FILM REVIEWS: TOTAL RECALL (2012)

Warning: strong language from the very beginning (of the review not the film).

This is the most fucking blindingly stupid SF film I've seen in ages. It is so unbelievably fucking stupid that I thought it was going to be a complete con and reveal itself as something clever albeit derivative.  

The scenario. About a hundred years from now, the almost the entire world has suffered an environmental collapse except for a British dominated western Europe. And Australia known as The Territories. Is there some invisible barrier which prevents the environmental collapse from moving into these regions? And what we see of Australia (The Territories) is a massively overcrowded city along the the lines of Ridley Scott's Bladerunner only much much worse. And -you really are not going to believe this- there is massive tunnel right through the earth -including the molten core!- that connects (I'm assuming) London with an unnamed Australian city. And people travel between the two in a giant lift which takes -wait for it, wait for it!- about 15 minutes to complete the journey which means an average speed of around 32,000 mph. I may be wrong but I think this is faster than escape velocity -the speed needed to get a spaceship into orbit. Apart from that, given the sheer amount of resources it would take to create such a thing it would surely be easier to create Earth-orbit habitats. And people commute every day as a matter of course. The energy this involves must be enormous -and all on an environmentally damaged Earth.

God help me and I haven't even got on to the story yet. If you've seen Arnie's vastly superior original then you've probably got a good idea of what happens next. Working class bloke visits a place that implants memories and wants to be a secret agent only something goes wrong. The police conveniently arrive within seconds, kill the staff (why? they didn't do anything wrong) and are killed in turn by Colin Farrell discovering fighting skills he didn't know he had. He goes on the run hunted by his secret agent 'wife' and discovers he's really a top government agent gone over to the rebels. The rebels, incidentally, haven't been letting off bombs. That's been organised by the head of the government who wants an excuse to kill everybody in Australia -or at least the city we've seen- because, according to him, they support the rebels but really they want the territory for their expanding population. Why? The place is a fucking tip! 

There is lots of mindless sfx/cgi-filled action before it's announced that a few (like maybe three) thousand android soldiers are going down in the elevator to kill everybody at the other end. All millions of them. Wouldn't this take quite a while? Meanwhile everybody down under is told to go to the environmental collapse zone which probably isn't the healthiest place in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, Colin and rebel girlfriend are trying to plant bombs on the elevator. I couldn't understand why the down-unders didn't destroy the arrival station and have the elevator crash destroying everyone on board but what do I know?

At this point I should inform you that very much earlier in the film I decided that the scenario was so stupid that it would all be an induced memory and that Colin Farrell really was just a working class bloke. A little later, not much later, I decided that even that part was induced and Farrell really lives in a utopian society and felt the need to escape into a hideous dystopia in order to appreciate what he really had (this idea is stolen from a short story).

Spoiler Warning!

No it wasn't. Everything is face value. As a film this is one of the biggest piles of shit that I have ever seen. It's so shitty it's an insult to the word shit. Did no-one reading the script, or treatment, realise what an illogical inane piece of crap this was? Clearly not which leads me to conclude that people in Hollywood are the most ignorant thickheads on the face of the earth (except for religious fundamentalists).

This film is so bad that I almost think self-harming is preferable to watching it. 

And to add insult to injury, in the UK it was given a very lenient 12 certificate (triple breasted nudity, attempted genocide, violence, strong language) which means impressionable kids who don't know any better have to suffer it.

If there is any reason to watch this putrefying corpse of a film it's to see how bad a big budget film can be. But, for your own sanity, just take my word for it and don't bother. This really is one of the worst films I've seen in years.

DVD REVIEW: MAN OF STEEL (BLU-RAY, 2013)

This movie has had a mixed reception so I'll get to the point.

I liked it. A lot.

Much of the criticism springs from the fact the writer and director attempted to d something a little different. Not a lot, but enough to upset some people. Me, I like different. I particularly like recent tv series which have taken something traditional and made it new again. Examples: Elementary -ex-substance abuser Sherlock Holmes in modern New York with Dr Joan Watson, Dracula -see recent post, Sleepy Hollow- ditto.

Man of Steel isn't as remotely daring which is hardly surprising as there are certain basics regarding the Superman mythos that you do not fuck with. And they haven't. Just tweaked it a little.

Krypton is very much front and centre here. Just as Jor-El (an excellent Russell Crowe, and rather than repeat an adjective from this point on every time I mention an actor's name imagine it prefaced with excellent) is telling the wrinklies of the council that Krypton is about to blow up, General Zod (Michael Shannon who is even better than excellent) announces he's taking over the government from these wrinklies who've let a great society decline. They get cross with each other. Jor-El hurries home to launch baby Kal to Earth and gets killed by Zod. Krypton blows up. This takes about 20 minutes and is very exciting.

You know what happens next. Kindly couple etc. Then lots of flashbacks. Young Clark has problems controlling and hiding his powers. Young adult Clark leaves home to explore the world, takes on a variety of labouring/menial jobs and is well on his to becoming an urban legend as a result of helping people in unexpected ways. He's 33 by the time he meets Lois Lane up in Canada's Arctic Circle where an alien craft has been found buried in 18,000 year old ice. It's a Kryptonian deep space probe. Clark accesses it by means of a Kryptonian key which contains a copy of his father and all is revealed about his origin. Lois...

Okay, okay, enough spoilers. Let's just say that after fully accessing his powers, Zod and his cohorts arrive in search of Kal-El and wanting to terraform Earth into Krypton. Too bad about the original inhabitants (us). Lots of fighting happens. Spectacular fighting. Really really amazingly spectacular fighting. Your eyeballs will explode.

I think you get the idea.

But while it's an enormous spectacle of a movie, it's also a very human one. Jor-El is a more compassionate and humane figure than he's been portrayed in the past. Zod is not a psychopath but someone who is unable to transcend the role he was genetically created to occupy. Kal is the first natural (and secret) birth on Krypton in centuries, all other babies are created in exo-wombs and designed to fit into a particular niche. So Zod is not a villain in the sense that Terrence Stamp's Zod was but someone who can only see one way. Michael Shannon, an actor I'm unfamiliar with, is terrific in the role, imbuing it with an intensity which makes the word "intensity" seem completely inadequate. 

And in Henry Cavill we have a Superman for the new century -dignified, charismatic, compassionate- who has the physique to make the character believable. In this first film, there is no difference between Clark Kent and Superman, the latter not appearing until some time into the film. And at this point I really ought to mention the laudable performances of Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Clark's true parents who are responsible for him becoming the man he ends up as. And Amy Adams is a good Lois Lane.

Next up is Superman/Batman with Ben Affleck as you know who. Can't wait.

BOOK REVIEW: ADVENTURES OF A WATERBOY by MIKE SCOTT (JAWBONE PRESS, 2012), PLUS REVIEW OF FISHERMAN'S BOX A 6-CD SET BY THE WATERBOYS (CHRYSALIS RECORDS, 2013) and AN APPOINTMENT WITH MR YEATS (PROPER RECORDS, 2011)

At some point I realised that extended 2-CD edition of Fisherman's Blues had joined the list of My All-Time Favourite Albums. It crept there unnoticed until I read the announcement about the imminent release of Fisherman's Box, being the complete FB sessions 1986-88 and realised I had to have it. So I got it and it proved a mixed blessing.

Admittedly I've only played it once but then it is over 7 hours of music which is a lot to get through. While there is a lot of good stuff, the overall feeling I came away with was that Scott got it right on the 2-CD edition. The accompanying booklet is interesting, particularly for Scott's track by track comments and, as you can see above, there's a lot of them. For all intents and purposes The Waterboys are Mike Scott and a varying bunch of musicians some who stay with him for years, other for about five minutes. Which is why I was tempted by his autobiography.

I'm not in the habit of buying books about, but especially by, musicians (though there are always exceptions) because they usually aren't very well written and most so-called autobiographies are ghost-written. Scott, however, is an exception because he happens to be very literate and an good writer. He's also, I believe, quite honest about himself (mostly).

Here's another example of why Scott is one of the most interesting of contemporary musicians. The last Waterboys album An Appointment With Mr Yeats came out in 2011 and is a collection of songs with lyrics taken from poems by William Butler Yeats the famous Irish poet and playwright. To do something like this and do it artistically successfully is not easy. At the very least the singer has to sing with absolute clarity so that every word is heard by the listener, and not only that but it has to convey the rhythm of the poem as created by its author. The music then has to mirror the poem's tone and tempo. Lastly it has to appear seamlessly as an organic unit as if it was always a whole piece, not just a poem set to music.

Amazingly, Scott has done just this. I won't pretend it's an immediately accessible album, it isn't. Like, say Joni Mitchell's masterpiece Hejira, it takes several listenings to reveal its secrets. But it's worth it. The first track The Hosting of the Shee opens softly but rapidly changes into a barrage of multi-instrumental sound as Scott almost yells out the Wild Ride of faery warriors. The lovely and all too brief Sweet Dancer, with singer Katie Kim, could almost be a modern song. That said, Scott has not always lifted the poems intact. Although all the words are by Yeats, sometimes they can be pieced together from up to three sources, often to add a chorus.  When you read his autobiography, which ends a decade before this was recorded, you realise that this is something he's been building up to for years. 

Scott is, of course, a Scot who was given an acoustic guitar and a Rolling Stones album for his tenth birthday by his father who didn't see him again for over thirty years. From a young age, Scott has been making music in his head and this book really is all about him trying to get it out of there and into the world. He became a punk, started a fanzine and wrote a letter to Patti Smith asking for an interview. Smith invited him to London, paid for his hotel room (in her hotel), gave him the interview, and, either in person or with another band member, looked after him there and at the theatre, an act of completely unexpected kindess from her to a 19 year old kid.  

Time passed, Scott formed the Waterboys and what happened next takes up the bulk of the book from thunderous rock to rootsy Celtic folk style and out again. He's generally honest about himself, telling stories which don't show him in too good a light, and also about other people. He's also the first to give praise to the musicians and other people he's met and worked with where it's due and criticism where it isn't. 

Perhaps he may be a little coy about his relationships with various girlfriends but then this isn't a kiss and tell story. He does go into detail about his traumatic relationship with a needy decade-older alpha New York woman, but is more tactful about his first wife. The story of how he met his second wife is rather sweet and it happened when he retreated to the humanist mystical community of Findhorn which he portrays as a fascinating and open place. To me, Findhorn sounds like a place for those, too intelligent to be suckered in by traditional religions, but who seek varying paths to uncovered some form of transcendent truth though I have to say that what Scott discovers is rather appealing even while the cynical side of me thinks it's mystical bullshit for intellectuals. Be nice if they were right though. Anyway, he finds himself attracted to a young dance teacher and after some deep thinking decides she is the love of his life and invites her out. She accepts but doesn't realise it was for a date, confesses she hadn't really thought of him in that way. A little while later, she asks to go out with him again and confesses that she'd been doing some deep thinking and has decided that she does like him in that way and over twenty years later it looks as if the deep thinking was right.

Scott is a good writer, he's an interesting person, and I really enjoyed reading this book. My only grumble is that it stops around the time of the millennium thereby omitting the next ten years of his life.

NELSON MANDELA 1918 - 2013

Nelson Mandela, the most noble politician of the 20th century, has left us.

There are so many words that could be spoken about this man and they would never be enough, so I'll say only this:

He was an inspiration to the world.

CURRENT TV: DRACULA (SKY LIVING) AND MORE, REVIEWED

Just for a change, I'm going to rate these shows. Here's the guide.

***** I'm not going out, I'm not answering the phone and I'm holding my nose until the commercial break when I'll clean up the cat poo.

****   As above, but I'll move the cat poo into another room until the commercial break.

***    As above, but I clean up the cat poo immediately and I could be talked into going out for a drink as I'm recording it.

**       I'm recording it and finding something else to do. Might watch it sometime.

*         There must be some cat poo in the house to clean up.

There's a trend for reinventing classic characters on TV (talking about drama series here) by doing a riff that is at complete variance with what the viewer expects. Recent example that worked: Merlin. Current example that doesn't: Atlantis -rating *. 

And now there's Dracula which is so utterly bizarre that it comes over as completely insane. Either that or it's a work of genius. Drac is still a vampire (or course he is; him not being really would defeat the object) but everything else pretty much isn't. Our anti-hero is revived by the doctor Abraham Van Helsing to help him take out the secret organisation which killed the vamp a couple of centuries earlier. after that opening he appears in late 19th century London as Grayson, an American industrialist-entrepreneur who wants to destroy the oil industry which is controlled by our secret society. Jonathan Harker is a journalist enlisted by Drac to get the dirty on his enemies. Harker's fiance Mina is a woman training to be a (shock, gasp, how dare she, she's a woman after all) doctor. Oh yeah, she's also the reincarnation, so he believes, of Dracula's long-dead wife. Lucy Westernra is a good time girl with a secret crush on Mina. There is a wonderful Amazon (woman, not a pre-Internet version of you know what) blonde with big t... sorry, this a non-sexist blog. Likes: rampant sex, fine food and wine, watching no-rules women fights, torture and decapitating vampires (even though she doesn't know she's shagging one -Grayson aka Drac) for the secret society. Give her a spin-off series.

This show is so over the top you want applaud each successive incident of bravura, chutzpah, or whatever you want to call it. Me, I call it the best trashy show on TV. 

Rating: *****

And then there's Sleepy Hollow in which a famous spooky story about a headless horseman and a school teacher is reinvented. Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) is now a British military officer who has swapped sides and now works for General Washington in the fight against the British army in the American War of Independence. He decapitates a seemingly unstoppable soldier only to find it makes no difference and not long after wakes up in a crypt to find out that over 200 years have passed and that the horseman is back and he may be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Crane is teamed up with a young cop (Nicole Beharie) who is not only, as you may have guessed, female but also black. This poses no problems for our progressive turncoat British Oxford professor/spy/soldier/etc. 

Things get complicated, lots of people die (beheading being quite a common way in this series), our heroes accrue a collection of friends and enemies (aka the supporting cast), surprising revelations come at a fast rate of knots as the plot gets knottier and knottier. 

This series is turning into a surprise cult hit in the States -the chemistry between the two excellent leads is an important factor- though the only people who are still surprised are those who haven't seen it yet.

Rating: ****

Last of the new series is Marvel's Agents of Shield. Now given that there are strong links to both Joss Whedon and the larger Marvel movie superhero universe (specifically The Avengers), hopes were not only high they could, like the cow, jump over the moon.

Unfortunately it's just not very good. The characters aren't particularly engaging, though some have got better as the series has gone on. But the stories are, on the whole, quite dull. I keep watching it in the hopes it'll get better. There was an enormous amount of goodwill for this show and it's already booked for a second season. Not sure if I'll be watching it.

Rating: **

Arrow is in its second season and it's steadily building into what may soon be considered the best tv series ever to be based on a super-hero character. In this case it's DC's Green Arrow. It takes much of its mythos from the comic but grounds it, by TV standards, in reality. It has a strong supporting cast of interesting characters played by good actors and in its lead, Stephen Amell, you have someone who looks like he can actually physically accomplish what his character does, who is a good actor, and importantly possesses an undoubted charisma which makes both Arrow and alter ego Oliver Queen convincing. That it's also extremely well made doesn't hurt.

There are plenty of surprises, twists, and turns, revelations and always the feeling that there's more surprises to come. When they introduced Black Canary (in the comics GA's long time lover) and it wasn't the love interest then it could only be one other character who was supposedly dead and I was right.

All in all, an excellent action-adventure series.

Rating: *****

If True Blood hadn't already jumped the shark a couple of seasons ago then it certainly has this time with the introduction of a 6000 year old vampire-fairy in love (and who the hell isn't on this show?) with the heroine. Still, there's enough explicit sex, nudity, blood, gore, flashing fangs, and humour to keep regularly viewers moderately entertained. Rating ***

Spy thriller Nikita is up to season 3 and I hope it will be the last. Loved the first two, don't know why I keep watching the third. Once our hunted heroes took over the organisation that used to hunt them, it went downhill. Rating: **

It's the last season for British underclass super-hero series Misfits and, despite a complete change of cast from the beginning it remains consistently vulgar, funny, and sex-obsessed thanks to a great cast and Joseph Gilgun in particular. It's quitting while it's ahead. But it will be missed. Rating: ****

I'm getting tired so I'll quickly skip over Elementary, a modern New York-living Sherlock Holmes played well by Johnny Lee Miller with Lucy Liu as his assistant Dr Joan Watson. Always interesting and often funny, this is one of those shows that shouldn't work but does. Rating ***

American Horror Story Season 3 is about witches. I gave up watching the first season about halfway through, not for the horror but the cruelty and the certainty that something terrible was going to happen to innocents. For that reason I skipped Season 2. However I'd thought I'd give the latest one a go. For those not familiar with the show, each season is self-contained and while actors may reappear, their characters are different.

This one is set in a school for young witches, but if you're thinking an X-men variant, forget it. There are only four students. The head is generally well meaning but her mother is the Supreme witch and is played by Jessica Lange with such intensity that no-one in their right mind would even want to be in the same city as her. Cathy Bates plays a slave owner/madame given eternal life and then buried alive for 180 years until Lange digs her up and makes her the slave of the obese black teenage witch. Angela Bassett is Marie Laveau who wasn't buried alive, still flourishes and whose mortal enemy is the ruthless Lange. I can't begin to summarise the actual plot as it changes every five minutes. 

In a way, this show does what true horror should do -it unnerves and it disturbs, it goes into truly dark places which is something rare in modern horror no matter how gory. ****

If you see this woman, run!

Dr.Who Special.

The Day Of The Doctor. Well, it is what it is. There's no point to criticising it except by the standards and conventions the show has set itself. There's no point in criticising if you don't like the show because what you see as flaws could be examples of writer/produced Stephen Moffett's genius to someone who does. There's also no point whatsoever in criticising it for its use of science which has always been bibble-bibble, the deus ex machina rabbit out of a hat with one mighty bound he was free and if you can't swallow that, go watch The Sky At Night instead.

Apart from wrapping up loose ends, bringing together strands and bringing them to a resolution, there is a feast of references -some obvious, some subtle, some downright obscure- for fans of the show. One minute it's Monty Python, the next it's the human dilemma and knowing what is the right thing to do.

All that remains to say are: John Hurt was amazing as the War Doctor; and, I just loved it.

And if you haven't seen this show, watch it on BBC's Iplayer.
NOW!

If you have any interest in the early history of British television, if you like dramas based on actual events, if you're interested in Doctor Who, or just like British actors acting brilliantly, watch this now.

In case you haven't heard (and I can't imagine regular readers of this blog not doing so), this is about the creation and early years of Dr.Who. It's how an extrovert Canadian showman got a minuscule budget science fiction kids show on tv, made a pushy female Jew the producer, and put a wog as its director. In the white upper class male patrician BBC this was unheard of. Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein (for it was them) got a grumpy middle-aged chain smoking actor with a chip on his shoulder as the elderly lead, put it together with materials like Blue Peter sticky black plastic and cardboard, and made it an enormous success.

And that is the story. It's also brilliantly done on every level. From its recreation of the BBC of the early sixties, the wonderful cast, a masterly script by Mark Gatiss (possibly the best thing he's ever done), and surely at the least a Bafta award nomination for David Bradley as that vulnerable curmudgeon William Hartnell.

Simply a breathtaking piece of drama that makes the license fee worth every penny.

I did see the first episode at the time and still remember it (vaguely). I also never missed one for many years after that.

SOCIETY: THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Multi-tasking: a definition.

The ability to perform multiple tasks badly.

"Good at multi-tasking."

An oxymoron.

Thank you and goodnight.

A COLLECTION OF BRIEF REVIEWS FROM AMAZON

5* Transcends criticism-

But is not beyond it. What I mean by that is that if you've seem Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy then you know exactly what you're getting. More or less. This is lighter in tone -it is based on a children's book after all- and includes songs sung by the characters (like the dwarfs). You know that it's going to be Jackson's version of the book too as he takes additional characters and events from various Tolkein-written sources plus original input from his writers. So to complain, as some certainly will that it's a bad thing to include material that is non-canonical to the original book, is entirely missing the point. He hasn't padded out a shortish kids book, he's extended it and done so extremely well.

What we get here, as we did before, is a magnificent cinematic fantasy experience where Jackson creates a completely convincing magical environment -aided, it has to be said, by the scenery of perhaps the most beautiful country in the world. I avoided seeing this at the cinema because I wanted to wait for the extended edition. Now I'll be queueing at the multiplex door for Part 2.

And, yes, the extras are all you ever wanted and possibly more.

Just a word of advice to buyers who are as dim as me. The 2-D version is on disc 3, Discs 1 & 2 contain the 3-D version only. It took me a few frustrated minutes to figure that out. But I'm old and that's my excuse.

4* Deranged

But in a good way.

Also in an often amateurish way too. But there's a loony enthusiasm pervading the mostly frenetic numbers. There are even some which are actually musically accomplished such as Storm Warning by Mac Rebennack (who would reinvent himself in the 60s as Dr. John, as if you didn't know). This is largely fun dumb music and, hey don't get me wrong, that's praise.

4* A feast for Fifties guitar fans.

Um, that was the review, okay? No? A little more then.

It hits most of the high spots so any avid fan of the music is already likely to have the best of the tracks here, though for a dabbler like me, it's excellent. Indeed it was worth getting for my favourite surf instrumental ever -Pipeline by the Chantays. It also highlights just how good The Shadows were in comparison to the competition. Good driving music as all the tracks are pretty short.

3* Not quite so fashionable

Considering that this is set in the fashion industry, of a sort, this is distinctly unglamourous and, in fact, downright ugly thought that, I suppose is part of its intent. Set in a city which reminds me of the perpetual night-shrouded locale of the excellent film Dark City, this is a grim read. The art, while accomplished and effective, is not attractive to look at.

The story, being by Alan Moore, is of course effective, particularly with its motif of illusion and reality which is best exemplified in ambiguity of the sexual identities of two of the story's main characters. However, it's worth remembering that Moore wrote this as a film script and it has been adapted as a graphic novel by someone else -Antony Johnston- so the reader is not getting a graphic novel by Moore as one would normally consider it.

Ultimately it's a bleak depressing piece and one which I believe will come to be considered as one of Moore lesser works. Read it if you must but make sure any sharp objects you own are locked away.

5* The best book about Alan Moore to date.

Okay, I haven't read the academic American texts about the world's most famous graphic novelist but I have read the more accessible ones and this really is the best. Unlike the most recent biography (Alan Moore: Storyteller) by one of Moore's mates, this isn't authorised and author Larkin is prepared to delve into some of the more controversial aspects and in detail.

There's as much about Moore's relationships and attitudes towards the comic book industry as there is about the comics/graphic novels themselves. Just one example: there is a very detailed exploration of Moore's widely publicised dispute with DC Comics which the author looks at from both sides and attempts to evaluate the situation. He also discusses Moore's possible motives for his reactions to a variety of issues. So what makes this book stand out above others published to date is that this is as much about Alan Moore the man as Alan Moore the writer, something very much missing from the other title I cited and which I noted in my review of it here on Amazon. Actually, the two books complement each other quite nicely.

That said, it you only gotta buy one book about Alan Moore then this is one: perceptive, witty, and highly readable it's worth every penny.

Perhaps a little surprisingly, the man himself has given it a tacit nod of approval.

Post Script: Coming Soon.

Maybe. If I feel like it. After I've had a chance to digest them properly.

THE WATERBOYS: Fisherman's Box.

The complete Fisherman's Blues sessions 1986-88. A massive 6-CDs. Expect an effusive review.

BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD: Box Set.

A mere 4 CDs with a shitload of demos and unreleased alternate versions. Previously released in a more expensive edition.

DVD REVIEW: ZATOICHI (2003)

This is one of those samurai movies where you don't know which period it's set in until the appearance of an artifact or a European in costume. In this case it's a gun which places it sometime in the later 19th century. Not that it makes any difference in the slightest. It's also an update of a long-running series about Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman. Here he's played by Beat Takeshi who is capably directed by Takeshi Kitano and also his alter ego.

And it's all good gory violent fun. Lost of action and gallons of cgi blood spatter and some cgi wounds. It's also got a plot, or at least several characters in search of one. Zatoichi, whose name is rarely mentioned, has taken on the guise of a wandering masseur and arrives at a small town ruled by rival gangs. Oh, the opening scene has him despatching a bunch of people who've hunting him. Just to get the viewer warmed up for what's to come. He's taken in by a kindly lady of uncertain age and promptly goes gambling, something he's good at, where he befriends the lady's feckless nephew aka the comedy relief.

There are three other players of significance in this drama. There's the ronin who, needing money to buy medicine for his ill wife, accepts a job as bodyguard to a gang leader. He isn't a bad person as such but is completely ruthless in accomplishing what he is paid to do and we just know that this will bring him into contact with our ageing blind hero. More sympathetic are the two homicidal geishas. Actually they are sister and brother who are tracking down those who slaughtered their family when they were children. The boy has adopted female guise and, while growing up, went with men -who clearly knew what and how old he was- to earn money. I suspect it's this transgressive subplot which earned the film the 18 rating rather than the stylised violence and bloodshed which is always fast and furious and never lingered over.

I much mention the final sequence which is completely at odds with everything that went before. It is a massive and hugely enjoyable percussion-led dance sequence by a famous Japanese tap dance troupe plus the few surviving main characters. Zatoichi, however, is back on the road.

The cover art is very much in the style of graphic novelist Frank Miller though, as there is no credit on the box, it may not be him.

All in all, a highly enjoyable film.

DVD REVIEW: THE DINOSAUR PROJECT (2012)

I stumbled across a reasonable review of this little movie on a website and, being a sucker for dinosaurs (something boys never really grow out of) and finding it quite cheap on Amazon (with a bunch of poor reviews) decided to give it a shot.

Basic premise: a bunch of cryptozoologists go to the Congo (played by South Africa) to find m'kole m'bembe (a legendary river beast they believe is a dinosaur). Everything goes to pot: their copter crashes, they can't signal for help, and m'kole m'bemebe is real and so are a lot of other evolved dinosaurs. It's also one of those found footage films, a technique I normally dislike intensely. Don't expect much gore as it's a 12 rating putting it on a level with Marvel superhero movies.

The big surprise is that this low budget movie is actually not bad at all. At 80 minutes (including credits) it doesn't over stay its welcome and does what it sets out to do rather well. The found footage scenario actually works, though I suspect it was really used to avoid expensive scenes -watch out for the dinocam. The evolved dinosaurs  -which are mainly limited to bat-like flying reptiles which seem to be the dominant carnivore in the area, a bunch of small but not aggressive little carnivores and the river beast itself -are well done. 

It's decently acted by a largely British cast of unknowns. The young actor playing the 15 year old stowaway son of the expedition's leader is good as the character could have been annoying (and he is at first) but ultimately proves very resourceful. I did cringe a little when the teenager actually befriends a small dinosaur which eats out of his hand and then throws up over him but this has a good pay-off near the end. With the actual found footage being shown pulled from the river at the start you think you know what's going to happen then but it pulls off a neat surprise.

Add in a decent and interesting making of which shows how skillful the film-makers were and makes you appreciate the movie even more and you have a nice little family film (albeit not for the younger ones). Not exactly an undiscovered gem but it definitely sparkles.

MUSIC REVIEWS: MUSIC FROM THE DAYS OF THE DAWN OF ROCK AND BEYOND

Or: A look at some releases on the Not Now Music label of compilations of public domain* music mostly from the 1950s. 

Or: How an enthusiasm for electric guitar took me down some unexpected byways.

1. Introduction: When the world was monochrome.

I was born in 1948, we didn't get a television set until the mid-50s, our radio was limited to BBC stations, the only pop music show on TV (when we only had one channel) I can remember from that time is The 6-5 Special, and I didn't get a tranny (as in transistor radio, not the current usage) until about 1960-61 when I discovered the joys of Radio Luxembourg and, more or less, non stop pop music (plus Garner Ted Armstrong). I've also just remembered going regularly to the pictures (i.e. cinema) for the Saturday morning kids matinees where, before the show started, we used to sing pop songs with the words shown on the screen.

[At this point I'm going to interrupt myself. It's probably obvious that this post is being written and rewritten over several days and I'm looking at a number of these compilations on Amazon as I go. I've just discovered one which covers the era I mentioned above and bugger me if I can't remember a vast amount of names of the artists on it, more the names than the actual songs. Here it is-

When doing the search on Google Images it also threw up a number of similar compilations which I mention in case anyone is interested. Amazon threw up one called Calypsos, Boogies, Rockers, Ballads and Bluebeat: The Rise of Black Music in Britain. It's remarkable how many of those I remember and I may yet buy it. No image because the only one I could find was blurred.
So that was my mid to late 1950s.] 

*At least I assumed the music was in the public domain as several reviewers on Amazon state as much. However, after just doing a little checking, it would appear (in the US) that all music is issued after 1922 remains in copyright until 2067. Since writing that sentence I've discovered that there is European legislation putting recordings prior to 1963 in the public domain, That same legislation, I believe, has since been amended to stop a yearly increment which would otherwise have put The Beatles recordings there. I find this all very confusing and have mixed feelings about it. As a consumer, the more public domain stuff the better but on the other hand I don't believe still living artists should be deprived of income from their earlier work.

Interruption over. Please continue from the Introduction. Ta.

So, while I'm familiar with a number of artists on these CDs, I tended to discover them at various times (sometimes decades) after the original release of the tracks on display.

Whatever, I think it's fairly true to say that none of these recordings+ were taken from the original master tapes, even if they exist, but, probably, from the records themselves so the quality isn't perfect. That said, after playing one disc they sound very acceptable. But then I'm not an audiophile which is just as well as I'm partially deaf (dumb and blind kid who sure plays a mean pinball!) Sorry.
I should also note that Ace Records (UK) have an enormous range of reissues which covers much of what is reviewed here and their CDs have detailed authoritative sleeve notes and top quality remastering. But they're also notably more expensive.
+And they're all mono, though that's stating the obvious.

2. The CDs.

CD1 1. Misirlou Dick Dale 2. Three O'Clock Blues B.B. King 3. Rumble Link Wray & His Ray Men

4. Space Guitar Johnny "Guitar" Watson 5. Lightnin' Blues Lightnin' Slim 6. Waiting For Benny Charlie Christian 7. Cotton Pickin' Mickey Hawks & The Night Raiders 8. Susie Q Dale Hawkins 9. Dust My Broom Elmore James 10. On The Rocks Jimmy Raney 11. Raunchy Bill Justis 12. Blue Guitar Earl Hooker 13. Blue Guitar Stomp Leon McAuliffe 14. Ghost Riders In The Sky The Ramrods 15. Sleepwalk Santo & Johnny 16. Bye Bye Blues Les Paul & Mary Ford 17. Big Beat Boogie Bert Weedon 18. Walk Don't Run The Ventures 19. The Story Of My Life Guitar Slim 20. Mister Sandman Chet Atkins 21. Guitar Boogie Shuffle The Virtues 22. The James Bond Theme John Barry Seven 23. Treat Me Like I Treat You Eddie Burns 24. Spoonful Howlin' Wolf 25. Shakin' All Over Johnny Kidd & The Pirates

CD2 1. Johnny B. Goode Chuck Berry 2. Hide Away Freddie King 3. Have Guitar - Will Travel Scotty Moore Trio 4. West Coast Blues Wes Montgomery 5. Out Of Limits The Marketts 6. Taking Off (Inst) Milton Brown And His Musical Brownies 7. Miss Ann's Tempo Grant Green 8. Guitar Bustin' Arthur Smith 9. Nuages Django Reinhardt 10. Potato Peeler Bobby Gregg & His Friends 11. Guitar Shuffle Lowell Fulson 12. Ellis In Wonderland Herb Ellis 13. Freeze Albert Collins 14. Foot Patter The Fireballs

15. Travellin' To California Albert King 16. This Time The Dream's on Me Kenny Burrell 17. Teen Scene The Hunters 18. Mumblin' Guitar Bo Diddley 19. Chicken Wire Roy Clark 20. Lullaby Of The Leaves Mickey Baker 21. I'm Gonna Murder My Baby Pat Hare 22. Okie Dokie Stomp Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown 23. Jordu Barney Kessel 24. Shazam! Duane Eddy 25. Boogie Chillun John Lee Hooker

CD3 1. Green Onions Booker T. & The MG's 2. Old Joe Clark Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant 3. Sand Storm Johnny & The Hurricanes 4. Flying Fingers Joe Maphis (with Larry Collins) 5. Blues In B Flat The Oscar Moore Quartet 6. Blues After Hours Pee Wee Crayton 7. All Your Love Magic Sam 8. Her Love Rubbed Of Carl Perkins 9. The Beat The Rockin' R's 10. Strollin' With Bone T-Bone Walker 11. Yes Sir, That's My Baby! Dick Hyman, Mundell Lowe & Trigger Alpert 12. I Need You, Baby Eddie Kirkland 13. Liza (All The Clouds'll Roll Away) George Barnes 14. Jimmy's Rock Jimmy Reed 15. Have You Met Miss Jones George Van Eps 16. Apache The Shadows 17. Boogie Guitar Johnny Otis 18. Skippin' Buddy Guy 19. Yardbird Suite Tal Farlow 20. Mannish Boy Muddy Waters 21. Kissing In The Dark Memphis Minnie 22. Gonna Find My Baby Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup 23. Sweet Little Angel Tampa Red  24. I Can't Quit You Baby Otis Rush 25. The train kept a-rollin - Johnny Burnett

(List copied from a  review by Glen Cook, with one correction. Amazon didn't include a list but Cook took the time to do it. Thanks.)

Read (fans of electric guitar only) that track list and go, as I did: Wow! Oh yeah, and it costs just over a fiver. Again: Wow!

And now that you have, find a similarly inclined friend and prepare to have a great fun argument about who is and who isn't a pioneer of electric guitar, who should be included but wasn't (bare in mind the cut off date of 1962) and who shouldn't but was.

Blues artists are, as they should be, well represented in this compilation -all three Kings, Memphis Minnie, Albert Collins, and many more. But I admit to being croggled when I saw the inclusion of Lightnin' Slim. Now Po' Lightnin' happens to be my uncontestable favourite obscure primitive electric bluesmen and one of my very favourite blues guys full stop. But not even his more rabid fans (such as myself) would claim that he was a pioneer of electric guitar or that any original ideas he had didn't come from someone else. I can only assume that the compiler is as fond of the guy as I am. "Blow your harmonica, son." There's also the inclusion of former Muddy Waters' guitarist Pat Hare with the tragically prophetic I'm Gonna Murder My Baby.

Checking out the names you come across Les Paul, Link Wray, Duane Eddy, Scotty Moore, Johnny Otis and people you'd never expect like Bert Weedon (snigger). Sorry, shouldn't have said that. Weedon and his book "Become a rock guitar god in fifteen seconds" (something like that anyway) was an enormous influence on just about every British guitar hero to emerge in the 60's, and by all account he was one of the nicest people you could wish to meet. I just can't get that line from a Bonzo Dog song -"We are normal and we dig Bert Weedon, hahaha."- out of my mind. There's also the John Barry Seven, The Shadows and Johnny Kidd & The Pirates holding up the British end. Track I really liked but hadn't heard before was Sand Storm by Johnny & the Hurricanes, a great driving instrumental.

So what we've got is a highly eclectic and highly enjoyable collection dating from 1935 - 1961 but mostly from the 50's. As with me, it's unlikely you'll like everything but you'll certainly like a lot and you'll certainly find stuff which will surprise and delight you.

CD1 1. Crazy Blues - Mamie Smith & Her Jazz Hounds 2. Black Snake Moan - Blind Lemon Jefferson 3. Blowin' The Blues - Sonny Terry 4. Wrong Woman Blues - Lonnie Johnson 5. 44. Blues - Roosevlet Sykes 6. Scarey Day Blues - Georgia Bill (Blind Willie Mctell) 7. Warehouse Man Blues - Champion jack Dupree 8. T.B. Blues - Victoria Spivey 9. Guitar Rag - Sylvester Weaver 10. Penetrating Blues - Martha Copeland 11. Texas alexander - Levee Camp Moan Blues - Texas Alexander 12. Sorrow Valley Blues - Irene Scruggs 13. Rolled From Side To Side Blues - Little Hat Jones 14. Irresistible Blues - Eva Taylor 15. Low Moaning Blues - Snitcher Roberts 16. Everywomans Blues - Rosa Henderson 17. Stand Up Suitcase Blues - Uncle Bud Walker 18. Your Jelly Roll Is Good - Alberta Hunter 19. That Lonesome Train Took My Baby Away - Charlie McCoy w/ Bo Carter 20. Walkin' Talkin' Blues - Sippie Wallace 21. Miss Ora Lee Blues - Peter Chatman & His Washboard Band 22. Muddy Water Blues - Papa Freddie 23. Something Going On Wrong - Peter Cleighton 24. Roll & Tumble Blues - Hambone willie newbern 25. Sitting On Top Of The World - Mississippi Sheiks CD2 1. Stack O Lee Blues - Mississippi John Hurt 2. When I Been Drinking Big Bill Broonzy 3. Double Trouble - Brownie McGhee 4. Pratt City Blues - Berth Chippie HIll 5. You Scolded Me And Drove Me From Your Door - Mississippi Bracey 6. When You Are Gone - Blind Boy Fuller 7. Me & My Chauffer - Memphis Minnie 8. St. Louis Blues - W. C Handy 9. Giving It Away - Birmingham Jug Band 10. Cow Cow Blues - Dora Carr 11. Lonesome Woman Blues - Rosetta Crawford 12. Panama Limited Blues - Esther Bigeou 13. A Woman Get's Tired Of One Man All The Time - Stovepipe & David Crockett 14. Blue Blood Blues - Blind Willie Dunn's Gin Bottle Four 15. Mean Low Blues - Blues Birdhead 16. Achin' Hearted Blues - Sara martin 17. Tickle Britches - Ed Macon & Tampa Joe 18. Worried Blues - Gladys Bentley 19. Bo Carter - Ants In My Pants 20. Evil Mama Blues - Ada Brown 21. Hard Scufflin' Blues - Little Buddy Doyle & Big Walter Horton 22. Fattenning Frogs For Snakes - Carrie Edwards 23. Canned Heat Blues - Sloppy Henry 24. If I Let You Get Away With It Once You'll Do It All The Time - Margaret Johnson 25. Parchman Farm Blues - Bukka White

And sometimes you buy something you realise you didn't really want. For some reason I had a bee in my bonnet that all these compilations were from the 50's whereas this blues collection is all acoustic stuff from the 20's to the 40's. It's perfectly good but I prefer electric blues. Memo to self: pay more attention.

If I wanted I could also have bought Essential Rockabilly collections from the RCA, Dot, Columbia, MGM, Decca, London America, and Imperial labels. But that way lies madness.

I mean, why would I want 400 tracks of something that is a fairly narrow musical sub genre which is basically a countrified version of the emerging Rock'n'Roll with the Blues taken out? It's very rhythmic, up-tempo  with the guitar given prominence and a tendency for most of the male singers to sound like Elvis wannabees; maybe it was something in the water at the time. Whether it's a precursor of Country Rock is debatable. It's what I call primitive music in that it's direct, simple and unsubtle. It also happens to be enjoyable in its limited way and in small doses. So I picked this one on the grounds that it was probably the best of the lot. I mean, just look at the names on the CD cover -you can add Charlie Rich and Charlie Feathers as lesser known but important names (in other words, I've heard of them). Plus I've a fondness for Sun Records given Sam Phillips recording and promotion of Blues artists even if he did pretty much lose interest in them once he found Elvis.

Something often forgotten in these days when music is available as cheaply and easily as water from a tap, all the tracks on these CDs (not just Rockabilly) were originally released as singles and played to death while the buyer saved up to buy another one. They weren't, as Charles Shaar Murray pointed out in his book Blues On CD (way out of date but still interesting), intended to be listened to one after the other like eating peanuts or popcorn. So in this form it's inevitable that the parameters (or limitations if you will) become more obvious and the songs inevitably sound samey.

(And I'm skipping the track listings from this point. You know where to find them if you're interested.)

Coming out of post-war jump blues, jazz, and swing (Louis Jordan is here) is a collection of good time tracks running from 1947-1962. The inimitable Lightning Hopkins is in there too along with the more sophisticated Lowell Fulson holding up the Blues end which also includes the supper club Blues of Charles Brown. But mostly it's the West coast Black citified slick version of rock'n'roll with, as the compiler states, an emphasis on the the roll. And it's a whole very varied jumpin' load of fun. It's just good period pop. Interesting to compare it to the radically different Rockabilly. Me, I find its aesthetic much more appealing. 

The 1950's were probably the last hurrah of the independent labels in the States as from the early 60's onwards more and more got bought up by what is known as the majors who were, much later, themselves swallowed by super giant megacorps like Sony and blandness ruled the world.

Federal Records, themselves a subsidiary of King Records, was, like just about every label with an all-black roster, run by white guys producing race records i.e. music by blacks for blacks, though that didn't stop hip white kids listening). In this case producer Ralph Bass with the assistance of Johnny Otis. Many people thought Otis was himself black but with a real name of Ioannis Veliotes er, no. But he could fake it very well and is one of the most important figures in popular music.

The overall dish here is black based rock'n'roll with a side order of R'n'B (not as it is understood today) and platter of Blues and Soul. It's more rocking (guitar) than the roll of Aladdin Records but if you like one...

There's more than the Blues to Vee-Jay (white owners/all black artists) but that's what it's primarily known for, especially the recordings of notorious label-hopper John Lee Hooker, but also Jimmy Reed, Billy Boy Arnold, and see above; but if you're looking for a Blues Vee-Jay collection I'd search elsewhere as this is more eclectic and not dissimilar to the Federal compilation above.

3. A Twist In The Tale.

I rather foreshadowed this at the beginning of this post but I listened to a few samples of a particular compilation and, bizarrely, bought it. 

This is deeply ironic because it's music I generally had, at best, a perhaps condescending attitude towards it, believing it to be a crude even feeble attempt by British artists to imitate a far superior American product. Oh how I laughed at the names -Eager, Pride, Fury, Wilde, Faith, Steele. 

Thank god for the Beatles and the Stones and the Searchers and the Hollies and all the rest of the emerging groups who consigned most of these bozos to the scrap heap. Only Cliff Richard managed to maintain a viable career over the following decades. Some, like Marty Wilde, maintained a career through 50's revival tours and by playing small clubs. Adam Faith, to the relief of many, went into acting and later became a financial wiz. Tommy Steele escaped into musicals. Shane Fenton reinvented himself in the 70's as Alvin Stardust. Many others just became the bloke next door. Billy Fury, a genuine talent, died young of heart failure.

And yet I still went and bought this-

-and had to change my mind. Well, a little, not a lot. 

Some of it is exactly as I described it above. There's a Cliff track I've never heard of -Apron Strings- where he's blatantly imitating Elvis. And a few tracks later the obscure Don Lang sings an excruciating tribute to him -They Call Him Cliff. 

But there is a vibrancy, an earnestness and some good singing among it. The opening track -Brand New Cadillac by Vince Taylor & the Playboys is, imitation or not (Cadillacs weren't exactly common even on the streets of London) is genuinely exciting. The second is Johnny Kidd and the Pirates on Restless, slower but with distinct similarities to Shaking All Over. Pity the rest of isn't as good, except intermittently, as these two openers.

The CD is actually not on a record label as such but is the product of rockhistory.co.uk a website devoted to promoting and developing a history of British pop music, particularly of the 1950's. Check it out.


4. In The End Is The Beginning.

This started out a few days ago as a review of Pioneers of the Electric Guitar, but, as a result of Amazon's recommendations, I ended up getting all the CDs I've just been talking about. At an average of less than a fiver each it was hardly breaking the bank. I've no regrets about buying any of them (except one which I've already sold). They'll be taking up permanent residence in the Animal Krackers van (see my cat rescuing blog) as they're great driving music and almost all the tracks are less than two and a half minutes long (which makes a change from 15 minute plus Grateful Dead jams).

But there's one last CD to mention which hasn't arrived yet.

Needless to say that most of these instrumentals are guitar led. There's a slight overlap with Pioneers, to which it works as a complementary piece. It includes the classic surfin' Pipeline by the Chantays but not, alas, Wipeout by the Surfaris. And,  with Hank Marvin being an early idol of Neil Young's. it feels like time to be listening to the Shadows again after a gap of decades.

5. In a future post.

The Greatest Lullabies Of All Time, 3-CD box set. Can't wait to listen to Baa Baa Black Sheep again*.

*That was a joke. What I really want is a CD with people like Russ Conway, Dickie Valentine, Winifred Atwell, and Kathy Kirby on it.**

**So was that.***

***Help! I can't stop.