top 5 albums

Eels – Hombre Lobo
A lo fi concept album about a werewolf. Fantastic. Long live the dogfaced boy.

The Joy Formidable – A balloon called moaning
We have tickets for their tour in March. Catchy hooks, great energy, a brilliant self produced debut. Their singles are available for free download from their site or myspace

Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Some people hated this and I have to admit that you have to be in the mood for it but when it hits the right spot it’s majestic.

White Denim – Fits
A spectacular find recommended by the 17 seconds blog. I can’t make up my mind what I like the most, the thundering bass lines or the best use of the wah wah pedal for decades.

Big Star – No 1 Record (2009 remaster)
A sad state of affairs for 2009 albums when one of my top five is a remaster from 1972. I don’t normally get sucked into re-buying albums I already have but the Big Star remasters are absolutely amazing.

Top 5 films

Moon
An enthralling film using predominantly one actor.It also incudes the best use of the Chesney Hawkes song ‘I am the one and only’ to appear in film this year.

Let the right one in
Swedish Vampire flick that is getting raved about everywhere. Creepy and disturbing, I was still thinking about it days later.

In the Loop
Like the big screen version of On the buses but with more profanity. Malcolm Tucker has taught me all new kinds of swears this year.

The Story of Anvil
What happens when you don’t get famous. A pioneering eighties Heavy Metal bands european tour and album journey in film. A heart warming tale about friendship that brought a tear to my eye.

The Wrestler
What happens after the fame. Micky Rourke as Randy the Ram is perfect and the closing song is one Springsteen’s best for years.

top 5 tv

Dollhouse
Its been cancelled already while it’s just hitting its stride. Imprints, Actives, mystery, seduction, fantastic fight scenes and Eliza Dushku. It’s divided our Hadfield house but I love it.

Glee
Singing and dancing cheesy AOR songs and Show tunes set in an American High School full of beautiful people. I should hate it but they have struck TV gold with this one. Sue Sylvester is up there with Malcolm Tucker for TV greatness. It’s not really on in the UK yet but will be huge next year.

“You think this is hard? Try being water boarded. That’s hard!”

And thats how Sue C’s it

Fringe
Fringe is more than the new X files, the cast are great and the stories are always baffling and gory. Walter the crazy scientist is great, and Olivia Dunham is another strong female lead from creator JJ Abrahams.

Red Riding
The best thing on UK TV this year. Also included in one episode is the best actor in the world right now Paddy Considine. The dark stories of murder and child abuse in West Riding over 10 years was a real TV moment in a mediocre reality soaked year.

Battlestar Galactica
It finished this year in one ofthe most satisfying TV endings ever. They managed to recrreatethe trick of  the Wire and The Sopranos by managing to treat viewers with respect and actually end the story arcs without making a half arsed attempt at it.

Most baffling success of the year:
Michael Macyntyre
“I made some pasta last night for my wife, I didn’t cook it for long enough and it went hard. Don’t you hate that.” Fuck off you painfully unfunny Twat

We went to the pictures last night as a consolation prize instead of seeing Richard Herring. It was short notice so there wasn’t much on we could see. Most of the screens were taken up with Lesbian Vampire Killers and Paul Blart-Mall Cop and you know how I hate those art house pretentious films. The only thing on that was half decent was Gran Torino I believe I’m right when I say it’s his last film as an actor, it was about racial tensions and stereotypes. The film was OK Clint only really has a couple of facial expressions and he used them to full effect, all in all it was a bit predictable. What we didn’t predict though was some of the audiences reaction to the film. They were laughing at the racist remarks and insults such as spooks, gooks and slopes. They were actually repeating what he said and laughing. In their small brains they must have thought it was a movie version of Till death do us part or love thy neighbour. Clint was the new Alf Garnett, racial abuse with a friendly face on Christmas day. It really was terrible I heard a woman at one point repeat what he said and chuckling I turned round to look her in the face and it seemed to stop her. Shelley thought that perhaps they were a bit confused and thought they were supposed to find it a bit funny. I said she was giving them too much benefit of the doubt and they were just fucking morons. I suggest next time they go and watch Lesbian Vampire Killers.

I always wondered who the cock of the world would be and last night that question was answered. It is in fact Liam Neeson in ‘Taken’ who is the hardest man in the world, now we need to arrange a fight between him and the the other cocks in the solar system. He’d win hands down though. He’s well hard.

Apart from the violence ‘Taken’ has nothing else going for it. His daughter is kidnapped by East European (the boogeymen of the 21st century) sex slave gang bangers (i added the bangers) and Liam has to rescue her before she is ‘tainted’ with drugs or dick. His daughter is the girl who is in ‘lost’, only she has her hair in a pony tail and runs around like a kid a lot to give us the impression she is a young 17. Personally it just made me less interested in her survival but that’s just me being a bit nasty, watch this just for the violence but also admit to yourself that’s what you are watching it for.

I have been avoiding any reviews of Watchmen so they wouldn’t sway my opinion on a film a lot of people think shouldn’t have been made. I read Alan Moore/Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen years ago and was blown away. It is one of the milestone moments in comics/graphic novel history along with Frank Millers Dark Knight returns. Its no coincidence that the recent spate of serious superhero films are so good because they are influenced by Watchmen and the Dark Knight. These books will be remembered as classics in literature and not just in comics and if you are not used to the format of a comic you should go out and see what the fuss is about. So how does the film fare? The book is deep and layered, it was told over 12 issues in 86/87 and I always thought they couldn’t make a film out of it. At least not a good one.

I’ll admit I was wrong, Watchmen is a good film, not as great as the book but its a different format and I think Zack Snyder has done a good job. I enjoyed 300 too, I thought it was visually stunning and his Dawn of the dead remake was a rare example of a good reinterpretation.

The film follows the book pretty faithfully, although it is following the trend of long films, with half an hour adverts and trailers you will be at there a bum numbing 3 1/2 hours. I heard a rumour that there will be an extended DVD version which weighs in at an astonishing 4 hours, at least I can watch that home with well timed toilet breaks. Watchmen is based in an alternate 1980′s where Nixon is still president and America won the Vietnam war by sending the most powerful being on the planet – Dr Manhattan. The scene where he is enlarged and marching against the Vietcong is astonishing, blowing up the soldiers from the inside out whilst being accompanied by US helicopters looks terrifying. Eventually they capitulate and are seen kneeling before Dr Manhattan like a God. Lets face it though if Supermen existed that is what they would be used for. Not fighting crime and helping humanity but coerced by Governments into winning their wars. This leads to Dr Manhattan developing into a living breathing nuclear deterrent. Keeping the Ruskies at bay as they wouldn’t dare attack whilst he’s there.

The film is complicated, layered and extremely violent, there are long periods of dialogue and intrigue which would test you average morons attention span and for this fact in itself I commend the director, it was obviously a labour of love and the feel of the book shines through with every scene. The heroes and villains are blurred, both are sociopaths  driven by different needs. Rorschach is especially convincing in his right wing Daily Mail morality man on a mission to clean up the city. The films two main scene stealer’s are Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and John Winchester Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s portrayal of the Comedian. He really is a piece of work.Overall a good interpretation for fan boys, I don’t really think the unfilmable could have been filmed better. For those not familiar with the book should go and see an intelligent film that doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator audience.

Lowering the tone a little. You do see an awful lot of blue willy in this film and the kid in me wondered all the way through how big it would be when he was giant and the damage a giant blue Dr Manhattan erection could do. Now when you see it you can think of that too.

I enjoyed Boy A when we watched it the other night, a result of Shelley perving searching about Andrew Garfield. She’s been quietly dreaming about him since we watch Red Riding last week. It was an uncomfortable watch very well done, I haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on how well it transferred. The story of a child offender being released is has obvious similarities to the Jamie Bulger case and the release of the two boys but could have many comparisons to child offenders. The unravelling of his past over the course of the movie created the feeling sympathy for the character before you found out what he had been in prison for very well, which obviously was the whole idea. The scene of the crime however, left it to you imagination as to the amount of input he had which I thought was a bit of a cop out. I won’t spoil any of the plot but if you missed it when it was out like I did its well worth a look.

Also, why is everyone Irish in the NYPD? Its like an entire police department is of Irish descent. That is the key phrase though ‘from Irish descent’ not ‘Irish.’ I am from Irish descent, on both sides and all directions. I am however ‘from Irish descent’, I’m not Irish. Unfortunately I’m English, with a few wonky English teeth, diminishing civil liberties and Imperial guilt.

Man country

Man country ended with a very exhausted little boy being carried up to bed at around nine thirty, I finished off the dirty beer and watched Syriana, a film I’ve had for ages which wasn’t Shelley’s cup of tea.

I also caught the Tom Robinson introducing show on 6music a show which is on a t a ridiculous time of night to get any listeners but hey what do you do. He mention a guy in Brooklyn who was recording a song every day for a year and posting it on his blog, some of them are really good. His prolific songwriting  has inspired me.

Another day on earth

Finished my Godfather box set finally with an unwanted watch of part 3. Its good I kept telling myself as I was bored to tears for nearly three hours, only waking slightly when watching how bad Sophia Coppola’s performance was. I know you shouldn’t dwell on it and I love some of her films she’s directed especially lost in translation but fuck me she’s bad in this.