Accidents Will Happen

February 13, 2016 | Posted by Lesley Jakobsen | Modern Music, MUSIC |

Songs in Our Heart # 1 (We have sounded off about songs we dislike intensely, and had lots of lovely negative feedback!  But in the interests of restoring harmony, we are starting a series of random tunes we love (or perhaps only one of us does) and we will continue as we think of more. Thanks also to those sporting sharers at YouTube – TVC doesn’t endorse any ads that may pop up!): Accidents Will Happen (Elvis Costello & the Attractions) (Written by Elvis Costello; released May 1979) [The perfect pop song, full of sound and fury, signifying everything.]    

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Pulp Fiction

February 13, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Comedy Film, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

(Dir. Quentin Tarantino) (1994) It’s flashy, it’s funny, it’s overly literate.  Styled after comics and melodrama magazines, it hops about a series of vaguely interconnected vignettes.  The thugs trade Tom Stoppard-like wit…a portmanteau potboiler unravels, and whilst everyone self-consciously shoots from the hip, no-one’s hip when they shoot. This film is great fun, don’t get us wrong, it has some memorable scenes, some top rank stars thoroughly enjoying themselves, and it dumps all over 90% of films made by man, but actually, it shows more talent than brains.  No one talks like that in real life and few act that way. To put it another way, in a more…

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Killer Film Quotes – The Classics

February 11, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Classic Film |

No CGI, often in glorious black-and-white, but here’s a bunch of reminders why the old films can still be music to the ears: Q (Peter Lorre): “You despise me, don’t you?” A (Humphrey Bogart): “If I gave you any thought, I probably would.” [Casablanca] (see our link for more quotes from the typewriters of the Brothers Epstein and Howard Koch) “The Children of the night…what music they make!” [Dracula] Rufus T. Firefly: “Go, and never darken my towels again!” [Duck Soup] “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” [Gone With the Wind] Private Eye Sam Spade to gunsel Wilmer:…

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Stations of the Cross

February 10, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | PETER'S WRITING, Ulalume |

(by Hans Holbein)

‘We quiver here for fear, a badly shaven lot, Leaderless and clear in fractured polyglot, Take a very long line and see it moves apace; It is the time of fishes, ticket punched another place.   Sun-treader, comb your morning hair, sweep this private road in anger. What of other highways? Go tell King Mwanga, The royal house is empty, the servants all abroad, Scattered to the corners, a tuneless monochord.   Their hearts a lute for strumming, diseased the ebb and flow, Sad cypress and unfulfilled watercress, What do you know?’

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Stuck in the Middle with You

February 9, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Drama Film, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

Reservoir Dogs (Dir. Quentin Tarantino) (1991) Pound for pound, Tarantino’s first film is easily his best, a tight, hip and brutal slice of underworld life, as a diamond robbery goes awry and the question is whether there’s a rat in the ranks.  Full of flash-backs and flash-forwards, it fills out the back stories with real wit and fervour. And the performances crackle.  Lawrence Tierney as the crime boss is scotch over gravel.  Harvey Keitel, stoic as Mr White, is perhaps the central character, along with rookie Mr. Orange (Tim Roth).  Steve Buscemi as the snakey Mr. Pink is terrific – so is…

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