Movie Review x3

 Whilst the cinemas have been closed there hasn't been much chance to watch any blockbusters other than on the screen and no one has been allowed to queue around the block to our house to watch a film due to social distancing so you could argue there have been no blockbusters at all, but here's three films we've watched on the iplayer recently

Love And Mercy

Flitting between 1968-69 and the mid 80s this tells the story of Brian Wilson, genius songwriter of The Beach Boys, at two very different points in life: Paul Dano plays the young Brian at the peak of his powers as he pulls out of live performances to concentrate on the studio work for what will become Pet Sounds and John Cusak plays 80s Brian - a man who is clearly not in charge of his own life.  Both eras are well played out - the scenes in the studio creating Good Vibrations are a particularly high point and there's just enough eerieness in the 80s scenes to make you aware there's something horribly wrong.  Paul Dano is excellent and John Cusak gives good levels of John Cusak angst - if you're at all interested in music and popular music history then I think you'll like this

Sylvia

Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig star as Sylvia Plaith and Ted Hughes in the story of their tempetous relationship as Plaith struggles with depression and feeling outshone by her husband to create her works.  Not a cheerful film this but an interesting character study - although I did feel that the film was very much geared towards showing Plaith's instability to the point where (not being previously aware of the story) I wasn't sure if Hughes's philandering was all in her head.  I think that having read up on the two since I'd like to have seen something more balanced and that got under the skin a bit more but in general it was a good film

Rush

Daniel Bruhl and Chris Hemsworth play rival racing drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt respectively in the story of the twos rivaly in Formula 1 in 1976.  Again - not being a big fan of sport I wasn't familiar with the story - but I did meet the real-life James Hunt (he presented me with a camera as a prize when I was a kid) and was aware of his playboy image so I was interested to find out more.

The film is well directed and as it progresses you become aware that the two drivers had a lot of respect for each other despite their distances - the race scenes are exciting enough for someone with no interest in F1 to be drawn in (Herself really enjoyed it as well and neither of us are sports fans) - definately worth a watch.

What have you been watching?

Accordion To You

 About 12 months ago, give or take a week here or there, I went to a live music event for the last time.

I didn't know, as most of us didn't, that this would be the last occasion of going anywhere much for the next year or so - infact the event itself was very much a precursor to another event: my friend's Folk Musical

I have to say that I hadn't been previously aware that you could have an entire musical written in the style of Folk Music, but if anyone can do it then KF could - one of those people that you know who is just annoyingly talented and nice with it so that there's nothing you can actually get grumpy about as a lesser talent.

But the point of this story is that one of the people making up her band was the wife of a friend who plays accordion....

Now, if you're not a musician then you may not be aware of the following equation: n+1

This, mathematically speaking, shows the correct amount of instruments that you should own - where n = what you have now and, at the point during which i was watching the performance, my collection was sadly lacking in the accordion department.

To be clear here there's several instruments of different types that are often referred to as accordions:

* Hand-held squeeze box often with eight edges to each side panel comprising buttons on each side as often used threateningly by salty sailor types before they launch headlong into a forty verse sea shanty about mermaids

* larger instrument usually with one shoulder strap and buttons on both sides usually used for Cajun music where moving the bellows in and out creates a different sound

* the basic piano accordion - which is the one I was looking at.  These sit on both shoulders with a strap, make the same noise whether going in or out (essentially a loud screech to the untrained ear) with a piano keyboard for the right hand and buttons for the left hand.  To extract sound one has to: squeeze the bellows in and out, press the bass buttons (left hand) and play the notes (right hand) whilst somehow still singing said forty verse sea shanty

The amount of buttons available varies from instrument to instrument from 8 to 120, as does the amount of piano keys from around 40 to requiring two people to lift from the floor

It is quite the hardest instrument i have ever tried to learn - a fact that has not been helped by the fact that three lessons in we went into a national Lockdown and have been learning via zoom lessons ever since where the sound is deliberately set up to make everything other than human speech sound like a robot from 80s science fiction programmes

I'm also having to learn the bass cleff in music in order to try and fathom out what buttons my left hand should be doing and there has been much use of fruity language since we started but i am now able to play a broken version of Green Green Grass Of Home, a dodgy version of Tennessee Waltz, a version of Dirty Old Town in an uncertain time signature and a version of I Walk The Line that sounds like it just fell off said line....and it's only taken me a year

Still - it was something to do during lockdown, where i've found myself with lots of time to practice and no reasonable excuse not to....

What new skills have you/are you learning?

Right, That's It! I've Had It....(oh grow up)

 I utter a deep sigh of dismay.

Not just for the original comment, but for those people who've chosen to respond and therefore fallen into the trap.

You've probably seen this yourself if you're on social media and have joined any kind of group/forum/page and I have to wonder: why?

Most recently I've seen this on a page I joined for Musicians Of A Certain Age - a talent competition for original songs with a closing date of end of February 2021.  At first everything was all very friendly, a bit too friendly maybe and then, as the competition closing date neared it started.

"I'm not happy with this group" complains Impotent Of Norwich, "I posted a funny thing and it got deleted"

"Why are we being asked to make a donation" cries Saddo of Westward Ho! (and yes, that does exist) "I'm off!"

And then it starts - people, who should be old enough to know better, start making snide comments back - buying into the argument and creating An Atmosphere

I've had this with various groups i've been in - a sculpting group, a comedy show appreciation group, a pop-star's page....and just recently i've started to investigate a bit further

On the last few occasions I've seen this the person who posts the original bomb immediately leaves the group so they don't see the responses - but more interestingly when i've followed the link to their page they turn out to have no linked friends and only very generic posts

My conclusion from this, along with other types of internet comment, is that there are people who do this just to start a fight - they seem to be wanting some kind of validation or attention in much the way that a baby might cry

So my advice is - if you see someone whining about a page/group/internet clip - just report them and move on.  Life's too short