

Messing with an icon like The Beatles song catalogue is like doing a whoopsie on the Crown Jewels – probably not a smart move – but fun and imaginative nonetheless. And that's why I love the inventive and brave "Across The Universe" - a film that seems to elicit derision and ecstasy in equal measures. The spirit of The Beatles as a group and as individuals was always to move forward – experiment – expand your horizons – and this 2007 movie is extraordinary for doing just that in such a fresh and challenging way.

Director Julie Taymor and Music Production Supervisor Elliot Goldenthal take 33 Lennon and McCartney classics and along with legendary British TV writers Ian Le Frenais and Dick Clement weave them into a story about a poor Liverpudlian dock-worker/artist (Jim Sturgess playing Jude) seeking his absent wartime American father in the USA. There he meets the handsome, well-healed and slightly crazy Max (Joe Anderson) and his preppy American sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Woods) who is waiting for her boyfriend to return from a war far, far away. And on their story goes as the two culturally different types passionately fall in love with each other (much like the USA did with The Beatles and Britain).

The movie is not surprisingly set during the height of the Sixties American Protest movement - Corporate greed, Vietnam and the Draft, racial inequality, freedom from the straight-jackets of parents and old ways are all grist for the “All You Need Is Love” theme that permeates throughout. And it gels more times than it doesn’t because a huge amount of work and imagination went into the making of this movie – choreography, locations, the lyrics craftily woven into the narrative… But most of all it’s the radical restructuring of The Beatles songs that impresses most (and who sings them and how).

The boys get drunk and lark about on the lawns of Princeton University to "With A Little Help From My Friends", a black child sings an Acapella "Let It Be" by a burnt-out car wreck as rioting goes on in the city streets all around him which then segues into a choir crying as they sing the hymnal song at his funeral – a black guitarist called JoJo (Hendrix) arrives in New York off the bus and is greeted by Joe Cocker dressed as a subway bum/pimp doing "Come Together" while U2's Bono turns up as an acid-totting preacher singing "I Am The Walrus" as he exits a psychedelic bus. Jude befriends the reckless Max (brother of Lucy) and they both thumb-it to the Village Scene of New York where Sexy Sadie is their landlady (a great turn by singer Joan Osborne). The Polynesian Prudence (who is a lesbian) literally comes in through her bathroom window while Max later has to enlist in the army to a truly menacing rendition of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" where the draft poster literally comes alive. These are just some of the inspired moments - but there are so many more. Better still however is both Evan Rachel Woods and Jim Sturgess producing aching vocals on radically slowed down mop-top tunes like "Girl" and "If I Fell" that suddenly feel tender in a way they never did before.

It helps that English actor Jim Sturgess is a dead ringer for Macca and has a great accent and voice – but the problems arise when too many of the set scenes feel a bit forced no matter how inventive the visuals.

The Blu Ray picture is defaulted to 2:40.1 (lines top and bottom) but even stretched to 16 x 9 full screen still looks ravishing. There’s 5.1 True HD audio and Subtitles are in Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, English for the hard of hearing, English, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Polish, Romanian, Slovene and Turkish. The extras are impressive too:

1. Extended Musical Performances

2. Deleted Scene

3. Commentary with Director Julie Taymor and Music Production Composer Elliot Goldenthal

4. Five Behind The Scenes Featurettes and More

5. Don Mace Art Gallery Featuring Drawings From The Film

 As you can imagine there will be thespians and scholars with their noses right out of joint over "Across The Universe" – I say knob to that. I loved it. Fresh, original and yet warm and deeply respectful to music and people who have literally weaved their way into our DNA - this is a movie and subject matter you mustn’t get precious about. Taymor and Co. went for it and I’m sure John Lennon would be smiling right now at the fact that they did so with such panache and balls…

And in the end – and in the words of the brillo Fabs - isn’t love all that you need…

“(500) Days Of Summer”. A Review Of The 2009 Film Now On BLU RAY by Mark Barry...

This Review and 100s More Are Part Of My E-Book

BLU RAY Keepers and Sleepers (A to G)

Available on Amazon - use the Link below

"…The Best Way To Get Over A Woman…Is To Turn Her Into Literature…"

30-something wannabe architect Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has worked for 4 long years in a Los Angeles greeting card company as a slogan writer dreaming of love that somehow seems to elude him. Enter a new ‘average girl’ employee – the heart stopping bug-eyed Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) whose very presence can make ice-cream sales increase and add value to unsellable real estate. Everything about Summer is magical and Tom’s gone-baby-gone in a heartbeat (“This Is Not Good!” his friend quite rightly muses). And therein lies the problem. New Jersey Tom doesn’t just want Summer Finn as a friend...he's thinking Soul Mate - when maybe Michigan's finest isn't thinking anything of the sort…

Possessed of a freshness and wit that is so often replaced with crudity in modern world rom-coms (especially those hoping to be hip, happening and hitting the zeitgeist) – “(500) Days Of Summer” is exceptional is so many ways. It’s lol funny a great deal of the time – visually surprising – beautifully cast and above all just keeps you watching and enjoying right up until its unexpected and satisfying end. Even movie clichés like the dweeb friends to the lead character (superb turns by Geoffrey Arend and Matthew Grey Gubler as McKenzie and Paul) and the smart-arsed child (a droll and grown up performance by tiny Chloe Grace Moretz as his younger sister Rachel) are given such great lines that you’re too busy enjoying yourself to notice piddly little things like time passing. Characters play The Smiths on their Walkman’s, wear Joy Division teeshirts to work, quote Sid Vicious at dinner, want to buy Octopus’s Garden in record shops and even quote Henry Miller for solace (title above). This is a very cool and likeable movie.  

It also uses the brilliant device of an intermittent screen page that tells you which day number we’re on (flicking up and down like a counter clock). If we’re on Day 36 then love is all happy-wappy and new with chirping animated birds and gymnastic sex in showers. But if we’re on Day 329 then the boredom and suffocation on her part has set in - and friendship let alone love is fading fast. Many of the very funny earlier sequences explaining their upbringings are also accompanied by the dry-as-a-cactus-root droll voiceover of Richard McGonagle having a Stephen Fry type hoot with statistics on men, women, shoe size and fate. There’s even a song and dance sequence – a truly infectious sketch played out to the magically upbeat “You Make My Dreams” by Hall & Oates (1981) which is the kind of cinematic genius that is guaranteed to put a smile on the most miserable of mutts.

Defaulted to 2:40.1 Aspect Ratio – the BLU RAY image can be stretched to 16 x 9 without any degradation and is frequently beautiful (especially when Tom shows Summer the beautiful lesser-known architectural wonders of L.A.). There are good extras too:

1. Deleted and Extended Scenes

2. Bank Dance – A feature on the scene choreographed to the Hall & Oates song (as mentioned above)

3. Mean’s Cinemash: Sid And Nancy/(500) Days Of Summer

4. A Music Video to “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap

5. Conversations with Lead Actors Levitt and Deschanel

6. A DVD which includes a DIGITAL COPY of the film

Brilliantly written by Scott Neustadter with Michael H. Weber and zestfully Directed by Marc Webb – “(500) Days Of Summer)” isn’t going to send Oscar committees into raptures – but it should.

The movie’s blurb tells us “This is not a love story – but a story about love…” 

Well - when the story of our hopes and dreams is told this well – then count me in…

“360”. A Review Of The 2012 Film Now On An Artificial Eye 2013 BLU RAY.

Here's a link to Amazon UK so you can buy the BLU RAY:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008X6HSTE

"…Which Way To Turn?...” 

In the bar of Budapest’s Steigenberger Hotel a handsome British Executive Michael Daly (Jude Law) is staring down into a whiskey as he waits for someone. A Slovakian woman arrives at the bar and orders red wine - dressed well enough to get in but sexily enough to be obviously open for business (a fantastic turn by Lucia Siposova). Just as Michael is about to make a mistake that will threaten his marriage to his beautiful wife Rose (Rachel Weisz) – two smarmy businessmen he’d met with earlier in the day arrive to renegotiate (one of whom is Peter Morgan the writer in a cameo). They notice both Michael and the hooker he was heading towards. As they condescendingly look her up sex ratings on the net - Michael takes a mobile phone call from his tiny daughter at home who wants a dog. In Paris Algerian Jamel Debbouze obsessively follows an employee lady friend from the back seat of a taxi desperately wanting to tell her of his passion – in the USA a tattooed twitchy imprisoned convict about to get out talks to his parole office about his urges towards young girls that he now feels are under control (Ben Foster in a stunning turn)  – a bereaved English father (Anthony Hopkins) meets another stray young lady on a plane and at the airport John worries that she (like his daughter) may become another victim – a brutish but essentially decent Ukrainian driver listens to language CDs in his car as Sergei dreams of better things than the whiplash tongue of his odious boss…

The structurally complicated “360” ploughs the same world-citizen territory of 2006’s “Babel” with its ten different stories converging on each other and is equally brilliant for it. This is about ordinary people – good people – struggling to do the right thing while one action carried out somewhere else connects them or threatens to derail them in a domino effect. And how in the end – if you’re lucky and let go enough – life will come full circle and mostly in a good way…

Directed by Fernando Meirelles (“City Of God” and “The Constant Gardener”) from an original screenplay by Peter Morgan (“The Queen” and “The Last King Of Scotland”) – “360” also lets its huge ensemble cast improvise for freshness and cleverly uses split screens to show up to three stories progressing at the same time.

Anthony Hopkins and Rachel Weisz attached themselves to the script early on and clearly got the film made - both loving the process (and it shows). Ben Foster and Jude Law are simply the acting icing on the cake. Each is mesmerizing in their wildly different roles - especially Foster whose part is the most creepy difficult to like let alone empathize with (achieves both). Weisz and Hopkins are so beautifully tender too. There’s a scene where Rose has a extramarital dalliance with a handsome Brazilian gentleman in a bedroom (when earlier she professed undying devotion to her husband Michael) that is amazing - while Hopkins literally rips your heart out as he explains at a meeting for bereaved parents his newfound wisdom of sorts. “360” features great actors at the top of their game allowed by filmmakers smart enough to let them shine.

But while the more famous leads gobble up great writing and parts – what gives “360” its five-star rating is the unknowns who steal the show and give this life’s connections overview such bite and reality. Even as a seasoned watcher - you really don’t know any of these actors from all different nationalities - and yet they etch their characters into your heart to a point where you’re desperate to see them break free from their physical and emotional chains. The ladies in particular are amazing – clearly relishing a generous and humane Director and a writer with a big heart and a sharp eye. But special mention must go to Vladimir Vdovichenkov (Russian) and Gabriella Marcinkova (Czechoslovakian) as the chauffeur and aimless daughter who may leave their sordid worlds behind and literally drive away to new lives…

The BLU RAY picture is defaulted to 2:35.1 so has bars above and below – but even with stretching to 16 x 9 full screen – gives a beautiful picture (the cinematography relishing Vienna, Budapest and Paris in the Winter). Other moments are less defined especially the indoor shots of sleazy photo labs and hotel rooms – filmed with an on-the-go grittiness that’s in keeping with the story. The master audio is 5.1 DTS with English Subtitles. The extras include a short interview with Brazilian Director Fernando Meirelles about the making of the film (financing, plot lines etc.) and interviews with the actors including the 4 principal leads and the Producer Andrew Eaton and Writer Peter Morgan.

Rich in observations and wisdom - “360” is a fantastic film that will stay with you despite its convoluted structure. And whatever turns you may take in life – make sure you visit this humble little gem somewhere along that thorny way… 

“The Complete Private Music Blues, Rock ‘n’ Soul Albums Collection” by ETTA JAMES (March 2013 Sony/Legacy 7CD Mini Box Set.) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Love's Been Rough On Me..."

 

This dinky 7CD mini clamshell box set gathers together an unfairly overlooked period of Etta James’ extraordinary catalogue – not the Classic Chess and Cadet years of old – but six studio albums between 1997 and 2004 with a throwback Live Set done in 1994 (San Francisco) added on a tasty Bonus.

 

Subtitled 'Complete Album Collection' - it features the CD orientated PRIVATE MUSIC label and a string of albums considering by many fans as a second coming for the former Chess Records Blues and Rhythm 'n' Blues star. Here are the gin-soaked whiskey-guzzling TNT-smoking details...

 

USA released April 2012 - UK/EU released August 2012 - "The Complete Private Music Blues, Rock 'n' Soul Albums Collection" by ETTA JAMES is on Sony Music/Private Music/RCA Victor Legacy 88691905892 (Barcode 886919058925) is a 7CD Clamshell Box Set that breaks down as follows:

 

1. Love's Been Rough On Me (1997, 10 tracks, 41:11 minutes)

2. Life Love & The Blues (1998, 12 tracks, 59:38 minutes)

3. Matriarch Of The Blues (2000, 12 tracks, 64:25 minutes)

4. Burnin' Down The House (2002 Live Set, 12 tracks, 72:44 minutes)

5. Let's Roll (2003, 12 tracks, 58:35 minutes)

6. Blues To The Bone (2004, 12 tracks, 47:57 minutes)

7. (Bonus Disc) Live From San Francisco (1994, 8 Tracks, 42:15 minutes)

 

The Mini LP Repro Card Sleeves are all single issues with white borders and no inners - details of the albums all transferred into the info-packed 24-page booklet that features album-by-album annotation and a hugely affectionate 3-page essay on the great lady by renowned Soul/Jazz Writer and Presenter BOB PORTER (it is a functional booklet really rather than pouring it on). There is no remastering in this set – no need – all were beautifully produced in the first place with top class guitarists, keyboard players and horn sections pumping up every single track.

 

If I was to describe the guitar playing ("Love It Or Leave It Alone" is a good example) – think Gary Moore circa "Still Got The Blues" accompanied by a powerhouse rhythm section and Etta letting it rip on the vocals – you get the idea. When she does slow it right down like on "Cry Like A Rainy Day", "If I Had Any Pride Left At All" and her stripped-back cover of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long" – the keys come into the fore to really sweet effect. The production values are fabulous – so clear and yet still full of power…not sanitized in any way…

 

It isn't all misery either – covers like "Born Under A Bad Sign" (Albert King), "Spoonful" (Howlin' Wolf) and "Hoochie Coochie Gal [Man]" (Muddy Waters) see the band rock it out like The Fabulous Thunderbirds with a great female vocalist (Jimmy "Z" Zavala giving it superb harmonica wailing throughout). We even get slinky Sly Stone Soul in her cover of his "If You Want Me To Stay".

 

However - there are some strangely souless clunkers on "Matriarch Of The Blues". Even though she tries to boogie up and funkify Dylan's religious-period "Gotta Serve Somebody", The Stones' Some Girls gem "Miss You" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born On The Bayou" – none is particularly good. Better is her slow bluesy cover of Ray Charles' 50ts Atlantic nugget "Come Back Baby" and her almost John Fogerty take on Presley's "Hound Dog". She gives it some Soul and Easy Listening in the near 10-minute medley of two huge Al Green tunes from his Hi Records days "Love & Happiness" and "Take Me To The River" with that old time perennial "My Funny Valentine" on the far better live set "Burnin' Down the House". Credited to Etta James & The Roots Band – "Burnin' Down The House" goes a long way to restoring faith after the uninspired covers on the "Matriarch..." album. Her version of "I Just Want To Make Love To You" which is mixed in with Steppenwolf's 60ts anthem "Born To Be Wild" is genuinely exciting hard-hitting boogie-band blues. And she tears the house down with "At Last" - a song that now seems inextricably associated with marriage - and Etta James.

 

2003's "Let's Roll" featured strong Delbert McClinton tunes like "Somebody To Love" and "Wayward Saints Of Memphis" with many of the others "Strongest Weakness" and "Old Weakness" written by long-time collaborator Gary Nicholson. Once again the band features blistering Zavala harmonica playing. The "Blues To The Bone" album gets all Stray Cats Strut at times and is another winner – the acoustic slide blues of "Little Red Rooster" is great fun as is the grooving boogie of Al Green's superb "Driving Wheel". And on it goes to another cracking live set…

 

For fans this box set offers nothing they don't already have. But if you've lapsed on the latter half of her career – then this lovely reissue holds a wad of goodies and in some quarters is available at less than a pound or a dollar per disc.

 

Jamesetta Hawkins was born in 1938 and passed away in 2012 having won every award there was in Soul, R 'n' B and even Rockabilly. This classy little release does her memory proud…

"Filth" - A Review Of The 2013 Film Now On BLU RAY.

This link will bring you to Amazon UK to buy this BLU RAY at the best price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00FL31TFQ

"…I Just Wanted To Say Thanks…"

Bravely Produced by Trudy Styler and Written & Directed with panache by Jon S. Baird (adapted from Irvine Welsh’s 2008 book) – "Filth" comes at you like a freight train with a bulldog strapped to its front that hasn’t eaten for four days.

Principal lead actor James McAvoy returns to his Scottish roots to play Bruce Robertson – a hideously arrogant scheming misogynistic chauvinistic detective in the Lothian Borders Police force (it was filmed mostly in Glasgow and Edinburgh with some scenes in Germany). As Bruce sits in his Police debriefing room – we get a running commentary from his twisted and vicious mind about the general uselessness of the work colleagues who surround him – each of which he’s going to royally shaft in order to achieve a promotion (even if some of them view him as a best friend).

There’s his young but still-learning partner in drug-busts Jamie Bell (a man with a challenged appendage in his trouser area and a serious Charly infatuation in his nasal cavities), Emun Elliott as a copper who has questionable sexual preferences (for Scotland that is), the pretty but snootily aloof Imogen Poots whose a lot more savvied than the men think and Gary Lewis as the amiable but rather clueless bobby on the beat and all-round good egg and family man. This seemingly hapless bunch are all overseen by John Sessions as police chief Bob Toal – a winging-it buffoon who would prefer to be suckering up to the literary set at the local Mason’s Lodge (superb performance from Sessions).

The story goes like this… A gang of thugs has murdered a young Japanese student in an underpass and whoever solves the case – gets the leg up the ladder. But what Bruce was once good at (detecting crime) now seems to elude him because he’s on a twitching hallucinogenic slide into mental and physical madness. His working day consists of snorting copious amounts of cocaine in the toilets of strip bars - swigging whiskey is his car from a polystyrene cup - masturbating to dirty videos in his unkempt alcoholic’s flat - eating junk food on the go and last thing at night making obscene phonecalls to the frustrated wife of one of his workmates (a fantastic performance by Shirley Henderson as Bunty). He’s even having kinky suffocation sex with the wife of a soppy bifocal accountant he’s befriended at the Lodge (yet another stunning scene-stealing turn by Eddie Marsan). Jim Broadbent is his Doctor prescribing him with ever more powerful tranquilisers but in his increasingly encroaching visions becomes a hideous physiatrist from a Doctor Who set with a protracted head and images of tapeworms on his office walls…

As you can imagine this river of human nastiness, untamed debauchery and society miscreants makes "Filth" all a bit hard to take – so why bother? Because both Welsh and Baird are better writers than that – they’ve imbibed their characters with back-stories that make you care – especially when it comes to the lead character who features in almost every scene of a book they said was un-filmable. Sergeant Bruce keeps seeing the coal-covered ghost of his younger child-brother whom he couldn’t save – and images of his sexily dressed mid-30’s wife (Shauna MacDonald) saying how great their love life is – when you suspect that she’s up and left and taken their 6-year old daughter with her. Inside Bruce is a river of rage and hurt that’s hurtling towards the precipice – and as he seems unable to stop - he simply blitzes those feelings away with a tide of narcotics.

A word has to be said about James McAvoy – his performance in “Filth” is magnificent in every sense of the word - wholly believable - and should have been Oscar-nominated despite the dark nature of the material. He portrays his character with full-on commitment. Bruce is in control one moment - scared shitless the next – tender in an instant to one woman then needlessly cruel to another. "Filth" is also very, very funny in a hugely un-PC kind of way – a rare and precious thing in films nowadays – and unashamed about it too. The talk John Sessions has with McAvoy about the Nancy-boy sexual orientation of one of his officers ("This Is Scotland for Gawd's sake!") and the scene where Eddie Marsan’s mild-mannered character gets slipped some speed in his lager in a nightclub is the kind of darkly brilliant stuff that will almost certainly develop cult status. And on it goes to more violence and more betrayal and more transgender jiggery-pokery…

But if was to nail one bit in the whole movie that shows how good the acting chops and writing is... There’s a scene where Bruce is exiting a florist and literally bumps into Mary – the widowed wife of a man Bruce tried to resuscitate in the street when everyone looked on and filmed his dying on their smartphones. Seconds earlier Bruce was physically and mentally vicious to a large sales girl inside the flower shop (pumping her on info about the murder) – but outside – he’s transformed. He recognizes Mary and knows that look on her face - her senseless and cruel loss bubbling under the veneer (a lovely turn by Joanne Froggatt who plays Anna Bates the ladies maid to Lady Mary in Downton Abbey). Suddenly his own pain surfaces and tears fill his eyes as she asks after him and thanks him for his kindness on the street that day. There are few actors who could portray such extremes so convincingly – where you can literally feel his hurt and devastation exuding through his pours and his subsequent need to get blasted again. My only misgiving is with the slightly jarrring and confusing ending - I would have preferreed it to have been more upbeat...

The BLU RAY image is a tale of two stories. In order to keep with the down and gritty feel of the drugs scene – the indoor shots are fast and suitably grainy – while the outside shots of the streets are immaculately HD. But the film is travelling so fast and the dialogue so filled with fire and expletives – "Filth" is not the kind of movie where picture quality is on your mind – ever.

The extras are good. There’s a feature-length Audio Commentary by Scottish Writer/Director Jon S. Baird, interviews with James McAvoy (10 minutes), Jon S. Baird (10 minutes) and Irvine Welsh (21 minutes), 4 Deleted Scenes, 7 Extended Scenes and a large number of very funny and informative outtakes featuring most of the actors and even Irvine Welsh as a reporter.

"Filth" won’t be everyone’s idea of a floral arrangement on Valentine’s Day and that’s for sure - but it’s a thoroughly ballsy British film, a brilliantly written and sublimely acted out parable that will stick in your craw for weeks after. Kudos to all who got it made and proof positive that Ireland, England and Scotland can produce world-class movies and actors who can roll with the very best of them.

Amazing and then some...