Category: Music & Reviews

Listening to and playing music, from classical to modern indie, a bit of jazz, blues, world and ukulele music thrown in. Reviews of CDs and albums, artists and recording quality.

Appreciating B-Movies

Arts / Culture / Film & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Loading

It drives Susan to distraction that I love B-flicks. She squirms and fidgets if I put one into the DVD player and can seldom sit through an entire movie. They get cut off mid-film, and saved for me some time in the vague future when I might have an evening alone to finish watching it and the others in the category. Overacted, melodramatic, clumsily scripted, wooden dialogue, transparent effects, low budgets… what’s not to like? Okay, not all of them, but some fit that description. … click below for more ↓

Little Dorrit: BBC Drama

Arts / Books & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Loading

We just finished watching the 14-part BBC series of Little Dorrit. As usual with most BBC series, it was superbly cast, acted, paced and filmed. Each episode was a mere 30 minutes, and almost every one of them ended in a cliffhanger fashion that made you want to watch just one more. You might not think of Charles Dickens that way, but much of what he wrote was for serial publication: in weekly or monthly magazines. To keep his audience hooked – and buying the … click below for more ↓

Snow White and the Huntsman reviewed

Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Music & ReviewsOne Comment

Loading

Take one part Brothers Grimm and one part Malory’s Morte d’Artur, add a dash of Tolkein, a pinch of Joan of Arc, a sprinkling of Robin Hood and a sprig of English folklore; mix it in a bowl with copious CGI, great natural settings, remarkably good stage sets, and what do you have? The 2012 film, Snow White and the Huntsman. The epic film (at least in the two-hour-eleven-minute extended version we watched last night) was an action-packed adventure that never made us feel it … click below for more ↓

Shaolin: the film

Arts / Film & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Music & Reviews / PoliticsLeave a comment

Loading

I like Chinese films, particularly the epic wuxia films. They are often a refreshing change from the effects-driven/CGI monstrosities pumped out by Hollywood. They remind me of the westerns of the 1950s, usually with good and bad sides in stark relief. Subtitles don’t bother me (better them than dubbed). I’ve watched the Chinese film industry mature over the past three decades and the quality has become remarkable. Cinematography is sometimes breathtaking. One of the  most appealing aspects is that they tend to do more with people … click below for more ↓

Perfect Sense

Arts / Literary pretensions / Music & Reviews / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

Loading

I have always liked sandbox stories; tales in which the author could stretch his of her imagination, place ordinary characters into a seemingly normal situation, then see what happened when the conditions were changed.* Sandbox environments are virtual places were you can test ideas, explore paths, examine consequences to actions without spilling over into the real world. They have all the appearance of the real world, but the parameters can be changed to suit the tinkerer. Programmers often create sandbox environments to test programs; anyone … click below for more ↓

And on the video scene… bargains!

Arts / Film & Reviews / Literary pretensions / Music & ReviewsLeave a comment

Loading

December is always a good month for movie buffs, and for anyone who wants to buy TV series on DVD (no commercials!). Lots of places have before- and after-Xmas sales that make DVD shopping more interesting this month. In particular, the bargain bins are filled with all sorts of films that either never got the media attention they needed to be successful, or simply are too old to demand the prices new movies can. Most are $5, some even less. And I happen to like … click below for more ↓

Back to Top