All reviews - Movies (46) - TV Shows (14) - DVDs (11) - Books (21) - Music (32) - Games (17)

Eric Clapton - Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007 review

Posted : 2 months ago on 22 June 2008 07:09 (A review of Eric Clapton - Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007)

This DVD is proving hard to review. There's no way I can do justice to it in a couple of paragraphs.

Eric Clapton invited a varied bunch of performers to the day long festival. The only common thread is that all of them play blues guitar in some form. The result is that there's is so much good music packed into the four hours that it's not even funny. The varied bunch of performers are all on top form. The sound quality is amazing, it feels like a studio recording.

It's hard to pick highlights since the whole DVD feels like a highlights package. I'll pick a couple of surprises instead. The first was Susan Tedeschi. I haven't heard much from her but I knew her as a good singer in the vein of Bonnie Raitt. Surprise, Surprise! She's an awesome blues guitar player too. The second was John Mayer. All I remembered about him before listening to set here was some vague pop music from the early part of this decade. Again, Surprise! His subsequent album was heavily blues influenced and he's a damn fine blues guitarist too. Good for him, I'll be checking out his album soon, especially the song 'Gravity'.

Final word - As expected, the set played by Eric Clapton and all his collaborators was amazing. However, even though the title say's this is an Eric Clapton record, it's not, really.

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Awesome first season

Posted : 2 months ago on 22 June 2008 12:54 (A review of House, M.D. - Season One)

We're dropped right into the world of Gregory House without any introduction. Every episode is unique and interesting as House and his team try to figure out their case. Along the way, we learn more about the characters and the world of House gradually expands. Watching this on DVD is a great as you can watch a bunch of episodes in one go. Hugh Laurie is brilliant, as usual. I've been a fan of his for long (think Blackadder and Jeeves & Wooster among other things) and it's interesting to see him in a drama for the first time.

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Dull

Posted : 2 months, 1 week ago on 17 June 2008 11:28 (A review of Viva La Vida)

Coldplay have largely abandoned the guitar led approach of their first three albums. It might have been a good move to acquire a more diverse sound if only large stretches of the resulting album weren't so dull. There's still a handful of decent songs and a couple of really good ones but the whole album doesn't hang together.

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Don't understand these people

Posted : 2 months, 1 week ago on 17 June 2008 01:00 (A review of Big Love)

I liked the first season of the show a lot. It was an interesting idea, the characters were complex and the writing was good. After watching the second season, most of the main characters have started to grate on me, starting with Bill himself. They are petty, short sighted and frankly, plain stupid pretty often. The other half are assholes. Are people really like this? Maybe all the lies, cover-ups and suppressed jealousy do take their toll on good people, despite every attempt to feel normal and happy.

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Open your eyes... and stop dreaming.

Posted : 2 months, 1 week ago on 15 June 2008 08:51 (A review of Open Your Eyes)

A man falls in love with the girl of his dreams but his ex-lover doesn't let go so easily and he ends up with a grotesquely disfigured face in the process. The rest of the movie is his quest to overcome his disfigurement. Sounds like a conventional against-all-odds kind of story, doesn't it? Well, it isn't. There are bizarre occurrences, paranoia, violence and murder. The movie examines the nature of memory and our dreams. Finally, it throws in a interesting twist in the drawn out and satisfying climax.

(If anyone cares, this was made into the mediocre 'Vanilla Sky' with Penelope Cruz reprising her role.)

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Chrysalis review

Posted : 2 months, 2 weeks ago on 15 June 2008 06:10 (A review of Chrysalis)

Mediocre sci-fi thriller revolving around a murder investigation. With shades of 'Vanilla Sky' (or the much preferred Spanish original, 'Open Your Eyes'), the movie veers into bizarre territory involving the nature of human memory. The action sequences are intense and the acting is pretty good. Despite all this, the movie lacked any emotional impact though it was interesting.

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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds review

Posted : 2 months, 2 weeks ago on 14 June 2008 03:13 (A review of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds)

Hayao Miyazaki's environmentalist streak is apparent again in this post-apocaplyptic action adventure. The young Princess Nausicaä searches for the cause of her land's suffering and teaches us a thing or two about saving our planet along the way.

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The best detective drama ever made

Posted : 2 months, 2 weeks ago on 13 June 2008 03:50 (A review of L.A. Confidential)

Suspenseful and twisted detective drama movie set in 1960s Los Angeles. I am a big fan of detective movies and this is *the* best movie in this genre. A stellar cast (two of whom - Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe - would win Best Actor Oscars later in the decade), brilliant direction coupled with outstanding set and costume design make this one the best movies ever made. It got swept aside at the Oscar's by Titanic but is a true masterpiece notwithstanding.

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Orwell's dystopia comes to the screen

Posted : 2 months, 2 weeks ago on 13 June 2008 03:46 (A review of Nineteen Eighty-Four)

George Orwell's dark dystopia comes to the big screen. Richard Burton gives a magnificent performance and the rest of the cast isn't shabby either. Shot in the exact time frame Orwell set the book in. The world he imagined might not exist but his ideas and warnings remain as powerful as ever and even more relevant today.

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Clever time travel movie

Posted : 2 months, 3 weeks ago on 8 June 2008 02:44 (A review of Timecrimes)

An entertaining movie revolving around time-travel and the trouble one man gets into because of his accidental time traveling. The direction is very very good. If you can accept that the protagonist can travel back in time, the plot and the script are exceedingly clever. There's drama, suspense and a bit of dark humour in there as well.

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