The Brown Note Movie Review

Francis Ford Coppola's decades long passion project is deeply, unforgivably flawed, in so many ways. It's also amazing and brilliant in so many others. In a world where billionaires send themselves into space and all they come back with if tales of flaccid penises, that someone could spend so much on such a piece of art, designed, unconsciously, to defend the very notion of its own existence, is a marvel.

It takes an awful lot to get me back into new material from a classic band I've loved to remember at their peak and pretty much since the career capping classic, Disintegration, in 1989, that had been the case with The Cure. However, the first new material in 16 years had garnered such raves, I couldn't resist and I'm glad I didn't. Despite some of the worst production and mixing I've ever heard from a band of their stature, and a questionable opening salvo, Songs.. is undoubtedly their finest, most tortured and monolithic work in decades. I'm outside in the dark

The second album in 2024 from the Radiohead offshoot, The Smile, is nowhere near as great or coherent as Wall of Eyes. It's perfectly fine, just very undeveloped songwriting wise - as befitting its title - and even Thom Yorke seems to be half involved in many tracks.

Ridley Scott gave his baby new life with the premise of Prometheus, massively expanding the context of the whole Alien universe, then promptly killed it dead with Covenant abandoning that story entirely. This new film has been hailed as an excitingly fresh rebirth, but I don't see it. The production design is superb, but other than the lead, the acting is pretty dire. The biggest problem though, is with how unambitious the story is, at this late stage, going all the way back to the being hunted on a spaceship story of the first film, which has been done a million times since.

I've nothing but respect for the band's talent but I've rarely heard an album more self-sabotaged than this (despite rave reviews). Almost every song - many of which are very decent - have a math-rock violent interlude half way through, that is often annoyingly goofy and usually stops everything they've built up to that point dead. This makes it all a hard listen, I'd struggle to go back to.

Sometimes in the relentless recycle and repackage world that is modern Hollywood, timing can be everything. No one asked for a sequel to director Tim Burton's breakout 1988 film but it was a hugely welcome return anyway. There's a lot of love for re-pairing the originals leads, Winona Ryder and surely the least disliked legacy actor out there, Michael Keaton. Burton too is back delivering his trademark wildly enjoyable gothic comedy horror.

No one has ruined more films than Guillermo del Toro, by not directing them. But this time I fell the second attempt at rebooting the Hellboy franchise doesn't deserve the appalling reviews. It's refreshing to see the relentless barage of $200 million failed franchise movies give way to something far more low budget and weird, and the Appalachian horror setting is kinda great.

I feel this Brad and George star vehicle was slightly maligned on release. It remains a high quality outing for the platinum-plated pair and very well made. Plus not reliant on relentless high octane action, at least at first.

If ever there were a case of following your own imitators. The XX alumni's debut, In Colour, helped set a template that Coachella-esque electronic music has tried to follow ever since, making this sophomore album lack the lightning in a bottle aspect of its predecessor. Though a lackluster first half gives way to a much stronger second, particularly when the soul samples and collaborators are in the background.

For the first time since the first album review on this channel, Black Country, New Road's Ants From up There, a BIG FAT TEN OUT OF TEN, for the latest album from the Canadian Post-Rock titans. Some of their most stadium worthy rock to date, whilst feeling closer to a symphony by Gustav Mahler. And in case you were wondering. as of 25 October 2024 42,847 dead. 16,765 of those children.