I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight†right HERE for free.
Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp
PIRATE RADIO – SCREENING
Because you animals are so ravenous for free stuff, I’ve got another free screening here in Phoenix.
It’s for the new movie PIRATE RADIO and it will be held on Thursday, November 12th at 7:00 inside the Harkins Fashion Square 7.
For those looking to see the newest entry into the oeuvre of Philip Seymour Hoffman, then this ought to be up your alley.
E-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com for the chance to see it.
A description of the movie:
PIRATE RADIO is the high-spirited story of how 8 DJs love affair with Rock n Roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s this group of rouge DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing Rock n Roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down. The band of rebels is lead by The Count, played by the Academy Award Winning Philip Seymour Hoffman, Quentin the boss of Radio Rock, Gavin the greatest DJ in Britain, Midnight Mark, Doctor Dave and Young Carl who comes of age amidst the chaos of sex, drugs and rock n roll. The film features an unbelievable selection of music including The Beatles, The Stones, Beach Boys, Dusty Springfield, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, David Bowie, Otis Redding, Cat Stevens just to name a few. The film is laugh out loud funny and speaks to the rock n roll rebel in all of us.
NICKELBACK: LIVE AT STURGIS/ROB THOMAS: SOMETHING TO BE TOUR: LIVE AT RED ROCKS – BLU-RAY REVIEWS
Here is the curious thing about watching and reviewing things that come into my home: I give everything a fair shot. Everything.
It doesn’t matter what my bias is going into a viewing experience as I think it’s only right to see whether my preconceived notions of goodness or badness really are founded or not. I was wrong on both accounts when it came to Nickelback and Rob Thomas’ live efforts that were just released on Blu-ray.
What I wanted to find out when I saw these were coming out is to discover whether the technology could recreate the experience of what it is to be there with the performers and if the fidelity is worth it. In both cases the answer is yes as if you’re a fan of either band, I cannot purport to be one of either, the shows are something pretty impressive to behold on the home theater.
Rob Thomas’ concert, Something To Be Tour: Live At Red Rocks, showcases the lead singer of Matchbox Twenty to be adept at being the guy so many people are packing amphitheaters to see. The set list is admittedly a little old, this is taken from a 1997 concert and that puts this at almost two and a half years in the past and thus before a lot of the singles he’s known for as of late, but for someone like me who only knows him as the “Smooth” guy it was nonetheless all new to me. Point of fact, he gives the audience a little something different as he performs that title track acoustically and even for a punk-loving elitist like myself it was a solid reinterpretation. From the radio friendly hits of “This Is How A Heart Breaks” where you can see the guy is absolutely going down a path of nonthreatening bubble gum pop to the cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” where he can at least give those of us who don’t know anything about him a little something Rob has got something that not many other artists do: charisma. In the landscape of rock and roll, and I use that loosely here, you cannot begrudge a guy who knows what he’s good at and is able to ply that trade on stage. While this concert did not make me want to go out and buy any of the guy’s albums I still think it’s a worthy entry into anyone’s collection who is a fan as the Blu-ray delivers a flawless user experience.
Now, for better or worse, I can’t get Nickelback’s radio hits out of my head. When you have to share a radio in the car with someone else it is just inevitable that there are going to be songs you will be exposed to. Nickelback is that band, for some reason, and while I know they get bagged on in circles where it’s cool to make fun of guys who can draw a crowd you won’t get that from me. Nickelback: Live At Sturgis is just a fun romp down the path of guys who know what the audience wants and is giving it to them night after night if this show is any indication. No, they’re not singing about changing the world like Bono and they’re not talking about the pain of being alive like Tool is, these guys just want to drive their Camaro really fast and keep the windows down so their mullet can flap in the wind.
Again, just like Rob Thomas, I wish I could point a finger and giggle but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy watching these guys playing against video screens, pyrotechnics and putting on a good show. One of the things that separate this concert than many others that are put to disc is that there is a real effort put into making the experience more true to the feeling of a live event. There are multiple cameras employed, they incorporate the effects that are usually projected behind the band into the home presentation, and the direction is one that really feels kinetic. So, as you’re watching a song like “Animals” there is the real sense they were trying to make it feel exciting even if this show was being done for someone who was indifferent to their music.
It’s not for everyone but for those who like what Nickelback’s cooking this is a very solid entry into the field of filmed concerts. For me, it won me over for the course of its run time and while this may not mean much I have to say that it’s a very respectable effort.
IL DIVO – REVIEW
Has anyone read the short story Billy Budd by Herman Melville? In it, the story has a moment where a razor across the throat has a lot more significance than it does with just a guy getting a shave. It’s a sinister moment in the story’s progression and in this film, IL DIVO, the movie opens up with the titular character, Giulio Andreotti, getting a straight razor shave. The implications of what this means with regard to what will come after is rife with subtext.
Andreotti was Italy’s Prime Minister and has been loosely attached to corruption, murder, the Mafia, and enough political maneuvering that you wonder how this man has escaped any kind of indictment or conviction. The man did avoid being tacitly implicated in any wrongdoing but the film is a fascinating exploration about how deep his ties to all things shady really went. Played by Toni Servillo, who ought to be recongized for playing a character so fully that you wonder where Servillo ends and Andreotti begins, the movie takes a look at the complex web of Italian politics that has enough inside baseball to make anyone with an astute eye a little confused.
Where this foreign film really shines, however, is not only the performance of Servillo but it is the wonderfully shot and edited sequences that interpose visual nods to the stumpy looking features of the real Andreotti that makes this stand out from the bunch. The movie wants to take you on a journey to show why this was one of the most feared politicians ever to roam Italy. His dispassionate behavior and subdued manner in which he carries himself the real power of this movie is showing how one squat human being demanded so much respect from those who feared him.
While the director and the writer of the film, Paolo Sorrentino, has made a biopic that actually challenges the common notions of what a biopic should be the movie does start to get bogged down by the many many facts we are presented with throughout the film. The movie could absolutely be longer than the just shy of two hours that it is with as much as there is to delve into but Sorrentino packs more than enough in that to present a profile of a man who more than just mortal, he was powerful and knew it.
Some deets about the DVD release:
He has been called the Prince of Darkness, the Black Pope, the Fox, the Sphinx and the Hunchback, but the nickname Il Divo – the God – perhaps best fits the persona of Italy’s seven-time prime minister and “senator for life,†Giulio Andreotti, a figure who held sway over the entire Italian political landscape for decades. The scandals that plagued Andreotti’s career — charges of Mafia ties, bribery and deadly violence – would seem too appalling to be true, but viewers can decide for themselves when IL DIVO arrives on home video on October 27, 2009. MPI Home Video will release the cinematic masterpiece on both Blu-ray, with an SRP of $34.98, and on DVD, with an SRP of $27.98
Director Paolo Sorrentino’s film won the Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and won seven David di Donatello Awards ( Italy ’s Oscar). At its center is an unforgettable performance by Toni Servillo as the fearsome Andreotti, the right-leaning head of the long-ruling centrist Christian Democratic Party.
While the action of the film moves back and forth through the decades, it begins in 1991 as Andreotti is forming what would be his final administration as prime minister while fending off investigations into Mafia ties. He and his hardliner faction have retaken control of a country reeling from the brazen murders of high-level bankers, judges and journalists (this following the 1978 abduction of Andreotti’s left-leaning rival Aldo Moro; after Prime Minister Andreotti refused to negotiate with the kidnappers, Moro was murdered).
As his party crumbles in a nationwide bribery scandal, suspicion begins to fall on Andreotti himself as the center of a shocking conspiracy involving the Vatican , the Mafia and a secret neo-Fascist Masonic sect. In what is called “The Trial of the Century,†Italy ’s legendary “senator for life†(Andreotti retains the title still, at age 90) will stand accused of corruption, collusion and murder.
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