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My Blog List

Thursday 21 February 2019

An idiots guide to an Idiot: A couple of good films

An idiots guide to an Idiot: A couple of good films: Stayed with our dear friends in Kent and had a great few days, not long enough of course, but it never is, anyway, we settled down to watch...

A couple of good films

Stayed with our dear friends in Kent and had a great few days, not long enough of course, but it never is, anyway, we settled down to watch a film or two on Sunday evening. We'd been talking about Peter Sellers films and the fact that I'd never seen 'The Party' (1968) and Kas hadn't seen for years. She was able to find it on their telly box so we sat ready. What a brilliant film! Sellers plays a useless India actor who ruins a film set and is totally inept who by mistake is invited to the party the movie mogul behind the ruined film. It's very funny, one you have to watch as well as alot of the gags are visual. Sellers falls over, breaks things  and generally makes a comedic mess of things. He is in essence a blacked up Inspector Clouseau, his alter ego in the great series of films he made.
After that Stan suggested a western, I'm not a big fan of westerns but this one was based on true events about Jesse James, his brother Frank & also the Younger brothers. What made this film abit different was the fact that the actors playing the sets of brothers were also brothers. It was called 'The Long Riders,' (1980).The sets of brothers in the film are:
It was a good film, albeit a little long and I'm sure that in some of the shooting scenes (of which there was many) their six shooters fired more than six rounds!
That aside it was a brilliant evening with friends, just chilling watching a couple of films.

 

Saturday 2 February 2019

An idiots guide to an Idiot: Late review

An idiots guide to an Idiot: Late review: Last year I posted a few thoughts on new album releases, then there was bit of a rush of new albums and I never really got my act together ...

Late review

Last year I posted a few thoughts on new album releases, then there was bit of a rush of new albums and I never really got my act together to post again.  So better late than never, a potted review of three new releases and a re-release I got towards the end of last year.
Uriah Heep first, the album called 'Living the dream.' Never really been into Uriah Heep, no particular reason, I have only one other album, one from the early '70's called 'Salisbury.'
'Living the dream' has ten tracks all of them pretty good, my own fave being 'Grazed by heaven,' this was also a single and played to death on Planet Rock, that's where I first heard it. Not a duff track on the album a band I'll have to investigate the back catalogue of I think.
Beyond the Black are a German band we saw supporting Saxon a few years ago, I bought their debut album 'Songs of love and death' which was an absolute cracker, as were the band live. The latest album 'Heart of the Hurricane' is also very good but to be honest a bit samey, nothing wrong with that, you get into a band because you like their sound, you don't want Motorhead to start sounding like Abba for instance....although.....no, no forget that thought. Its a good accomplished album of thirteen tracks plus two bonus tracks so its very good value, none of them are epics, all being about 4 minutes long, its a good album, not a great album but it certainly passes muster.
The last two bands are linked. The Quireboys who we have seen before and always enjoy, did a special one off gig to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their 2008 album 'Homewreckers and Heartbreakers.' I bought the special re-release of this album as the first part of the gig was to play the album in its entirety. It's a cracking album full of old barnstormers that The Quireboys do so well to the quieter 'Mother Mary' It's an album I like alot.
The first support for The Quireboys were called Those Damn Crows. What a brilliant new band they are! So good were they,it prompted the purchase of their debut album 'Murder and the Motive.' Ten tracks all bloody good , they are destined for greater things I think, another album with no duffers all very playable, I look forward to more from them.
Not a very in depth review of these four albums I grant you, I left it too long for that but albums I'd recommend to everyone.