Landlord Records

Record Collector magazine, uDiscover, Dig!, Headpress and Palgrave contributor; Fenpool. Simon Morris/Ceramic Hobs stuff since his death in December 2019.

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FILMS etc, March 2026 onwards...

Yet again, slightly short list, but I reached a convenient point to catch up.

1) Gangs of New York commentary (Further rummaging for tolerable commentaries found this...Scorsese as enthusiastic as ever, clearly besotted with finding out about this period of NY history)

2) The Aviator (7/10 - Rather long & I kinda wanted it to focus more on the latter part of his life, but then I suppose that wasn't v cinematic. Still good stuff though)

3) Woodstock (8/10 - Towards the end of my films-I-really-should-watch-in-ascending-order-of-length season. Fairly well flew by TBF. I now have a renewed interest in Canned Heat)

4) Gone With the Wind (1/10 based on the racial stuff, but a pretty darn good watch if you can overlook that. Again, loooong but sailed by Inna soap opera stylee)

5) A Phil Ochs doc

6) A Klaus Nomi doc (like Jobriath from the last lot, not mad keen on the music, but interesting guy)

7) The Father (9/10 - Resonated a lot. Beautifully done. Top cast)

8) Gerry (7/10 - Mopping up Van Sant. I guess this is about the balance I want for the Tarr-type stuff, slow but not long. I thought it was decent)

9) Elephant (8/10 - Immersive)

10) Last Days (5/10 - Neither as good as some said nor as bad... Some nice visuals, just kinda banal really)

11) Sea of Trees (6/10 - The reviews list loads of absurdities, which certainly show themselves, but I thought it was OK. Again, looks nice)

12) Calamari Union (5/10 - Mop up on the side of the Kaurismaki ones I'm less keen on. Not convinced)

13) Hamlet Goes Business (6/10 - Not much better)

14) Leningrad Cowboys Go America (6/10 - Same)

15) Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (6/10)

16) Total Balalaika Show (6/10, but decent fun, with only the music and not the hit and miss comedy)

17) Jungle Book rewatch (OG, 10/10 - Probably regarded as a bit dodgy these days, but probably also my favourite Disney tbh. Watched because I got a copy of JB2 in a book swap and thought I MIGHT watch that - thought otherwise a minute or 2 in - but lovely to see this again, which I guess I know best from the vinyl LP I have had for decades)

18) Tetsuo: The Iron Man (10/10 - My, this is good. I thought I had seen it all before, but tbh I suspect I only saw a few mins originally. Picked up a blu ray with this & the follow up on, & although they've been more transferred than remastered, they look amazeballs, I have finally fallen for blu rays)

19) Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (8/10 - Not quite as iconic as the first, but the extra money put to great use and taken in an intriguingly different direction)

20) Taxi Driver commentary (While we are on the blu rays...)

21) Kick Ass commentary (Same. The director here has a CV that doesn't suggest I would be interested, but I found him rather engaging actually)

22) Spring Breakers commentary (Same. Korine informative but a mite annoying here)

23) Whitehouse "Try & Be Grateful" (5/10 - Ancient, ineptly filmed studio short from the late Simon Morris' collection, as the start of my VHS season...It has been god knows how long since I had the player set up, but it has been good fun being back rewinding etc)

24) The Historic Debt (7/10 - Decent, ancient indie comp)

25) Shimmy Disc 2 (7/10 - Too many bland rock bands, but love how Kramer out a load of random interests in as well as the music, and there are a couple of legendary bits here that have popped up elsewhere)

26) Costes "Crack Kiss" (7/10 - NY-based short fictional thing, including him chanting along to an electro tape, smoking some crack and having a wank. An acquired taste!)

27) Costes "Vaudou Blanc" (5/10 - Seems to be a messy orgy [his site sez "private crazy party"?!] - if any of em are in public office now, good compromat!)

28) Costes "Love Hotel" (7/10 - Proper live vid, from Japan. Didn't realise he did quite so many vids. These all from Simon's collection again, of course!)

29) PTV Black (6/10 - Possibly a bit higher on the music, but he just winds me up a bit. Acid house era)

30) GG Allin: Hated (9/10 - Think this was a rewatch, I'd certainly seen a bunch of the clips before. Great doc)

31) GG Allin: Raw, Brutal, Rough & Bloody (8/10 - Repetitive but still fun live comp)

32) Love On the Spectrum latest series (sorry not sorry)

33) Experiences (7/10 - Highly obscure vid of The Haters and Smell & Quim in Paris, in the mid nineties. The Haters tyre thing seems to go on significantly longer than I remember in the UK - I think I made three of the shows)

34) Early Abstractions (9/10 - Somewhat ropey copy of excellent Harry Smith shorts)

35) Neil Young: Cow Palace (7/10 - Bootleg vid I've had for decades & not got round to. Long, and a lot of 80s material, admittedly in probably its best form. Good though)

36) Prince: Tokyo 90 (9/10 - Similar situation. The NPG are a bit underrated, there is some quality mechanical funk going on here)

37) Prince: The Undertaker (6/10 - Buried mid 90s blues rock folly. OK, but not exactly the style in which he shines!)

38) Madonna: The Immaculate Collection (9/10 - Hard to dislike!)

39) Queen: Box of Flix (9/10 - The two comps together. Again, hard to dislike, although seriously dated)

40) Herbie Hancock & The Rockit Band (8/10 - Having not really heard stuff other than Rockit itself from this era, I wasn't expecting much, I presumed it was one wikki-wah DJ tune & a load of electro funk - but it is somewhat better than that, plenty of DST action, Bernard Fowler giving an intriguing style of singing, etc. Worth looking out for if you like this sort of thing)

41) Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! (7/10 - A bit of a wind up, in that you kinda want full promo clips or live stuff, and it is more a diary-like collage about the band's rocketing success, with some quite poor quality film employed, but quite dazzling in a way)

42) A Muhammad Ali vid

43) Dr Devious: Dance In Cyberspace (8/10 - Didn't have this one, from Simon's collection. I fell asleep the first time, which feels like a compliment, but went back the other day and rewatched. Classic in its own way)

44) Ride: Today Forever rewatch (7/10 - I always find early Ride stuff even more odd than MBV stuff, although that might be just because the tunes aren't so good for getting a handle on?!)

45) Shall We Dance (1937, 7/10 - Just find the dances separately and watch em though, there ain't much else going on)

46) Michael (6/10 - Bit of a storm in a teacup over this, which we saw at Battersea Power Station, dontcha know. There are bits that are comically bad, especially the CGI Bubbles, but some of it is played for laughs, and given that it sounds like the estate were fine with putting child abuse stuff - which IS a TINY bit hinted at - in, it was legal agreements with probable victims that stymied that, I don't think too badly of them. The live recreations are like concert porn)

47) MJ Oprah interview

48) MJ: An American Tragedy (9/10)

49) Another boxing vid

50) AC/DC: Let There Be Rock (7/10)

51) Hawkwind: Out of the Shadows (8/10 maybe, was surprised how good they still were at this late stage)

52) Dexys: The Bridge (7/10 - A Simon obsession I don't really share, although they are revealed live to fit into that Van Morrison/Counting Crows rambly thing)

53) REM: This Film Is On (7/10)

54) Boogie Nights commentary (Back to the blu rays after London. For some reason, I came out of it liking him a bit less somehow, but certainly informative)

55) Ronin rewatch (8/10 - Off a book swap blu ray. Good fun)

56) Hampstead Hoax doc (I somehow missed all this - I suspect I was hanging around a lot of the same blogs at the time, but I think erroneously conflated this with that hotel for paedophiles rumour. Pretty shocking stuff)

57) Some single episode BBC comedy DVDs I got from a book swap

58) Pink Floyd Piper doc (Off Tubi, quite good)

59) Jim Morrison doc (Off Tubi again)

60) Prince doc (Same)

61) The Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett Omnibus (7/10 - Kinda preferred the Tubi one, but nice bonus on the DVD of some covers in full by Robyn Hitchcock and Graham Coxon)

62) Pavarotti In Hyde Park (8/10 - More VHSs I've been given. Somewhat over-promoted at the time, but undeniable really)...Break for...

63) Cracker (8/10 - Simon had one story from this on vid, which prompted me to go back to it. I saw much of it but not all of it at the time, and was unaware of the revival specials. Top stuff, he was a beast, eh?)

64) Neil Young: Ghent (8/10 - Bootleg VHS, with Booker T & the MGs. Great stuff)

65) The original 3 Tenors concert (9/10 - The contrast of the voices is pleasing, and the midway instrumental section boss)

66) The Great Rock N Roll Swindle (8/10 - An enjoyable dog's dinner. As with the Nirvana one - possibly modelled on this? - I perhaps would rather just watch some live sets, but boy they were a band with Rotten in the line up)

67) Salisbury Poisonings doc series

68) Throbbing Gristle: Heathen Earth (7/10 - Interesting see them play it - in a studio to an invited audience - makes a bit more sense of it)

69) Throbbing Gristle: Mission of Dead Souls (6/10 - Probably higher tbh, but just a live set)

70) Throbbing Gristle: Destiny (6/10 maybe? Loooong tunes)

71) Butthole Surfers: Blind Eye Sees All (8/10 - Yet another of Simon's, although I had Deffo seen some of the bonkers Acid-ravaged interview before)

72) TOPY: Ritual Ov Psychick Youth (4/10 maybe? There were a handful of vids Simon insisted on showing me that I haven't located yet, due to his uncharacteristically poorly labelled tapes. One is legendary out to lunch 90s gem The Hunt For the Yorkshire Grimace, another is a pervy thing about women weeing on Brighton seafront...and then there is this, the one that got Gen & co into trouble via the legendary Dispatches doc - which I also watched, along with the resulting Points of View or whatever - in the run up. It was an extremely bad copy, but it is hard to see what to be quite so outraged about in this section of the endless vid, as it is clearly just some S&M dressed up in a pseudo-religious way. Not my sort of thing though, apart from the music, which is ironically quite chilled out! However, when I got to the San Diego section - which they claim to be found footage, and which I certainly didn't watch all of - there was remarkably little on the web, and not enough to convince me beyond doubt that it was a put-on, so the tape henceforth got binned as out of order)

73) Whitehouse live stuff (early 90s, featuring that long-haired guy, who I had never come across before)

74) Death Row Uncut (1/10 on the basis of the rampant sexism, but an entertaining watch nevertheless)

75) Bad Taste rewatch (8/10 - I realised I have been describing this as a zombie flick for years, when it is actually about aliens, but it does have the feel of a zombie film, with the legions of lurching figures and the gore. Not quite as good as I remembered, but I really admire the humour, the OTT gore, the tiny budget etc)

76) Braindead [Jackson] rewatch (9/10 - Probably third viewing. Just classic)

77) XL Recordings comp rewatch (9/10 - I believe this is worth a load of money now, presumably cos of the Prodigy input. Some good promos here. Bailed before the House of Pain stuff this time, as it wasn't in keeping with my rave vid mini-season)

78) Future Shock rewatch (7/10 - Head techno stuff from Aphex, FSOL etc. Variety of styles, but is mixed in with some no-names, and does include some of the dreaded slowly-walking robots nonsense. Rather better music than visuals)

79) Chill Out Mega Mix (7/10 - Rewatch, although I'm not convinced I got all the way through before. Three of the incredibly misleadingly named nosebleed hardcore vids on one tape. The first two are 92/3 Ardkore, largely from Phantasy - who mixed it - so a bit musically one-dimensional, although with some of the wildest of the animation of those I own. The first half of the third is Clarkee doing 93 proto-gabba though, and is better)

80) X-Mix 4 rewatch (7/10 - Dave Angel doing his dainty techno stuff. Kinda lame visuals though. This was followed by a day or two of me searching out what other retro electronica buds there are. Most - not all - are on YouTube, but generally in distractingly poor quality, although one or two have been upscaled and others reissued on DVD. All are a bit expensive now. I would imagine the licensing is a major issue, but someone should get all these together and do some sort of box set, cos they may be much derided since, but they were popular at the time and there IS something here, particularly if you did some sort of edit that took out all the slowly-walking robots etc)

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[landlordrecords]

10/10

Everything I have rated 10/10 so far on IMDB...There are 84, I think (out of approx 1300). These get here for all sorts of different reasons, but I suppose principally for either being perfect or doing something important first.

After Last Season (the ultimate So Bad It's Good...)

The Arrival of A Train (1896)

The Birth of A Nation (not very enjoyable at this point, for many reasons, but Respect Da Filmmaking)

Blackadder Goes Forth

Blue Velvet

Boardwalk Empire

Boogie Nights

Casablanca

Un Chien Andalou

Citizen Kane

The Conversation

Crumb

Dekalog

The Elephant Man

The Empire Strikes Back

Entr'acte (1924)

Eraserhead

Fawlty Towers

Gangs of New York

The General (Keaton)

The Godfather

The Godfather II

Goldfinger

Goodfellas

Halloween (OG)

Hancock: The Blood Donor

Happiness (Solondz)

High Noon (High Concept, ho ho)

Hollywood doc series (1980)

Hotel Monterey (1973)

Inside No 9: The 12 Days of Christine

The IT Crowd: The Work Outing

Jaws

The Jungle Book

Kids

Little Criminals (2001)

M

A Man Escaped

The Match Factory Girl

Meet the Parents (famous version)

Memento

Motherland: Le Weekend

Mr Bean: 1st episode

Mr Turner

Mulholland Drive

Naked

The Night of the Hunter

Nil By Mouth

The Office (UK)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

102 Minutes That Changed America

The Oresteia (1983)

The Prisoner (OG)

Rear Window

Report (1967)

Rita, Sue & Bob Too

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Secrets & Lies

Seinfeld: The Contest

Seven

The Seventh Seal

Singin In the Rain

Some Mothers Do Ave Em: The Employment Exchange

The Sopranos

South Park: Trapped In the Closet

Star Wars

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

The Third Man

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

This Is England

This Is England '86

This Is Spinal Tap

Topsy-Turvy

Trapped In the Closet (sorry!)

A Trip To the Moon

The Truman Show

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Twin Peaks: the revival series

Vera Drake

Watership Down

West Side Story

The Wicker Man

The Wire

[landlordrecords]

DIRECTOR RATINGS

As I've started rating everything on IMDB at long last, I thought I would go through the directors I've seen (just about) everything by & pass on my esteemed scores for the main works.

I would guess many people would have seen the full works of many more than the few I proffer here, but there are quite a number where I'm down to the last few now as well...

All of these I have seen all fictional features by, probably all or most significant stuff (I didn't watch the Jarmusch docs yet, mainly cos they seemed to be about revival acts of careers, which seemed a bit non-essential), & a good smattering but possibly not all of the shorts, music vids, ads etc.

DAVID LYNCH

Eraserhead - 10/10

Elephant Man - 10/10

Dune - 6/10 (but I do sort of look forward to rewatching it at some point)

Blue Velvet - 10/10

Twin Peaks - 9/10 (there's a lot of it & he didn't have full grasp over all of it)

Wild At Heart - 7/10

Fire Walk With Me - 10/10 (but don't try to watch it first because of the chronology, as Simon Ceramic Hobs tried to insist was fine when he railroaded me into watching it the first time!)

Hotel Room - 6/10

Lost Highway - 8/10

Straight Story - 8/10

Mulholland Drive - 10/10

Inland Empire - 8/10

What Did Jack Do? - 6/10 (or maybe lower, while since I saw it...Took the money and ran!)

TERRY ZWIGOFF

A small list...I believe there's a lot of abandoned stuff...

Louie Bluie - 8/10

Crumb - 10/10

Ghost World - 9/10

Bad Santa - 8/10

Art School Confidential - 9/10

TODD SOLONDZ

(Although that Kermode bit where he imagines arty types sat around saying "Yeah, have you seen the new Solondz?" does tickle me)

Feelings - 6/10 (I insist on including this cos I have watched it two or three times & do think of it now, I suppose, every time that old song comes into my head)

Fear, Anxiety & Depression - 3/10 (yes, it is REALLY bad)

Welcome To the Dollhouse - 9/10

Happiness - 10/10

Storytelling - 8/10

Palindromes - 8/10

Life During Wartime - 7/10

Dark Horse - 7/10

Wiener-Dog - 8/10

JOHN WATERS

Mondo Trasho - 6/10 (music is good!)

Multiple Maniacs - 7/10

Pink Flamingos - 9/10

Female Trouble - 9/10

Desperate Living - 9/10

Polyester - 8/10

Hairspray - 8/10

Cry-Baby - 8/10

Serial Mom - 8/10

Pecker - 8/10

Cecil B Demented - 7/10

A Dirty Shame - so long since I saw this that I haven't rated it yet...

LARRY CLARK

Kids - 10/10

Another Day In Paradise - 8/10

Bully - 8/10

Teenage Caveman - 6/10 (but good fun)

Ken Park (another I haven't seen in so long that I haven't rated it yet)

Wassup Rockers - 7/10

Marfa Girl - 7/10

Smell of Us - 7/10

Marfa Girl 2 - 8/10 (but watch the Marfa Girl ones in a double bill to get the score up that high!)

JIM JARMUSCH

Permanent Vacation - 6/10

Stranger Than Paradise - 7/10

Down By Law - 7/10

Mystery Train - seen so long ago I haven't rated it yet

Night On Earth - 7/10

Dead Man - 7/10

Ghost Dog - 8/10

Coffee & Cigarettes - 8/10

Broken Flowers - 7/10

Limits of Control - 7/10

Only Lovers Left Alive - 7/10

Paterson - 7/10

Dead Don't Die - 7/10

Consistent! All I can say for the zombie one, for instance, getting scored the same as the 'classics' is that they get there for different reasons! I think, overall, I don't adore his stuff, but I think it is consistently interesting.

HARMONY KORINE

Gummo - 7/10 (not seen it for a long time, poss more?)

Julien Donkey-Boy - 7/10

Mr Lonely - 6/10 (but looks beautiful)

Trash Humpers (haven't seen it for so long that I haven't rated it yet)

Act Da Fool - 7/10

Spring Breakers - 8/10

Beach Bum - 5/10 (pathetic, really)

Aggro Dr1ft - 7/10

Baby Invasion - 7/10

Someone else who is more interesting than amazeballs, I think - I mean, he isn't Hitchcock, is he? All well worth a watch, barring The Beach Bum, though.

Tbc...

[landlordrecords]

FILMS etc, Jan 2026 onwards

Again, not quite as many as I would like to do at once but, again, didn't want to forget some of these.

After probably a quarter century, I have finally joined IMDB properly, so I am now rating everything. Ratings go something like this: 10=Perfect, 9=Near perfect, 8=Excellent, 7=Good, 6=Not Bad, 5=Passable, 4=Not Good, 3=Bad, 2=Terrible, 1=A swill bucket of stuff I just wouldn't watch on one principle or other.

As before, all the below I have bothered watching throughout, so in the main they will be decent.

1) Secrets & Lies (rewatch, 10/10 - hadn't seen this since the cinema on release. I teared up a bit towards the end)

2) Bourne Identity (rewatch, 8/10)

3) Bourne Supremacy (rewatch, 8/10)

4) Bourne Ultimatum (rewatch, 8/10 - I got a vast amount of free DVDs off a local chuck-out group & this is the start of those which I watched from there. I originally only caught onto these around the time of the third, after a period when I hadn't really been watching many films, and got all excited about them. I enjoyed them again this time, including the fidgetty editing, which doesn't work on everything but does here, although some of the other effects seemed a bit dated now. The storyline seemed far less engaging this time, but it is just a vehicle anyway, innit. Most striking was that, while all the spy stuff seemed cutting edge at the time, now you just sort of think "Oh yeah, they can do that, can't they)

5) Blade (7/10 - more from the giveaways. I know people like these, so thought I would give em a go. The real prize here is the much talked about 'blood rave' scene - after scooting in on some Apex Twin alias stuff, I was absolutely riveted when the familiar yet different acid piece wound in - I had to pause the damn thing for ages while I worked out that what people know as the Blade music began as a mid 90s Pump Panel piece I had never heard. Everything else in the series coasted by on that goodwill really)

6) Blade II (7/10 - del Toro reinvents it decently)

7) Blade: Trinity (6/10 - Ryan Reynolds out-Ryan Reynolds himself here, which spoils it a bit)

8) Blue Streak (7/10 - silly but enjoyable Martin Lawrence thing)

9) The Marine (7/10 - surprise 'so bad it's good' entry - hadn't heard of this before. There IS some direct humour in it, but they cant possibly have been going for this. Very entertaining)

10) Pitch Perfect (8/10)

11) Pitch Perfect 2 (7/10)

12) Pitch Perfect 3 (6/10 - These were a total surprise, as I had just presumed they were High School Musical-type things. First one is well worth watching. I agree the others sag a little, but I would probably have watched more - it is largely about the music performances after all, which keep coming)

13) We're the Millers (7/10 - obviously very silly, but I enjoyed it a lot. I even watched some of the outtakes)

14) Let's Be Cops (6/10 - watched it cos I thought it was a pretty promising idea for a broad comedy. Bit too cheap all round, but watchable)

15) Heretic (7/10 - with the missus. I'm not very up on this studio's stuff, but this seemed pretty good, Hugh Grant has so come into his own in later life)

16) Suicide Squad (2016, 7/10 - not quite sure how this was meant to be so much worse than all the other superhero movies. Fine enough, I thought)

17) Deadpool 2 (7/10)

18) Deadpool & Wolverine (7/10 - these scores seem generous now, as I was rather punched-out by the end of that day of superhero flicks. Kinda watched these to get through to the last Blade appearance. All decent in their own right though - you would be a bit worried if they weren't, there has been so much money spent on them)

19) Hot Pursuit (7/10 - non-DVD giveaway. I enjoyed it, but you know by now I like daft comedies)

20) A Perry Como DVD (was amazed I made it through this one, from a local book swap - a pleasant watch!)

21) A country DVD (all these 70s/80s Opry performances - not my favourite thing in the world, but a nice change)

22) Carry On Sgt (5/10 - the DVD giveaway included boxes of all but the 90s revival one, and the only one I've definitely seen in full is Camping, so I thought I ought to do my national service, in chronological order. The first is black & white & features Bob Monkhouse, not particularly promising)

23) Carry On Nurse (6/10 - this must be where the lightbulb came on about what to do with the series...Too long ago to go far enough though)...break for...

24) September 5 (8/10 - jolly good take on the Munich Olympics tragedy I was watching stuff on a while back)

25) Carry On Teacher (6/10 - quite liked this one)

26) Hamnet (8/10 - at the cinema with the missus. I'm sure there are actually better films around if I looked, but can see why this has got good reviews for sure)

27) Carry On Constable (6/10 - getting slightly more racey...)

28) Carry On Regardless (6/10)

29) Carry On Cruising (1/10 - I think I got through this but there was some pointless racist stuff tacked on the end, or something)

30) Carry On Cabby (6/10 - this one is quite entertaining)

31) Carry On Jack (6/10)

32) Carry On Spying (6/10 - One of the nicest things about watching these, btw, was being reminded about the various good actors who aren't reeled off as the top few Carry On performers but paid their dues through a bunch of these. A pause in this series here - and the end of the giveaway DVDs - for technical reasons, as such. I shall return...)

33) Early Spring (7/10 - not my absolute favourite Ozu, but none are bad)

34) Monty Python Live At the Hollywood Bowl (8/10 - another slightly unnecessary but highly entertaining Python loose end)

35) A Deadly Adoption (7/10 - Will Ferrell's Lifetime movie - almost deserves more really, but they commit so hard that it can't be more entertaining. He studies his subjects so hard, really undervalued)

36) The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (7/10 - pretty entertaining giallo)

37) Doubt (8/10 - top cast)

38) Welfare (8/10 - more hypnotically absorbing Wiseman, RIP)

39) The Levelling (8/10 - had been meaning to watch this after I saw some of it on late night telly a few years ago. Bleak)

40) Conclave (8/10 - jolly good stuff)

41) Owning Mahowny (7/10 - Hoffman great as ever)

42) L'Age d'Or (8/10 - The beginning of my push to watch everything seriously important that I still have on my list. A lot of these I had already tried at least once, & seemed like intellectual chores, so I thought maybe if I put them in ascending order of length - with interruptions - I could whizz through the short ones and then be buoyed by how few were left when I got to the long ones! This one I had only really been looking for the best print of - gave up - & is still kinda shocking here & there, a hundred years on)

43) Daisies (8/10 - This one I had already started twice, & always looked beautiful, but much as I applauded their campaign, I just found the lasses intensely annoying. I overcame that. Didn't need the spelling out at the end, but otherwise essential viewing)

44) Mala Noche (6/10 - might actually upgrade it now, pretty good first Gus Van Sant, just a bit low rent)

45) The Young & the Damned (8/10 - fearless Bunuel, everyone is a bastard in it)

46) Robocop 2 (7/10 - more book swap stuff. Obvs not as good as the first. Trilogy box set, I skipped the third)

47) Through A Glass Darkly (8/10 - some pretty affecting & buckled stuff here)

48) Cries & Whispers (9/10 - another one I had tried several times, probs just stopping cos it was a bit slow/cos of the subject matter. Extremely good)

49) The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De La Cruz (7/10 - not the very best Mexican Bunuel, but they are generally underrated)

50) Ivan's Childhood (8/10 - Tarkovsky's first full length, & the first I've made it through. Convincingly gritty & grimey when needed, & beautiful elsewhere - very impressive)

51) Summer with Monika (7/10 - in which The Nazi tells off the Scandi rebels. Not yet the complete package, but some great bits)

52) Autumn Sonata (8/10 - the complete package)

53) Tristana (7/10 - I still kinda like the more simplistic Susana best out of Bunuel's insert-bird-into this family series, but there aren't any bad ones)

54) Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (4/10 - sort of as bad as everyone says, although I was kinda hypnotised by all the wrongness. Not 'so bad it's good', but strange that no one put a gentle hand on his shoulder and said 'Just stop now')

55) Mirror (8/10 - or I might even go 9. Classic Tarkovsky which I've again tried a couple times before, & probably just wasn't in the mood for. As soon as you commit to the concept, it flows lovely. Some famously stunning imagery. Now, I have seen enough of Andrei Rublev to know that I will enjoy it, but will get the best out of it once I have eventually read the whole of The Bible. The others...I've tried, I really have...Long is fine, slow is fine, but long AND slow...I'm sure I'm just not bright enough but I think I might have given up trying...)

56) That Obscure Object of Desire (8/10 - or, again, I might even go a 9. Bunuel's surrealism totally developed in a way I didn't expect as the years went on, but it is entirely valid. This is a really great one, woefully under-distributed)

57) Oldboy remake (6/10 - largely pointless, but I want to watch all the Spike Lee ones, & not unenjoyable, so...)

58) Nazarin (8/10 - another that should probably be a 9. One of the best Bunuels, really thoughtful but potty in places)

59) A bunch of Aki Kaurismaki shorts (from the swanky box I bought to replace some old bits & bobs and so I could get my hands on the last few)

60) Juha (8/10 - he is so good, he gets silent movies completely, just like everything else)

61) Rocky IV (6/10 - in prep for the below. OTT but pretty entertaining)

62) Rocky VI (6/10 - less essential Kaurismaki bit)

63) Dead Man's Line (7/10 - pretty good doc about a hostage situation, which inspired the latest Gus Van Sant)

64) La vie De Boheme (7/10 - more endearing Kaurismaki)

65) Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot (7/10 - decent biographical Van Sant thing)

66) Alan Bennett's Diaries (7/10 - decent Beeb doc)

67) Art Detectives (7/10 - recent cozy crime series on a vaguely interesting theme)

68) Girl 6 (6/10 - not Spike Lee's best, but perfectly watchable. As said elsewhere, there isn't much engagement with the characters, although given that they are deliberately all named things like Girl 6 and Caller 3, I guess that's part of the point. As with some of his others, the music cues - here all by Prince, which should be a coup - often seems liberally sprayed around anywhere instead of perfectly placed)

69) Get On the Bus (7/10 - more Spike Lee. Bit low rent, but the performances are great)

70) Treasure of the Sierra Madre (9/10 - Had it as an 8 to start with, but upgraded for influence. One of those ones all the cineastes love to go on about but not very available these days. Should be, cos it is a truly ripping yarn, with an old timer character to rival the one in Jaws)

71) Hugo (7/10 - Scorsese's Harry Potter film. Looks absolutely stunning, but...never work with children)

72) Black Hawk Down (7/10 - book swap DVD - really not my sort of thing, & sometimes hard to tell what is happening to whom, but certainly gripping)

73) Baby Invasion (7/10 - largely derided recent Korine. I thought it worked - & particularly loved the Burial soundtrack. Certainly an improvement on the flamin' Beach Bum)

74) Aggro Dr1ft (7/10 - the other hatstand recent Korine one. I was kinda expecting it to be even further out on the thermal imaging somehow, & it is clearly more of a mood sketch than a fully fleshed out plot, but brave and different. Korine: seventh director I've completed on, after Lynch, Zwigoff, Solondz, John Waters, Larry Clark and Jarmusch)

75) Milk (7/10 - the odd overly mushy bit, but pretty engaging stuff from Van Sant)

76) Jungle Fever (6/10 - thankfully not the bonefest I always imagined, but not really my sort of film, & again Lee sprays the - this time, Stevie Wonder - toonage around at near-random)

77) Licorice Pizza (6/10 - a perfectly entertaining watch, but I wouldn't exactly say it felt like one of his best, & while I think he successfully sells it as a not out of order relationship, it gets docked cos I do somewhat agree with those who say that if it was a 25 year bloke being led on by a 15 year old girl, well...it'd be Lolita..and picketed heavily in this day and age. My favourite part was his pals' hesitant garage band that he kept having play at the shop openings, well observed)

78) She Hate Me (5/10 - had tried this a couple times and was NOT looking forward to forcing myself through it. Not too bad in the end - Lee always has some interesting stuff going on, hence why I am mopping them all up - but it IS a wrongheaded mess. The contrarian Ebert review is fantastic though. He had great instincts - if you sense everyone is gonna trash it, see it again and find what is interesting in it)

79) Crooklyn (7/10 - really not my kind of movie, but by god it is colourful and vibrant and well acted, and nostalgic for a childhood I didn't even have)

80) He Got Game (7/10 - thankfully the incomprehensible American sports stuff doesn't fill the whole movie. Can't go too wrong with Lee and Washington working together)

81) 25th Hour commentary (Had seen the film before, years ago, but realised the Shiiiiiittt guy from the Wire played the same guy in this as in She Hate Me & thought I should go back to it, then realised there was an unheralded commentary on the disc, which has successfully put Lee in the small group of people I can tolerate doing commentaries)

82) A History of Violence commentary (...and a rummage around found this other one from a previously viewed film which I hadn't yet checked as well, Cronenberg hence also joining that select body of commentators)

83) Jobriath AD (8/10 - pretty good doc on the early out gay singer, who I've always been intrigued about although I can't say his music does much for me)

84) Da 5 Bloods (8/10 - aka Da Treasure of Da Sierra Madre)

85) Louis Theroux Manosphere doc (7/10 - everyone on this except Theroux himself is an unbelievable arsehole, although I think, as with Adolescence, it all seems rather a long way away if you're not one of the kids drawn into it or a freaked out parent)

86) A rather good John Fahey doc

87) Also around here, the latest Astrid (In Paris/whatever) series, which I am basically in love with by now

[landlordrecords]

After something like 15 years of trying to find a window, I today finally managed to get down to the legendary Greg's Greats (78 dealer to John Peel & the like), in Foxton.

I'm sure it's not the case, but he is so busting at the seams that it feels as if he has every 78 ever issued, but denies being responsible for the long dip in 78 supplies to charity shops.

He and his wife were very good at putting up with me burrowing through their dance band boxes, and asking tedious beginner's questions on the breakable antiquities. I would very much like to take him up on the offer to return some time, to make it through yet more. He has a local radio show that is available (and archived) online, a stage at Camp Bestival, is on Facebook, eBay, etc etc. If you ever wanted a 78 that is even remotely available, he probably has it, and there are thousands of very affordable ones alongside the big hitters.

Now to start playing them...I have a feeling there may even be one or two here that bring a wee tear to the eye...

[landlordrecords]

FILM etc best of year

None of these are new, just thought it was worth a roundup of the best stuff I've seen for the first time this year. Loads of other great stuff as well, but these ones scientifically assessed as the best!

1) Oresteia (Peter Hall version - as waxed lyrical about at the time. Stunning, one of the best TV things I've ever seen, shamefully forgotten about)

2) Mr Turner

3) Topsy Turvy (or the other way round, hard to choose. Spall mighty in Mr Turner though)

4) Ariel (best of the all excellent Kaurismaki I've caught up with this year)

5) Mr Arkadin (I don't care if people say the later Welles ones are mostly flawed, they seemed to work for me)

6) Safe (again, as barfed on about at the time)

7) Oldboy (OG)

8) Maps To the Stars (underrated Cronenberg black comedy)

9) Susana (severely underrated Mexican Bunuel, props to Mr Bongo, of all people, for putting it out. Not a work of genius cinematically, but she is such a gleeful strumpet for the time, it is just magical)

10) Diary of A Country Priest

[landlordrecords]

FILMS etc, Sep 2025 onwards

Not really quite enough here, but I wanted to round up the year before the next post...

1) Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (a Scorsese I was less interested in & kept leaving, now tackled as part of my unflinching directorography project. Quality stuff, just not my sort of thing)

2) Lights In the Dusk (Nu Gen Kaurismaki)

3) Le Havre (...and more of the same)

4) New York, New York (given this is quite long & about razzle dazzling em, I rather liked this. I believe I read they initially cut out the play within a play within a play bit?!)

5) The Other Side of Hope (yet more Kaurismaki...they are all quite short & whizzed past in a blur, but they're pretty much all great, should be much more appreciated)

6) Fallen Leaves (very good most recent Kaurismaki)

7) After Hours (I felt it took a while to get going, but then a real "What the?! What on earth is gonna happen next?" modern screwball. Very good)

8) The long Orson Welles Arena

9) The Hank Williams Arena (...with people who were there!)

10) Sound of the Surf (quite good surf music doc)

11) Vermeer doc

12) Shakespeare portraits doc

13) It's Me It's Me (Satoshi Miki, who I like. Pushed perhaps a little too far on the surrealism, to the extent that it is a little incomprehensible in places, but better than the largely dismissive reviews suggest)

14) Phantom Thread (as with Gone Girl...They deserve each other)

15) Shakespeare & Hathaway new series (sorry not sorry)

16) The Hitman's Bodyguard (at this point, I started Killers of the Flower Moon on the Scorsese mop-up, which is good but so darn long that, half an hour in, I felt I just needed to watch either nonsense or just stuff I fancied for a while...Which I still am now. Here begins the nonsense!)

17) The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (both of these are obviously very silly, & the first is somewhat better than the second, but I enjoyed them for what they are)

18) Bean (had somehow never watched this first one, which even the grumpiest of critics from the time had to admit was funny in part, if not exactly an immaculate transfer from TV)

19) Martin Parr doc (RIP...Love how he just looked longer than is polite at random people, and then took their photo, all the time, had a great way with folk)

20) Johnny English Strikes Again (fluff but not unpleasant)

21) Mrs Doubtfire (I always presumed this would be one of his that was just too silly/mushy, but I think he pulls it off OK. Fathers 4 Justice required watching?!)

22) The Spy Who Dumped Me (just absolutely fiending for nonsense at this point...but totally watchable)

23) Barely Lethal (somewhat unnecessarily tutted at for the title, behind which is...more enjoyable nonsense)

24) Back In Action (worked for me)

25) Jawbreaker (spiky teen movie micro-season...I thought this was pretty fun)

26) Election (on recommendation from the missus after the above. Also a lot of fun)

27) Quiz Lady (for Will Ferrell as much as anything, but decent I think)

28) Walk of Shame (better than its rep... again, unnecessarily grumbled about, this time for stereotyping. I think it is slightly better than that, but Obvs hardly Kubrick)

29) The Godfather rewatch

30) The Godfather 2 rewatch (I was thinking about poss watching that series about the making of it & had only seen both once. Remain excellent. I started 3 & shook my head & turned it off straight away. Would like to see the 'Epic' or whatever it is called version with everything in chronological order - not for that reason but because there are supposedly loads of extra scenes)

31) Trigger Point latest season (hackneyed for sure, but I'm committed. A whole season about not taking too much Cocodamol, & if she chooses to leave her body armour behind when disabling a bomb one more time....)

32) Exorcist doc

33) Netflix John Wayne Gacy series (I have to say they do do these well. As an illustration, at one point they briefly flashed up a photo I don't remember seeing before of some of the pervy books they confiscated off him, which I looked up online as I wasn't sure if it was just an illustrative pic or evidence. One of them, there was only about three references on the whole Internet, & I think no pic, so that's basically completely resurrected info for the web age. Beats David Bloomin Wilson on every single programme)

34) My Father the BTK Killer

35) Blood On Satan's Claw (Halloween film with the missus...have been meaning to watch this for ages, as folk horror gives her the willies)

36) My Cousin Vinny (I believe Yank lawyers adore this, as a lawyer wrote it & it is procedurally bang on. Pretty entertaining if non-essential)

37) Girlbands Forever (I thought this was great)

38) Netflix Challenger disaster series

39) Netflix Apollo 13 doc

40) Netflix Oklahoma bombing doc

41) The Report (pretty good, I thought)

42) 102 Minutes That Changed America (rewatch I THINK - I put this in my top ten ever TV list but said I wasn't sure of the title & I felt this time like it didn't have all the footage I remembered - obviously there's loads of overlap - but I'm damned if I can think what else it could have been. Brilliant, either way)

43) Booksmart (this is great & I very much enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I go for the whole "Oh it's such a different take, oh it's so clever" thing - I mean, all these are just Heathers in a way, right, & really it is just the same end of high school thing as ever, just in a new pair of slacks. I found myself thinking that it would have been more revolutionary if they DID stay in, & it then did a sorta Gogglebox thing of them watching the Ken Burns retrospective. I know this one isn't about a prom as such, & I DID do plenty of parties in my last year of school, but I didn't attend my prom, nor did I attend any awards things at school, college or university, I don't remember what I did instead on prom night - probably talked to my grandparents & listened to John Peel?! - but I am still quite sure that I've had plenty of fun in the intervening 30-odd years. Nuke the whole facade, don't just do it in a more caring, gender-blind way!)

44) The Festival (from the sublime... from the Inbetweeners guys, but true enough to the UK festival experience to have me snorting all the way through)

45) The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (no classic, but a line-up too good to ignore)

46) Funny Pages (the reviews of this all seemed to be like "I can't just say I like this, I have to pick holes". I thought it was excellent, very believably grubby. I didn't really interpret the opening like most other people did either. Not for everyone, but I very much look forward to more by this guy)

47) Making Waves doc (about movie sound...turned it off towards the end when they started hero worshipping Hans Zimmer, which seemed like a different movie really. Otherwise interesting)

48) Leni Riefenstahl doc (the bitchy one. I remain intrigued about her work - which shamefully I've still never seen any of throughout - but, even if you didn't feel she was a full-on Nazi, she comes across as completely hateful here)

49) Mr Monk's Last Case (I felt he was a bit un-Monk-like here, & it didn't really need to be film length, but nice to see them one last time)

50) Death To Smoochy (there are issues here, not least the main female character's complete change of personality halfway through, but I suspect it influenced that Inside No 9 about the ageing variety performers, & I generally enjoyed it)

51) Stanford Prison Experiment (dramatised version - very good, I thought, seemed close to fact)

52) Stanford Prison Experiment doc

53) Obedience (doc Milgram made about his own experiment - crazy dated & funny just for that. Whole scenario kinda bananas)

54) Mystic River (solid. How come the last time I came across a Boston accent, it was the cutest thing ever, & here it makes the whole thing mumble-mouthed?)

55) A Very Royal Scandal (best fictional thing on the Non-Prince Andrew thing)

56) Emily Maitlis' Prince Andrew interview rewatch (as classic as any movie of recent years)

57) Andrew: The Problem Prince doc

58) Attack On London doc series (about 7/7)

59) Rev (what I hadn't yet seen of it. The Christmas one is class)

60) Inside No 9 (similar scenario to the above. Couldn't believe how many they had pushed out in recent years. Pretty outstanding, really, in part at least. Sheridan Smith one remains my favourite, but loads of great ones)

61) League of Gentleman 'anniversary specials' (had somehow missed that these happened. As good as the rest, well worth seeing)

62) An old Rowan Atkinson doc

63) A Confession series

64) Protection series (watched these 2 ITV things cos I had totally missed that the woman from Rita Sue & Bob Too had carried on & then had some sort of renaissance. Not works of art, but very watchable)

65) 2000AD doc

66) Film Is Dead...Long Live Film doc, about film reel collectors

67) Hit So Hard doc (about someone from Hole...who I think I like rather more these days than at the time...Not that I ever disliked them, but they were always being played but Obvs not Nirvana at the time, whereas now, they seem to stand up in their own right more, somehow)

68) The Trip to Spain

69) The Trip to Greece (film versions, which I didn't even know they had done. Nice to complete it. Freewheeling fun)

70) Monty Python 1-3 (had Obvs seen much of this before, but not all of it. Felt like it might be heresy to watch the series without Cleese. Astonishing how much blackface & similar there is in it, how many dollybirds, etc, & definitely not all of the same standard - you will probably have seen the best - but an impressive achievement in surrealism, really, & I still love the animations)

71) And Now For Something Completely Different (fun but non-essential refilming of best of first 2 series)

72) The Holy Grail (had somehow never seen all of this although, as with Halloween, I felt like I had seen three quarters in clips. I didn't like it quite as much as Life of Brian personally, but very good)

73) The Meaning of Life (I remembered this as having only seen the first half hour years ago, but I remembered much of it up to the salmon mousse, so I guess this was a rewatch. Very fond of a lot of this stuff)

74) Santa's Got Style (I spend an inordinate amount of time thumbsing down all those inane-looking Xmas movies on streaming platforms, in order to improve my suggestions. This is the only one for which the title/pic tickled me, & it popped up on Channel 5, where else, so I forced the missus to watch it with me. I kinda enjoyed it as a total change! Borderline so bad it's good if it wasn't for the existing comedy angle. It's a while 'nutha world, wherein many of the actors seem to have been in A LOT of these, & the more approving reviews online are so improbably effusive that it feels like one of the actors must have written them!)

75) Fawlty Towers rewatch (had been about 20 years since I watched the lot...Now looking a little creaky in terms of some of the unPC content, & not all of them are of quite the same standard, but by god when it is good, it is just peerless)

76) Fawlty Towers doc (the one with them all in)

77) Fawlty Towers play (like that West Side Story remake, entirely pointless, but enjoyable)

78) Seven rewatch (third time I think. First 2 were many years ago, this one on the occasion of picking up the double DVD cheap & watching some of the extras. Brad Pitt's eyeliner was leaping out at me for much of it, but other than that & the lessening shock as the years go on, still very very good)

79) Hairspray OG rewatch (on account of picking up the DVD. Poss a little slow starting, but gets great soon after. Was looking up all the dance tunes to remind myself which ones I actually own)

80) DC Noir (a bit hobbled by, presumably, budgetary restraints, but a noble bit from George Pelecanos, which I had to watch to catch the inevitable couple of minutes of go-go, references to people doing 'love boat', etc)

81) The Deuce (I can only think that I hadn't watched this yet cos I made the assumption that cos it wasn't set in Baltimore/DC, they wouldn't know it as well, & I must not have even read what it was about. Only three episodes in thus far, but it is looking like an all-timer, top actors, top Wireworld actors, top backroom, impressively sleazy...)

[landlordrecords]

FILMS Etc, June 2025 onwards...

Not quite 100 again, but don't want to forget all about some of these.

1) A documentary on Jaws.

2) Diary Of A Chambermaid (Bunuel version - so many of these are very similar in plot/intent, but all good I think)

3) Duel (had never heard of this early Spielberg one before. Pretty ripsnorting)

4) Munich (As per some of the reviews...this seemed very balanced... that is, if by balanced, you mean it was filmed from the Israeli point of view. Good film though!)

5) One Day In September (well-known doc related to the above)

6) How Much Wood... (early Herzog doc short on fast-talking auctioneers, non- essential but good stuff)

7) Easy Street (quite funny Chaplin one)

8) The Beach Bum (Here begins my current attempt to watch everything by preferred directors, whether I like the individual film's topic/first few minutes/etc or not. This one - and some of the absurd twisty-turny attempts to make it more than it is in reviews - makes something of a mockery of the pedestal Korine is put on. Not by any means unwatchable, but barring one bravura scene fairly early on, not exactly a serious piece of work. Certainly doesn't compare well to Spring Breakers)

9) I'm Your Venus (quite good doc about one of the tragic subjects of that ace Paris Is Burning doc)

10) Teenage Caveman (here begins the remaining Larry Clark films. For this one, you really have to accept the TV film-grade acting and SFX, and obviously, as ever, that everyone will have their kit off for no good reason for much of the film and, as the years go on, increasingly get down to it for real, but I kinda enjoyed this...It might actually be his most fun for people not into his stuff, I suspect)

11) Marfa Girl and

12) Marfa Girl 2 (these ones don't get a great rep. I think they are probably best watched, as I did, back to back, which really underlines the first as the last days of Rome and the second as the devastation that follows - the change in tone becomes quite effective. Very stylish compared to some of his others)

13) Smell of Us (this one seemed to get particularly bad reviews, but I thought it was pretty good. By now, seems one of the major factors in his films is the places he moves the action to - yes, they all have much the same content in a way, but they are often acted by locals invited to come up with their own contributions, so I guess he is just pointing out that young people are naughty everywhere!)

14) Impaled (Clark's section from Destricted...Pretty good stuff, I thought. He is always seen as leering - actually something that often makes me cringe with films - but the commentary to Wassup Rockers and this film both show how careful he is around this stuff. Clark completed!)

15) Permanent Vacation (on to finishing up on Jarmusch...His first, low budget feature. Decent enough)

16) Down By Law (I had somehow given myself the impression this was nearly all set in the jail, which would perhaps be a liiiittlle bit of a temptation to minimalism from the arch-minimalist, but it is actually rather well balanced. Good stuff)

17) Night On Earth (this seemed to get patchy reviews - I guess the anthology format forces people to compare them. I liked them all)

18) Dead Man (initially put off by the endless train journey reffed elsewhere, but good once it gets going. Felt like an influence on the third Twin Peaks season)

19) Broken Flowers (more good stuff)

20) Damaged doc (about the mysterious UK distributor of Nightmares In A Damaged Brain)

21) ZenTV DVD (cheap copy of an old NinjaTune comp, with all the faves on. Nice to get some Hexstatic stuff in the bag. Good package, loads of music, loads of notes. Nothing earth-shattering, but decent throughout if you ever see it cheap)

22) 4 Little Girls (Spike Lee doc about a racist bombing)

23) Citizen Kane Ebert commentary (only the second time I've seen the film, shamefully. Ebert was so good, very informative and into it all)

24) Surviving Life (Svankmajer...I suspect I may henceforth stick to the earlier shorts, but good, thoughtful stuff)

25) Limits of Control (more Jarmusch... lambasted for being too slow...It is only about 2 hours, and he carries out the hit...What more do you want?!)

26) Fear & Desire (clearing up some early Kubrick...This first feature he pretty much disowned, and it is easy to see why. Another that is watchable but that you're only ever gonna come here to bag)

27) Killer's Kiss (this one has, in retrospect, been bestowed special powers, despite being not much of an improvement on the former)

28) The Killing (didn't love this anywhere near as much as other people, but definitely getting into the good ones here)

29) Paths of Glory (this one is the real deal, excellent film)

30) A few short/ish ones, including Stereo and

31) Crimes of the Future (the first two featureish length Cronenberg ones. Both were done with some sort of post-film dubbing, which I guess adds to the weird atmosphere but is always going to limit their appeal. They are also near-impenetrable with their scientific gobbledegook. They look quite good though)

32) Fast Company (as I think people said elsewhere, when Cronenberg is filming the actual drag racing, this is pretty good, but the storyline is naff)

33) Some more short/ish ones, including Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop... (Spike Lee's diploma/whatever film, which I have to say I thought was pretty good. Considering some of his later bad stylistic choices, it should be better known, I think)

34) The Pleasure Garden (starting on the unseen Hitchcocks. This was his first, and is decent - liked it when the guy went nutty towards the end in particular, it felt effectively fevered)

35) A bunch more shorts, probably the best of a mediocre lot being Act Da Fool (Korine...might watch this again at some point)

36) The Farmer's Wife (more silent early Hitchcock. This one is mega-outdated, and I guess kinda sexist, but I thought it was way better than anyone else seemed to think. Quite enjoyed it really)

37) Champagne (fairly interminable early Hitchcock)

38) The Manxman (somewhat overwrought early Hitchcock)

39) Blackmail (this one is well thought of cos it is the first significant European talkie or whatever. It is so in its infancy that the hash of sound gets in the way somewhat, I thought, but there are flashes of brilliance)

40) Juno & the Paycock (poorly considered. Much better than I thought it would be from the first few minutes, but that isn't saying much. There are a few Oirish zingers in there, but it is all a bit either mad for craic or oh I've had a hard life)

41) Murder! (this one is quite entertaining, I thought. Early sound murder mystery)

42) Rich & Strange (I think this one was the one where the sound design was so impressive that the slightest rustle of a trouser leg sounded like a crack of thunder)

43) More shorts, the best of which being Herbert White (Michael Shannon as a serial killer)

44) Waltzes From Vienna (more early Hitchcock...NEARLY made a lifelong Strauss apologist hate Strauss, but the eventual playing of the Blue Danube saved it somewhat)

45) Foreign Correspondent (Hitchcock banger. I don't want to do down the British ones, cos there are obviously some good ones, but this just goes down like a single malt after them. Most impressive for me is the opening half hour, so often dull while characters are established. In this case, the dialogue crackles, and you coast along until you get to all the set pieces. Well worth a watch)

46) Mr & Mrs Smith (Hitchcock screwball. Not His Girl Friday, but not bad)

47) The Paradine Case (the first half is like a handful of valium, but decent once the court case finally starts)

48) The Stranger (starting on mopping up Welles. I thought this was very good)

49) The Lady From Shanghai (I dismissed this one before because of his ridiculous Irish accent, but if you can put that to one side, loads to like)

50) Macbeth (more mad accents, but very atmospheric)

51) Mr Arkadin (top drawer)

52) Dead Ringers (on to Cronenberg again... bit cold in a weird way, as I guess his often are, but pretty severely buckled by the end)

53) To Die For (...in tandem with Van Sant. Jolly good fun)

54) Good Will Hunting (I thought this would be double syrupy but it isn't really too bad in that respect. Won't be for everyone, but a good watch I thought)

55) Monster (break for the famous Theron tour de force...Very good)

56) A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg on Freud & Jung. Criticised for being a bit talky, but not sure how you would do a serious film about early psychology otherwise. Good stuff, I thought)

57) Number Seventeen (early Hitchcock talkie...I believe he was trying to be funny here, but it is once of the worst things I've ever sat through, mercifully short)

58) Lifeboat (more Hitch - didn't love this one quite as much as other people, but plenty decent)

59) Stage Fright (a perfectly decent Hitch)

60) Dial M For Murder (enjoyed this one a lot)

61) Finding Forrester (Van Sant - too similar to Good Will Hunting in many ways, but I still liked it)

62) Restless (Van Sant - varied reviews, I liked it. It is just Harold & Maude but not as good, but I will forgive that)

63) Only Lovers Left Alive (Jarmusch. Great sets. Not His most engaging, I don't think, but another good watch. Completed on Jarmusch fiction features!)

64) Maps To the Stars (barnstorming Cronenberg. A really nasty COMEDY - he should have done more!)

65) High On Crack Street and

66) Life of Crime (similar docs by the same guy about desperate lives in America. I'm a sucker for this sort of stuff. These are good ones)

67) The Inquisitor or The Grilling (pleased to finally find this well thought-of French police interrogation thing. Minor anticlimax to my search, but still good stuff)

68) 10th District Court (very good, straightforward French doc on the proceedings regarding relatively minor crimes, with the reactions of the accused ranging from "fair cop" to arrogantly mounting your own, absurd, over the top defence)

69) DMC World Championship 2000 (edging over into super-nerdy navel-gazing, but still some great performances)

70) Nikita (can't believe I had never got round to this one before. A ripping yarn)

71) Drifting Clouds (Aki Kaurismaki and Queen of Our Hearts Kati Outinen in perfect harmony once more. This one feels a bit too grim for a long time, but stick with it, it is worth it)

72) Monster In the Morgue (doc about that necro electrician guy)

73) DMC World Championship 1988 (it is all over as soon as Cash Money starts up, but a wonderful time capsule)

74) The White Diamond (Herzog English narrated docs mop up...Put off this one for a while by reading about the loony main guy, but he shows proper sorrow for previous events as the film goes on)

75) Meeting Gorbachev (more Herzog)

76) Fireball (more again)

77) The Shrouds (most recent Cronenberg. Very good, I thought, loads going on)

78) Psycho (Van Sant version. Obviously this was completely unnecessary, and never going to match the original, but once you have reconciled yourself with that, a decent enough watch, featuring some good actors of the time)

79) Boxcar Bertha (Scorsese mop up... Mediocre early one for Corman, decent music)

80) Gates of Heaven (that doc Ebert was always banging on about. Not quite as enamoured as other people, but still very good)

81) Ariel (absolutely top drawer Kaurismaki, very funny. I've realised that he did some out and out comedies which I don't think are very funny, but the comedy dramas are just so good)

82) Down For Love (reality thing about people with Down's syndrome dating...Sorry, not sorry!)

83) I Hired A Contract Killer (English language Kaurismaki one...which somehow is both a delightful surprise and yet puts it a rung below the others. Still perfectly good though)

84) Man Without A Past (I THINK I had seen this Kaurismaki before - probs not a good sign that I couldn't quite remember, but it was likely 20 years ago - more of the same, can't believe I haven't got round to more before, I've been on to him since the early 90s)

[landlordrecords]

FILMS/TV/PLAYS, April 2025 onwards...

I usually wait til I've watched another 100, but I reached a break in proceedings...

1) Merry Wives of Windsor (Unengaged-with Shakespeare Odyssey launches properly, with some amateur version on YouTube...The comedies are kinda tedious, with the endless disguise plots, although this one has Falstaff in it, who I can now finally talk about knowledgeably!)

2) Measure For Measure (more amateur hour...OK?!)...break for...

3) Diary of A Country Priest (actually ordered this for a few quid, which is unheard-of in recent times. Dead good)

4) Comedy of Errors (Trevor Nunn virtually pantomime version)

5) Love's Labour Lost (70s BBC version... alright)

6) Merchant of Venice (Al Pacino version...I actually turned this off towards the end when it got REALLY anti-Semitic...apart from that, obvs the best production thus far in this sweep)

7) As You Like It (Olivier version...quite appreciated the precise diction by this point)

8) Taming of the Shrew (Pickford version...Bit mauled I think for collapsing the plot & lots of mugging, but enjoyable for that!)

9) All's Well That Ends Well (ploddy amateur version)

10) Twelfth Night (Erm...Tommy Steele version!)

11) The Winter's Tale (RSC version - this was kinda OK, although as noted elsewhere, it pivots somewhat abruptly between dark & light)

12) King John (amateur, not bad)

13) Richard II (David Tennant version - by far the best by this point)

14) Henry IV Pt I (1990 version - there's several from that series in that year, & they're quite well done)

15) Henry IV Pt II (as above)

16) Henry V (Branagh version, easily trumps the Tennant one & hence easily the best thus far. Genuinely well worth a watch)

17) Hubert Robert: A Fortunate Life (quite good, evocative short about an old painter, which I watched on the Russian Ark DVD I borrowed off someone...didn't watch the latter in the end, but this was good)

18) Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers (another I ordered, by the Adrift In Tokyo guy - this one is more determinedly silly, & I liked it very much, great colour scheme as well)

19) The Philadelphia Story (wasn't OVER- struck on this, but the young girl in it [who sadly died youngish] is a real firecracker, would love to see more of hers)

20) The Search For Weng Weng (doc on the diminutive Filipino action star)

21) Christine (Alan Clarke half hour thing I had been wanting to see for ages. Didn't love it as much as Elephant, or some of the longer ones from around the same time, but bloody good nevertheless)

22) Polyester (very good)

23) 4 Days In July commentary (cos that's the only version I could find, & I'm not desperate to see it without the commentary - good stuff)

24) Robinson In Ruins (finally completed the literary shamble)

25) Hard Truths (very good new Mike Leigh)

26) Desperate Living (proper good early John Waters)

27) Mondo Trasho (suffered through the bird scene to be able to say that John Waters is the FOURTH director I've completed on)

28) Various Svankmajer shorts

29) Hard Labour (pretty good early Mike Leigh TV play, once it gets going)

30) Kiss of Death (more early TV Leigh, & later the commentary)

31) Five Minutes Films (wish they had followed through on doing more of these nice little Mike Leigh things)

32) A Sense of History (quite different Mike Leigh thing, cos he didn't write it. Pretty funny)

33) Permissive Society (more early Leigh...as the comedian said, I don't think it exists - and I know, cos I've looked)

34) A Mug's Game? (Very early Leigh bit, notable for suggesting to children that you break your gambling habit by...making homebrew)

35) A Running Jump (more recent Leigh bit)

36) I, Daniel Blake (particularly notable for, as noted elsewhere, the very moving food bank scene)

37) A documentary on Hasil Adkins

38) An American In Paris (from a musicals box set from a book swap...OK)

39) Inside Deep Throat (doc I had had kicking around for years about the porno... pretty interesting)

40) Who's Who (Shelled out for the Mike Leigh Beeb box set, featuring a bunch of those I had just watched from above, plus pretty much the last Leighs I hadn't yet seen. This one ain't my fave, but...I've seen it now)

41) Home Sweet Home (The Mike Leigh for you if you always wanted to see Bob Cryer from The Bill getting jiggy)

42) Nuts In May commentary

43) Grown Ups commentary (one of my faves)

44) Starship Troopers (finally had enough recommendations to persevere with it...good for what it is)

45) Oldboy (OG - had stalled on this while I ummed and ahhed about Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, but I just skipped that in the end. Dead good)

46) Harvey (I was labouring under a big misapprehension about this, which I won't go into but which I felt I was led into by the advertising materials. Pretty darn good in the end)

47) Mad Max 2 &

48) Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (both of these to reach Fury Road, which I then decided I wasn't going to watch after about 2 minutes of a cut a second. Both perfectly enjoyable, but the original will remain by far my favourite)

49) A Scorsese doc about Powell & Pressburger

50) The Champion (decent shortish Chaplin)

51) The Kid (well-known heart strings- tugging full-length Chaplin. Still not sure I can be bothered with some of the other, much vaunted, ones, but this is well worth a watch)

52) Buster Keaton doc

53) Hitchcock (Alfred thingum...got a bit mauled, but I thought it did the job)

54) Safe (not perhaps something I would be drawn to subject-wise, but the director/star/advertising imagery drew me in. I believe this was beloved in the States at the time. I had never heard of it but thought it was excellent, including the acting, cinematography, music, sound design, etc. Highly recommended)

55) Some documentary stuff on the London Underground, from a box set of my Dad's

56) Paradise (TV series, with the missus - sci fi, but not ray guns. Pretty decent)

57) Murder Among the Mormons (rewatch, cos I was reading about Mormonism & had forgotten much of this, for which my jaw dropped the first time. Still a great watch)

58) Keep Sweet (continuing the niche religion theme)

59) Henry VI Pt I (another of the 1990 series. Delayed a long time cos of the dreadful sound on the YouTube copy, which has pretty much paused the Shakespeare Odyssey)

60) This Filthy World (I probably prefer John Waters just talking rather than trying, but still great fun)

61) Susana (rare trip to Fopp to gather up a coupla mid-price goodies - absolutely loved this Bunuel tale of a gleefully immoral strumpet)

62) Love On the Spectrum (new series - sorry, not sorry)

63) You Can't Ask That (Australian series, one of those things where minority groups answer dumb questions about their conditions/preferences/experiences etc)

64) Fred West & Robert Napper dox (I don't think I usually mention this sort of seediness...or maybe I haven't watched many for a while...The West Netflix one had some footage of him being taken back to the burial sites which I think has only now been released, & Napper there probably isn't enough on considering how immensely disturbed he clearly was/is)

65) The Real Animal Farm (I remember reading a great piece in Headpress decades ago about how everyone in the 80s/90s [including me] had heard of, & some people had had the misfortune to see, a beastiality porno called Animal Farm, & what was the story behind it, & why couldn't it be identified [spoiler alert: because it was cut together from various shorts]. I didn't know there was a UK TV doc episode about it though! Pretty interesting if depressing watch)

66) Long Bright River (latest series I've not quite finished with the missus...not bad)

67) Performance (more cheap Fopp booty...Had seen SOME of this before.. Pretty good start. As someone else (Ebert?) said, slows a bit afterwards, but very creative stuff)

68) Titicut Follies (I don't want to take away from the well-known fact that this depicts some pretty horrific conditions, but I feel that practically everything I read about it afterwards skipped straight past the sign that said it was a facility for the CRIMINALLY insane, not just your gran who has gone a bit doolally. Because of the way he films stuff, you have to build in the narrative surrounding it. So, for instance, in the much-noted sequence where an old, naked, vulnerable- looking ex-teacher is being goaded by a guard about keeping his cell clean, I would read that as frustration that the guy probably keeps doing dirty protests...after being locked away for fiddling with children. Happy to amend that if wrong, but you get my point. Glad things have improved since then, but dudes, one guy is interviewed and openly says he interfered with one of his children, these blokes are in there cos they are dangerous, I don't think it is SO surprising there were elements of crowd control going on. Great doc, either way)

69) Juvenile Court (same dude, early 70s, southern states. Not quite sure why the other ones aren't as well known, probably just cos they're not so starkly shocking. Still very very good though)

70) Exterminating Angel (more Bunuel, jolly good)

71) The Men Who Tread On the Tiger's Tail (BFI binge... shortish Kurosawa, non- essential bit, but well worth a watch)

72) Equinox Flower

73) Late Autumn (couple more quality Ozu ones, the latter more obviously comic)

74) Dinner For One (non-BFI, not notable except for the fact that it appears to be beloved in Europe...which is why I was there. Decent though)

75) Press Your Luck Scandal doc (not sure why it is called a scandal, he won fair & square, but very amusing gameshow history which I was previously unaware of)

76) Saute Ma Ville (back to the BFI...good early Ackerman short, to put me in the mood for...)

77) Hotel Monterey (hour long silent Ackerman tour of drab NY hotel, with noted optical illusions, good for dozing off to. To put me in the mood for...)

78) Jeanne Dielman... (quite obviously not the best film of all time, which claim drew me to it & made me stop after 20 mins the first time, but most certainly not crap either, which brought me back...Far from the enriching endurance test many have suggested - in fact, very watchable. Again, one I have to disagree with many comments on...I don't think she is imprisoned by drudgery or whatever - she says clearly she wanted a place of her own & a child, & while she is turning tricks, she appears to be her own boss, on pretty much her own terms, with regulars who are unlikely to put her in any danger. I suspect most of the viewers are the sort of people who hate & avoid housework & hence see it as drudgery. I may count myself as one of those, but I look after my parents out of choice & it needs doing & is satisfying once it is done...Which seems to be her take as well, leading to a fairly hypnotic experience, far more engaging than a lot of art house twaddle)

79) Video essay about Ackerman

80) Powell archive films doc

81) We the Ragamuffin (great fun half-hour Brit ragga musical from the early 90s)

82) Violent Cop (pretty boss early Takeshi)...end of BFI stint...

83) Eric Satie doc (early 90s Beeb thing...feel like I had seen chunks of this before, but v good anyway)

84) Phoenix Nights (maybe slightly marred by time, but good to see it all at last, great line-up of actors)

85) Rockets Redglare! (FINALLY bagged via a Bluesky correspondent. Fairly low production standards, but he is a great subject and interviewee, and was doomed from the offset)

86) Public Housing (yet more from the Titicut Follies dude...this one is an epic, set in mid-90s Chicago, with ghetto house strains occasionally breaking through)

87) Whores' Glory (great doc on prostitution, filmed in Thailand, Bangladesh & Mexico. Most people seem to find the Mexican post-apocalyptic landscape most depressing, but the squalid Bangladeshi complex with hundreds of prostitutes mauling clients mauling them, many of them clearly underage, was like a vision of Hell)

[landlordrecords]

BOOK SWAPS/BOOK EXCHANGES

I think I've only mentioned this in passing here, but they've been a big part of my life the last 2 or 3 years. Generally village phone boxes or bus shelters, repurposed since half the libraries shut, so locals can swap(/dump) stuff.

They seem particularly prevalent in Cambs/Suffolk, but I know they are other places as well. Goldmine! Myself, my folks, & Simon Morris all had tons of doubles between us, cheap OK stuff that could probably go, etc, but wasn't valuable enough to sell, & that's largely now been converted into a high proportion of the classics we didn't have, replacements for knackered old copies, DVDs, CDs, things I got out of libraries years ago but never saw to buy, wants list stuff, gifts for friends & family.

I do these now on a kinda industrial scale, since coming to look after my folks, which probably isn't the idea (although I studiously avoid the ones described as 'libraries'), but I always swap stuff in & it often goes pretty quick. You kinda need to drive to make the best of it, but I really have: heaven for a collector, & community-minded. I even have a little tidy up when I'm there, chuck waterlogged stuff, try to put similar stuff together, etc (the librarian in me). And however often I think I've run out of stuff to swap, more stuff seems to pop up. It is like a weird, benevolent, super-British little 21st Century pastime.

If you're in/through my area, I currently hit Wilburton, Wentworth, Witchford, Witcham, Sutton, Little Downham, Ely Downham Rd, Bluntisham & Colne real reg (& use Wentworth for trading on cheap DVDs & Witcham the same for music)...I also less regularly check out Rampton, Oakington, Soham, Holywell Row, Horningsea, Lt Shelford, Hauxton, Coton, Broughton, Upwood, Hemingford Abbots and Hail Weston (& some of these places are also rather beautiful).

[landlordrecords]

Film/TV/Plays Update

The lifetime catch-up Odyssey continues (yet again)...There's always just another 200 to go...December 2024 onwards...

Angel Heart (jumped the shark a bit at the end, but otherwise pretty good, and I doubt I will ever forget how Robert DeNiro shells an egg)

Freeway (what a find - from a list of John Waters favourites, & it is easy to see why. Highest recommendation)

Some early experimental shorts

Career Girls (seen as rather slight by many, I believe, but I've thought about it often since, & the "Ms Bronte" bit tickled me massively)

All Or Nothing (pretty much all the Mike Leighs are bangers really)

Too Much of a Good Thing (brief flirtation with radio plays - which I usually dislike - for this late 70s Mike Leigh one, which is very good)

An Englishman In New York (didn't even know this follow-up to The Naked Civil Servant had been done til just before I watched it. Not quite as stirring as its predecessor, but a fine romp)

Full Metal Jacket (odd the way it just splits down the middle, but amazing how much I had heard quoted/sampled beforehand)

Sister Act (I enjoyed this quite a bit)

Hitchcock/Truffaut (almost forgotten already, but another part of my endless Hitchcock mission completed)

Street Trash (this just popped up on BFI because of the remake. I admit I had never even heard of it before, but what a film, if you like OTT gorefests)

Eastern Promises (this Cronenberg pretty passed me by previously, but it fits well with his others of the time - Spider, A History of Violence...)

Yes God Yes (endearingly cute)

Adrift In Tokyo (quite keen to see others by this guy, but they seem a little out of reach)

Cutting Moments (a very cheapo DVD with a variety of extremely low budget shorts on, centred around this late period cinema of trangression bit, which is genuinely quit a tough, but good, watch)

A couple of retro ITV wrestling comps

The Firm (original - great watch, sterling cast)

High Hopes (one of the lesser Mike Leighs, but still well worth a watch)

Naked (fairly towering Mike Leigh one, I guess. Some great discussion online about the seemingly crucial but difficult-to-make-out lines towards the end)

The Queen (encouraged to watch this by the missus, as I really like The Crown - decent)

Peter Kay Tour That Didn't Tour... (I saw a couple of his live ones 20+ years ago but hadn't seen this one. I did wonder if I would make it through, but it built nicely tbh)

Bringing Out the Dead (on about the third go, but worth it)

Zatoichi (Beat Takeshi one - good stuff)

Still Alice (I sort of agree that this is a bit like a big budget, well-acted Hallmark film, but it IS pretty good)

Young & Innocent (British Hitchcock talkie - not amazing, but better than the various ones I've abandoned. The girl does actually say "I'm terribly...terribly..." at one point)

Nacho Libre (this just landed in my hands, & tied in with ITV wrestling nostalgia binge, but I enjoyed it)

Inside Out 2 (a treat)

Shivers (great stuff)

Fear of A Black Hat (you probably have to have been into all that at the time, but I laughed a lot)

Friday the 13th III (I felt I needed to get this far for the introduction of the ski mask, before jumping to Jason X, see below. Filled with objects pointlessly looming into the foreground cos of the original 3D issue)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original - possibly the second or third try cos, y'know, talkie old black & white job, but pretty good when it gets going)

Female Trouble (better than Pink Flamingos? Great stuff, anyway)

Divine Trash doc

In Bad Taste doc (both on John Waters)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (the remake - pretty good)

Jason X (a so bad it's good one...tophole romp)

Il Divo (on about the third go. Had to keep pausing it to look up all the politicians, but worth it. I want to see The Great Beauty as well. This director is becoming a new fave)

Saving Private Ryan (not massively into war films, but the opening salvo is indeed a peach...and, to be honest, pretty much the whole thing is)

Julien Donkey-Boy (I kept starting this and thinking "I must be able to find a better copy", til I reminded myself how he filmed it. Takes a while to get into the rhythm, but quite affecting by the end, I think)

The Notorious Bettie Page (I got about halfway through this ages ago & stopped, & then decided I did want to see it all but had to feel in the mood to get back through the ten minutes of dire trailers on the ex-rental copy before finishing it. Seemed to get lambasted for being workmanlike or something, but if you're interested in the subject, pretty neat I think)

Public Enemies (another I kept starting & stopping, for some reason - maybe just seen so many gangster movies - but definitely high quality)

Mr Turner (this is REALLY good, I think, Mike Leigh on top form)

Bully (rewatch)

Mr Bates V The Post Office (very late watching this - kinda put off originally just cos I was rolling my eyes at the time at all the coverage - I'm no expert, but that story has been in & out of the news so long, it is dispiriting to see how many people seemed totally unaware of it. Silly of me though - very good stuff)

Derek & Clive Get the Horn (entertainingly daft)

Topsy Turvy (another magical Mike Leigh historical one, so so highly researched - also watched the commentary not that long after - see below)

Faust (Murnau - some truly dread-filled stuff in this)

Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh - I MIGHT have seen this before. Not amazeballs, but did the job - I am slowly turning plays I haven't read/seen now, & the amount of Shakespeare I haven't engaged with properly is embarrassing)

Irreversible (a tough watch, of course, but a really good film actually)

That new Nosferatu (rare cinema visit, with the missus. Bit silly in places, but impressively atmospheric in others)

Charley Says (epic-length double DVD set from the collection of the late Simon Morris - well hauntological, literally hundreds of ye olde public information films. A treat)

12 Angry Men (original - quietly powerful stuff)

Godzilla (original - another that just landed in my hands from a book swap...& was swiftly watched & given away again. Never got the appeal, somehow. I'm definitely in the King Kong camp - remember loving that as a child - this was properly turgid)

Happy Mondays live DVD (Call The Cops? Good stuff, this. I'm not a major fan but had probably barely heard them live, & I can see the appeal)

Robinson In Space (at last - fine work)

Waiting For Guffman (had kinda overlooked this one - probably partly cos of the silly name, but I think I also read it didn't get proper distro here. As good as the rest)

Keane (I watched the Soderbergh cut from a double DVD - might watch the other at some point, but from a quick read, it sounds like this might be the one. Not the most incredible movie ever made, but his performance in it is towering really)

For Your Consideration (on the second go, but worth it)

Wassup Rockers (gets better as it goes on. Also watched the commentary soon after - see below - the style of which was engaging but quite different from the other ones I've liked)

Airplane II (cos I'd got it, but entertaining. I missed Leslie Nielsen though)

Abigail's Party (rewatches begin en masse. Still very funny)

Withnail & I (rewatch - good but not blown away either time, although it does have that high count of quotable lines. Enjoyed the bothersome uncle a lot the second time)

Cry Baby commentary (the start of the commentaries season - instantly gelled with this John Waters one, I will seek out more)

The Incredible Shrinking Man (rewatch - found myself laughing out loud at bits of the first half & then checked out a bit for all the cosmic stuff I loved originally, but a landmark film in a way, I think)

The Taking of Pelham 123 (rewatch)

Some Kind of Wonderful (rewatch - probably not as effective in middle age as for a sulky, mooning teenager, but...)

Heathers (rewatch - didn't remember how annoying a character Christian Slater plays in this)

Paperhouse (rewatch...sort of...I think I only saw the very beginning of this originally, but that hand-drawn image & then the house that looks exactly like it really stayed with me all these years. Not the most amazing film ever, but pretty decent, I think)

Another Day In Paradise (rewatch)

Eraserhead (Lynch rewatch season begins)

The Elephant Man (rewatch - the Bible scene got me yet again)

You're Cordially Invited (pause for a fairly lame new Will Ferrell that I enjoyed greatly anyway)

Blue Velvet (rewatch)

Wild At Heart (rewatch, but possibly never actually saw all of this before)

Lost Highway (rewatch - still confused!)

Straight Story (rewatch - I appreciated this the first time but maybe settled into it more this time)

Mulholland Drive (rewatch - first time since seeing it at the cinema on release, after which I read the Sight & Sound synopsis & was proud I'd 'got' it, although the Shakespeare-esque level of analysis since would have me think otherwise)

Inland Empire (rewatch - I confess to a bit of a doze in the later sections, but it isn't that long since I saw it originally tbf. Btw, saw Dune not that long ago & 3 watches into Fire Walk With Me already)

Bleak Moments commentary

Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf (little Alan Bennett season - Thora Hird priceless in this, & the missus much tickled by my endless quoting of "I didn't say anything")

The Old Crowd (some sort of experiment that didn't go down very well, I believe. Not his best, but worth a watch if you like him)

Afternoon Off

One Fine Day (didn't know he had done this with Dave Allen...how does this stuff get forgotten so easily?! Something to do with TV repeat fees, I'm led to believe)

All Day On The Sands

Talking Heads series 1 (featuring some of the definitive Bennett stuff, I guess)

Hard Boiled (NOT Bennett...annoyingly, dubbed, but builds to a fairly insane level of action)

The Young Ones series 1

Apocalypse Now Redux (the only version I have seen - obviously a classic)

Bad Lieutenant (Abel F version - very good)

Your Honor series 1 (I felt like this may have been influenced by the similarish section in Wild Tales, maybe. Very good, anyway)

The Persians (plays begin properly, with the Greeks. I planned to watch loads of these on YouTube etc, but the actual films made of them stray too far from the originals, and what remains is largely either versions in Greek or American university classics groups, most of which are either in Greek or muffly. This one was OK though...and is, from memory, the earliest play surviving in full that the world still has to offer)

Oresteia (Peter Hall version - I remember being dimly aware of this as a child, cos I was really into Greek mythology, but the availability is woeful - film of the stage production of the trilogy, broadcast probably just once, early days of Channel 4, then eventually put out on video in America for all the aforementioned classics departments, but otherwise languished in obscurity until resurrected ropily on YouTube. Now, this should be available on DVD, blu-ray, streaming, the lot, because it is quite simply one of the best bits of TV I have ever seen. All-male cast (as originally, I think), in eerie masks, absolutely boss music from Harrison Birtwistle, chanted in a near-rap, with a really meaty translation. So powerful. May well watch again in the not too distant. I don't think even the music is available. Criminal)

Peace (Aristophanes - studenty production, half-decent, funny)

The Crown (finished at last. Whatever you think of the Royals - and I'm a republican - pretty monumental record of our times)

Casablanca (Ebert commentary - fourth viewing of the film)

Homicide: Life On The Street (the lot - had DVDs of the first couple of seasons that I watched recently, then the whole lot finally went up to stream. Cos it is a Wire precursor, but better than similar stuff I've seen, characters develop nicely)

Adolescence (I think you'd have to be a parent for it to have the monumental impact I'm hearing about, but the single shot episode thing is pretty impressive, and most things connected to Stephen Graham are well worth seeing)

The Wire (rewatch - amazing how much I'd forgotten or misremembered - whole seasons in different places than I had expected! Knowing where the horror is to come does allow you to concentrate on the humour and the intricacies missed the first time)

Laurel & Hardy (Brats, Twice Two, Our Relations)

Saboteur

Torn Curtain (both of these Hitchcocks written up as reworking a lot of stuff from his others, but still both pretty darn good really)

Two Gentlemen of Verona (onto the Shakespeare YouTube gubbins...Yank Shakespeare In the Park effort. Erm, I believe it isn't meant to be one of his best, & it shows. As others have said, the servants/dog win the day)

[landlordrecords]

This was meant to be in a book, but I believe the book isn't happening now...

CON-DOM

How Welcome Is Death To I Who Have Nothing More To Do But Die

Tesco Organisation TESCO 102 (CD/2LP, 2016)

Don’t look (away)

Mike Dando’s English power electronics project CON-DOM reached its zenith with this gruelling comeback mic drop, exploring the protracted, undignified death of his mother.

The snazzily grim booklet for How Welcome Is Death features photographs chronicling Nora’s obvious suffering, under the yoke of the miserably attritive-sounding Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. An incurable neurological condition, it did for Dudley Moore and Peter Sarstedt and, at the time of writing, is gnawing at Linda Ronstadt. In short, this situation is far from the quirky world of 2023 film Quiz Lady’s rebellious care home prison-breaker.

While leftfield artists Hannah Peel and Ian William Craig have dealt extensively with relatives’ degenerative illnesses, power electronics is the ideal setting for examining the brutal physical and psychological effects of these conditions on patients and their families. They have been referenced in PE before, but How Welcome Is Death is the genre’s heart-on-the-sleeve statement on the subject. Dando credits the influence of Atrax Morgue in the sleeve notes. However, the album’s more direct ancestor is US noisers Macronympha’s legendary Bananafish interview, wherein Joseph Roemer shared photos of his dying father, and talked about having the latter’s life support turned off. It also reminds us of John King’s Shipman-skewering novel White Trash (‘He did not know what to say to this walking skeleton, felt sick just looking at him’); and of the astute closing sections of Nick Tosches’ Dino, wherein Dean Martin drifts in and out of lucidity during palliative care.

For PE, How Welcome Is Death is the equivalent of a late career classic rock album. As Bruce Springsteen and Loudon Wainwright III matured in their navigation of life’s stages, so did Dando, for whom the album is akin to his own Transformer Man, as he holds hands with Neil Young and peers under the tree canopy dappling their loved ones’ ability to communicate. A lot of time and a lot of life had elapsed between 1984’s Calling All Aryans and 2016:1 as Noise Receptor zine put it, How Welcome Is Death holds ‘a mirror up to the fallacy of the oft faux celebration of strength and the overt obsession with death that preoccupies so much of the post-industrial underground’. What else was Dando going to address in his transgressive art, when the worst horrors faced him at home?

The medicinally bitter taste of British national treasure Clive Dunn’s anodyne 1970 novelty hit Grandad begins How Welcome Is Death, before bleeding into the wounded feedback and Maurizio Bianchi-style rumbles of the first of the album’s lengthier pieces (which are interspersed with brief field recordings from Dando’s mother’s care setting, a TV dumbly blaring throughout). In Living Death, Dando imagines his mother’s thoughts on her predicament: “I have come to this.” The title track is written from a similar perspective, but moves from the minutiae of care towards Nora’s thoughts of loneliness and death after the loss of her husband: “No point with him gone.” We don’t know how much comes from real conversations and how much is imagined, but it all rings true.

The first act concludes with one of two presumably surreptitious recordings of Nora’s roommate, Sarah, adding ‘colour’ while demonstrating the unappealing, unsane, unacceptable conditions for patients in the underfunded UK care sector. They also beg questions regarding the ethics of their inclusion. One imagines Nora was unaware of her son’s project, but it was initiated by someone who would be regarded as having her ‘best interests’ at heart. This cannot be said for Sarah, much as she or her loved ones will probably never be aware of her

cameo. Those whose naked photographs are viewed by paedophiles are considered violated, regardless of whether they are aware of the abuse, but on the other hand images made of mental patients without informed consent have positively influenced that sector. Albert Maisel’s disturbing Bedlam 1946 Time photographic series, regarding two US state hospitals,came complete with leading captions such as ‘despair’, ‘forced labor’, and ‘neglect’. It led to much pearl-clutching and determination to do better: rulesbent in extreme circumstances. Whatever one makes of the record, it is clearly not meant as entertainment or prurience; rather, it is Dando’s cry of pain on behalf of two helpless old ladies.

The second act begins with How Welcome Is Death’s centrepiece, Chocolates, which reads like a mixture of the personal histories which the healthcare system cruelly punishes families into repeatedly giving; and Nora’s suicide note. Dando is clearly spoken here, the case history crisply laid out on clean white hospital sheets. T4 then steps outside Dando’s immediate situation, referencing the Nazi scheme of involuntarily euthanising the incurably sick. The booklet mirrors his family’s situation with that of a family under the Nazis, pleading for a mercy killing, while the Office of Racial Policy issues posters questioning the point of keeping the sick alive.

The third and final act abruptly switches to Dando’s own perspective, opening with the grinding Just Fuckin’ Die (the ‘hit single’), in which he is uncompromisingly honest about his own feelings on the state in which illness has left his mother. Dando is thoroughly humane (he was with his mother in her dying days, after all), but there are no sugar-coated memories of good times here; just a husk, a man at the end of his tether. And so to the inevitable elegy: the alien, windswept, near-instrumental Ending (Nora). One thinks of the drum and bass maverick Goldie, playing his hour-long composition Mother while visiting his mum in the chapel of rest.

For British listeners, if the album started with Dunn, then it must end with future Fall member Julia Nagle, alongside future actresses Sally Lindsay and Jennifer Hennessy, on 1980’s inane school choral travesty There’s No One Quite Like Grandma. Degenerative illnesses do not only affect the elderly (as per the book and film Still Alice), but Dando questions the tone and content of Britain’s most beloved paeans to them. If the album had been recorded a few years later, nonagenarian pandemic celeb Captain Tom’s hit could have featured, his not-so-dulcet tones standing in for Sarah’s anguished cries.

The falling apart of the sainted NHS. The systematic deaths of the UK care sector (Crass’ “System, system, system/Death in life”). The ashamed thoughts of “This sinner”. Swearing at and rejecting carers, like Anthony Hopkins in The Father. The interplay between love and hate; love and duty. “How welcome her death to I.” An old lady, soiled, fallen on her bedroom floor, head cracked open, crying “Kill me”. Wee. Poo. Pads. Accidents. Catheters. Puckered flesh. Wee. Poo. “My arse hurts.” Reality and Codeine dreams merged: “I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.” “I want to go home”; “You are home”. All of that which came before corroded and forgotten. Exhaustion. Waiting. Death? How welcome.

d foist

[landlordrecords]

Films, Films, (TV), Films: Next Batch

Now been looking after my folks for a year & a half, so movies are one of the main things I can do...sometimes. Some of the TV & docs might be missing &, as ever, if I haven't said so, it is a first watch, as I don't rewatch that many things. I probably said before, but if I don't click with something, I just move on, so these are all good in my eyes).

Reading the last blurb, I feel the urge to mention that Cully's World in Blackpool is currently 8 DVDs for a fiver, but that I hear they are shutting again soon, so go scoop stuff up.

Also, Plex gets The Gasface for making such a hash of dropping he Facebook log-in that I ended up accidentally nixing my account, with all its bookmarks and ratings, and Tubi gets a tentative thumbs-up for being a decent replacement.

So, April 2024 onwards...

Best In Show (rewatch, but I reckon I only half-watched it the first time - very funny, prob the best one by them next to Spinal Tap, I guess)

Playtime (Ebert said something like you have to watch it once in order to get ready to watch it, which makes sense to me - all the comparisons to extremely funny silent comedians seem a bit over the top being as Tati barely raises a chuckle, but it IS, of course, extremely well laid-out and choreographed. I look forward to going again in the not-too-distant future)

Sightseers (I'm not quite so rhapsodic about this as some people, but great fun, v British)

Pictures of the Old World + extra shorts (good, atmospheric)

Scoop (not bad, none of these things hit the mark quite as much as the OG interview)

The Whistle Blower (Caine, solid enough)

Streetwise (1984 doc - I am a sucker for these type of things, but very good, well worth seeing)

Extras (glad I've seen it. Not quite as totemic as The Office, but entertaining throughout)

Ice Grill (a So Bad It's Good one I actually located all by myself. 'Urban', near-impenetrable plot, appalling cheap CGI, but half-decent music by a hip-hop semi-name, equalling quite mood piece in a way)

Nathalie (saucy!)

American Gangster (very good stuff)

Bronson (didn't really twig what sort of film this was first, and was impressed)

Anchorman 2 (I was a bit mean about the first one last time - the whole set-up is pretty funny really, and the nitpicking in the reviews bounce off if you like Will Ferrell, & at this point I have to accept that I LOVE Will Ferrell)

The Kingdom (I kinda just watched this cos I'd got it, but there were plenty plenty more in that pile that I didn't, so I would say tis was pretty good all told)

Eddie Murphy: Delirious

Talladega Nights (I'd been avoiding the Ferrell American sports & politics ones cos...impenetrable...but of course, it isn't in his hands. A very good one if you like him)

The Sinner season 3 (with the missus)

Two Ronnies best-of DVD

Some Mothers Do Ave Em (series 1&2? Picked up some DVDs. Possibly no other fictional character closer to my own)

The Black Panther (I started this ages before and the bit where it went a bit dreamy in the middle sort of jumped the shark for me & I switched it off, but glad I went back to it, as it is a Brit classic really, I guess)

Jour De Fete (I might actually prefer this to Playtime, it is certainly more LOL, & a very entertaining watch)

Elgar (the classic doc, intellectual chore)

Analyze That (extremely close readers might remember I started watching the first one, realised I had seen it before, continued & still liked it, so thought this was worth a go. Obvs cash-in, but I enjoyed it)

A bunch of Alan Bennett TV plays, the one which stayed with me the most being the one about the old Leeds couple moving to Morecambe in retirement...Bleak!)

Wings of Hope (I had forgotten all about this, but it does stand well with other Herzog docs)

Red Road (I started this about three times, partly due to the print quality I could find, but very good I thought, reviews a bit overly picky)

Wake Up Ron Burgundy (that extras-make-a whole-'nutha-film thing - final proof I must have enjoyed the saga overall)

Miss Marie Lloyd (saw a bit of this on telly years ago & was looking forward to it. The Eastenders lass will hold a place in my heart forever for it - a good representation of music hall, one of my favourite music genres)

Zoolander (rewatch - another I think I only half-watched the first time, pretty funny)

True Detective season 1 (with the missus)

An old Cock ESP tour DVD

Common Ground (little local fen historical thing I found in a book swap phonebooth - considering its origins, pretty good/odd, I think)

Hatton Garden (good cast, good stuff)

Drop Dead Gorgeous (really really enjoyed this. Hadn't been aware of it before. Shall watch again)

Solondz season...Welcome To the Dollhouse (rewatch)

Happiness (rewatch)

break for...Le Diner De Cons (had been totally unaware of this - I'm not majorly into French film overall, but I do love their comedies)

Storytelling (rewatch)

Palindromes (rewatch)

Mesa of Lost Women (infamously cut into other appallingly bad films- realised I had it on a triple-bill DVD & thought I should watch it. Dozed in & out of it, which kinda added to the trippy effect. I liked it)

Rocky 2

Rocky 3 (stopped after that, but I was still rooting for him)

Baby Reindeer (yeah, def worth seeing)

Dawn of the Dead (rewatch - I trust I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, with all these second viewings, v unlike me)

The Phone Box (seemingly famous TV short I hadn't known about til recently. Pretty balls-out)

Land of the Lost (obvs purely Ferrell trying to cross into the children's market, but I kinda enjoyed it)

Viridiana (from the ridiculous [above] to the sublime to the ridiculous? Total classic obvs)

David (Ferrell short)

Knights Electric (short off the free bit of the BFI site, & something to do with those people who made the early 80s horror with the children's film school. Evocative for people like me who spent childhood holidays in Great Yarmouth, & pretty cool soundtrack)

A load more BFI shorts

Force Majeure (majestic)

Dinner For Schmucks (the remake of Le Diner De Cons - still pretty funny)

McDonald & Dodds catch-up (sorry not sorry)

Bottle Rocket short (I don't really like that guy's stuff, sorry, but I thought I would at least squeeze this in)

The Love Has Won doc (loonies)

Tropic Thunder (very funny)

A couple of Dave Gorman DVDs

The Tower series 3 (not amazing, but kinda drawn in now)

Gone Girl (they deserve each other)

The Budding Prospects pilot, and

Louie Bluie (very good - making the not overly-productive Terry Zwigoff only the second director I've completed on after David Lynch)

Chasing Shadows (old Reece Shearsmith detective series that seemingly didn't get picked up for more, leaving it hanging annoyingly)

Sometime around here, I also watched virtually the whole of Shakespeare & Hathaway (sorry not sorry)

Dark Horse (second try - kinda put off by the music at first, which I read a great explanation for afterwards)

Damsels In Distress (into this)

Wild Tales (good stuff)

Thursday's Children (extra on the If DVD. Safe to say it would be...erm...made differently these days)

Scratch (turntablist doc)

Entr'acte (very early experimental short, nicely trippy)

I Confess (I think the main complaint about this at the time just shows how insular people used to be [still are?] about other faiths - I found it totally convincing, & kinda gripping)

The Wrong Man (another Hitchcock gripper)

Shaolin Chastity Kung Fu (considering how generic this looked for a chance DVD-for-pennies find - only really picked up for the bonkers title- I thought this was jolly good. Made me think I ought to watch more like it)

London (finally got through the Keiller doc on about the third go. The conceit of the storyline was kinda annoying me to start with, but I will forgive it!!)

Grosse Pointe Blank (neither should be as forgotten as it seems to be on the whole nor as cult as it is to some. Decent watch though)

Devil & the Deep (very early Cary Grant performance in this. I was gonna turn this off but it got left on, & I'm glad it is. Stagey, but solid)

The Wrecking Crew (one of those extremely bad ones with Ice T in. A kinda So Bad It's Bad chore)

Ciao Ciao (another chance DVD find, & a very happy one. Fairly recent, & worth seeking out)

Wild Gals of the Naked West (I persevered with this early Russ Meyer, & I'm not sure why really, cos it is complete rubbish!)

Ms 45 (on about the third go - something a bit artificial putting me off at the start I think - once it gets going, pretty brutal stuff)

Fear City (another Abel F - bit glitzier, but in a sleazy way. I liked it)

Schlock cinema doc

Intolerance (started this loads of times, looking for a half-decent print. Found the optimum one in the end. Extravagant sets of course, but not exactly one for most modern cinema viewers, very clearly upgraded in recent times because people can't bear to say that Birth of A Nation is The One anymore. None of this is to say it is bad though, because it most certainly is not)

Gun Crazy (so glad I finally found this. Awesome)

The Bakery Girl of Monceau (if I was the bakery girl of Monceau, or indeed, the other girl, I'd have binned him off on principal, for spending most of the 20 minute run time littering the streets of Paris with pastry wrappers)

Le Samourai (very stylish)

Murder By Contract (only just read about this before I watched it - another film noir banger)

The Big Boss (pretty brutal Bruce Lee one, but leavened with goofy humour, like leaving man-shape holes where he punched people through walls etc!)

Fist of Fury

Doc on Roger Corman's version of The Fantastic 4

Made In Britain (a pearler)

Death Wish 3 (when I went back & realised I had got this far in the series & that this one is considered a So Bad... one. And how! Deffo looking out for this on DVD, would really enjoy a rewatch sometime. Bananas)

The rest of Dekalog (I was a bit unfair on this before, saying it is overrated. I love Kieslowski, & it is absolutely excellent, it is just that you get the slight whiff that it is like Finnegan's Wake, more referenced than actually seen, or whatever, destined for greatness for the (admittedly excellent) concept, & for the bleak Eastern European vibe (just reading a book on him & apparently he made it LESS so by leaving out queues, ration cards etc), but it IS restrained by the TV format, & unlikely to be grasped all at once cos there's so much of it. So many great ones though, & thoroughly rewatchable, I'm sure)

What About Me (I've been trying a load from that wave recently & this is the only one I got through - kinda charming in its own way, & every few seconds it is like "Hey, isn't that...?", she must be real personable to get all those faces involved)

The Family Friend (a friend has tried to get me to watch Il Divo & I kinda need to concentrate on that, with its labyrinthine politics, but this earlier one by the guy is something of a triumph- what a creation the main character is!)

Life During Wartime

Wiener-Dog

Fear, Anxiety & Depression (last 3 all Solondz - I persevered with this barely functional last one [his first] in order to say...Solondz is the THIRD director I have completed on!)

The Campaign (another good Ferrell one, I think, although I have also rejected a few of his under the radar recently - generally cheapo early stuff or when he is trying to do more dramatic stuff)

Downhill (the Ferrell version of Force Majeure, which I know I shouldn't like & certainly isn't the original, but I still did)

Doc on I Spit On Your Grave

Multiple Maniacs (did take a couple goes, but once you get into the swing of it, impressively bonkers/sleazy)

Serial Mom (the easier version of the above vibe!)

La Chienne (glad I came across this, referenced as the origin of a later one I forget the name of - really tophole early French one, quite visceral)

Boudu Saved From Drowning (same director & lead as above? Very funny)

While the City Sleeps (solid+ Lang)

Wonderland (more for the story than the chops, but impressive names on the cast)

Touch of Evil (double-sleazoid)

The Steamroller & the Violin (the first Tarkovsky I've made it through, I'm afraid, & it's a short feature, but I certainly liked it)

Grown-Ups (really loved this Mike Leigh TV play, with a superlative cast of Leigh regulars. If you like him, seek it out)

Meantime (also v good from Leigh)

Some early Alan Clarke TV plays

A bunch of Kieslowski shorts

The Short & Curlies (excellent Mike Leigh short)

Some Svankmajer shorts

Some classic experimental shorts, most notably Conner's Report, which is hardcore

Ordet (banger)

Shadows In Paradise (great joy to see another wonderful Kaurismaki, must really get more of these seen)

[landlordrecords]

Films, Films, (TV), Films

The last year has seen all sorts of upset & moving around for me, so (after a strong start to 2023), I haven't watched half as much film & TV stuff as I did in the coupla years previous. However, I'm still chipping away at my Great Lifetime Film Catch-Up list (to be followed by similar for books), with the assistance of streaming location finder JustWatch and, in the last year or so, the insanely good Cully's World of Blackpool, which reputedly holds 100,000 DVDs, generally priced at four for a fiver. As previously, I hadn't seen them unless I say so below.

Eyes Wide Shut (After all the Greatest Ever Vs Total Rubbish, turns out to be a solid bit of stuff, sort of stayed with me a bit without being as full of portent as some seemed to have suggested)

Knives Out (greatly enjoyed this with the missus)

The Watcher (TV series - we also quite enjoyed this)

Charade (Not quite as amazeballs as all the Hitchcock-He-Never-Made press, but well worth a watch)

Dynamite Chicken (tenuously Richard Pryor-connected DVD that had been sat around for about 15 years with me never quite getting to it...quite good in the end, one of those 60s mash-up thingies, all sorts of clips splurged out in a row)

Seven Of One (Ronnie Barker 70s pilots series, from which sprang Open All Hours & Porridge - very good, enough so that I soon after chewed through the first series of Open All Hours, and greatly enjoyed it)

Gregory's Girl (quite good...I wouldn't rush to see it)

Rocky (had started & stopped this previously, due to the mumbliness, but glad I eventually persevered, top movie!)

Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer (after the fuss had long died down...quite good)

Shaolin Drunkard (great fun...& the Wu-issued DVD actually had a significant amount of decent clips from other related stuff as well, good package)

Stark Raving Mad (rave-heist mash-up DVD that had sat around, again, for about 15 years...Alright! Can't have been too bad, cos a bunch of that pile went straight into my swaps pile in the end)

Gangland (bonkers so-bad-it's-good one with minor Ice T role)

Glass Onion (see Knives Out)

Collateral (decent blockbuster)

Dark Knight Rises (I had to remind myself which one this was...Not at all bad though)

Never Been Kissed (this was just on the telly, but I did actually enjoy it quite a bit in the end!)

Big Momma's House (continuing my soft spot for extremely stoopid comedies...Not quite as much laughing as at White Chicks, but still pretty darn funny in part, provided you leave your brain at home)

Angels With Dirty Faces (solid super-retro classic)

Batman Vs Superman (Yes, quite Crash-Bang-Whallop, but not as bad as people had said, I thought)

Black Bird (TV series - we thought this was really good)

The Chumscrubber (another from the ancient DVD mop-up pile...Again, I did watch it, so it must've been alright on some level, but not a great movie, lots of bad stylistic choices)

Art School Confidential (I couldn't quite remember if I watched all of this originally, so returned to it, & laughed like a drain, great fun)

Shottas (a bit low rent, but a bit different if you like action movies, being genuinely Jamaican-themed)

Fist of the Vampire (a so-bad... one...I did doze off a bit in the middle, but pretty insane, yeah)

The Public Enemy (another super-retro gangster classic)

The Hurt Locker (bit laddish for me really, but very well-done)

The Artist (boss)

The Chaser (Korean action thingie - good stuff, pretty tense)

Spellbound (on the second or third go...pretty good)

Napoleon Dynamite (I gave up on this after a while at first, cos the guy is so unsympathetic, but I guess that's the point...Lots of very funny bits, if you haven't seen it, & pleasantly surreal in a small way)

Blue Remembered Hills (Would have doubtless had more impact at the time. Having known the conceit for decades, it just seemed OKish at this point)

More of Dekalog

Escape Plan (pretty good fun)

A load of shorts by that Cornish guy

Wicker Man director's cut

Dirty Harry (solid classic)

Blood Simple (on the second go - a bit low rent compared to their later ones, but good plot etc)

Raging Bull (I tried the stream & the DVD & still thought the pic was shady, so picked up a Blu Ray cheap in the end, my first, thought it deserved it. Obviously a very good film but not much up my street apart from the peerless boxing ring scenes)

Woman Of Tokyo (super-retro Ozu bit...not as good as the later stuff but worth a look)

The People Just Do Nothing film (we were actually surprised how good this was for a broad Brit comedy film)

Elephant (1989) (absolutely excellent, seems a bit forgotten, glad I tracked it down)

Samurai Cop (probably fairly well as good as people say, in terms of so-bad... ones, although I'd seen so many by the time I finally saw it that it didn't have quite the impact expected)

To Catch A Thief (not bad)

The Asphalt Jungle (this is really good)

Detour (OMG, SEE THIS! The main print kicking around is nearly unwatchable, but I read there was a Criterion or whatever one where they had blended that with a much better print, just to fill in losses, and it is SO much better, & the film is thus revealed to be as good as all the cineastes say. Famously Poverty Row stuff, yet transcending that - storyline is good, actors great for the roles, and...it is all of about an hour & 10 & yet fits tons in. Highly recommended)

Stranger Than Paradise (I'm glad I watched it but I'm starting to realise I'm a bit pickier with which Jarmusch ones I like than I originally thought)

The Bat (another that had sat around on a DVD for years - no classic, but worth a watch, quite nice eerie atmosphere)

Death Wish (really good, I thought!)

School Daze (I got through half of this years ago & had to stop it, with an enormous eyeroll...I felt I had to finish it this time, & tbf I was kinda half-watching it while doing something else, but...I actually quite enjoyed it this time! Weird!)

Sunset Blvd (obvs a classic)

The Crazies (70s OG, not bad considering how low rent it is).

That was Jan/Feb last year...then my Dad had a stroke...Didn't even watch any more til end of March...Friday The 13th (OG...kinda does the job, doesn't it, despite not being very original)

Death Wish 2 (surprisingly not a total disaster after the first)

The Bay season 4 (fairly well dug in with these now, with the missus, set just up the coast)

Bullitt (super stylish)

Junebug (picked it up for Will Oldham, who is barely in it...I thought this was pretty darn good, very different, off-beat stuff)

3 Colours Blue

3 Colours White (realised I had seen White before. Obvs both classics)

Nil By Mouth (I was slightly terrified of watching this, owing to the strength of clips I've seen, but it is all justified in the context of the film, which is a corker, really convincing slice of life, well recommended)

The Honeymoon Killers (sleazoid!)

Rust Never Sleeps

Hukkle (obscure little Hungarian offering I stumbled across...DVD pic is quite poor quality, but great little film, very distinctive)

Get Out (very good)

Yojimbo (classic)

The Pledge (probably not regarded very well or whatever, but I liked it)

Birth Of A Nation (long - had started it sometime before & didn't rewatch that portion, then sorta did other stuff through portions of the rest. We all know the score - deeply controversial but massively important, off the list now!)

This Is Spinal Tap (thought it was time for a rewatch, still extremely funny)

White Chicks (rewatch - same)

Bodies Bodies Bodies (no classic, but very watchable)

Who Killed Captain Alex (rewatch)

Under the Ice (Henry Kaiser rewatch, still beautiful)

The Witch of King's Cross (doc, about some freaky-deaky Aussie woman, good stuff)

Love In the City (intellectual chore)

Meet the Parents (rewatch, umpteen time)

Step Brothers (same, White Chicks down all while a friend staying over at the start of June)

The 6th Commandment (TV series, think everyone watched this)

The Tower (TV series - quite good)

A quite good BBC grime documentary

A really interesting documentary about an ancient Yank crossdressing resort called Casa Susanna

80. Still Life (very good stuff)

81. Inside Man (Lee - rewatch - start of a small season of rewatching ones you are 'meant' to see more than once)

82. Usual Suspects (rewatch)

83. Memento (rewatch)

84. National Treasure (TV series - been meaning to watch this for years, pretty good)

85. The Ladykillers (OG - I don't think I've seen any of these before, should probably watch more)

86. That Steve Coogan Savile TV series, & the Netflix doc (seedy)

87. Psycho (OG - finally!! Very good, of course, & starting a brief season of films reffing the Psycho shower scene)

88. Friday The 13th 2

89. Aerobicide (superior so-bad... movie)

90. Scream (season ends)

91. Astrid (TV series - joyous)

92. Everything Everywhere... (these multiverse things are all somewhat gimmicky, but pretty great to look at)

93. Movie Hoarders (decent enough doc)

94. Vatican Girl (TV series - pretty good)

95. Dahmer (Netflix series - again, pretty good)

96. The Night Agent (TV series - same again)

97. Easy Come Easy Go (lesser-known Elvis film,watched with Diehard Elvis fan My Dad)

98. Death In Paradise catch-up (sorry not sorry)

99. Vera catch-up

100. Ban the Sadist Videos! (good - if dated - video nasty doc)

101. Still Tickin (similar Clockwork Orange doc, from the DVD)

102. Old School (had to eventually watch, as I really like Will Ferrell...not the best one to feature him, but very watchable)

103. Anchorman (second try...some laugh out loud moments, but again not one of my favourite Ferrell Man-Baby ones)

104. Spider Verse 2 thingie (see Everything Everywhere...)

105. The Pez Outlaw (highly entertaining doc on something I was almost totally unaware of)

106. Widows (superior heist shizzle from McQueen, great cast)

107. Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Shocking Truth (decent enough doc)

108. Blood & Flesh (quite interesting Al Adamson doc)

109. Anatomy Of A Fall (extremely well-made)

[landlordrecords]

I'm way out of the top tens of the year game, having had something of a tumultuous year, so here is just...

THE LAST 10 CDs I ADDED TO MY COLLECTION AND RATED 5/5

Blue Beat 3CD box (Delta) - super-cheapo, presumably post-copyright, wrap-up of pre-ska/just about ska 'blue beat' stuff which I picked up for a fiver on Fleetwood market. Total bargain.

Ska Anthems 5CD (Universal) - lowest common denominator-looking semi-random old reggae faves + forgotten ska splurger which I picked up for about 50p before it went out on the shelves in a charity shop. Well worth it despite the ugly look.

Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould OST (Sony Masterworks) - peerless, and I melted when Downtown appears out of nowhere.

The Last Poets 'st' (Charly) - finally picked up a charity shop copy of this. Well worth the wait: visceral, uncompromising, legendary.

George Formby 'The Legendary' (EMI) - some dudes I will buy again & again just for the odd tune I haven't heard before. The other tunes are like a warm, comforting blanket.

Blondie 'Parallel Lines' (Mail On Sunday) - haven't chased cos my Dad has on vinyl, but didn't realise it got a charity shop free/10p bin reish.

Albert Ayler 'Love Cry' (Impulse!) - allowed myself this one from the Simon Morris Collection, being as he had two versions.

Ravel/Boulez 'Bolero' (Deutsche) - stoked to stumble across this much-loved interpretation in a charity shop.

John Coltrane 'My Favourite Things' (Prism) - NOT the boss studio album, but a rag-tag selection of roughass live recordings, some of which virtually set the player alight.

Fela Kuti 'Zombie' and 'Everything Scatter/Noise For Vendor Mouth' (Wrasse) - picked up a massive batch of these in a charity shop. All pretty good or better, these the best.

[landlordrecords]

WANTS

As I was just updating this on my Discogs profile, I thought I would stick it here as well, another place it might get seen. Don't think I have before.

My Discogs wants list is about 2000-strong, and my book list quite long as well, but here are 1) My list of music wants NOT on Discogs (MP3s a good start), 2) My very top book wants (PDFs fine), & 3) My top film wants...you can find practically any films online or cheap at the mo, so there's only a couple of those.

Hook me up!

MUSIC

Buddy Max - Rainbow & Pot Of Gold (Pic. Disc, 2002) LP on Cowboy Junction, &

Gold Record Award Winning and Orange Blossom Special (1990) CDs - country.

America's woefully obscure "Flea Market Cowboy"...I STILL only have a coupla MP3s plus one great CD that came via Theme Park Records in the mid-nineties.

Jah Scouse - RAP/Bombay Mix 7" (051)

Space Records SPAC 7 (as yet unidentified item)

Stormed - New Revolution tape (1989) - indie ska.

An old favourite band from Cambridge...onto the bits & bats now I've got one single & a dub of the other.

--------------------------------------------------

BOOKS/MAGS

Martin Barker - Action-The Story of A Violent Comic (Titan, 1990, hbk)

Black Giantess zine issues 1 (1995)-7+ (c.2003)

Albert Goldman – Disco (Hawthorn, 1978)

Diz Willis - The Terrible Funeral & After (Wild Pigeon Press, 1968)

-------------------------------------------

FILMS

Lying (Chloe Sevigny, 2006)

Rockets Redglare! (doc, 2003)