Music and Movies

Old Crow Medicine Show Simon Sweetman's blog had warned us that it was going to be a great show, but my god, how good were they! The four of us met up for dinner then decided we'd catch the warm-up band. Glad we did, The Eastern (from Lyttleton) were good fun, great frontman, and had a reasonable banjo player (a chick! what chick plays banjo?!). Well worth checking out if they wander your way.
OCMS were superb. Very high energy, no drums, just guitars, bass, mandolin, banjo - and the better for it. The venue had been changed from SanFran to The Front Room (known to all and sundry as the St James Cabaret), sadly it hasn't had the temperature problems fixed. Damn it was hot there! Crap beer selection, and in plastic (WTF?!) cups.
But the gig, the sheer energy and vibe dumps it in the top 5-10 I've ever seen. It was that good. S2H (or BnH - Boosey and Hawkes? who knows) claimed E! tv voted OCMS the 11th hottest boyband. But I can't find anything online... So what do they sound like? General opinion suggests, bluegrass, alt-country - oh bugger it, it's great stuff. And live? my god, superb.
Here's their big hit.


Saw Gran Torino last night. go see it. Clint is superb, and very very funny. It is, from my perspective, the second best movie from the Oscar season - maybe first (the competition is The Wrestler). If you'd asked me 5 years ago, would I go see a Clint Eastwood movie about cultural enlightment, I'd have told you to go practice self-fertilisation. I'm prepared to admit I might have been wrong :) Basic story: Clint's partner dies, he hates his kids, is racist, and his neighbourhood has become 'unAmerican', in fact Hmong people are all over the place (you might remember them from such great hits as Stephen Fry's America...). Goddamn them ! Oh and keep an eye out for the slightly off kilter point-of-view shooting, interesting.

Watchmen: how did he film that? how did he get it so right? it's slow, but it does follow the book. Looking at his previous output he was sooo the wrong choice. But he came through. Those of us who'd read Watchmen enjoyed it, but I can see why others wouldn't. It is a very slow movie, it's not an action flick, and the violence is vicious. Discussion with others suggested that none of the characters garners empathy from the viewer, again I think that reflects the book. And the 'bad' characters are so ambiguous that they aren't 'bad' in the traditional movie style. There's a strong element of Sergio Leone ambiguity there. I personally felt that Rorscach was nailed perfectly, and that he did have a level of empathy in his character. I want to see it again, to see what I feel about it a second time around, which doesn't happen that often with movies.
Recommended, probably.

B (thinking about dinner) xx