Angine de Poitrine ... this name is showing up all over, today I studied them more and I agree...
Microtonal duo from Quebec. Fantastic. Plus a gimmick they have, playing incognito under weird carnival masks and pointilist costumes ! It seems they are brothers and they play:
"un répertoire d'anti-aréna-rock instrumental cartonneux qui, à la manière de la musique techno, s'articule autour d'un jeu dynamique d'ajout et de retrait de motifs sonores en constante métamorphose."
The new Running Man, is not a remake pre se of the Ahnuld 1987 vehicle, but a more faithful adaptation of Stephen King as Richard Bachman novel, written in 1973, published in 1982. That novel happened in the year 2025 and actually today it happens, with the Squid Game series and a Korean Reality show named exactly Running Man. So Ben Richards is in a banal world, becoming more real every day. I mean, it's like Y-day news after the Hunger Games series and all the Tv/straming fare of this kind.
Running man is of course influenced by Rollerball, which still stands up as one of the best film of its era (not the shitty unnecesaary reamke) it's even worse tha n its remake.
Everyone's commenting, oh, it's an Edgar Wright film. Ok, that is like a certified value for a big budget blockbuster Sf action (110 mill. $). surely not. I was also very dispointed by Lst Night in Soho, his take in gialllos, very pretentios and shallow. The most action Wright directed was in Baby Driver, which I enjoyed most of his all films, and he's better in making quirky, funny, heartfelt little films, not Hollywood fodder.
Also Glen Powell, which I've just seen in the lastest SNL edition, can't carry the film., at all. Not a problem with the guy and he tries hard but neh.
This would've worked as a Snake Plissken adventure, like Escape fromn the Dome. I guess Wright gave a few nods to John Carpenter.
There's also a problem with the duration which is overlong, 2h13 min, oi, the film doesn't start until we get to the show and no matter how good Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo are, they can't help much.
Also this world, used and dirty, used to cost less to produce on the screen. Here they went to Bulgaria for exteriors and day shots. Somehow doesn't look like America. The rest of it was hot at Warner Bros' studios in England.
Now for the music, unimpressive loud score by Steven Price. And as Edgar Wright ia great fan of songs to use on the soundtrack (yeah, great in Baby Driver), here most of them are wasted. Rolling Stones' Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), Sly and the Family Stone (Underdog)-on the main credits, Iggy and the Stooges (Search and Destroy), The Allman Brothers (Revival) , Miles Davis (Red China Blues) and Tom Jones (Keep on Running) on the end credits. Including a riff of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (last heard appropiately in One Battle After Another). And Jamie XX, far from my desk ;)
It's been Stephen King's year all over, from Life of Chuck to Welcome to Derry, the IT prequel that runs now on HBO MAX, MGM's The Institute series, passing through The Monkey and another Bachman opus, The Long Walk (which I liked best of these all, my review here).
Wright's film is full of King references /Easter eggs for the eyes of King's fans and King himself, credited as an executive producer. Of course King was happy with the film, as I know his tastes in film (ex: how much he hated Kubrick's The Shining and managed to to a sequel just to get rid of that Kubrick hangover, I don't care so much about what he likes or does not cinematically...hey, what about that Maximum Overdrive?
2 1/2 out of 5
*I opened recently a Letterboxed account in order to write down the films I see which I hardly can here, and my "reARviews" will be isssued there. Same ratings apply.
Jack De Johnette was one of the greatests of Jazz. Brilliant drummer and pianist, played with Miles Davis (Bitches Brew and live LPs). He was 83.
Played in Romania at Sala Radio in Bucharest in 2016 as a trio with Ravi Coltrane on sax and Bill Garrison on bass. That same year he played also Garana Jazz Festival in the same lineup.
"I think playing with Miles, with Dave Holland, Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter was a very exciting period. We always couldn’t wait to get on the bandstand to see what kind of mischief we could get into.”
`There are two kinds of people in this world, those who know who Shane Black is, and those who don't!. Those can dig ;)
NALD
Well Shane Black is back as a writer/director, this time on Amazon Prime & theirs MGM 100 mill. $ streaming extravaganza.
It's a Parker film named Play Dirty (not to be confused with the 1969 André De TothWW2 actioner, the title comes from Black's unfilmed script for Lethal Weapon 2, unseen til today -Black's most proud and gritty work, or so they say ;).
It's based on the Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake) iconic novels started in the 60's. Not one novel but `novels`. I guess they're trying to build a franchise but this won't happen I guess cos' the film is the weakest of Black's career as a director (and that includes the reshot troubled 2018's The Predator).
Mark Wahlberg is Parker, an obnoxious choice. He can't handle the character dark charisma and dry wit, a dangerous man with a code of its own. Stark's Parker is an Anti Hero, Steve Mc Queen would have done him justice. Or Kris Kristofferson. Even today's Brad Pitt cos' Russell Crowe's too overweight...
Robert Downey Jr. was supposed to play him but he backed off, remaining on board as a producer. Not sure even about Downey but definetly a better choice, Parker's before were Lee Marvin (Point Blank-1967- the most menacing), Jim Brown (The Split-1978, the black one), Robert Duvall (The Outfit-1973, the most aloof), Peter Coyote (Slayground-1983, the most unlikely), Mel Gibson (Payback-1999, the coolest, but meanest to his director-check out only the Director's Cut), Jason Statham (Parker-2013, bleh..). I'm not adding two these the two Frenchie freejazzin', Made in USA (Jean Luc Godard, 1966) and Mise à Sac (Alan Cavalier, 1967).
Back to Play Dirty. Would've been better to play it cool tho. The film itself is a self indulgent mess, combo of action scenes, comedy and VFX gone awry.
Too many characters, too much useless plot, not a lot of chemistry between the actors. Rapper LaKeith Stanfield shines as Grofield, Stark's character that has his own novels. Would've liked more of the Thomas Jane character, and someone else for Tony Shaloub, the guy plays a caricature of the mob boss of a ridiculous corny and cartoonish Outfit. Think a James Coburn, even in Hudson Hawk or Kris Kristofferson (he was the boss of The Outfit in Payback, but not in the Director's Cut !!!). Also for the Latin country (unanamed but it's Peru), some finer actors, plus Rosa Salazar as Zen is kinda unmemobrable and not at all a Femme Fatale type.
The running time (2h03) is overlong and the film loses steam in midstream.
+++The Plus:
Great score by Alan Silvestri, reminionscent of those he did for Predator and The Long Kiss Goodnight (based on Shane's script), jazzy and funk, dramatic and menacing where it needs to be. For me Silvestri's score is a great comeback to form. A bit of 007 Bond-sist swagger, Lalo Schifrin and The Taking of Pelham 123 by David Shire, the percussion points.
Also the opening credits are very cool, 60's like. They were made by Daniel Kleinman who did all the title sequences for James Bond starting with GoldenEye back in 1995. Amazingly he is not credited with imdb and Anca found this for me, thanx ! Her piece on the art of the opening credits is here.
And here's the whole title sequence.
Production values-high -especially the first action scene at the racing track.
The cinematography (superb 2.39:) by legendary Phillipe Rousselot (he's 80 now!), a lot of shades, shadows, reflections, in a NYC shot this time in Sydney, Australia !!!! Rousselot and Black worked together before in 2026's The Nice Guys.
Some of the wisecracks work better than the plotholes and the action. Also there are many references to Black's scripts and films, from the Christmas setting (Duh !) Lethal Weapon (the fall from the rooftop), The Long Kiss Goodnight (the House of Gretchen Mol, the chase in the snow, the scene by the water), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys, etc. Liked the Mark Cuban pun ;)
Shane Black's influences on this one are great films, from Bullit to Dirty Harry, Marathon Man to the obscure Hickey & Boggs (1972), you can check the interview here on Letterboxed.
Highest 2 Lowest is Spike Lee's reimagining of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 masterpiece High and Low, based on Ed McBain's book, The King's Ransom. It's about a kidnapping gone wrong and a moral decision and dillema of a rich man on the edge of losing all his money. The 1st act is slow as in Kurosawa'a original (the script for this is credited to the Japanese master and his collaborators, the film itself is dedicated to him). Then the pace changes and it becomes energetic until the end.
The film premiered in Cannes this year, out of competition (with Denzel Washington receiving an impromptu Palme d'Or for his 1st !!! visit to the Croisette) and it's an Apple+ film-for streaming with limited release in the US by A24.
Denzel in his 5th collaboration with Spike plays a music mogul, "the best ears in the business" David King (the King from King's Ransom, in Kurosawa's film is Kingo Gondô as played by a magnificent Toshiro Mifune). His second, friend and driver is Paul, a great restrained and dry humored performance by Jeffrey Wright.
Shot by Matthew Libatique, who went back to back in NY locations with Aronofsky's Caught Stealing (in cinemas now, go and see) in glorios widescreen. Libatique worked before with Lee on four films, including another NY flick, Inside Man .
H2L is a colorful love letter to Spike's beloved New York., Manhattan, Brookyln Bridge, Puerto Rican parade, Yankee stadium.
Complete with 2 lengthy train /subway chases that quotes and hatsoff s Friedkin's legendary The French Connection.
Also lots of art, from Basquiat to sports memorabilia and a lot of Muhhamed Ali stuff, to a painting entitled "Billie, Lester, Fats and Duke" by Frederick J. Brown. This painting was featured in "The Spike Lee 'Creative Sources' Exhibition" at the Brooklyn Museum. The title refers to prominent jazz musicians: Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Fats Waller, and Duke Ellington.
The soundtrack is a symphonic Howard Drossin score, then rap songs by A$AP Rocky (in the film Yung Felon) and some James Brown mean rhythms.
The opening credits are shots of new NY buildings getting to King's skyscraper penthouse / terrace on classic musical Oklahoma's Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin', sung by Norm Lewis. A live performanced of Eddie Palmieri's Orchestra and Aiyana-Lee Anderson (as newcomer singer Sula) playing the title song (cos you goota too ;). Read comments and reviews about the worst score - I don't get if they meant the score or the songs, but personally I find the score excellent and a breakthrough-Drossin worked as an orchestrator for Spike's regular Terence Blanchard and with Lee since The 25th Hour, also with RZA and making videogames music.
Might be Lee's most commercial film 'til Inside Man and the disastrous Oldboy and it's uneven but flavoury.
Revisited Kurosawa's film this spring and it's a timeless masterpiece! Lee's version plays more like a cover song, in color and with vivid wipes and tumult.
6 out of 10 / 3 out of five !
Kurosawa's 1963 High and Low is a 9/10 for me ! Could've been a Ten tho ;)
waiting for this to happen for a while :(, I mean Lalo Schifrin was 93, he was retired for a while, after the The Hidden Dove (2018) his last score, not a notable one. He was one of the last great ones, only John Williams survives that Golden generation (Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, etc).
The Argentinian Piano man is foremost responsible of the Mission; Impossible theme. Six times Oscar nominated, no win :(: Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Fox (1968), Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979) and The Sting II (1983) and for the song “People Alone” from The Competition (1980). Honorary Oscar in 2018.
His signature is on Bullitt, Mannix, Enter the Dragon, The Eagle has Landed, Dirty Harry, and its sequels, from Magnum Force to The Enforcer, the three Rush Hour films. Close collaborator of Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood. Also did the music for Carlos Saura's Tango and many jazz collaboations, with Ray Charles in 1965's Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid.
Sylvester Stewart aka Sly Stone (leader of legendary funk-soul group Sly and the Family Stone) went away to the other side... He was 82. He is the godfather of funk (adelik), soul master, Uber rockstar in hiss day and a raw model for Prince. Also for Nile Rodgers, George Clinton and many others, black or white. He upped James Brown's game to a a musical level of perfection. His band played Woodstock in 1969, one of the high(er!) acts of the monumental event. And I mean, who ever married on Madison Square Garden and Live ? (in 1974!).
There's a great documentary about him, that just premiered in Sundance Fest. this January and was streamed by Hulu (in Ro on Disney+) in Feb. 2025. Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of the Black Genius), directed by Questlove, musician on his own. See it and you'll get why Sly was the slyest ;) He did a big big thing for Black musicians way back when segregation was All Time(s) Nigh !
It starts with Somewhere over the Rainbow, it goes into the Wicked
songs with the freakish Cynthia and Grande.
Conan O'Brian (hosting for the 1st time), is actually very good, natural with a good sense of
pacing. With a little help of Adam Sandler and John Lithgow. Then
surprise, he sings s a song, “I won't waste time”, featuring
dancers,
the sandworm from "Dune" on piano doing “chopsticks” and
Deadpool.
Robert Downey jr. presents supporting actor and the least
deserving guy gets it, Kieran, who is the same in life as in A Real
Pain, as in Succession, kinda same part. Nice speech tho, talking to
his wife.
He also looks like a young Kirk Douglas. Glowing eyes.
(commercial break #1)
Wow ! For Animation FLOW wins. Wonderful, Touching ! Lithuania
enters the Oscars. Great film, now in Romanian cinemas, go and see it
!!! Absolutely sensational, it beats Disney, Pixar and The Giant
Robot.
The short animated category I didn't follow. “In the Shadow of the Cypress” won. The two Iranian
directors are great ! They just landed in L.A. Three hours ago, they said.
(commercial break #2)
Costume design, no surprises there, Wicked, the first black person to win for costume design.
Another commercial break, # 3
Original script. Sean Baker wins his 1st Oscar for writing Anora. Adapted, Conclave. No surprises here.
Surely The Brutalist and The Substance and September 5 were better choices but I'm happy for Baker.
Commercial
break, # 4, man, there's more breaks than show...
June
Squibb and Scarlett Johansson present the makeup and hairstyling
award to The obvious The Substance.
Then
we get Halle Berry to let us know the Governer Ball's Awards (November 2024), from
Quincy Jones (posthumous) to the Bond producers of EON, Barbara Broccoli and
Michael G. Wilson (who gave a way bond to the sharks from Amazon :() -Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
and
then we get a 007 tribute clip followed by a dance extravaganza with
a superb Margaret Qualley (as I said before, on her way in becoming
a A-lister, after OUATiH, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, The Substance, Drive-Away Dolls), in a red dress, then we get renditions of Live
and Let Die with Lisa , Diamonds are Forever with Doja Cat, Skyfall
with Raye, all in good taste, channeling the originals.
Commercial break, # 5
Nice
joke of Cinemastreams, Conan featuring Marty Scorsese.
And a
anniversary of Kill Bill puts Daryl Hannah on stage. She looks great,
presents the award for best Editing. Again, Sean Baker rocks (2nd
award !), Anora for editing ! Deservingly.
Divine takes the stage for the supporting actress award presentation. Zoe Saldana wins. Emilia Perez was here, will she win for International film too ?
Commercial break, # 6
Ben Stiller on stage with a joke stolen from SNL Vincent Price skit (& Peter Sellers & more), present the Production Design Award. Wicked". May the Biggest budget film win. And a film about architecture, nem...
Then on the sound of Sympathy for the...who ?, Sir Mick Jagger shows up. Best Song award. Making Bob jokes. El Mal from Emilia Perez win. Sorry, I couldn't care less. The nominations this year for song were awful.
Commercial break, # 7
Conan does the second Dune Sandworm joke, playing harp ! Sam Jackson (L.) and Selena Gomez (M.) present short documentary film. The Only Girl in the Orchestra wins. Feature: No Other Land. Political moment speech.
Commercial break, # 8
Conan
& the L.A. Firemen Dpt. Firemen jokes.
Miles
Teller & Miley Cyrus (in Europe Kilometer & Kilometry).
Sound. Dune 2.
Gal
Gadot, herself a special FX, in a red dress present the Visual
Effects Award. Dune part 2 it is.
VO/announcer (in my heydays it was Peter Coyote ;) -Nick Offerman, who's voice is kinda off (booze?).
Commercial break, # 9
Ana de Armas and Sterling K. Brown present the last short award.
Morgan Freeman presents an homage to Gene Hackman. He played together in Unforgiven and Under Suspicion. That introduces the In Memoriam montage I had no clue Fred Roos and Adam Somner. died ..).
Commercial break, # 10
An actor presenter from each film nominated for Cinematography: Joe Alwyn for the Brutalist. Alba Rohrwacher salutes a Ed Lachman in a wheelchair for Maria. Willem Dafoe for Nosferatu, Zoe Saldana for Emilia Perez, Dave Bautista for Dune part 2. Lol Crawley wins for The Brutalist. Fair enuff.
Penelope Cruz presents for Best International Film. I'm Still Here/ Ainda Estou Aqui wins (Walter Salles, Brazil). Another big loss for EP, due to bad PR mostly.
Commercial break, # 10
Conan makes another Russian Joke via Anora. Mark Hamill (!!!) presents the award for best Original SCORE. Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist. Well deserved for a Grand, epic score !
Whoopy and Oprah introduce a Quincy Jones musical tribute. Queen Latifah sings a song from The Wiz.
Commercial break, # 11
Conan: "If you still enjoying this show you have what it's called Stockholm Syndrome".
Cillian Murphy takes the stage for best actor award. He won last year for Oppenheimer. And...Adrian Brody wins his 2nd Oscar (22 years after 2003's The Pianist) for the part of architect László Tóth in The Brutalist !!! The most touching moment of the evening. Brody is entering a cool restricted club. Egészségedre !
Enter QT, Quentin iz in ze house ! Best director -ta-dam, Sean Baker for Anora ! His 3d Oscar, suddenly a small struggling indie director becomes a Monster Superstar in the biz. Phones will be ringing, snakes will be crawling, emails will be flowing, agents will be waltzing around & mirages will be presented to him but I have the feeling he won't sell out. Kudos !
Commercial break, # 12
Emma Stone (who won last year for Poor Things) presents Best Actress award. Aaaand surprise, Mikey Madison (Sadie in OUaTiH) wins !!! Anora's fourth Oscar ! Mikey is 25 !
Meg Ryan & Billy Crystal present Best Film. And Anora wins !!! Five Oscars out of Six ! Sean Baker is also co-producer so he gets his fifth award. Bravo !
And they even finished earlier this year ! Sorry for Demi, that was this edition surprise for me. 62 vs. 25. Baby Jane or All About Eve ? Again the SAG proof that no one guesses is perfect. The acting awards were again different from those of the guild. All in all it was a calm and cool edition with the most indie films in an Oscar race, two foreign directors, and wins for Anora 5, Brutalist 3.
Quincy Jones gone...91 years old. A Legend's Legend and a whole world gone. Described as a Titan, and yep, it's a good word to describe his whole work.
Just talked about him re Eddie van Halen's Involvement on Michael Jackson's Beat It from Thriller (#1 selling album of all time still, that he concieved and produced), that is a controversial story.
Seminal Jazz album and song: Soul Bossa Nova -1964. Re-made popular by Austin Powers. Same year Quincy Jones became the first Black vice-president of a record label (mercury). He did humongous things for his community and his people.
There is a fabulous documentary on him, QUINCY, made by Netflix in 2018. Still streaming. Do yourself a favor and see it. Then listen to the Man's music.
Also on Netflix there is a doc about how Quincy put together USA for Africa's 1984 "We Are the World" (brilliant stuff, esp. some of the backstories).
His music scores are brilliant, from his debut in Sidney Lumet' s The Pawnbroker (1965), to Joahn and Mary, Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night, to the original The Italian Job, Peckinpah's The Getaway (all great Jazz there), The Hot Rock, The Wiz (1978) !!! Lumet directed, Quincy arranged the score, even plays an Emerald City musician, Michael acted as The Scarecrow and the film flopped (big time), to Roots on TV, to Spielberg's The Color Purple (that he also produced), 7 times Oscar nominated and no award :(
well, he had 28 Grammys out of 80 nominations, more than any other musician in history :)
"With the power of music, I reach the hearts and minds of millions of people."
One of the greatest musicians and guitarists, gone but not forgotten? Unfortunately not many know his name and work today.
A musician's musician, Wayne Kramer was one of the founders of MC5, a very ephemeral but iconic group, proto-punk, and more political than the whole rock scene of the day. They put out three albums forever to "Kick Out The Jams". That was the title of their first, a live album in 1969. Then Back in the USA and Hight Time, 1970 and 1971. They disbanded in 1972.
Kramer was radical, he was political, a leftie of course, he became a junkie, did time in jail for selling drugs, converted, played free jazz, punk, put very deep meaningful lyrics to rock and roll. His solo work I love most, from The Hard Stuff to Dangerous Madness, Citizen Wayne and Adult World.
He played last on Alice Cooper's album, Detroit Stories. He was planning for an album of new music, produced by Bob Ezrin. Wayne Kramer was 75. LLMF...
"Wayne S. Kramer 'PEACE BE WITH YOU' April 30, 1948 – February 2, 2024."[
"His band the MC5 basically invented punk rock music... Wayne came through personal trials of fire with drugs and jail time and emerged a transformed soul who went on to save countless lives through his tireless acts of service." (Tom Morello)
My 6th Steve Vai gig after 23 years since I first saw him when he came in Romania for the 1st time!
And the 1st show in Romania/Bucharest after 10 years!
The INVIOLATE tour (why not InvAiolate?)
I kinda made it in the nick of time (thx, So;), fan-tastic gig, fabulous new band, young prodigy Dante Frisiello on second guitar and keys. Brilliant bass player Philip Bynoe and superhuman drummer, "the Animal" Jeremy Colson. Big attraction, his triple guitar HYDRA which he played a song with it (i gotta say I am not a fan tho)
Setlist from Buch gig missing but here's for the next one in Bulgaria and the previous one in Greece
He played BAD HORSIE, from the 1986 Crossroads film by Walter Hill, complete with video excerpts from the movie. I asked him about that when we met him at the press conference in 2010!
I stayed by myself in front and caught the end of the gig on my phone, here' s the video!!!
For my previous Steve Vai experience(s) click the Steve Vai tag or here
2013 with the Evolution Tempo Orchestra -Arenele Romane
2000- aprilie Sala Palatului, I was shattered, met Eric Sardinas (who opened for him and walked the Hall playing guitar in the audience) in the lobby, drinking Jack Daniel's. Got his autograph and told him the story when we met in Sardinia 25 odd years later ;)
Another One of the greatest jazz players & composers is gone, mr. Wayne Shorter...he was 89...
he played in the Miles David Quintet
and a lot with Herbie Hancock...
he co-founded Weather Report in 1970 with Joe Zawinul, Miroslav Vitous and Airto Moreira.
In the movies he collaborated with James Newton Howard on the soundtracks of Glengarry Glen Ross and The Fugitive. Also was one of musicians in the Philippe Sarde scored L'homme aux yeux d'argent (1985), together with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and others.
This may be his best song...Speak No Evil, from the album with the same name...
Wayne Shoter on sax, Elvin Jones on drums, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on Bass, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet.
new composers (Michael Abels, Colin Stetson), as the old Usual Suspects :)-Burwell, Zimmer, Pemberton, Desplat, Holkenborg, Elfman, Reznor/ the order is not ascending or descending...
