Looks Good: BLU RAY Keepers and Sleepers - 100 Films You Probably Don't Own But Should - Volume 1 - A to G... by MARK BARRY (100 Indepth Reviews About Great Films and Their Exceptional BLU RAY Reissues)

Looks Good: BLU RAY Keepers and Sleepers - 100 Films You Probably Don't Own But Should - Volume 1 - A to G...

"Cinema Paradiso"

Making movies suggestions is a precarious business - one man's Hilton Hotel is another man's Doghouse Dive. And looking at the 100 choices listed below - a body could easily holler - where's Blade Runner or Close Encounters Of The Third Kind or Gladiator (and other obvious stuff like that). But I figure any true film buff will already own these. 

Volume 1 in this series mixes familiar with off-the-beaten track and covers the letters A to G (with 2 more clusters of 100 to follow). All time frames are touched upon (1930 to 2013) - with quality restorations you may have missed highlighted too. I hope to have provided you with enough information to tempt - but not enough to spoil it. And I also make no bones about preferring a movie that lifts the spirits up - even if you have to get a bit bloodied en route. 

Living in London - each four/five star review is based on the Region B BLU RAY release – and if the film is only available elsewhere – I’ve incorporated American and European versions where their Region Coding will allow play on our UK machines. US customers reading this book simply refer to/buy the Region-A releases of the same titles. Technical info also includes – Aspect Ratio, Audio Settings, Languages, Subtitles and Extras etc. 

Hope you enjoy it…

INDEX:

1.    21 Grams ****

2.    360 *****

3.    (500) Days Of Summer *****

4.    About Time ****

5.    Across The Universe *****

6.    The Adjustment Bureau ****

7.    Adventureland ****

8.    The Adventures Of Robin Hood [1938] *****

9.    The African Queen *****

10. The Air I Breathe ****

11. All About Eve *****

12. All Quiet On The Western Front *****

13. Almost Famous - Extended ****

14. Amelie *****

15. American Violet *****

16. Angel-A ****

17. Anonymous ****

18. Anuvahood ****

19. The Apartment *****

20. As Good As It Gets *****

21. Babel *****

22. Babette’s Feast *****

23. Barney’s Version *****

24. Beautiful Girls *****

25. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead ****

26. The Big Picture ****

27. The Birdcage *****

28. Blackthorn ****

29. Blazing Saddles *****

30. The Blind Side *****

31. Blow *****

32. The Blues Brothers *****

33. Brassed Off *****

34. The Bridges Of Madison County *****

35. Brief Encounter *****

36. Bright Star *****

37. Bubba Ho-Tep *****

38. The Bucket List *****

39. Cadillac Records *****

40. Captain Phillips *****

41. Caramel *****

42. Centurion ****

43. Charlie Wilson’s War ****

44. Chocolat *****

45. The Cider House Rules ****

46. Cinema Paradiso [25^th Anniversary Edition] *****

47. City Of Angels ****

48. Cloud Atlas ****

49. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs *****

50. The Company Men ****

51. Cool Hand Luke *****

52. Copland [15th Anniversary Edition] *****

53. Corman’s World *****

54. Crash *****

55. Crazy Heart *****

56. A Dangerous Method ****

57. Dante’s Peak ****

58. Dead Fish ****

59. Dean Spanley ****

60. Deception ****

61. Deep Blue Sea ****

62. Definitely, Maybe ****

63. Deja Vu ****

64. Delicacy *****

65. Die Hard 4.0 ****

66. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels *****

67. Duets ****

68. Easy A ****

69. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind *****

70. The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sec ****

71. Fargo [2014 Remaster] *****

72. Fast & Furious 5 and 6 *****

73. The Fighter *****

74. Filth *****

75. Fly Away Home *****

76. Flypaper ****

77. Four Lions *****

78. Fracture ****

79. Frankie Go Boom *****

80. Frequency ****

81. Frida *****

82. The Front Page (Extrablatt on GERMAN BLU RAY) ****

83. Frost/Nixon *****

84. The Full Monty *****

85. Garden State ****

86. Get Shorty ****

87. The Ghost ****

88. The Giant Mechanical Man [aka “Love In Detroit”] *****

89. Girl Most Likely ****

90. Glory (Mastered In 4K) *****

91. Going The Distance ****

92. Goldfinger *****

93. Gone Baby Gone ****

94. Good Vibrations ****

95. Good Will Hunting [15th Anniversary Edition] *****

96. Gran Torino *****

97. The Grey ****

98. Grosse Pointe Blank *****

99. Groundhog Day *****

100. The Guard ****

MARK BARRY (June 2015)

My Broken Heart (75 Days In The NHS) by MARK BARRY. 75 Rhyming Poems (With Photos) About A Heart Attack, A Quadruple Bipass, Angina, Piles, Fruity Pots, Nurses, Doctors and Being Given A Second Chance...

MY BROKEN HEART (75 Days In The NHS)

 

75th Anniversary of the NHS (2023)

           

"I'm a Catholic Boy. Redeemed through pain and not through joy..."

The lyrics to a Jim Carroll song from 1980 ran through my head the night it struck. 

And that the front door was only a few more paces away...a few more and I'd be home.

In truth - and unlike our better halves - most men have an irrational fear of physical pain. We will do anything to avoid it. Exercise in a good case in point. We know instinctively that if we don't do the requisite amount of cycling, swimming or even walking distances on occasion (anything that isn't watching tele, surfing the net or sitting in a strategically placed stereo-imaged recliner), we will eventually inflict on ourselves a whole shitload of pain. And all of this avalanche of hurt will come to us at a time in our lives when we’re least able to cope it. We know all this. But like the dumb schmucks men are - we avoid it. 

"A stroke doctor will be here to see you soon..."

I remember two things clearly - the chill that statement instilled in me as the nurse said it (the years of Chocolate Digestives, Salt and Vinegar Crisps and Peppermint Creams was over) - and looking up at the two shuffling Ambulance men on either side of my wheelchair. They'd craftily conned me - deliberately not saying that word as they screamed through the rush hour traffic. And I also remember being sappily taken aback - cheated like a child denied an ice-cream cone on a seaside pier. You see while women can call on monthlies and childbirth as real instances of proper agony - men haven't a clue about screaming - and like to keep it that way. In fact men will avoid pain like they avoid paying taxes, responsibility or bolshy in-laws. 

 

And that's where this book of 75 poems comes in - because in many ways "My Broken Heart (75 Days In The NHS)" is about what happens to you when you avoid a little discomfort, when you shirk your health, when time simply runs out and you literally have to man up or you're going to die - inside and out. 

Because of a right-sided carotid and dissected artery complication (needed to heal) - my quadruple bypass operation had to wait 3 months from its diagnosis date (2 Nov 2012). This meant that when I entered Whipps Cross Hospital on Friday 28 November 2012 expecting the big saw on my chest plate within days - the surgeons and consultants gradually decided that I had to wait until 2 February 2013 before they’d attempt such a dangerous operation. This meant I'd be monitored and kept alive by drugs and care. 70 days of pain in the British National Health Service followed by a bypass and recovery. Nice.

I'll freely admit that I properly broke down twice - and came close to losing it completely on many other days when the closed-in spaces and the wait and the pain were becoming too much. And though it was understandable - I still wince at the thought of me becoming so creepy-needy in hospital - crying behind the Side Room door like a big girl's blouse at visiting children making too much noise. And it's true that nurses can save your sanity with a cup of tea and a biscuit on more than one occasion and are endowed with a well of kindness that seems inexhaustible and at times inexplicable.

But there were the belly laughs too, characters you meet, bonds you make, my family and friends mucking in like troopers and the extraordinary array of staff working their asses off and constantly lifting up your spirits (no praise is enough). 

On the night I left St. Barts Hospital in the City of London - 75 days after my internment - it was four below outside - absolute brass monkeys. I remember I thought my lungs would explode at all that air. And I remember sitting in our car with my lovely wife Mary Ann on that almost surreal journey - finally on our way home to see the kids - the skyline and neons of old London now so beautiful and new. Again another song leapt into my consciousness – the jubilant "In God's Country" by U2 from their magnificent "The Joshua Tree" album. 

 

"Desert sky...we need new dreams tonight..."

I remember thinking the sappy Irishman is being given a second chance.

And can I rhyme Altoids with Haemorrhoids and get away with it?

"MANNISH BOY" - Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Vocal Groups, Doo Wop, Rock and Roll and Rockabilly - Your Guide to Exceptional CD Reissues and Remasters - A SOUNDS GOOD MUSIC BOOK by Mark Barry...

SOUNDS GOOD MUSIC BOOK - E-Book on all Amazon sites

225 Independent Reviews - Wide Range of Releases

"MANNISH BOY" 

BLUES, VOCAL GROUPS, DOO WOP, ROOTS

RHYTHM 'n' BLUES and ROCK 'n' ROLL ON CD 

Exceptional CD Reissues and Remasters 

One Thousand Five-Hundred and Fifty-Plus E-Pages

All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs 

(No Cut and Paste Crap)

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With the 50-year copyright law allowing truckloads of budget compilations to flood the market (especially when it comes to Oldies from the Forties, Fifties and early Sixties) – it’s hard to know what’s audio chaff and what’s aural crème-del-la crème. 

Having worked for over 20 years in one of the best second-hand record shops in the West End as a principal buyer (Reckless Records)  - I've collated together hundreds of detailed reviews on what I feel are exceptional CD remasters – albums and compilations you probably don't own but should. 

BOOK 5 in the SOUNDS GOOD Music Books Series covering Blues, Vocal Groups, Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll on CD features 225 in-depth reviews on Exceptional Remasters that runs to over 1,556 E-pages.  

Each entry focuses on decent remasters with indepth info that helps a purchase decision. You get catalogue numbers, barcodes to identify correct issues, track lists including info on original issues like album and 7” single catalogue numbers, total playing times, packaging and liner notes descriptions, what important guests played on what, cover versions highlighted, remaster engineers named and a lot of info on the original album. 

I provide a Discography for Box Sets and these lists also include Imports, some Audiophile Titles and Japanese SHM-CDs too where relevant or exclusive. Enjoy...

MARK BARRY (March 2024)

"Warts 'n' Audience - LIVE!" by IAN DURY and THE BLOCKHEADS (March 2015 Edsel 'Deluxe Edition Hardback Casebound Packaging' CD Reissue and Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

“...Oy! Oy!...”

Edsel of the UK have reissued six of Ian Dury’s albums in these 2015 Deluxe Edition Hardback Casebound sets – and natty looking things they are too. Here are the reasons to be cheerful...

UK released 2 March 2015 – “Warts 'n' Audience” by IAN DURY and THE BLOCKHEADS is a Limited Edition 1CD Deluxe Edition in Hardback Casebound packaging on Edsel EDSK 5035 (Barcode 740155503536) and pans out as follows (78:16 minutes):

1. Intro

2. Wake Up And Make Love To Me

3. Clevor Trevor

4. Inbetweenies

5. If I Was With A Woman

6. Billericay Dickie

7. Quiet

8. My Old Man

9. Spasticus Autisticus

10. Plaistow Patricia

11. There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards

12. Sweet Gene Vincent

13. What A Waste!

14. Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

15. Blockheads

16. Reasons To Be Cheerful, Pt. 3

Tracks 1 to 16 are the LIVE LP/CD album "Warts 'N' Audience" released March 1991 on Demon Records FIEND 777. The concert was recorded by Mick McKenna on the Rolling Stones Mobile at the Brixton Academy in London on 22 December 1990.

The 14-page booklet inside the hardback casebound cover features full annotation by known expert WILL BIRCH (done in 2004), lyrics to all the songs (including the outtakes/demos), unpublished photos, repros of his handwritten ‘5 poems’, original artwork and so on. These are the 2004 Edsel remasters done at Alchemy Mastering and they sound amazing while all of Disc 2 was Previously Unreleased at the time.

The glory days of Number 1 singles (“Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick” in 1978) and Number 2 LPs (“Do It Yourself” in 1979) were long past for IAN DURY – and wanting to forget (by his own admission) much of what he wrote in the 80s and the disappointment of 1992’s “The Bus Driver’s Prayer & Other Stories” not even charting despite being such a strong album (see separate review) – it was good to see 1998’s wonderfully upbeat “Mr. Love Pants” afford Dury see well-deserved chart action again. Sadly it was to be his last studio recordings with the Blockheads (he passed away in 2000) - but complete with Storm Thorgerson’s artwork intact and new liner notes from Alan Robinson (who worked the album’s promotion in 1998) – this 2015 CD reissue even gives us a half-decent stab at a bonus track in the guise of a ‘remix’ of one of the album’s highlights “Mash It Up Harry”.

It opens in suitably irreverent style with “Jack Shit George” which features a too-and-fro lyric battle between Dury and his Blockheads (he poses a question and they reply in a not so kind manner by being honest). Ian’s songwriting parent Chaz Jankel trumped up co-authored winners in the shape of the acidic “The Passing Show” (“...as we’ve grown jaded and corrupt...”) and the pretty (even sinister) “You’re My Baby”. You also notice the superb Production values (self done) - leagues ahead of anything that had gone before – full of warmth and quiet power – it lifted a lot of the songs and kind of forced you to listen/hear.  

“Honeysuckle Highway” is a languid love song ala Ian Dury with lyrics like “...Evincing all the properties of rapture with a sybaritic disarray...” – but my heart is with “Itinerant Child” which has the most brilliantly written first-verse about a clapped out car “a psychedelic nightmare with a million leaks...It’s home-sweet-home to sweet arse freaks...” (if you’re interested there’s a gorgeous outtake of it on Disc 2 of “The Bus Driver’s Prayer & Other Stories” 2CD reissue in this 2015 series). “Geraldine” is a co-write with Mickey Gallagher where our hero is “...in love with the person in the sandwich centre...” (try not laughing as you listen to him going on about baguettes and coronation chicken). The bopper “Mash It Up Harry” is a updated throwback to the beats of old where Harry wants “...a bit of Wembley up his Rio Grande...” The whole album feels great in a way his records hadn’t done in years.

“He’s got his little bit of England to defend...” - our Ian sang on “Mash It Up Harry”. Well here’s one worth fighting for. Take a chance on his genius with this wicked looking casebound reissue...

PS: the IAN DURY March 2015 Deluxe Edition Hardback Casebound CD Reissues on Edsel are:

1. New Boots And Panties!! (Edsel EDSK 7080, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708030)

2. Do It Yourself (Edsel EDSK 7081, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708139)

3. Laughter (Edsel EDSK 7082, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708238)

4. The Bus Driver's Prayer (Edsel EDSK 7083, 2CDs – Barcode 740155708337)

5. Mr. Love Pants (Edsel EDSA 5034, 1CD, Barcode 740155503437)

6. Warts 'N' Audience [Live] (Edsel 5035, 1CD, Barcode 74015550536)

PPS: Amazon lump all the 2004 and 2015 reviews together in the one place (a nasty habit of theirs) – so if you want the Hardback Book Edition I’ve just reviewed from 2015 – make sure to use the Barcode I’ve provided above to get the right issue...

"Let's Go/Acoustic" by NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND (2015 Beat Goes On CD Reissue - Andrew Thompson Remasters)

“...Cupid’s Got A Gun...” 

A cheesy 80s album combined with a quality Country set from the 1990s (a proper return to form). UK released May 2015 - Beat Goes On BGOCD 1186 (Barcode 5017261211866) by THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND gives you their “Let’s Go” album from 1983 on Liberty Records (Tracks 1 to 10) and their return set “Acoustic” from 1994 also on Liberty (72:12 minutes, Tracks 11 to 21).

This 2LPs on 1CD comes in BGO’s now standard outer card wrap that lends these releases such a classy feel, the 20-page booklet features full musician credits and new liner notes from noted music writer JOHN O’REGAN with some photos in between. ANDREW THOMPSON has done the remasters – beautifully transferred – the Audio is superb on both discs especially “Acoustic” (which was beautifully Produced by the band back in the day at Kerr/Macy Studios in Denver, Colorado.

The first album is one of those terrible 80s efforts where they reach for Andrew Gold and Kenny Loggins songs (“Heartaches In Heartaches” and “Goodbye Eyes”) and try their hand at radio-friendly songs in that schlock hick way. Much of the album also has that Eighties sound that is both polished but heartless in equal measure. Things improve immeasurably when they return to real instrument basics with 1994’s “Acoustic”. Vocalist and Guitarist Jimmy Ibbotson wrote “How Long?”, “Sarah In The Summer” and “One Sure Honest Line” which are straight up Country tunes that work. They do a warm cover of Dennis Linde’s “Hello, I Am Your Heart” while Bob Carpenter’s “Love Will Find A Way” is Eagles territory. In ends well in the Dan Fogelberg/Bruce Hornsby sounding piano of “The Broken Road” – a sincere and moving ballad penned by Jeff Hanna, Marcus Hummon and Bobby Boyd (they won a Grammy for the song and it was used on a tribute album for soldiers who’d suffered from landmines).

Not all genius for sure – but second album more than saves the day – and the Audio Remaster is gorgeous...