Chimpomatic

Ingrid Goes West

Sympathetic retread of Single White Female, with added \#hashtags.

#JustWatched
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#CSF

26th Aug 2018

Slow West

Overly dry, eccentric western. Jarmuschian overtones.

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16th Mar 2018

I, Daniel Blake

Bleak, real-time journey through the realities of living on benefits.

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25th Dec 2017

The Hobbit

An Unexpected Journey

Zero tension as this near real-time prequel sets the pace. Goonies x Big Brother.

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19th Nov 2013

Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis is Oscar-bait in Spielberg's history lesson, a West Wing 1860 full of wit & political drama.

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#chimp71

13th Nov 2012

June Tabor and Oysterband

Chichester Festival Theatre

West Sussex based organisation “Roots around the World” have organised a music festival "The Britfolk Footprint" as part of their efforts to promote both new and established artists. This was the headline evening of the festival with veterans June Tabor and Oysterband top of the bill. Their act was largely based around their two collaborative albums, the folk rock classic "Freedom and Rain" and their current much acclaimed "Ragged Kingdom".

The performance got off to the best possible start with the rousing traditional "Bonny Bunch Of Roses" modified to blend folk diva Tabor's smooth and melodious voice with the stomping backing of the Oysterband. However it was not all folk based music as they worked their way through PJ Harvey’s "That Was My Veil", Dylan’s "Seven Curses", Joy Division’s "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and an excellent duet between Tabor and John Jones of the soul classic "Dark End of the Street". The finishing number was the powerfully delivered Jefferson Airplane 60’s classic "White Rabbit".

On the 8th February, the artists scooped four awards at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including Best Singer, Best Group and Best Album (Ragged Kingdom), making our attendance very timely.

The support acts for the evening were provided by talented and gimmick free English folk trio "Pilgrim’s Way", and singer guitarist Sean Taylor.

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13th Feb 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Centurion

Brutal, bloody, basic, Roman soldier romp with Michael Fassbender and Dominic West.

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5th May 2011

Coldcut Journey's By DJs

Dug this classic out today. 70 mins of pure genius mixing. Highlight is King Of The Beats

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30th Mar 2011

The Baader Meinhof Complex

Endless, shapeless biopic of the 70's West German terrorist group. Lacking in suspense.

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9th Mar 2011

The Social Network

(dir. David Fincher)

Relativity Media

You may wonder where the drama is in a story following the rise of Facebook - and it's a legitimate question. Maestro director David Fincher put this film into quick production and with a script from The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin there was plenty of promise. The script is masterfully done and with some great performances from Rodger Dodger's Jesse Eisenberg and soon-to-be Peter Parker Andrew Garfield there's much to admire.

Like most biopics however, there's both an inevitability and a lack of tension to the narrative. At least with Titanic the inevitable conclusion involved the world's biggest ship hitting an iceberg and sinking. Unfortunately there's no iceberg here. Yawn.

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18th Oct 2010 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Once Upon A Time In The West Midlands

Dissapointing sub-Mike Leigh antics from Shane Meadows.

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12th Sep 2010

To Live and Die in LA

Hard for this cliched 80s thriller to stay dark, when it's lit by neon suits. Inc Wang Chung.

Halliwell says: High-gloss, foul-mouthed, hysterical crime melo, a kind of west coast French Connection.

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8th Feb 2010

82 Almost Best-of-the-decade albums

Various

The 00s have certainly been a turbulent decade for the music industry, from the rise and fall of Napster, through the MP3 and iPod revolution and on to the reality TV dominated close of the decade.

Drum and bass infiltrated pop music so throughly that it's now just part of the furniture, while Hip Hop blew up to dominate the US charts, nabbing a guest spot on dozens of chart toppers.

Filtering through the hundreds of albums released in the decade is no mean feat, so we've kept our final list strictly democratic - with the top 10 derived from those albums most nominated by our reviewers.

Read the top 10 here - but if that's not enough, here's a lazy, sprawling list of 82 others that come very highly recommended, in no particular order:

Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Killer track: PDA. More New York cool, a 'go-to' album for so many occasions
TV On The Radio - Dear Science
Pearl Jam - Riot Act
Doves - Kingdom Of Rust
At the Drive In - Relationship of Command
Killer Track: Enfilade. A welcome dose of anger after the fallow years of the late 90s. Added bonus that it was released on the soon to be bust Grand Royal label.
Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
Santogold - Santogold
Smog - Dongs Of Sevotion
Cornelius - Point
Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
Mugison - Lonely Mountain
Midlake - The Trials Of Van Occupanther
Electralane - The Power Out
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Beth  Gibbons & Rustin' Man - Out Of Season
PJ Harvey - Stories From The City
Caribou - The Milk Of Human Kindness
Pearl Jam - Bearoya Hall
Unusual in that it's a live album, this double acoustic set pulls together all that's great about the much-maligned grungers. Spine tingling.
Fugazi - The Argument
Not their best, but still one of the best
Low - The Great Destroyer
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
Killer track: Passing Afternoon. We live in noisy times, everyone should have an album like this to retreat to now and again
Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
The only artist capable of an appropriate 9/11 album.
Blond Redhead - 23
Grandaddy - Software Slump
John Frusciante - Shadows Collide With People
The Early Years  - Early Years
Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
Killer track: Fast Blood. One of those albums that just clicks straight away, some brutally honest songs but never a hard listen
The National - Alligator
Jay-Z - The Blueprint
Despite his fame, his only album that's solid throughout.
The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
Portishead - Third
Spoon - Girls Can Tell
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga
Spoon - Kill The Moonlight
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Yes, we like Spoon.
Stephen Malkmus - Pig Lib
Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World
CJ: Their strongest album from a solid bunch of releases.
Kings Of Leon - Because Of The Times
7 minute opener followed by track after track.
Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls
Johanna Newsom - Y's
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin
Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
Buck 65 - Talking Honky Blues
Common - Like Water For Chocolate
Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
David Berman finally made sense.
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Guided By Voices - Human Amusement at Hourly Rates
Finally a solid album from GBV. One of the best best ofs going - up there with Neil Young's Decade.
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
The Good The Bad And The Queen - The Good The Bad And The Queen
Another surprising side-project from Damon Albarn
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - By The Way
Titus Andronicus - The Airing Of Grievances
No Age - Nouns
Jay-Z - The Black Album
The Wedding Present - Take Fountain
An awesome return for the Indie legends, embracing a move to the US for Uncle Gedge
Kanye West - College Dropout
John Frusciante - To Record Only Water For 10 Days
Paving the way for Frusciante's magnificent return to form.
The Cave Singers - Welcome Joy
Low - The Great Destroyer
Catfish Haven - Devastator
The Strokes - First Impressions Of Earth
The Invisible - The Invisible
Lightning Dust - Infinite Light
The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Coral - Magic And Medicine
Killer track: Liezah. Some strictly Liverpool uncool. A Coral album is a comforting thing.
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
Radiohead - Kid A
Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
DJ Shadow - The Private Press
Great at home or on the dance floor.
Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
It shouldn't work, but it does. Comedy genius.
Interpol - Antics
Take you on a cruise. Awesome
The Walkmen - You & Me
Killer track: In the New Year. Band of the decade for Chimpovich.
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Why? - Alopicia
Weird indie hip-hop that just works.
Ladyhawk - Shots
My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
White Denim - Workout Holiday
Killer track: Lets Talk About It. Chaotic, energetic, sounds like a good time was had making it.

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31st Dec 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Y: The Last Man

Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra

Vertigo

One man and his monkey, alone in a world full of women? Ever get the feeling that some projects are written just for you? 

Brian K Vaughn was one of the hired guns brought onto the Lost writers team and he brings a similar deft touch to his own work (check out Hurley reading the Spanish language version "Y, El Último Hombre" here). Ex-Machina is a great combo of city politics and superhero antics, while Pride Of Baghdad turned that corny Disney shtick about animals banding together for an impossible journey into an elegant anti-Iraq War statement.

Here, Y: The Last Man is a thoughtful and playfully entertaining sci-fi series that follows hero Yorick Brown over the course of ten graphic novels as he tries find out why he's the only man left alive after an overnight plague kills off all the other men and leaves him trapped on a planet of the babes (ahem).

It's one of those simple set-ups that doesn't disappoint. Our hero ends up being protected by secret agents and fighting ninjas on a globe-trotting odyssey as he searches the planet for his girlfriend (never let a gendercide get in the way of being hung up on one girl). A film version has been in the offing for a while, with Disturbia director DJ Caruso and Transformers dude Shia LeBeouf attached (and not attached, and attached again), but it's great in the comic format (and all ten have been out since last year, with some beefy deluxe reissues coming through now), so why not just read the original?

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30th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Times New Viking

Born Again Revisited

Matador

The world of DIY noise-pop is a different place now than when we last heard from Ohio trio Times New Viking. In 2008 their Matador debut Rip It Off gate crashed the scene and sounded like a major malfunction in the recording room with red lined production drenching what sounded like good pop songs. It arrived with due critical acclaim but now seems quite run-of-the-mill due to the constant stream of like minded music that has descended upon us ever since.

Whereas the master recording for Rip It Off was delivered on cassette the followup, Born Again Revisited, arrived on VHS and claims to feature "25% higher fidelity." After hearing opener Martin Luther King Day you may start to get excited about this fact. It's the most coherent song they've given us and peals away some of the tape hiss to reveal great song structure and shining vocals. Don't be fooled as this coherence is short-lived and with the arrival of I Smell Bubblegum we're back in the grit and hiss that carried with it Rip It Off.

This isn't really a criticism but merely a minor disappointment. The abrasion that dominates the next few tracks seems rather too familiar now. But things have changed with this release and without sounding like they give a monkeys what other bands are doing these songs show a greater maturity. None so effectively as No Time, No Hope. With its chiming guitars and booming bass this song gives due space to the vocals, an element much overlooked with this band, and as the narcotic organs swirl into place we get a damn near perfect song in this genre. More highlights include the Japanther-like These Days and the anthemic Move To California.

Born Again Revisited has a pleasing amount of change to it after the wealth of DIY that has come since its predecessor but also enough of Times New Viking's trademark rawness. It's far more layered and varied and that extra 25% really shows in the gleaming high points mentioned. With the genre plodding on - albeit in a somewhat tired manner now - it's up to pillar bands like this to pave the way to new lands and this is a good start to the journey.

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#BC

21st Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet