kinuta

Basil Rathbone T Bone Walker Sawbones

I,Tonya - Craig Gillespie (2017) Really good, hard hitting drama tells the story of her rise and fall. Explains her great strength and technical skill and the way her working class life was at odds with the image the skating authorities wanted to project to the public. She wasn't a princess. Focuses on her family life and the crushing abuse she suffered from her insufferable mother and husband. Strong performances all round. Recommended although I wish the music wasn't so in your face.

Halfway through Defender Of The Realm. It's a surprisingly gripping pageturner and a worthy finale to the brilliant trilogy.

Dalton Trumbo Reds Under The Bed Fifth Columnist

Just serendipity. I was watching Last Flag Flying http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6018306/ and noted that there were more than coincidental resemblances to The Last Detail. Curious, I checked the credits and, lo and behold, the joint screenplay writer is also the writer of The Last Detail. This in turn cast my mind to the often revisited classics from the 1970's. Next up is Taxi Driver but The Conversation is waiting in the wings.

Kate McGarry - The Subject Tonight Is Love Quite taken by this one. Quiet and hypnotic, great vocal and instrument interplay.

The Mable John album is great. I'll have to check out the William Bell . Thanks for the heads up.

Leggy Mountbatten Dee Dee Bridgewater Peaky Blinders

The Last Detail - Hal Ashby (1973)

A really good interview.

MIchael Clayton - Tony Gilroy (2007)

Lot's Wife Joe Sample Uriah Heap

Marc Bolan 20th Century Boy Children Of The Revolution

Network -Sidney Lumet (1976)

It's one of the rare films that seems to deepen with each viewing. I'd say it's Pacino's best performance. Sonny and Sal are such pathetic characters, brilliantly played . Cazale is amazing and heartbreakingly sad.

Catching up on two series I never finished. Season two

Dog Day Afternoon - Sidney Lumet (1975)

Spaghetti westerns were also a kind of reimagining of classic westerns, which themselves were American period theatre set with horses and saloons rather than streetcars and drawing rooms. The violence is an integral part of the yarn because the films are set in a brutal environment where guns were used to settle things. The idea is similar in Jidaigeki/samurai films. Just substitute swords for guns. KungFu films whole reason d'etre is martial arts, that's the centre of the film, with the story , for what it's worth, used to set up tthe action bits.. I can recall the stories and plots of a lot of westerns but am hard pushed to do so with Kung Fu films. I'm just thinking out loud but my views are something along these lines.

I've never found much of a connection between martial arts films and westerns, other than they both usually feature combat. There's clearly one between westerns and Japanese jidaigeki/samurai films.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh (2017) Coen style revenge fable heavily laced with black humour and featuring an intense Frances McDormand. The reflective story within the plot looking at the existential choices facing the two cops was a clever touch. I also saw Call Me By Your Name but was not especially taken, despite the critical praise and hoopla Perhaps I'm missing something. I thought ' I Am Love ' was a superior film.

Disc 1 First spin of 2018.

Ironside Quicksilver Messenger Service Jeff Goldblum

My Happy Family - Nana Ekvtimishvili Simon Grob (2017) Final film of 2017.